Modi

Trump has recently targeted India for its Russian oil purchases, imposing tariffs on Indian exports to the US.

United States President Donald Trump says that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pledged to stop buying oil from Russia, and Trump said he would next try to get China to do the same as Washington intensifies efforts to cut off Moscow’s energy revenues.

India and China are the two top buyers of Russian seaborne crude exports, taking advantage of the discounted prices Russia has been forced to accept after European buyers shunned purchases and the US and the European Union imposed sanctions on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Trump has recently targeted India for its Russian oil purchases, imposing tariffs on Indian exports to the US to discourage the country’s crude buying as he seeks to choke off Russia’s oil revenues and pressure Moscow to negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine.

“So I was not happy that India was buying oil, and he assured me today that they will not be buying oil from Russia,” Trump told reporters during a White House event.

“That’s a big step. Now we’re going to get China to do the same thing.”

The Indian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to emailed questions about whether Modi had made such a commitment to Trump.

Russia is India’s top oil supplier. Moscow exported 1.62 million barrels per day to India in September, roughly one-third of the country’s oil imports. For months, Modi resisted US pressure, with Indian officials defending the purchases as vital to national energy security.

A move by India to stop imports would signal a major shift by one of Moscow’s top energy customers and could reshape the calculus for other nations still importing Russian crude. Trump wants to leverage bilateral relationships to enforce economic isolation on Russia, rather than relying solely on multilateral sanctions.

During his comments to reporters, Trump added that India could not “immediately” halt shipments, calling it “a little bit of a process, but that process will be over soon”.

Despite his push on India, Trump has largely avoided placing similar pressure on China. The US trade war with Beijing has complicated diplomatic efforts, with Trump reluctant to risk further escalation by demanding a halt to Chinese energy imports from Russia.

Indian leader controversially refers to the politically-charged win as an extension of ‘Operation Sindoor’.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has contentiously invoked the conflict with Pakistan in May, which brought the nuclear-armed neighbours to the cusp of a fifth all-out war, to celebrate India’s Asia Cup final cricket win against their regional arch foes.

“#OperationSindoor on the games field. Outcome is the same – India wins! Congrats to our cricketers,” Modi posted on X on Monday.

Modi was referring to the four-day conflict between the two nations, with its focus on Indian-administered Kashmir, in May, following an attack that killed 22 tourists that India blamed on Pakistan, an accusation that Islamabad vehemently denies.

During the conflict, Modi announced “Operation Sindoor” as a response to the attack, which heightened tensions and led to retaliation from Pakistan. The short conflict killed more than 70 people in missile and drone attacks, with both sides claiming victory.

In June, an Indian naval officer conceded that the country lost several fighter jets to Pakistani fire during their conflict in May and said the losses were a result of “constraints” placed on Indian forces by the government in New Delhi.

India and Pakistan traded other slights after Indian cricket players refused to shake hands with their Pakistani counterparts in the final of the Asia Cup, as tensions between the two countries remain heavily strained.

After India beat Pakistan at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Sunday by five wickets, the Indian team refused to accept the trophy from Asia Cricket Council (ACC) chief Mohsin Naqvi, who is also the chief of Pakistan’s Cricket Board (PCB) and Pakistan’s interior minister.

Simon Doull, a former New Zealand cricketer and broadcaster, announced, citing the ACC, that the Indian team would not be collecting their awards due to the tensions.

During the course of the tournament, the Indian team refused to shake hands with the Pakistan team in any of the three matches the two sides played.

Naqvi reportedly refused to step down from the presentation ceremony to hand out the award altogether.

Indian players Tilak Varma, who won the player-of-the-match award, Abhishek Sharma, who won the player-of-the-tournament award, and Kuldeep Yadav, who won the Most Valuable Player award, turned up to accept their individual awards but did not acknowledge Naqvi.

The Pakistani official was also the only person on stage who did not applaud the Indian trio.

In a post-match conference, Yadav said he had “never seen” a winning team denied their trophy.

But Pakistan’s captain, Salman Agha, accused India’s behaviour during the tournament of being “bad for cricket”.

“What they did today, a good team doesn’t do that. Good teams do what we have done. We waited for our medals and took them,” Agha said.

Indian cricket board (BCCI) secretary Devajit Saikia announced that the board will lodge a protest against Naqvi in the next meeting of the governing International Cricket Council (ICC) in November.

Indian captain Yadav was accused of making a political statement after the first match, while Pakistan opener Sahibzada Farhan and pacer Haris Rauf made political gestures in the second.

The northeastern state has been bitterly divided since May 2023 when violence broke out between the Meitei majority and largely Christian Kuki community.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made his first visit to the troubled Manipur state where at least 260 people have been killed in ethnic clashes in two years.

Manipur in the northeast has been bitterly divided since May 2023, when violence broke out between the mainly Hindu Meitei majority and the largely Christian Kuki community.

The violence has also displaced tens of thousands of people who are still living in makeshift camps set up by the government.

“In order to bring life back on track in Manipur, the government of India is making all possible efforts,” Modi told a gathering of thousands in Churachandpur, a Kuki-dominated town, on Saturday.

“I promise you today that I’m with you. The government of India is with the people of Manipur,” Modi said, while also appealing “to all groups to take the path of peace for realising their dreams.”

