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Activists from the Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP) are staging a protest after the central government notified the rules for the implementation of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, in Nagaon District, Assam, India, on March 11, 2024.

Anuwar Hazarika/NurPhoto via Reuters

India enacts fraught new citizenship law ahead of election

The Indian government implemented a new citizenship law on Monday after over four years of delay that critics say may be used to discriminate against the country’s large Muslim minority.

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India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi attends the inauguration of the BAPS Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, February 14, 2024.

REUTERS/Amr Alfiky

India cracks down on anonymous donations before elections

The Supreme Court in India, the country with the most expensive elections in the world, has outlawed anonymous political donations ahead of national elections this spring.

The ruling, which dropped on Thursday, strikes down the electoral bond scheme concocted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. It allowed individuals and companies to send unlimited donations to political parties without the need to disclose their identity.

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Lakshadweep, Jan 4 (ANI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi tries snorkelling on one of the pristine beaches, in Lakshadweep on Thursday. (ANI Photo)No Use India.

Modi and the Maldives “beach off”

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new job is beach, and the Maldives aren’t having it.

In an attempt to boost tourism to Indian beaches, Modi posted some snaps of himself enjoying a vacation on Lakshadweep, an island chain in the Indian Ocean. Seventy nautical miles to the South, the Maldives – where Indian tourists comprise up to 11% of tourism revenue – took great offense, calling Modi ” a “terrorist” and a “puppet of Israel.”

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Congress Parliamentary Party Chairperson Sonia Gandhi

(ANI Photo/Rahul Singh)

Memo shows Modi government planned ‘crackdown’

The Indian government allegedly directed its officials to launch a “sophisticated crackdown scheme” on overseas Sikh activists just two months before the assassination of a Sikh Canadian activist whose death Canada has blamed on India, according to a memo obtained by The Intercept.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi being garlanded

ANI Photo/Rahul Singh

Victories in state elections put Modi in commanding position for 2024

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP Party wrested control of the states of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh from the opposition Congress Party and held onto power in Madhya Pradesh in closely watched local elections over the weekend. The results bode well for Modi's chances of winning a third term as PM in national polls next year.

Modi’s tactic of campaigning personally for his party largely paid off, and why wouldn’t it? He is one of the most popular leaders in the world, with approval ratings well above 70%. His victory in next year's general election (as always, the largest democratic exercise in world history) is hardly in doubt.

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Annie Gugliotta

Biden wants to take away Modi’s license to kill

Before Narendra Modi became prime minister, he said India should be quicker to kill terrorists outside its borders – carrying out extrajudicial assassinations on foreign soil, giving his spies the license to kill, James Bond-style.

An indictment unsealed in New York on Wednesday suggests that Modi did do that, and then angrily denied responsibility for an assassination in Canada.

Modi is popular enough in India that this should not dent his popularity or threaten his reelection bid next spring, but the news raises challenges for him internationally, not least with Canada, whose leader has been vindicated.

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Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons

Reuters

Trudeau’s assassination allegations put Canada’s allies in a bind

On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the House of Commons there were “credible allegations” that India was involved in the killing of Canadian Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia in June. The immediate fallout was swift: Canada expelled a top Indian diplomat; India, which denied the allegations, retaliated by doing the same.

But Canada’s closest allies aren’t exactly rushing to its defense. There is speculation that American intelligence contributed to Canada’s allegations, but while the Biden administration says it is “deeply concerned” about the case and wants the perpetrators to be punished, it pointedly avoided criticizing India or PM Narendra Modi. The other Five Eyes allies are showing similar caution, The U.K. in particular emphasized that its ongoing trade talks with India will proceed.

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A sign outside the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple is seen after the killing on its grounds in June 2023 of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada.

Reuters

Canada accuses India of assassination

In a bombshell accusation on Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told lawmakers that India was responsible for the murder of a Sikh community leader in British Columbia in June.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was gunned down in his car near a Sikh temple, was a Canadian citizen.

The accusation is a bombshell. “This is like if the Saudis had killed [Jamal] Khashoggi in New York,” one former adviser to Trudeau’s government told us.

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