Category: 2. World

NEW DELHI: Several US companies operating in India are now facing boycott calls in the South Asian nation with business executives and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s supporters stoking anti-American sentiment to protest against import duties imposed by Washington.

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 a popular pizza chain has more restaurants than any other brand in the country.

US-based beverage companies often dominate store shelves, and people still queue up when a new smartphone store opens or a coffee shop 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% tariff on goods from India, rattling exporters and damaging ties between New Delhi and Washington.

Manish Chowdhary, co-founder of a local company selling skin-care products, 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 a local company 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 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 worldwide.

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”, however, he did not name any company.

BJP-linked group holds boycott 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 (BJP), 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-convenor, 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 many restaurant brands.

In Uttar Pradesh, Rajat Gupta, 37, who was dining at a US-based restaurant chain in Lucknow on Monday, said he wasn’t concerned about the tariff protests and simply enjoyed the INR49 ($0.55) coffee he considered good value for money.

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

NEW DELHI — NEW DELHI (AP) — India ’s opposition parties held a protest Monday calling for the rollback of a controversial revision of the voter list in one of the country’s poorest states, where key elections are scheduled in November, and warning it could lead to voter disenfranchisement.

Hundreds of lawmakers and supporters began the protest from parliament and were confronted by police, who stopped them from marching towards the election commission office in the capital, New Delhi. Police briefly detained some lawmakers, including opposition leader Rahul Gandhi.

India’s opposition accuses the Election Commission of India of rushing through a mammoth electoral roll revision in eastern Bihar state, saying the exercise could render vast numbers of citizens unable to vote. The revision of nearly 80 million voters involves strict documentation requirements from citizens, triggering concerns it could lead to the exclusion of vulnerable groups, especially those who are unable to produce the paperwork required to prove their citizenship.

Some of the documents required include birth certificates, passports and matriculation records. Critics and opposition leaders say they are hard to come by in Bihar, where the literacy rate is among the lowest in India. They say the exercise will impact minorities the most, including Muslims, and disallow them from voting.

India does not have a unique national identity card. The widely used biometric-linked identity card, called “Aadhaar,” is not among the documents listed by the poll body as acceptable proof for the electoral roll revision.

The election agency has denied the allegations and said it has ensured no eligible voter is “left behind.” It has also said the “intensive revision” is a routine update to ensure the accuracy of electoral rolls and is needed to avoid the “inclusion of the names of foreign illegal immigrants.”

According to the commission, some 49.6 million voters whose names were included in a similar exercise in 2003 are not required to submit any further documents. But that still leaves almost 30 million other voters potentially vulnerable. A similar roll revision of voters is scheduled to be replicated across the nation of 1.4 billion people.

Bihar is a crucial election battleground state where Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has only ever governed in a coalition. Poll results there could likely impact the balance of power in India’s Parliament, where Modi’s government relies on coalition partners, including a regional party from Bihar.

Modi’s BJP has backed the revision and said it is necessary to update new voters and delete the names of those who have either died or moved to other states. It has also claimed the exercise is essential to weed out undocumented Muslim immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh who have fraudulently entered India’s electoral rolls.

Critics and opposition leaders have warned that the exercise is similar to that of a controversial 2019 citizenship list in India’s eastern Assam state, which left nearly 2 million people at risk of statelessness. Many of those left off the final citizenship list were Muslims. They have been declared “foreigners” and some of them faced long periods of detention.

Gandhi, the opposition leader, made public last week his Congress Party’s analysis from southern Karnataka state that alleged nearly 100,000 votes cast for an assembly seat in the 2024 general election were fraudulent. India’s election commission dismissed his claims.

“A clean voter roll is imperative for free and fair elections,” Gandhi said Sunday in a post on X.

New Delhi police briefly detained Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and other opposition members on Monday as they protested a controversial revised electoral roll in Bihar and alleged “vote theft” by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

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.

The opposition members were taken into custody midway while marching from the parliament to the Election Commission of India (ECI) headquarters in New Delhi as they protested the roll revision, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.

