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Suhani Lakhotia
EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on leaving the office to report, film or take pictures in Tehran. A security personnel looks on at oil docks at the port of Kalantari in the city of Chabahar, 300km (186 miles) east of the Strait of Hormuz January 17, 2012.
On Monday, India signed a10-year-long agreement to operate and develop Iran’s Chabahar port. The move is meant to expand India’s agriculture exports to Afghanistan and Central Asia while bypassing existing routes through neighboring Pakistan, New Delhi’s main rival.
Flexing muscles. New Delhi, on track toovertake Japan as the world’s fourth-largest economy by 2025, has only managed the port under short-term contracts since 2018 and has already transported 2.5 million tonnes of wheat and 2,000 tonnes of pulses to Afghanistan. This new longer-term deal with a contractual value of roughly $370 million will reduce transit times between India, Iran, and Afghanistan.
But India is sailing at a risk. Just hours after the contract was signed, the US warned ofpotential sanctions on any country doing business deals with Tehran. Over the last three years, Washington has imposed over 600 sanctions on Iran-related entities.
India has not formally responded to Washington's warning yet, setting up a potential diplomatic clash that may test the limits of India’s willingness to defy its Western allies in order to pursue its own strategic interests in the region.
A supporter of Rahul Gandhi, a senior leader of India's main opposition Congress party, waves a party flag in a public meeting during Rahul's 66-day long "Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra," or Unite India Justice March, in Jhalod town, Gujarat state, India, in March 2024.
The names Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Indira Gandhi are synonymous with Indian independence and the country’s early development. But with India starting to head to the polls on April 19, we ask what happened to their once-dominant Indian National Congress Party.
A titan in Indian politics for over 50 years after independence in 1947, today’s Congress is struggling for relevancy. If it doesn’t find a way to resonate with the biggest voting bloc, those aged 18-35, in the world’s fifth-largest economy – it will stand no chance of ever facing down Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Heyday and downfall
Founded in 1885, Congress leaders like Mahatma and Indira Gandhi, Nehru, and Manmohan Singh played pivotal roles in campaigning for independence and later shaping India’s political and economic position. While Nehru, the first prime minister, touted secularism, his successor and daughter, Gandhi, led anti-poverty campaigns during her tenure. More recently, Singh played a key role in making India the second fastest-growing economy by uplifting the country’s GDP to 9% in 2007.
But voters tend to sour on those in power during economic downturns, and a mix of high inflation and corruption scandals led to Congress’ worst electoral performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The party, headed by the inexperienced Rahul Gandhi, won just 44 of 543 seats, creating more space for the BJP.
Congress did only slightly better in the 2019 elections, winning 52 seats, leading Gandhi to quit the party presidency. His mother and one of the most influential leaders of Congress who played a crucial role in the 2004 election victory, Sonia Gandhi, once again took the reins as interim president for three years. Today, Congress is led by Mallikarjun Kharge, and it’s in power in just three of 28 states: Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, and Telangana.
Lackluster leadership
Congress party leaders are struggling to connect with their base, and efforts to hurt the BJP with slogans like “the watchman is a thief” are not landing with voters. Initiatives like Rahul Gandhi’s ambitious Bharat Jodo Yatra and Nyay Yatra mass marches in 2022 and 2024 have failed to gain much steam.
Congress also “faces issues related to a deteriorating organizational structure and internal factionalism,” says Rahul Bhatia, Eurasia Group’s South Asia analyst.
As recently as last month, internal discord was exposed during the party’s selection of electoral candidates to represent the southern state of Telangana when complaints accused the screening committee of sending the candidate list without consulting party ministers. A similar case was also reported in Chandigarh.
“While the party has taken measures to remedy some of these [problems] in the last two years, it still hasn’t been able to articulate a clear political narrative that captures the imagination of Indian voters like Modi has,” says Bhatia.
Trying to build a worthy opposition
In a bold attempt to challenge the BJP’s dominance with a stronger opposition, Congress pushed to create theIndian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance bloc, aka INDIA, in 2023, initially comprising 41 parties. At first, it looked promising, but the departure of key players like Nitish Kumar and Mamata Banerjee in January has left INDIA in disarray, casting doubts on its efficacy ahead of the election. In the unlikely event INDIA wins, Congress has vowed to raise the 50% reservation quota for nationally recognized marginal communities (Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes) to get them more representation in educational institutes and employment.
But INDIA is only expected to win 94 seats, with Congress getting 38, while the BJP is predicted to snag 399 constituencies. To secure a majority, a party or a coalition needs 272 seats.
Modi, 73, is widely popular with anapproval rating as high as 75%. “Under Modi, the BJP is a formidable electoral machine, and no one has been able to consolidate the Hindu vote as well as Modi has, drawing in lower middle castes, upper castes, and low-income groups,” says Bhatia.
For now, Congress “is not fighting to win the upcoming elections but rather to limit Modi’s majority,” he adds. The party is expected to retain roughly 20% of the vote and potentially win some state elections.
Should the BJP’s vote share fall, the INC could orchestrate a comeback at the national level. “The party is by no means finished,” says Bhatia.
