How India and the U.S. Succeeded at the G20 Without China’s Xi

Xi Jinping’s decision to stay away from the Group of 20 summit may have been intended to deny India its moment. Instead, Prime Minister Narendra Modi — along with the U.S. and Europe — figured out how to more effectively counter China on the world stage.

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Fellow G20 nations hailed India’s success in reaching agreement on a joint communiqué that remained in doubt just days before world leaders gathered in New Delhi for their most significant annual diplomatic event. Apart from finding consensus on Russia’s war in Ukraine, the most difficult issue, they also elevated the African Union as a full G20 member and took action on issues like climate change and debt sustainability that are priorities of emerging markets.

The final outcome irked Ukraine, which saw the compromise on war language as weaker than what leaders produced just 10 months ago in Bali, Indonesia. But for the U.S. and its allies, criticism of a communiqué that on substance was similar to Bali and has little impact on the ground is a small price to pay for giving Modi a win that bolsters India’s status as a rising power capable of blunting China’s global influence.

U.S. President Joe Biden led the charge, seeing in India his administration’s best hope of isolating China and Russia — and providing a booster shot to the U.S.-led world order. The result showed that Washington is finally learning the language of the so-called Global South, with India as its principle guide.

Read More: What Does the ‘Global South’ Actually Mean?

“Some commentators are pointing to watered-down language on Russia-Ukraine as a sign of Western ‘climbdown,’” said Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “But there’s another way of looking at it: The West is also invested in making sure India got a win. A lack of consensus would have been a huge disappointment for India.”

If there was a moment that illustrated the summit dynamics, it was Biden’s meeting on Saturday to discuss White House-led efforts to deliver more financing to developing nations.

Along with World Bank President Ajay Banga, the first Indian American to hold the role, Biden was pictured with Modi, Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa — key members of the BRICS grouping, minus China and Russia. That bloc expanded earlier this month, posing a challenge for the Group of Seven advanced economies.

Earlier in the day, U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer swiped at China by referring to those nations as “the three democratic members of the BRICS,” saying they and the U.S. were all committed to the G20’s success. “And if China is not, that’s unfortunate for everyone,” Finer said. “But much more unfortunate, we believe, for China.”

And the U.S. didn’t stop there. It separately announced a deal with India, the European Union, Saudi Arabia, Israel and other Middle Eastern countries to develop an ambitious rail and maritime network across the region. Biden hailed it as a “game-changing regional investment,” cementing the deal with a three-way handshake that included Modi and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who the U.S. president had cast as a “pariah” ahead of the last American election.

That kind of pronouncement is more likely to appeal to Middle East interests than badgering over human rights, even if the project’s time line and funding remains vague. The U.S. denied it was meant to counter China’s growing influence in the Gulf, but a French official acknowledged it was designed to provide competition for Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), saying that wasn’t a bad thing.

“I want to see China succeed economically,” Biden told reporters Sunday in Hanoi, Vietnam, where he flew after the G20. “But I want to see them succeed by the rules.”

Xi’s move to skip the G20 summit for the first time since he became president in 2013 marked a shift in behavior from last November, when he cast himself as a statesman with a responsibility to “get along with other countries.” China’s negotiators also risked appearing petty in looking to thwart India’s progress, taking a stand on minor issues like Modi’s use of a Sanskrit phrase and the U.S.’s bid to host the G20 gathering in 2026. The Global Times, a newspaper affiliated with the Communist Party, called the U.S. “just a copycat” for its Mideast infrastructure plan.

In a further blow to Beijing, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told Premier Li Qiang on the sidelines of the summit that her nation plans to withdraw from the BRI while still looking to maintain friendly relations, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named. At a press conference after the G20, Meloni said she spoke to Li, representing China in Xi’s absence, about the BRI but a decision had yet to be made.

Going into the summit, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak accused China of acting as a brake on progress toward a joint statement. At one point in the deliberations behind closed doors, Beijing raised the issue of access to semiconductors in a discussion of climate action, people familiar with the talks said. That prompted National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan — a leading advocate of U.S. export controls on chips and chip technology to China — to decry “the idea of holding climate hostage” to unrelated issues.

China’s Li told leaders that the G20 “needs unity instead of division, cooperation instead of confrontation,” the official Xinhua News Agency reported. That followed a commentary posted hours earlier by a Chinese think tank affiliated with the country’s top spy agency, which criticized India for having “sabotaged the atmosphere for cooperation” at the G20 by pushing its own agenda.