Nearly two hours later, Congress lawmaker Kishori Lal Sharma said Gandhi and other opposition leaders had been released.

“The police detained us but now we have been released,” he told the media, adding that the police had not allowed them to go to the ECI as promised, and instead took them to the police station.

“We are now heading to the parliament,” he added.

As the police attempted to thwart the protest by around 300 opposition members, some MPs climbed up to the barricade — set up by the police ahead of the march — and chanted slogans against the ECI and Modi’s government. The protestors carried placards alleging “vote theft”, PTI said.

A statement posted on Gandhi’s X account shortly after he was detained said: “The truth of vote theft is now before the country.

“This fight is not political — it is a fight to protect democracy, the constitution, and the right to ‘one person, one vote’,” he added.

“The united opposition and every voter in the country demands a clean and transparent voter list,” the Congress leader added.

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 BJP.

Opposition parties have also criticised the ECI’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 ECI have rejected the accusations.

In June, the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the voter rolls was announced ahead of the upcoming polls in the eastern state of Bihar. The move, which required that all potential voters provide proof of citizenship by July 25, sparked nationwide fears of disenfranchisement among India’s minorities, including Muslims and Dalit communities.

According to PTI, other protesting lawmakers detained included Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi, Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav, T. R. Baalu of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), Sanjay Raut of the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), and Derek O’Brien of the Trinamool Congress.

Parliamentarians from other opposition parties, such as the Rashtriya Janata Dal, were also taken into custody, the report added.

‘State of anarchy’

The ECI 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. Many voters in Bihar have told the BBC that the draft rolls have wrong photos and include dead people.

“The new draft rolls have 72.4 million names — 6.5 million fewer than before,” the BBC report published today said.

Congress and its allies have fared poorly in two state polls that they had expected to win after an impressive show in last year’s general elections, 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,” Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan of the BJP told reporters on Monday.

As per the PTI report, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had written to the ECI earlier and asked them to hold discussions over the electoral rolls’ SIR, among other issues.

“Thereafter, the MPs wish to collectively meet with the commission on a host of issues, including but not limited to Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls being undertaken in Bihar and proposed to be undertaken in other states as well,” the PTI quoted him as saying.

“We look forward to meeting with the commission, which will be in keeping with the highest tradition of our parliamentary democracy,” he said, according to PTI.

Chip giants Nvidia and AMD have agreed to pay the US government 15% of Chinese revenues as part of an “unprecedented” deal to secure export licences to China, the BBC has been told.

The US had previously banned the sale of powerful chips used in areas like artificial intelligence (AI) to China under export controls usually related to national security concerns.

Security experts, including some who served during President Donald Trump’s first term, recently wrote to the administration expressing “deep concern” that Nvidia’s H20 chip was “a potent accelerator” of China’s AI capabilities.

Nvidia told the BBC: “We follow rules the US government sets for our participation in worldwide markets.”

It added: “While we haven’t shipped H20 to China for months, we hope export control rules will let America compete in China and worldwide.”

AMD did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House declined to comment.

Under the agreement, Nvidia will pay 15% of its revenues from H20 chip sales in China to the US government.

AMD will also give 15% of revenue generated from sales of its MI308 chip in China to the Trump administration, which was first reported by the Financial Times.

The H20 chip was developed specifically for the Chinese market after US export restrictions were imposed by the Biden administration in 2023.

Sales of the chip were effectively banned by Trump’s government in April this year.

Beijing has previously criticised the US government, accusing it of “abusing export control measures, and engaging in unilateral bullying”.

Nvidia’s chief executive Jensen Huang has spent months lobbying both sides for a resumption of sales of the chips in China. He reportedly met US President Donald Trump last week.

“You either have a national security problem or you don’t,” said Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation.

“If you have a 15% payment, it doesn’t somehow eliminate the national security issue,” she added.

In Beijing, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: “On the issue of US chips to China, China has repeatedly stated its position.”

In a letter last month to US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, a group of 20 security specialists said that while the biggest buyers of Nvidia’s H20 chips were civilian companies in China, they expect them to be used by the military.

