Category: 2. World

Benjamin Netanyahu is “in denial” over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Anthony Albanese claimed after a phone call with the Israeli leader, saying frustration with Israel’s military campaign in the besieged territory was part of Australia’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state.

The prime minister’s escalating public criticism of Israel comes as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, overnight welcomed Australia’s commitment to recognise Palestinian statehood at the UN general assembly in September.

“I spoke with prime minister Netanyahu. He, again, reiterated to me what he has said publicly as well – which is to be in denial about the consequences that are occurring for innocent people,” Albanese told ABC TV.

Albanese yesterday said Australia’s pledge to recognise a Palestinian state was “predicated” on conditions agreed to by the Palestinian Authority, which included no role for terror group Hamas in a future government. The prime minister said the international community could block Hamas from standing in future elections in Palestine, but refused to say whether Australia would revoke its plans to recognise if such conditions were not met.

_{Sign up: AU Breaking News email}

“You can [stop Hamas from standing in elections] if you have the Arab states in the Middle East all speaking as one, as well as the Palestinian Authority, as well as the international community. Yes, you can,” he told Nine.

In a press conference, Albanese went on to say that violence in the region, including Israel’s planned military occupation of Gaza City, “just cannot continue into the future without an end point”.

“The international community is coming up with an end point, which is, how do we resolve this? How do we get a permanent security position?” he said.

Macron, who declared in July that France would recognise Palestinian statehood at the General Assembly, said Australia was “joining the momentum” of a global push toward resolving the crisis in Gaza.

“This reflects our commitment to the two-state solution and to the need to collectively rebuild a political pathway, without which there can be no peace and security for all,” he wrote.

There are a raft of unanswered questions including how the Palestinian state will be formed, how it would be demilitarised, and where Australia would establish an embassy. Albanese and the foreign minister, Penny Wong, shrugged off repeated questions in media interviews on Monday and Tuesday about how Australia would respond if the Palestinian Authority’s commitments were not met, or if they would reverse their recognition pledge.

“What we will also do is work with the international community to hold the Palestinian Authority to its commitments,” Wong told the ABC’s 7.30 program on Monday night.

The Coalition opposition is critical of the Labor government’s decision, claiming it rewards Hamas, and that the government has failed to answer outstanding questions.

The opposition leader, Sussan Ley, said on Tuesday the government had not clarified its position on how those conditions will be met.

“[Albanese] actually refuses to say what will happen if the conditions that he sets out for recognition are not met,” she told 2GB radio.

skip past newsletter promotion

after newsletter promotion

“Those conditions are unlikely in many views to be met. One of them is that there can’t be a role for the terrorists in any future Palestinian state, but Hamas is there, they’re on the ground, they’re in control.”

The former Liberal prime minister Scott Morrison claimed Jewish Australians would feel a “sense of betrayal” at the government’s shift.

“It will prove a hollow gesture, like for all those who have taken this step before it. None should take any comfort in it. Meanwhile the suffering will regrettably continue in Gaza and the hostages will remain in captivity,” Morrison wrote on his website.

Israel’s government has been deeply critical of Anthony Albanese’s decision, and also said Labor is rewarding Hamas.

In a statement on X, Israel’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, Sharren Haskel, said the move was about domestic politics, not peace.

“50 of our hostages remain in Hamas’s dungeons of torture, being starved to death – being forced to dig their own graves, yet the Australian government has decided now is the right time to reward the monsters of October 7 with recognition of a Palestinian state,” she wrote.

“This decision by Australia won’t change anything in Israel or Gaza, but let’s be quite clear, this is all about domestic politics, not peace.”

RAHUL Gandhi’s chilling exposé of fraud in Indian elections offers far-reaching health benefits for Indian democracy even if it may not change the facts on the ground anytime soon. A change would require nationwide street- and village-level mobilisation, which is a big ask for the current state of the opposition. The revelations about the election commission’s involvement in preparing fraudulent electoral rolls that evidently helped the BJP win successive elections is reverberating across the country.