But China relented on its opposition to the communiqué, and India drew praise from all camps for negotiating a compromise. People familiar with the discussions said the breakthrough occurred after India, Indonesia, Brazil and South Africa jointly put forward a proposal on language describing the war.

“This consensus itself shows the cemented role of India as a trustworthy fulcrum of a world bitterly divided on geopolitical issues like the Ukraine war,” said Swasti Rao, an associate fellow at the Europe and Eurasia Center at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses. “There is little doubt that middle order powers wish to keep the global economic order multipolar and not fall into the Chinese game of dominating it.” 

While the final language on Ukraine made some U.S. allies uneasy, supporting the compromise presented a bigger opportunity to align more closely with major democracies in the Global South that ultimately serve as key swing nations when it comes to Russia’s war and other world issues. G7 leaders publicly praised the outcome, with Sunak insisting that the language adopted was “very strong” and that “Russia is completely isolated.”

‘Just and durable’

For the U.S., any move that bolsters India and amplifies other democracies in the Global South helps to counter China and Russia’s influence, particularly when it comes to bringing about the G20’s call for a “comprehensive, just and durable peace” in Ukraine. Back in May at the G7 summit in Japan, the U.S. and its allies struggled to convince Modi, Lula and Indonesia’s Joko Widodo to side with them on Ukraine, even after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy made a surprise appearance. Zelenskiy wasn’t invited to address India’s G20.

A senior European Union official said the agreement effectively saved the G20 as the last global forum bringing together the world’s major powers. Moreover, the official said, it helped bridge the gap between the G-7 and emerging markets, who would now be partners in holding Russia to account if it doesn’t follow through on seeking a just peace in line with UN principles.

Other senior European officials said China shot itself in the foot by staying away from the summit, allowing India to cement its leadership of the Global South and providing the U.S. and Europe a clear path to strengthen ties with emerging markets.

Even Russia, represented by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after Vladimir Putin stayed home, saw the agreement as a win. Moscow was pleased that BRICS democracies served as interlocutors with the G7, according to a person familiar with the situation, underscoring China’s status as an outsider looking in.

The U.S., of course, could yet stumble in its bid to appeal more to the Global South. Ahead of the G20, Biden skipped a summit in Indonesia hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a move that appeared like a snub to Widodo. The U.S. president sought to do damage control in Delhi, meeting the Indonesian leader briefly and pledging to meet him at the White House in November, when world leaders head to the U.S. for the APEC summit.

More significantly, however, was India’s ability to grasp the moment to assert a global leadership role. Modi — who is on pace to extend his decade in power next year — declared that “history has been created” while his chief negotiator, Amitabh Kant, called India “the spokesperson of all the Global South.”

“More than anything else, it has amplified the voice of Global South,” Kant said of the summit outcome. “It has also demonstrated that India has a huge capacity of bringing the world together and leading the world in developmental and geopolitical issues.”

—With assistance from Samy Adghirni, Selcan Hacaoglu, Alex Wickham, Philip J. Heijmans, Akayla Gardner, Justin Sink, Ruchi Bhatia, Alberto Nardelli, Jorge Valero, Michael Nienaber, Sudhi Ranjan Sen, Jing Li and Simone Iglesias.

source https://time.com/6312531/india-g20-xi-us-global-south/

In Winning His 24th Grand Slam Singles Title, Novak Djokovic Is Now The Good Guy

During the second set of Novak Djokovic’s historic U.S. Open victory over Daniil Medvedev on Sunday night, Djokovic, 36, was starting to show his age. Djokovic and Medvedev played a match that featured a slew of fabulous rallies—36 shots, 31 shots, 28 shots, 27 shots, 26 shots—and they appeared, at times, to be playing like two friends enjoying a hit-around at the park, except for the shots firing like rockets at one another, each man summoning the strength and concentration to return the ball over the net.

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Those long points, however, cause fatigue. And Djokovic, more than his 27-year-old opponent, was breathing hard. At one point in that second set, which took a full 104 minutes to complete, Djokovic smacked his legs with his racquet, as if that would energize them. The longer this match went on, the more trouble loomed for Djokovic. Not even Djokovic, perhaps the greatest men’s tennis player of all time, can fight the physics of aging. 