They wrote: “Chips optimized for AI inference will not simply power consumer products or factory logistics; they will enable autonomous weapons systems, intelligence surveillance platforms and rapid advances in battlefield decision-making.”

In a statement to the BBC, Nvidia said: “America cannot repeat 5G and lose telecommunication leadership. America’s AI tech stack can be the world’s standard if we race.”

Charlie Dai, vice president and principal analyst at global research firm Forrester, said the agreement to hand over 15% of China chip sales to the US government in exchange for export licences was “unprecedented”.

“The arrangement underscores the high cost of market access amid escalating tech trade tensions, creating substantial financial pressure and strategic uncertainty for tech vendors,” he added.

The resumption of chip sales to China comes as trade tensions between Beijing and Washington have been easing.

Beijing has relaxed controls on rare earth exports, while the US has lifted restrictions on chip design software firms operating in China.

In May, the world’s two biggest economies agreed to a 90-day truce in their tariffs war.

Since then, top trade officials from both sides have met on a number of occasions, although an agreement to extend the tariffs pause has not yet been confirmed ahead of a 12 August deadline.

As part of his trade policy, Trump has put pressure on major companies to make more investments in the US.

Last week, Apple said it would invest another $100bn (£74.4bn) in the country, adding to a previous pledge to spend $500bn in the US over the next four years.

In June, memory chip maker Micron Technology said its planned US investments will total $200bn. That includes construction of a new manufacturing facility in Idaho.

Nvidia itself has announced plans to build AI servers in the US worth up to $500bn, pledging to build the first AI supercomputers that are entirely American-made.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that the boss of Intel will meet with Trump at the White House after the president called for his immediate resignation due to his ties to China.

Last week, Trump said on social media that Lip-Bu Tan was “highly conflicted”, apparently referring to his alleged investments in companies that the US said were tied to the Chinese military.

Mr Tan pushed back, stating it was “misinformation”.

An outpouring of grief and condemnation has followed the Israeli assassination of five Al Jazeera staff in Gaza, including prominent correspondent Anas al-Sharif.

The drone attack late on Sunday hit a tent for journalists positioned outside the main gate of Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, killing seven people. Among the dead were Al Jazeera correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh and camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Moamen Aliwa and Mohammed Noufal.

Just hours earlier, al-Sharif, 28, had posted on X about Israel’s “intense, concentrated bombardment” on eastern and southern Gaza City. Known for his fearless reporting from northern Gaza, he had become one of the most recognisable voices documenting the ongoing Israeli genocide in the enclave.

Al Jazeera Media Network has condemned what it called a “targeted assassination” of its journalists.

Below are a few of the responses to the killing of Al Jazeera staff:

Palestine

The Palestinian mission to the United Nations accused Israel of “deliberately assassinating” al-Sharif and Qreiqeh, describing them as among the “last remaining journalists” in Gaza.

“They have systematically and dutifully exposed and documented Israel’s genocide and starvation,” the mission said on X. “As Israel continues to ethnically cleanse Gaza, its enemy remains the truth: the brave journalists exposing its heinous crimes.”

Iran

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei has called on the world to hold Israel to account after the killing of the five Al Jazeera staff.

“A press badge is no shield against genocidal war criminals who fear the world witnessing their atrocities,” said Baghaei, accusing Israel of assassinating the journalists “in cold blood”.

“Strong condemnation is the bare minimum for any decent human being, but the world must act immediately to stop this harrowing genocide and hold the criminals accountable,” he added.

“Indifference and inaction are complicity in Israel’s crimes.”

United Nations

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, offered condolences to “the Al Jazeera family” and called for an investigation.

“We have always been very clear in condemning all killings of journalists,” Dujarric said. “In Gaza, and everywhere, media workers should be able to carry out their work freely and without harassment, intimidation or fear of being targeted.”

Al Jazeera Media Network has condemned “in the strongest terms” the killing of its journalists in a targeted assassination by Israeli forces.

In a statement, the network said the Israeli military “admitted to their crimes” and deliberately directed the attack at the journalists’ location. It called the assassination “another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom”.