Everyone other than Narendra Modi’s handpicked election commission and core supporters of BJP is convinced that Rahul has found a treasure trove of evidence that Hindutva’s rise as a fascist threat to India was about rigged elections and not mass support as many feared. Fascism rides on popular support, which Narendra Modi does not have, contrary to the myth circulated by the media with the help of suspect elections. Modi may remain a challenge as an autocrat, but the stories of his popularity are now shown to have been excessively cooked up. That is the evidence Rahul Gandhi and his core team of experts have found from a mountain load of polling lists they secured from a grudging and hand-picked election commission.

In one flourish, Gandhi may have helped dissolve widespread fears of a religio-fascist takeover of India. Fascism is a terrifyingly popular phenomenon as Europe witnessed close to a century ago. Men and women — workers, capitalists, intellectuals, soldiers — and even schoolchildren were smitten by Hitler’s charisma. There was no need to manipulate EVMs or draw up false voters’ lists. It’s the autocrats on the other hand that need rigging, and that threat remains intact in India.

That the exposé came at the time of jubilations for Indian cricket, which triggered a nation’s reaffirmation of its waning legacy of multi-religious, multilingual and multicultural plurality is what this piece is about.

In one flourish, Gandhi may have helped dissolve widespread fears of a religio-fascist takeover of India.

Cricket and cinema have had an influence beyond the ordinary on politics in India. Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh venerated their movie actors and scriptwriters who doubled as political leaders to determine the course of power and governance in the southern states. Bollywood has produced many MPs, elected and nominated. Of course, cricketers like Chetan Chauhan, Kirti Azad and Mohammed Azharuddin have also been members of the Lok Sabha by popular vote, for this or that party.

It was thus that Mohammed Siraj, India’s new bowling sensation and Shubman Gill, the young classy batsman and skipper of India’s cricket squad did something unknowingly together with their teammates at the end of the Test series in England that no one has done for the country before them. They reaffirmed faith not just in India’s cricketing prowess, which has gained respect since the days of M.A.K. Pataudi, Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev. The young duo and their cheering teammates may not have realised that they had helped set back the fascist project for the Hindu rashtra for the foreseeable future. Siraj, the lion-hearted pace bowler, played all five Tests against England and bowled his heart out. His grabbing a win from the jaws of defeat with the last ounce of energy on the last day of the final Test at the Oval is now etched in the public psyche as a turning point for the future of Test cricket. Gill was declared the man of the series.

What made their contributions crucial for Indian democracy was the timing of it. Rahul Gandhi’s revelations, and the joy of seeing the players toast their colleagues, though unrelated, melded into a heart-lifting reality. Siraj is the son of a Muslim auto-driver from Hyderabad, and Shubman’s father is a Sikh farmer who wanted to become a cricketer himself but never could. Both players had faced trolling amid calls to remove them from the team on their lean day. We don’t have to go over the calumny and invectives that in recent years have been heaped on their respective communities by the majoritarian forces of the Hindu right, forces that form the backbone of India’s current ruling dispensation.

When the Sikh farmers were protesting their stolen rights, Sikhs were dubbed terrorists by Modi’s loyal media. When the 2024 elections were in full swing, Modi described Muslims as thieves, stealing Hindu women’s mangalsutra and their cattle. The cricket team would have none of that as they embraced and delighted in the glorious game as one team.

The duo captured the love of a billion-plus compatriots at a time when Rahul Gandhi had put his political career at stake and, many say, his life on the line to dissolve the worst fears Indians were confronted with in recent years — the fear of religious fascism supplanting democracy.

Modi changed the law recently about the nomination of the election commissioner. The PM, the leader of the opposition and the chief justice of India would select the chief election commissioner. He has done away with the chief justice in the process and appointed his home minister in the judge’s place. It gives him two-thirds control of the selection.

Gandhi’s questions to the election commission have not elicited a mea culpa. Instead, the poll body has embarked on a drive to delete hundreds of thousands of legitimate names from the voters’ list in Bihar, of those bearing officially recognised ID cards.