“I was losing air on so many occasions, and my legs, as well,” Djokovic said. “I don’t recall being so exhausted after rallies really as I have been in the second set.”

The set went to a tiebreaker. With Medvedev holding a 5-4 tiebreak lead, Djokovic won the key point. Djokovic kept hitting the ball to Medvedev’s backhand, turning up the head on each shot, making Medvedev lean further and further to his left, until he was so off balance, he puttered a shot wide left. Medvedev couldn’t capitalize. Djokovic was then able to win the next two points to win the set. There would be no opening for the Russian.

Only victory for Djokovic, whose 6-3, 7-6, 6-3 win over Medvedev gave him his 24th Grand Slam title, tying him with Margaret Court for the most singles majors won by a tennis player in history. What’s more, the victory finishes off a stunning transformation for Djokovic. He’s no longer a tennis heel. He’s a hero.

At the start of his run of titles, Djokovic was the cocky upstart from Serbia who crashed the Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal rivalry. Their dual domination would morph into a trio, and fervent Federer and Nadal supporters never forgave him. But now that Federer is retired, and Nadal has said he expects next year to be his last, some Djokovic haters have softened their stance. They have no choice but to admire his all-time greatness.

He also earned many critics during the Covid-19 pandemic. He created a mini-tour that spread the coronavirus in June of 2020. He refused the Covid-19 vaccine, and was deported from Australia in 2022 when he refused to comply with regulations. He could not compete in the U.S. Open last year, since he was not vaccinated. 

His stance may have been maddening for many. But it’s hard to hold it against Djokovic forever, especially now that we’re in a post-pandemic era. 

Plus, he did everything right on Sunday. In the third set, Medvedev fell on his back on the court. He lay still for a few seconds, fiddling with his elbow. Djokovic walked to the other side of the net, to offer encouragement and a helping hand. After the match, he walked into the stands and hugged his six-year-old daughter, Tara, and eight-year-old son, Stefan; credited his parents, who supported his burgeoning tennis career in the 1990s even as war raged in the former Yugoslavia; and disclosed he was wearing a t-shirt honoring his late friend Kobe Bryant (Djokovic’s major tally now matches the No. 24 Bryant wore with the Lakers).

Djokovic used a serve and volley to rattle Medvedev; in the key second set, he won an amazing 21 of 23 points at the net. Two years ago, in the U.S. Open final, Medvedev denied Djokovic a chance to become the first player to win all four major tournaments in a calendar year since Steff Graf in 1988. Djokovic shifted his mindset this time around. 

“I really did my best in the last 48 hours not to allow the importance of the moment and what’s on the line get to my head,” Djokovic said in his post-match press conference. “Because two years ago that’s what happened, and I underperformed and I wasn’t able to be at my best and I was outplayed. So I learned my lesson. My team, my family knew that the last 24 hours, don’t touch me, don’t speak to me about, you know, the history of what’s on the line.”

He can do it all on the court, and is still fit and defying age. He’s now the oldest man to ever win the U.S. Open: since the start of 2021, he’s won 7 of the 10 Grand Slams in which he’s appeared. Next up for 2024: winning a 25th major, and sole possession of the all-time mark. “I’m going to keep going,” Djokovic said on Sunday. “I don’t want to leave this sport if I’m still at the top.” Those cheers you heard filling up Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York—“Novak! Novak! Novak!”— may be surprising, given Djokokvic’s history. But here’s a safe bet: they’ll start to sound mighty familiar going forward.

source https://time.com/6312532/novak-djokovic-wins-us-open-2023/

‘The Nun II’ Conjures $32.6 Million to Top Box Office

Like many horrors before it, bad reviews didn’t scare off moviegoers from buying tickets for “ The Nun II.” The sequel to the 2018 hit, released in 3,728 theaters by Warner Bros., topped the box office in its first weekend in North American theaters earning an estimated $32.6 million, the studio said Sunday.

AP’s Mark Kennedy wrote in his one star review that it’s “a movie that seems destined to pound a nail into this franchise’s undead coffin” and audiences gave it a C+ CinemaScore. But it hardly matters: Horror is perhaps the most reliably critic-proof genre, at least when it comes to opening weekend.