The strike came amid what Al Jazeera described as the “catastrophic consequences” of Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, including mass civilian deaths, forced starvation, and the destruction of entire communities.

The network called the killing of al-Sharif, one of Gaza’s most prominent reporters, and his colleagues “a desperate attempt to silence the voices exposing the impending seizure and occupation of Gaza”.

Committee to Protect Journalists

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says it is “appalled” by Israel’s killing of Al Jazeera journalists.

“Israel’s pattern of labeling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom,” said the CPJ’s regional director, Sara Qudah.

“Those responsible for these killings must be held accountable,” Qudah added.

Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the CPJ, recalled how Israel accused al-Sharif and others of being “terrorists” last October without evidence.

“We warned back then that this felt to us like a precursor to justify assassination,” she told Al Jazeera. “This is part of a pattern … going back decades, in which it kills journalists.”

Amnesty International

Amnesty International condemned the strike as a war crime under international law and remembered al-Sharif as a “brave and extraordinary” reporter.

In 2024, al-Sharif was awarded Amnesty International Australia’s Human Rights Defender Award for his resilience and commitment to press freedom.

“We at Amnesty International are devastated and heartbroken,” said Mohamed Duar, Amnesty International Australia’s spokesperson on the occupied Palestinian territory. “Anas dedicated his life to standing before the camera, exposing Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians, and documenting the truth so the world could bear witness.

“The courageous and brave journalists who have been reporting since the genocide began have been operating in the most dangerous conditions on Earth. At great risk to their lives, they have remained to show the world the war crimes being committed by Israel against almost two million Palestinian women, men and children,” he added.

National Press Club

Mike Balsamo, president of the US-based National Press Club, said the killing of journalists is “a loss felt far beyond one newsroom” and urged a “thorough and transparent” investigation.

“Journalists must be able to work without being targeted or killed,” Balsamo said. “All parties in conflict zones must honour their obligations under international law to protect reporters and ensure they can carry out their work safely.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has condemned Israel’s killing of five Al Jazeera journalists and called on US and international media workers to “stand in solidarity” with their Palestinian colleagues.

“Israel’s ongoing campaign of targeted assassinations of Palestinian journalists is a war crime, plain and simple,” CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement.

“The murder of these Al Jazeera journalists is not an accident or collateral damage – it is part of a consistent, documented policy of silencing media voices and hiding the truth of the genocide being carried out by Israel in Gaza,” Awad said.

Since October 2023, Israel has killed 269 journalists in Gaza, in the deadliest conflict ever recorded for reporters.

Israel has assassinated Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif and four other staff in a targeted attack on a tent in Gaza City, taking the total number of journalists killed since October 7, 2023 to 269.

Correspondent Mohammed Qreiqeh, cameramen Ibrahim Zaher and Moamen Aliwa, and their assistant Mohammed Noufal were meeting in a media tent outside al-Shifa Hospital when they were targeted by a drone.

Two others were killed in the Sunday evening attack that has drawn condemnation.

Al Jazeera Media Network has condemned what it called a “targeted assassination” and called it “yet another blatant and premeditated attack on press freedom”.

“This attack comes amid the catastrophic consequences of the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, which has seen the relentless slaughter of civilians, forced starvation, and the obliteration of entire communities,” the network said in a statement.

“The order to assassinate Anas Al Sharif, one of Gaza’s bravest journalists, and his colleagues, is a desperate attempt to silence the voices exposing the impending seizure and occupation of Gaza.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says it is “appalled” by Israel’s killing of Al Jazeera journalists.

“Israel’s pattern of labeling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom,” said the CPJ’s regional director, Sara Qudah.

“Journalists are civilians and must never be targeted. Those responsible for these killings must be held accountable,” Qudah added.

Last month the CPJ said it was gravely concerned for the safety of al-Sharif as he was being “targeted by an Israeli military smear campaign”.

Since Israel launched its war on the enclave in October 2023, it has routinely accused Palestinian journalists in Gaza of being Hamas members, as part of what rights groups say is an effort to discredit their reporting of Israeli abuses.