TV journalist Karan Thapar highlighted the dangers inherent in the special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls presently underway in Bihar. The election commission has released the draft rolls confirming that 6.56 million names have been deleted, nearly nine per cent of those who lived there before the exercise began. “This is already disturbing,” wrote Thapar.

Given Bihar’s high fertility rate it’s odd that the total number of registered voters should fall rather than increase in 2025, says Thapar. That’s one more proof should one be needed, that Hindutva has failed to conquer the imagination of Indians, and it needs to rig elections.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.

jawednaqvi@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2025

The US and China have extended their trade truce until 10 November, just hours before a jump in tariffs had been set to take effect.

In a joint statement, the world’s two biggest economies said triple-digit tariffs on each other’s goods announced earlier this year will be suspended for another 90 days.

Talks last month ended with both sides calling the discussions “constructive”. China’s top negotiator said at the time that the two countries would push to preserve the truce, while US officials said they were waiting for final sign-off from US President Donald Trump.

On Monday, Trump signed an executive order to extend the tariff truce.

It means Washington will further delay imposing 145% tariffs on Chinese goods and Beijing will continue its pause on 125% duties on US shipments.

Under the agreement, the US will hold its tariffs on Chinese imports at 30%, while China will keep a 10% tariff on American goods.

The truce extension will give more time for negotiations about “remedying trade imbalances” and “unfair trade practices”, the White House said.

It cited a trade deficit of nearly $300bn (£223bn) with China in 2024 – the largest among any of its trading partner.

The talks will also aim to increase access for US exporters to China and address national security and economic issues, the statement said.

A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington said: “Win-win cooperation between China and the United States is the right path; suppression and containment will lead nowhere.”

In the statement, China also called on the US to lift its “unreasonable” trade restrictions, work together to benefit companies on both sides and maintain the stability of global semiconductor production.

A return of higher duties would have risked further trade turmoil and uncertainty amid worries about the effect of tariffs on prices and the economy.

Trade tensions between the US and China reached fever pitch in April, after Trump unveiled sweeping new tariffs on goods from countries around the world, with China facing some of the highest levies.

Beijing retaliated with tariffs of its own, sparking a tit-for-tat fight that saw tariffs soar into the triple digits and nearly shut down trade between the two countries.

The two sides had agreed to set aside some of those measures in May.

That agreement left Chinese goods entering the US facing an additional 30% tariff compared with the start of the year, with US goods facing a new 10% tariff in China.

The two sides remain in discussions about issues including access to China’s rare earths, its purchases of Russian oil, and US curbs on sales of advanced technology, including chips to China.

Trump recently relaxed some of those export restrictions, allowing firms such as AMD and Nvidia to resume sales of certain chips to firms in China in exchange for sharing 15% of their revenues with the US government.

The US is also pushing for the spin-off of TikTok from its Chinese owner ByteDance, a move that has been opposed by Beijing.

Earlier on Monday in remarks to reporters, Trump did not commit to extending the truce but said dealings had been going “nicely”. A day earlier he called on Beijing to increase its purchases of US soybeans.

Even with the truce, trade flows between the countries have been hit this year, with US government figures showing US imports of Chinese goods in June cut nearly in half compared with June 2024.

In the first six months of the year, the US imported $165bn (£130bn) worth of goods from China, down by about 15% from the same time last year. American exports to China fell roughly 20% year-on-year for the same period.

TEHRAN/TBILISI: Iran stepped up warnings to Armenia on Monday over a planned US-backed corridor linking Azerbaijan to an exclave near the Iranian border, part of a recent peace deal between Yerevan and Baku.

In a phone call with Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian “warned against possible actions by the United States, which could pursue hegemonic goals in the Caucasus region under the guise of economic investments and peace guarantees”, according to a statement from Tehran.

The land corridor dubbed the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” is part of a deal signed last week in Washington between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Under the deal, the United States will have the development rights of the proposed route, which would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave, passing near the Iranian border.

Yerevan, Baku publish text of Trump-brokered peace deal

Iran has long opposed the planned transit route, also known as the Zangezur corridor, fearing it would cut the country off from Armenia and the rest of the Caucasus, and bring potentially hostile foreign forces to near its borders.