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The Michael Graves-directed sequel starring Taissa Farmiga and Storm Reid fell far short of the debut for the first film ($53.8 million), but it’s still a solid launch. “The Nun” movies are part of the so-called Conjuring universe, which now has nine films, and $2.1 billion in box office, to its name. The sequel also played well internationally, picking up $52.7 million from 69 markets (Mexico being the strongest with $8.9 million) and boosting its global debut to $85.3 million.

“To have a horror universe is really powerful in terms of the revenue generating potential,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “It’s a great bet that Warners made on the horror moviegoing experience never waning.”

And there are many more scary movies on the calendar through the fall including “A Death in Venice,” which opens next week, “Saw X” on Sept. 29 and “The Exorcist: Believer” on Oct. 6.

“The Nun II” bumped Denzel Washington’s “ Equalizer 3 ” to second place in its second weekend. The Columbia Pictures release added $12.1 million, bringing its domestic grosses to $61.9 million and its worldwide earnings to $107.7 million.

Third place went to another new movie: The third installment of Nia Vardalos’s “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” which arrives 21 years after the first film became a massive sleeper hit earning some $369 million against a $5 million production budget. Released by Focus Features in 3,650 theaters, the third film earned an estimated $10 million, overwhelmingly driven by female audiences (71%) who were 25 or older (83%).

Vardalos wrote, directed and stars in “Greek Wedding 3,” which brings back John Corbett and takes the gang to Greece. AP’s Jocelyn Noveck wrote in her review that the movie, which has gotten mostly poor marks, is “like a thrice-warmed piece of baklava.”

The Indian revenge thriller, “Jawan,” starring Shah Rukh Khan, opened in fourth place with $6.2 million from only 813 locations. It was released in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. Khan, a Bollywood superstar, also led another box office sensation this year, “Pathaan,” which has made $130 million worldwide.

“Barbie,” which comes to VOD on Tuesday, dropped to No. 5 after 8 triumphant weeks with $5.9 million from 3,281 locations. The Warner Bros. film has now made $620.5 million domestically.

source https://time.com/6312524/the-nun-ii-box-office/

How to Help Earthquake Victims in Morocco

More than 2,000 people have died after a magnitude 6.8 earthquake shook Morocco on Friday night, making it the biggest quake to impact the country in 120 years. 

Some 380,000 people live within 50 km (or about 31 miles) of the earthquake’s epicenter in the High Atlas mountains, which is less than 50 miles southwest of the highly-populated city of Marrakech. Search and rescue efforts are still ongoing throughout the country, and Interior Ministry officials said the death toll is expected to rise. 

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At least two aftershocks exacerbated the disaster, with the latest being a 3.9 aftershock on Sunday.

Some residents are still awaiting help, partly because roads have been blocked from reaching more remote areas of the country due to debris. Spain and Israel have sent forward international aid, but additional help from countries like France and Tunisia is stalled because the Moroccan government has not yet requested it, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Sunday. 

President Joe Biden said that the United States is ready to provide help to Morocco when necessary, and is working with officials to ensure American citizens in the country are safe. “I want to express my sadness by the loss of life and devastation caused by the earthquake in Morocco,” Biden said on Sunday during a news conference in Vietnam. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the people in Morocco.” 

Here’s some organizations that are helping Morocco:  

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

The IFRC sent staff on the ground shortly after the earthquake to help provide first aid, assist with search and rescue, and help local authorities assess the need for aid. They are supporting the Moroccan Red Crescent and are ready to deploy emergency response teams if necessary. 

“We are mobilizing now to support the Moroccan Red Crescent,” said Dr. Hossam Elsharkawi, Regional Director of Middle East and North Africa for the IFRC. “This will not be a week or two of response as our region has seen with the big Türkiye and Syrian earthquake earlier this year. Again we are looking at many months if not years of response.”

Donations are being accepted here. 

Islamic Relief USA 

Islamic Relief USA is a nonprofit organization working with local organizations to assist with food, shelter, and healthcare. 

Find out more about their work, here.  

Global Giving 

Global Giving has launched a fund to support relief and recovery efforts and assist with the most immediate needs of survivors. They are using donations to provide shelter and temporary housing, mental health support and support long-term recovery in the country. 

They are accepting donations here. 

UNICEF 

The United Nations Children’s Fund is providing emergency support for families that were impacted by the earthquake and is in communication with authorities. You can make a financial contribution here.