But to get back to the power of its heyday, Congress would need to go through a complete internal overhaul, experts say. And the immediate problem, says Bhatia, is that Congress “is not ready to accept a complete restructuring, nor will it seek leadership beyond the Gandhi family.”
Farmers stage a Delhi Chalo march over various demands, at the Punjab-Haryana Shambhu border, near Ambala on Tuesday.
Thousands of farmers are marching toward New Delhi to demand better prices for their crops, but police are trying to keep them out of the capital by barricading access to the city, firing tear gas, and making arrests.
The unrest comes just months before the general election in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is predicted to win a third term.
A repeat of 2021? Amid the deadly surge of COVID-19 in 2020, farmers camped out for over a year, demanding that the government revoke new agricultural laws aimed at modernizing the farming industry. The protests, which gained international attention (and a tweet from Rihanna), ended after the government agreed to repeal them.
But farmers from Haryana and Punjab say the demands — including minimum support prices, doubling income, and loan waivers — have yet to be met two years on. Over 200 participating farmer unions announced a rural strike for Friday, during which no agricultural activities will occur.
High stakes. The Modi administration has faced limited challenges to appease the majority of voters. But the farming bloc (approximately 60% of the population works in agriculture), which contributes 18% to the country’s GDP and to which Modi yielded last time, may command more of his attention.
Pot politics: Thai government aims to overturn cannabis legalization
Thailand, Bangkok, 2024/01/17. A tuktuk drives past a cannabis dispensary in the Nana district.
Passing the ganja in Thailand may soon be illegal – again. On Tuesday, Health Minister Cholnan Srikaew said the government plans to seek Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin’s approval next week for a draft bill to ban the use of recreational cannabis.
Historical high hopes. Thailand had some of the harshest anti-drug laws in the world. Deputy Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirankul (the former health minister), of the Bhumjaithai Party, campaigned on decriminalizing marijuana to reduce prison overcrowding and ease poverty. The result? Cannabis was legalized in June 2022, making Thailand the first Asian country to do so.
Conservative potshots. Srettha made limiting marijuana use for medicinal purposes a focal point during last year’s elections, and last month, Cholnan said using recreational cannabis “for fun is wrong.”
Youthful dreams up in smoke. Anutin’s pitch of decriminalizing the plant made the BJT Party stand out from its counterparts, especially among young voters. But the fast-aging population (18% are senior citizens) is on edge – and the country’s conservative coalition government came to power promising to reverse the liberalization. Offenders will face fines or prison terms of up to a year.Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks to Reuters during an interview in Lahore, Pakistan, in March 2023.
10: Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan and former Foreign Minister ShahMahmood Qureshi were sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison for leaking state secrets. While Khan is already serving a three-year term on corruption charges, this is Qureshi’s first conviction. The new ruling comes just a week before general elections on Feb. 8. Khan’s political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, called it “a sham case” and plans to challenge the decision in a higher court.
2.6: Is President Vladimir Putin’s military spending spree paying off? Russia’s GDP is expected to grow 2.6% in 2024, according to the International Monetary Fund, which is 1.5 percentage points higher than its October forecast. For 2025, the IMF sees GDP growth for Russia easing to just 1.1%.
2: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed two memorandums of understanding with Vietnam on Tuesday to boost cooperation on maritime security in the South China Sea. Vietnam also agreed to a five-year trade deal to supply up to two million tons of white rice to Manila. China, which is less than thrilled by such agreements between its neighbors, launched military drills in the disputed waters earlier this month as the US and Philippines initiated their exercises in the region.
50,000: German authorities on Tuesday seized 50,000 Bitcoins worth nearly $2.17 billion in Saxony. While no charges have been filed yet, police suspect that two men who purchased the cryptocurrency did so with profits from a piracy website. Police are investigating unauthorized commercial exploitation of copyrighted works and money laundering.
PA via Reuters Demonstrators gather outside the United States embassy
65,000: A new study estimates that since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, nearly 65,000 women who became pregnant through rape were unable to get abortions in 14 US states that have imposed nearly complete bans on the procedure. The authors of the study in the JAMA Internal Medicine journal noted that “persons who have been raped and become pregnant cannot access legal abortions in their home state, even in states with rape exceptions.”
4: The European Central Bank on Thursday kept its key interest rate unchanged at a record-high of 4%. With inflation at 2.9% in Europe still riding above the ECB target of 2%, bank President Christine Lagarde said talk of a cut was still “premature,” but investors are reportedly calling it a wrong move that could force a more jarring U-turn in interest rate policy this spring.
3.3: The US economy grew an unexpectedly high 3.3% in the fourth quarter of 2023, despite high interest rates and increasing prices. Core inflation – a measure of change in cost prices of goods and services, except for food and energy sectors – also rose 2% during the same period. For all of 2023, the US economy expanded 3.1%.