Pezeshkian said Iran “welcomes any agreement that promotes the strengthening of peace” among its neighbours, but emphasised the need to prevent the “interference of any military or security force” in implementing the corridor project, according to the statement from his office.

Armenia’s deputy foreign minister is due in Tehran on Tuesday for talks on the issue, Tehran has said. On Saturday, a senior advisor to Iran’s supreme leader said Tehran will not allow the creation of the planned corridor, warning that the area would become “a graveyard for Trump’s mercenaries”.

Text of deal

Armenia and Azerbaijan published the text of a US-brokered peace agreement on Monday, pledging to respect each other’s territorial integrity and formally put an end to nearly four decades of conflict.

The deal was struck in Washington on Friday, when Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met President Donald Trump at the White House.

The text of the greement, which was initialled by the countries’ foreign ministers, says Yerevan and Baku will relinquish all claims to each other’s territory, refrain from using force against one another and pledge to respect international law.

“This agreement is a solid foundation for establishing a reliable and lasting peace, the result of an agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan that reflects the balanced interests of the two countries,” Pashinyan wrote on Facebook.

Armenia and Azerbaijan, neighbours in the South Caucasus region, have been locked in conflict since the late 1980s over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region at the southern end of the Karabakh mountain range, within Azerbaijan. Baku took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.

The European Union, Nato member Turkiye and Russia have welcomed the accord, although Moscow, a traditional broker and ally of Armenia, was left out and warned against foreign meddling.

The deal explicitly bans the deployment of third-party forces along the countries’ shared border, a possible reference to Russia, which has previously deployed peacekeepers to the region and still has extensive military and security interests in Armenia. The European Union also has a mission deployed at the border to monitor ceasefire violations, which Baku has repeatedly demanded it withdraw.

The peace deal has not yet been signed by the two rivals, who both gained their independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. In a major hurdle to peace, Azerbaijan is demanding that Armenia change its constitution, which Baku says makes an implicit claim on Azerbaijani territory.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2025

TEHRAN/TBILISI: Iran stepped up warnings to Armenia on Monday over a planned US-backed corridor linking Azerbaijan to an exclave near the Iranian border, part of a recent peace deal between Yerevan and Baku.

In a phone call with Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian “warned against possible actions by the United States, which could pursue hegemonic goals in the Caucasus region under the guise of economic investments and peace guarantees”, according to a statement from Tehran.

The land corridor dubbed the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity” is part of a deal signed last week in Washington between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Under the deal, the United States will have the development rights of the proposed route, which would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave, passing near the Iranian border.

Yerevan, Baku publish text of Trump-brokered peace deal

Iran has long opposed the planned transit route, also known as the Zangezur corridor, fearing it would cut the country off from Armenia and the rest of the Caucasus, and bring potentially hostile foreign forces to near its borders.

Pezeshkian said Iran “welcomes any agreement that promotes the strengthening of peace” among its neighbours, but emphasised the need to prevent the “interference of any military or security force” in implementing the corridor project, according to the statement from his office.

Armenia’s deputy foreign minister is due in Tehran on Tuesday for talks on the issue, Tehran has said. On Saturday, a senior advisor to Iran’s supreme leader said Tehran will not allow the creation of the planned corridor, warning that the area would become “a graveyard for Trump’s mercenaries”.

Text of deal

Armenia and Azerbaijan published the text of a US-brokered peace agreement on Monday, pledging to respect each other’s territorial integrity and formally put an end to nearly four decades of conflict.

The deal was struck in Washington on Friday, when Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met President Donald Trump at the White House.

The text of the agreement, which was initialled by the countries’ foreign ministers, says Yerevan and Baku will relinquish all claims to each other’s territory, refrain from using force against one another and pledge to respect international law.

“This agreement is a solid foundation for establishing a reliable and lasting peace, the result of an agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan that reflects the balanced interests of the two countries,” Pashinyan wrote on Facebook.