CARE 

CARE, which stands for the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, has a base in Morocco near the epicenter of the earthquake, focuses on working with women, girls and other disadvantaged groups to provide aid. “Many already struggled in Morocco prior to the earthquake. Now, hundreds of thousands have lost everything in a matter of seconds,” said Deepmala Mahla, CARE’s Vice President of Humanitarian Affairs. 

Consider donating here. 

Doctors Without Borders 

In collaboration with local authorities, Doctors Without Borders is planning on sending emergency medical and humanitarian teams to Morocco to provide support, despite not having “an established presence” in the country. The organization says its priority will be providing supplies and helping restore health services. You can support their work here. 

source https://time.com/6312509/morocco-earthquake-victims-how-to-help/

Aftershock Rattles Morocco as Rescuers Seek Survivors from the Earthquake That Killed Over 2,000

AMIZMIZ, Morocco — An aftershock rattled Moroccans on Sunday as they prayed for victims of the nation’s strongest earthquake in more than a century and toiled to rescue survivors while soldiers and workers brought water and supplies to desperate mountain villages in ruins. The disaster killed more than 2,000 people — a number that is expected to rise.

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The United Nations estimated that 300,000 people were affected by Friday night’s magnitude 6.8 quake and some Moroccans complained on social networks that the government wasn’t allowing more help from outside. International aid crews were prepared to deploy, but waited for the Morocco government to request their assistance.

“We know there is a great urgency to save people and dig under the remains of buildings,” said Arnaud Fraisse, founder of Rescuers Without Borders, who had a team stuck in Paris waiting for the green light. “There are people dying under the rubble, and we cannot do anything to save them.”

Help was slow to arrive in Amizmiz, where a whole chunk of the town of orange and red sandstone brick homes carved into a mountainside appeared to be missing.

“It’s a catastrophe,’’ said villager Salah Ancheu, 28. “We don’t know what the future is. The aid remains insufficient.”

Residents swept all the rubble off the main unpaved road leading to town and aid crews began arriving but pleaded for more help.

“There aren’t ambulances, there aren’t police, at least for right now,” Ancheu said.

Those left homeless — or fearing more aftershocks — slept outside Saturday, in the streets of the ancient city of Marrakech or under makeshift canopies in Atlas Mountain towns like Moulay Brahim, among the hardest-hit. The worst destruction was in small, rural communities that are hard for rescuers to reach because the roads that snake up the mountainous terrain were covered by fallen rocks.

Those areas were shaken anew Sunday by a magnitude 3.9 aftershock, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It wasn’t immediately clear if it caused more damage or casualties, but it was likely strong enough to rattle nerves in areas where damage has left buildings unstable and residents feared aftershocks.

Friday’s earthquake toppled buildings not strong enough to withstand such a mighty temblor, trapping people in the rubble and sending others fleeing in terror. A total of 2,012 people were confirmed dead and at least 2,059 more people were injured — 1,404 of them critically, the Interior Ministry reported Saturday.

“We felt a huge shake like it was doomsday,” Moulay Brahim resident Ayoub Toudite said. “Ten seconds and everything was gone.”

Flags were lowered across Morocco, as King Mohammed VI ordered three days of national mourning starting Sunday. The army mobilized specialized search and rescue teams, and the king ordered water, food rations and shelters to be provided to those who lost their homes.

He also called for mosques to hold prayers Sunday for the victims, many of whom were buried Saturday amid the frenzy of rescue work nearby.

Aid offers have poured in from around the world and the U.N. said it had a team in Morocco coordinating how international partners can provide support. About 100 teams made up of a total of 3,500 rescuers are registered with a U.N. platform and ready to deploy in Morocco when asked, Rescuers Without Borders said.

In a sign that Morocco may be prepared to accept more outside help, the Spanish military said it had sent an air force plane carrying an urban search and rescue team of 56 soldiers and four dogs to Marrakech. Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said in a radio interview the deployment was in response to a request for help from Moroccan authorities. Another rescue team from Nice, France, also was on its way.

In France, home to many people with links to Morocco, towns and cities have offered more than 2 million euros ($2.1 million) in aid, and popular performers are rallying to collect donations.

The epicenter of Friday’s quake was near the town of Ighil in Al Haouz Province, about 70 kilometers (44 miles) south of Marrakech. The region is known for scenic villages and valleys tucked in the High Atlas Mountains.