60: The army of Burkina Faso has killed more than 60 civilians in three separate drone strikes targeting Islamist fighters since August 2023, according to Human Rights Watch. The watchdog group called on the government to investigate the apparent “war crimes.” Captain Ibrahim Traore, after becoming the head of state in a 2022 coup, has amped up security forces to reclaim territories controlled by armed groups affiliated with al-Qaida and the Islamic State Group.
2: Since the start of the year, two prominent South Korean politicians have now been physically assaulted in public. Bae Hyunjin, a People Power Party lawmaker, was struck in the head on Thursday with a “rocket-like” object. She was taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries. On Jan. 2, Lee Jae-myung, leader of the opposition party, was stabbed in the neck. The attacks come as the country heads towards national legislative elections in April.
22:Kenneth Smith, 58, was executed using nitrogen gas in Alabama on Thursday. This came after an attempt to execute Smith by lethal injection failed. The execution took 22 minutes. It was the first time nitrogen has been used to carry out an execution anywhere in the world, making the US -- one of the few developed countries that still has the death penalty -- a trailblazer in the realm of capital punishment.
Hard Numbers: Trump lashes out at judge, PNG emergency, Khan’s cricket bat returns, Argentina gets IMF cash, Belichick leaves Patriots
Former President Donald Trump is attending court while closing arguments in his civil business fraud trial are taking place at the New York Supreme Court on January 11, 2024.
370 million: Former President Donald Trump, during the final day of his civil fraud trial in New York City on Thursday, accused the judge, Arthur Engoron, of having his “own agenda.” In closing arguments, Attorney General Letitia James and her team said Trump’s company issued false and inflated financial statements from 2011-2021. She is asking for nearly $370 million in penalties and a lifetime ban against Trump from the Empire State’s real estate industry. Engoron, who endured a bomb threat at his house in the suburbs early Thursday, said he hopes to issue a ruling by Jan. 31.
14: Papua New Guinea has declared a 14-day state of emergency after at least 15 people were killed in rioting in the Pacific Island nation’s two largest cities, Port Moresby and Lae. The violence kicked off after police went on strike Wednesday over their paychecks being chopped by as much as half. The government attributed it to an administrative glitch and said it would be corrected. But amid high unemployment and rising costs, that failed to ease tensions.
2: Pakistan’s Peshawar High Court reinstated the electoral symbol – a cricket bat – of former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s political party, Tehreek-e-Insaf, ahead of general elections on Feb. 8. The two-member bench at Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa decided that the Election Commission of Pakistan acted illegally when it stripped the party of its symbol last month. Khan, imprisoned on graft charges, is a popular politician and former cricket star. Meanwhile, a local leader from Khan’s party, Shah Khalid, was shot dead in the same northwestern province on Thursday.
4.7: The International Monetary Fund is granting Argentina access to $4.7 billion as part of a debt restructuring plan. The loan is a lifeline for newly installed President Javier Milei, who’s battling annual inflation that has topped an eye-watering 160%. It also comes just ahead of Argentina’s Feb. 1 deadline for a $2.7 billion repayment to the IMF for an earlier outlay.
24: After 24 years and six Super Bowl titles, Bill Belichick is stepping aside as coach of the New England Patriots. While Belichick had one year remaining on his contract, Robert Kraft, the team’s owner, said they mutually agreed on his departure. “What Bill accomplished, in my opinion, will never be duplicated,” Kraft said of Belichick, who’s expected to look for coaching opportunities elsewhere. Meanwhile, Nick Saban, head football coach at the University of Alabama, has announced his retirement after 17 seasons.
Hard Numbers: Hottest year, Powerless Ukraine, Soaring Chinese auto exports, Safe South Korean dogs
A man walks on a dry area that shows the drop in the level of Lake Titicaca, Latin America's largest freshwater basin, as it is edging towards record low levels, on Cojata Island, Bolivia, in October 2023.
1.48: 2023 smashed the ceiling for the hottest year on record (blame all-time high emissions of carbon dioxide and El Niño). Data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, aka C3S, a European Union climate agency, shows that 2023 was warmer by 1.48 Celsius than the 1850-1900 pre-industrial era. C3S Deputy Director Samantha Burgess also warned that this month is on track to surpass the 1.5-degree threshold agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement for the first time.
1,000: Ukraine’s power grid operator reported on Tuesday that over 1,000 towns and villages in nine regions lost electricity due to harsh winter conditions. The weather caused heavy damage to the network while demand rose amid freezing temps, and the capacity of the power plants had already been diminished by Russian attacks. Kyiv urged residents to conserve power and is importing electricity from Romania and Slovakia to meet demand.
3.83 million: China’s car exports rose 62% to a record of 3.83 million in 2023, according to the China Passenger Car Association. The sales generated approximately $102 billion, and China is expected to have surpassed Japan as the world’s largest auto exporter last year, thanks largely to a surge in Russian demand for gas-powered vehicles.
$23,000: Dogs can now run freely in South Korea … and not become dinner. South Korea’s parliament passed a bill Tuesday banning the age-old practice of breeding and slaughtering dogs for consumption. Anyone who sells food processed with dog meat in their ingredient list will be subject to three years in prison or up to a $23,000 (about 30 million Korean won) fine.