Armenia and Azerbaijan, neighbours in the South Caucasus region, have been locked in conflict since the late 1980s over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region at the southern end of the Karabakh mountain range, within Azerbaijan. Baku took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.

The European Union, Nato member Turkiye and Russia have welcomed the accord, although Moscow, a traditional broker and ally of Armenia, was left out and warned against foreign meddling.

The deal explicitly bans the deployment of third-party forces along the countries’ shared border, a possible reference to Russia, which has previously deployed peacekeepers to the region and still has extensive military and security interests in Armenia. The European Union also has a mission deployed at the border to monitor ceasefire violations, which Baku has repeatedly demanded it withdraw.

The peace deal has not yet been signed by the two rivals, who both gained their independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. In a major hurdle to peace, Azerbaijan is demanding that Armenia change its constitution, which Baku says makes an implicit claim on Azerbaijani territory.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2025

PARIS: Three-quarters of UN members have already or soon plan to recognise Palestinian statehood, with Australia on Monday becoming the latest to promise it will do so at the UN General Asse­mbly next month.

“Australia will recognise the state of Palestine at the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September, to contribute to international momentum towards a two-state solution, a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages,” Prime Minister Ant­h­ony Albanese said in a statement.

The conflict raging in Gaza since Oct 2023 has revived a global push for Palestinians to be given a state of their own.

The action breaks with a long-held view that Palesti­nians could only gain statehood as part of a negotiated peace with Israel.

At least 145 of the 193 UN members now recognise or plan to recognise a Palest­inian state, including Fra­nce, Canada and Britain.

Here is a recap of the Palestinians’ quest for statehood:

1988: Arafat proclaims state

On Nov 15, 1988, during the first intifada, Palesti­nian leader Yasser Arafat unilaterally proclaimed an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.

He made the announcement in Algiers at a meeting of the exiled Palest­inian National Council, which adopted the two-state solution as a goal, with independent Israeli and Palestinian states existing side by side.

Minutes later, Algeria became the first country to officially recognise an inde­pendent Palestinian state.

2011-2012: UN recognition

In 2011, with peace talks at a standstill, the Palestinians pushed ahead with a campaign for full UN membership.

The quest failed, but in a groundbreaking move on Oct 31 of that year, the UN cultural agency Unesco voted to accept the Palestinians as a full member, much to the dismay of Israel and the United States.

In Nov 2012, the Palestinian flag was raised for the first time at the United Nations in New York after the General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to upgrade the status of Palestinians to “non-member observer state”.

New push

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza over the last two years has boosted support for Palestinian statehood.

Four Caribbean countries (Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados and the Bahamas) and Armenia took the diplomatic step last year.

So did four European countries: Norway, Spain, Ireland and Slovenia, the latter three EU members.

Within the European Union, this was a first in 10 years since Sweden’s move in 2014, which resulted in years of strained relations with Israel.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2025

NEW DELHI: Dozens of Indian opposition leaders were detained in New Delhi on Monday as they shou­ted slogans, jumped barricades and marched to the Election Commi­ssion in a rare public protest against what they say are electoral malpractices.

The credibility of elections has rarely been questioned in recent decades in the world’s most populous democracy. Some analysts say the opposition accusations could dam­age Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he navigates one of the toughest periods of his 11 years in office.

Around 300 opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi of the main opposition Congress party, marched from parliament to the office of the independent election panel but were stopped by police some distance away.

The protesters shouted slogans against the panel and Modi’s government, saying elections were being “stolen”, and tried to push past barricades before being detained and taken away in buses.

Congress leader alleges voter list manipulation in BJP-ruled states to rig elections

“This fight is not political. This fight is to save the constitution,” Gandhi told reporters. “We want a clean, pure voters’ list.” Gandhi and Congress have alleged that voters’ lists in states where the party lost are corrupted, with voters’ names deleted or included more than once to rig elections in favour of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.

Opposition parties have also criticised the election panel’s decision to revise the voters’ list in the key northern state of Bihar just before state elections due later this year, saying it aims to disenfranchise large numbers of poor voters. The BJP and the Election Commission have rejected the accusations.