About 45 kilometers (28 miles) northeast of the epicenter, fallen walls exposed the insides of damaged homes, and piles of rubble blocked alleys. In Moulay Brahim, a poor rural community of fewer than 3,000 people, many of the homes made of clay brick and cinder block were destroyed or no longer safe.

Devastation gripped each town along the High Atlas’ steep and winding switchbacks, with homes folding in on themselves and people crying as boys and helmet-clad police carried the dead through the streets.

”I was asleep when the earthquake struck. I could not escape because the roof fell on me. I was trapped. I was saved by my neighbors who cleared the rubble with their bare hands,” said Fatna Bechar in Moulay Brahim. “Now, I am living with them in their house because mine was completely destroyed.”

Hamid Idsalah, a 72-year-old mountain guide, said he and many other survivors had little future to look forward to as they lack the financial means to rebound.

Rescuers backed by soldiers and police searched for victims in collapsed homes in the remote town of Adassil, near the epicenter. Military vehicles brought in bulldozers and other equipment to clear roads of rocks that crumbled off mountainsides, the state news agency MAP reported. Ambulances took dozens of wounded from the village of Tikht, population 800, to Mohammed VI University Hospital in Marrakech.

In Marrakech, where authorities were assessing the damage, large chunks were missing from a crenelated roof, and warped metal, crumbled concrete and dust were all that remained of a building cordoned off by police tape.

Tourists and residents lined up to donate desperately needed blood. Jalila Guerina said she ran to help when she learned of the need because of her duty as a Moroccan citizen.

“I did not even think about it twice,” she told The Associated Press, “especially in the conditions where people are dying, especially at this moment when they are needing help, any help.”

In the market, stray cats clambered over piles of stones and wooden bars, but shoppers were scarce at stalls set up under parasols by food and souvenir vendors.

The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 when it hit at 11:11 p.m., lasting several seconds, the USGS said. A magnitude 4.9 aftershock hit 19 minutes later, it said. The collision of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates occurred at a relatively shallow depth, which makes a quake more dangerous.

It was the strongest earthquake to hit the North African country in more than 120 years, according to the USGS, which has records dating to 1900, but it was not the deadliest. In 1960, a magnitude 5.8 temblor struck near the Moroccan city of Agadir, killing at least 12,000. That quake prompted Morocco to change construction rules, but many buildings, especially rural homes, are not built to withstand such tremors.

In 2004, a magnitude 6.4 earthquake near the Mediterranean coastal city of Al Hoceima left more than 600 dead.

Friday’s quake was felt as far away as Portugal and Algeria, according to the Portuguese Institute for Sea and Atmosphere and Algeria’s Civil Defense agency, which oversees emergency response.

___

Angela Charlton in Paris, Brian Melley in London, Mark Carlson in Marrakech and Houda Benalla in Rabat, Morocco, contributed.

source https://time.com/6312492/morocco-earthquale-aftershock/

The Man Who Wants to Defend India From Modi

If Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to Washington earlier this year was cast by the Indian prime minister’s boosters as confirmation of his popularity in the United States, the G20 meeting in New Delhi this weekend is being promoted as consecration of his status as vishvaguru—a mentor to the world. India may be hosting by virtue of gaining the group’s rotating presidency, but the center of attention—at home and abroad—is the man some exalt as the hope of the democratic world and others decry as a strongman. Either way, to equate India—a federal union of more than two dozen states—with one individual is to obscure the many voices of opposition that are questioning Modi’s record, challenging his sectarian ideology and factious politics, and advancing an alternative vision of India that is competent, open, and humane.

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One of the most commanding opposition voices is the rich baritone of Palanivel Thiaga Rajan. In the maelstrom of Indian politics, PTR, as everyone calls him, is an improbable figure. Regally portly, imperturbably placid, and savagely articulate, the man who until recently was responsible for managing the finances of Tamil Nadu—India’s second largest economy—is now on a new mission: to make Chennai, the capital of his state, the next IT capital of India. PTR did not seek this assignment. His performance as Tamil Nadu’s finance minister was so consummate that it earned him a national profile—a rarity for a politician from southern India, the more industrious and prosperous yet politically less powerful half of the country. As the manager of an economy almost twice the size of Hungary’s, PTR was everywhere, forcefully demystifying recondite economic jargon for the general public, deflating Modi’s claim to be converting India into an economic superpower, and defending India’s secular character from the assaults of the Hindu-first politics of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Read More: ‘Bharat’ or ‘India’? The Controversy Over Some Hindu Nationalists’ Push to Rename India

When I met him at his sprawling government mansion in Chennai earlier this year, PTR told me that the suffering of ordinary people during the financial crisis of 2008, when he was a banker, haunted him. If ever he was in a position of authority, he told himself, he would prioritize the least powerful. And that is what he did in the pandemic, allocating billions to fight COVID-19, before providing 8 million women in Tamil Nadu a monthly cash transfer of 1,000 rupees—all while reducing the state’s deficit and debt-to-GDP ratio. But the velocity of PTR’s rise and his closeness to the leadership of Tamil Nadu’s ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party also drew the resentful notice of older colleagues.

Until 2016, when he won his first election to the state legislature, PTR had been a privileged yet largely unknown private citizen. He was born into an aristocratic family that traces its origins to the Chola Empire, which dominated southern India and east Asia in the 11th century. PTR’s grandfather, Sir Ponnambala Thiaga Rajan, was one of the most pre-eminent politicians in British India. Educated at Oxford and trained as a barrister in London, the old man had made enemies of hidebound Hindus by appointing members of lower castes to high-ranking positions in some of the most venerated Hindu temples in southern India. But his late father, Ponnambala, a much admired lawyer and politician, was determined not to build a political dynasty.

Born in 1966, PTR was expected to work hard, get into the best schools and universities, and settle into a high-paying job. And that is what he did. Exiled to boarding school at age six, he attended the National Institute of Technology in India and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, before taking a job as a banker at Lehman Brothers in New York. By his mid-thirties, PTR had made his first million, married his American girlfriend, Margaret, and fathered a son. The man now regarded as one of the most scrupulous Indian politicians of his generation had no clear plan to return to India, much less to run for public office. Then, in 2006, he received news that his father had died of a heart attack. An only child, he moved to India to be near his elderly mother. Lehman opened an office for him in India, an unprecedented arrangement that collapsed with the firm in 2008. Now jobless (having turned down an offer from the DMK to run for his father’s vacant seat), PTR moved to Singapore to work for Standard Chartered Bank. His family remained in India.

This time, distance deepened his attachment to India. PTR followed its politics closely and observed Modi’s untrammeled rise from provincial politics to national prominence. The way to challenge Modi, he felt, was to fortify the federal structure of India: only the states could most effectively check Modi’s power in Delhi. In 2015, he gave up banking, returned to India and a year later ran for Tamil Nadu’s state legislature from the historic temple town of Madurai. Though his party lost, PTR took the seat by a small margin. And for the next five years, he devoted himself to modernizing the party’s IT wing. At the next election, in 2021, the DMK won decisively. PTR, to the astonishment of his colleagues, was given the finance ministry—one of the weightiest portfolios in government, and a system governed by its own archaic rules. “I want to make this department efficient and modern,” he told me. “I want it to be able to function on autopilot, should the need arise.”

The job served as a showcase. With it came membership on India’s powerful panel on goods and service taxes (GST Council), where he began working closely with India’s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman. Even as he castigated the social policies of Sitharaman’s boss, he acquired a reputation in Delhi as a consensus builder on economic policy, effectively emerging as the most influential voice in the GST Council. (The Modi government even agreed to convene the GST Council in PTR’s hometown of Madurai.) Just over two years into his job, PTR had simultaneously established himself as one of the most trenchant national critics of Modi and as a bridge between the federal government and the states. At the same time, he attracted an enthusiastic support base locally. At a public meeting in Chennai one February evening, I saw women cheer every sentence of his speech and mob him affectionately afterwards. In a political culture animated by envy, PTR was flying at a dangerously high altitude.

This summer, a mysterious audiotape was leaked to the press by the head of Tamil Nadu’s BJP unit and broadcast on every news network. In it, PTR could be heard complaining about corruption in his own government. A politician privately appalled by graft is a rare creature, but PTR denied the voice was his—and then put on a detailed presentation demonstrating how it could have been created using sophisticated AI tools.

The integrity of Indian democracy, already deformed by a deluge of disinformation and illicit cash faces a grave threat from advances in AI, as do other Western-style democracies. In PTR’s case, his allegation of duplicity was essentially vindicated in August, when the Supreme Court of India, dismissed a petition demanding a probe into the tapes, saying they amounted to “hearsay” and had no “evidentiary value.” But that was only the legal outcome. Politically, the damage had been done.