‘State of bankruptcy’

The commission has said that changes in voters’ lists are shared with political parties and all complaints are investigated thoroughly. It has also said that voters’ lists need to be revised to remove dead voters or those who have relocated to other parts of the country, among others.

Congress and its allies have fared poorly in two state elections that they had expected to win after an impressive show in last year’s parliamentary vote, which saw BJP losing its outright majority and remaining in power only with the help of regional parties.

Congress has also complained about electronic voting machines and said the counting process is not fair, charges rejected by the election panel. The BJP said opposition parties were trying to create a “state of anarchy” by sowing seeds of doubt about the electoral process.

“They are in a state of bankruptcy because of their continuous losses,” federal minister Dharmendra Prad­han told reporters on Monday.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2025

• BJP-linked group takes out countrywide rallies, urging people to boycott American brands
• World’s most populous nation is a key market for US goods

NEW DELHI: From McDonald’s and Coca-Cola to Amazon and Apple, US-based multinationals are facing calls for a boycott in India as business executives and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s supporters stoke anti-American sentiment to protest against US tariffs.

India, the world’s most populous nation, is a key market for American brands that have rapidly expanded to target a growing base of affluent consumers, many of whom remain infatuated with international labels seen as symbols of moving up in life.

India, for example, is the biggest market by users for Meta’s WhatsApp and Domino’s has more restaurants than any other brand in the country. Beverages like Pepsi and Coca-Cola often dominate store shelves, and people still queue up when a new Apple store opens or a Starbucks cafe doles out discounts.

Although there was no immediate indication of sales being hit, there’s a growing chorus both on social media and offline to buy local and ditch American products after Donald Trump imposed a 50 per cent tariff on goods from India, rattling exporters and damaging ties between New Delhi and Washington.

McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Amazon and Apple did not immediately respond to Reuters queries.

Manish Chowdhary, co-founder of India’s Wow Skin Science, took to LinkedIn with a video message urging support for farmers and startups to make “Made in India” a “global obsession,” and to learn from South Korea whose food and beauty products are famous worldwide.

“We have lined up for products from thousands of miles away. We have proudly spent on brands that we don’t own, while our own makers fight for attention in their own country,” he said.

Rahm Shastry, CEO of India’s DriveU, which provides a car driver on call service, wrote on LinkedIn: “India should have its own home-grown Twitter/Google/YouTube/WhatsApp/FB — like China has.”

To be fair, Indian retail companies give foreign brands like Starbucks stiff competition in the domestic market, but going global has been a challenge. Indian IT services firms, however, have become deeply entrenched in the global economy, with the likes of TCS and Infosys providing software solutions to clients world over.

On Sunday, Modi made a “special appeal” for becoming self-reliant, telling a gathering in Bengaluru that Indian technology companies made products for the world but “now is the time for us to give more priority to India’s needs.” He did not name any company.

Public rallies

Even as anti-American protests simmer, Tesla launched its second showroom in India in New Delhi, with Monday’s opening attended by Indian commerce ministry officials and US embassy officials.

The Swadeshi Jagran Manch group, which is linked to Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, took out small public rallies across India on Sunday, urging people to boycott American brands.

“People are now looking at Indian products. It will take some time to fructify,” Ashwani Mahajan, the group’s co-convener, told Reuters. “This is a call for nationalism, patriotism.” He also shared with Reuters a table his group is circulating on WhatsApp, listing Indian brands of bath soaps, toothpaste and cold drinks that people could choose over foreign ones.

On social media, one of the group’s campaigns is a graphic titled “Boycott foreign food chains”, with logos of McDonald’s and many other restaurant brands.

In Uttar Pradesh, Rajat Gupta, 37, who was dining at a McDonalds in Lucknow on Monday, said he wasn’t concerned about the tariff protests and simply enjoyed the 49-rupee ($0.55) coffee he considered good value for money.

“Tariffs are a matter of diplomacy and my McPuff, coffee should not be dragged into it,” he said.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2025