In May, PTR was relieved of his duties as Tamil Nadu’s finance minister, and moved to the ministry of Information Technology and Digital Services. Cabinet reshuffles seldom provoke controversies, but this one triggered a torrent of criticism. When I reached out to him shortly after the reappointment, however, PTR was unfazed, even cheerful with the demotion. He had modernized the finance ministry and upheld the promise to balance the budget and channel cash to women. “Now, this new role is a blessing,” he said.

PTR’s command of economics, which had won him the grudging respect even of the BJP, is no match for his passion for technology. Weeks into his new job, he was on a tour of the US, arriving in New York just before Modi’s state visit to drum up investment. Silicon Valley is replete with CEOs from Tamil Nadu, PTR said with some pride, and foreign investors, tech companies, and manufacturers are now looking at what he reminded me had been the first Indian state to set up a ministry dedicated exclusively to IT affairs, only to fall behind Hyderabad and Bangalore, the two cities where almost all the major transnational tech companies are headquartered. “I am going to drag Chennai ahead of those two cities,” he told me. “Just wait and watch.” Modi may absorb all the credit. But the hard work of raising India up is being done by those the world does not yet know.

source https://time.com/6311596/palanivel-thiaga-rajan-interview-modi-india/

Police Announce 2 More Confirmed Sightings of Escaped Murderer on the Run in Pennsylvania

WEST CHESTER, Pa. — Police on Saturday reported two more confirmed sightings of an escaped murderer on the run for more than a week in southeast Pennsylvania amid a search by hundreds of law enforcement officers.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Danelo Souza Cavalcante, 34, escaped from the Chester County Prison while awaiting transfer to state prison on Aug. 31 after being sentenced to life for fatally stabbing his ex-girlfriend in 2021. Prosecutors say he wanted to stop her from telling police that he’s wanted in a killing in his home country of Brazil.

Authorities, who have described Cavalcante as extremely dangerous, didn’t release details about the sightings but said they occurred Friday within the search area focused around the now-closed Longwood Gardens botanical garden in East Marlborough Township, where the fugitive inmate has been spotted several times.

Authorities believe Cavalcante, spotted almost a dozen times since his escape, has managed to obtain clothing and other supplies. Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens said Friday that about 400 personnel were taking part in the search of the southeastern Philadelphia suburbs, farmland and the vast botanical garden, including tactical teams in full combat gear, tracking dogs, and officers on horseback as well as aircraft.

Longwood Gardens, closed indefinitely after the sightings, sprawls across nearly 200 acres (80 hectares), with paths winding through gardens, an outdoor theater, ponds, fountains and meadows, and structures including indoor gardens, treehouses and a restaurant.

Officials in Kennett Square, about 6.5 miles (10 kilometers) away from the county prison, said the annual mushroom festival would go on as scheduled this weekend despite the ongoing search, assuring visitors that “all necessary precautions and protocols” were in place. They said they felt it was important to go ahead with the festival because “bringing our community together is essential, especially during these challenging times.”

Officials on Friday announced the firing of the prison tower guard on duty when Cavalcante scaled a wall by crab-walking up from the recreation yard, climbed over razor wire, ran across a roof and jumped to the ground. His escape went undetected for more than an hour until guards took a headcount. The guard, a corrections officer for 18 years who was put on administrative leave after the escape, also had his personal cellphone on him at the time, a violation of jail protocol, county spokesperson Michelle Bjork said.

There’s now a $20,000 reward for information leading to the capture of Cavalcante, whose escape has attracted international attention and became big news in Brazil. The main newspaper in Rio de Janeiro ran a lengthy story Wednesday with the headline “Dangerous hide-and-seek.”

Prosecutors in Tocantins state have confirmed that a criminal case attributes “the crime of double qualified homicide to the defendant Danilo Souza Cavalcante.” Authorities allege that Válter Júnior Moreira dos Reis was killed in 2017 in Figueirópolis over a debt the victim owed Cavalcante in connection with repair of a vehicle. The case is being handled by a court specialized in combating violence against women and crimes against life.

source https://time.com/6312445/pennsylvania-police-escaped-murderer-sightings/