Modi was also scheduled to address a rally at Imphal, the Meitei-dominated capital of the state.

The Hindu nationalist leader last visited the state, bordering Myanmar and 1,700km (1,050 miles) from New Delhi, in 2022. He inaugurated development projects worth more than $960m, including five highways and a new police headquarters.

Manipur’s former chief minister, N Biren Singh, from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), resigned in February after criticism that he failed to stop the bloodshed there. The state of nearly three million people has since been ruled directly from New Delhi.

Tensions between Meiteis and Kukis, rooted in competition for land and government jobs, have long simmered in the region. Rights groups accuse political leaders of fuelling the divisions for their own gain.

Modi’s visit to Manipur is part of a three-day tour that also includes Assam, which borders Bangladesh, and Bihar, India’s third-most populous state with at least 130 million people.

Bihar is a key electoral battleground ahead of polls slated for October or November, the only state in India’s northern Hindi-speaking heartland where Modi’s BJP has never ruled alone.

It is also India’s poorest, and Modi was set to unveil investments worth $8bn, a package that includes agricultural projects, rail links, road upgrades and an airport terminal.

Indian leader’s remarks follow Trump reaffirming their personal friendship and downplaying his earlier remarks about ‘losing India’ to China.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi says ties with the United States remain “very positive”, after US President Donald Trump reaffirmed their personal friendship and downplayed earlier remarks about “losing India” to China.

“Deeply appreciate and fully reciprocate President Trump’s sentiments and positive assessment of our ties,” Modi said in a statement posted on X on Saturday, adding that India and the US “have a very positive and forward-looking comprehensive and global strategic partnership”.

Strains have emerged between the two longtime allies after the Trump administration imposed tariffs of up to 50 percent on Indian imports, accusing New Delhi of fuelling Moscow’s deadly attacks on Ukraine by purchasing Russian oil.

Speculation of a deepening rift further intensified when Trump remarked on Friday that India, alongside Russia, seems to have been “lost” to China. This came after Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a security summit in China.

Earlier this week, Xi hosted more than 20 leaders of non-Western countries – including Modi and Putin – for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Chinese port city of Tianjin. It was Modi’s first visit to China in seven years, signalling a thaw between the two Asian powers.

“Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!” Trump wrote in a social media post, with a photo of Modi alongside Xi and Putin.

When asked by reporters later on Friday about his remarks, Trump downplayed his earlier statement, saying he did not think the US had lost India to China.

“I don’t think we have,” he said. “I’ve been very disappointed that India would be buying so much oil, as you know, from Russia. And I let them know that.”

Trump insisted that he “will always be friends with Modi”, adding that “India and the United States have a special relationship“. “There is nothing to worry about,” he said.

Since his first term in office, Trump and Modi, both right-wing populists, have shared a strong bond.

But recently, Trump also appeared irritated at New Delhi as he sought credit for what he said was Nobel Prize-worthy diplomacy for brokering peace between Pakistan and India following the worst conflict in decades between the nuclear-armed neighbours in May.

India, which adamantly rejects any third-party mediation on Kashmir, has since given the cold shoulder to Trump on the matter.

Trump has also been frustrated at his inability to convince Russia and Ukraine to reach an end to their war, more than three years after Russian forces invaded Ukraine.

TOKYO — The leaders of China, North Korea and Russia stood shoulder to shoulder Wednesday as high-tech military hardware and thousands of marching soldiers filled the streets of Beijing.

Two days earlier, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping huddled together, smiling broadly and clasping hands at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

The gatherings in China this week could be read as a striking, maybe even defiant, message to the United States and its allies. At the very least, they offered yet more evidence of a burgeoning shift away from a U.S.-dominated, Western-led world order, as President Trump withdraws America from many of its historic roles and roils economic relationships with tariffs.

Trump himself indicated he was the leaders’ target in a message on social media to Xi: “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America.”

But China’s military parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, and the earlier economic gathering, is also simply more of the self-interested, diplomatic jockeying that has marked regional power politics for decades.

Each of these leaders, in other words, is out for himself.

Xi needs cheap Russian energy and a stable border with North Korea, his nuclear-armed wildcard neighbor. Putin is hoping to escape Western sanctions and isolation over his war in Ukraine. Kim wants money, legitimacy and to one-up archrival South Korea. Modi is trying to manage his relationship with regional heavyweights Putin and Xi, at a moment when ties with Washington are troubled.

The events highlight China’s regional aspirations

China is beset with serious domestic problems — stark economic and gender inequalities, to name two — and a tense standoff with Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing claims as its own. But Xi has tried to position China as a leader of countries that feel disadvantaged by the post-World War II order.

“This parade showcases the ascendancy of China propelled by Trump’s inept diplomacy and President Xi’s astute statecraft,” said Jeff Kingston, a professor of Asian studies at Temple University Japan. “The Washington consensus has unraveled, and Xi is rallying support for an alternative.”

Some analysts caution against reading too much into Russia-China-North Korea ties. China remains deeply wary of growing North Korean nuclear power, and has long sought to temper its support — even agreeing at times to international sanctions — to try to influence Pyongyang’s pursuit of weapons.

“Though the Russia-North Korea tie has resumed to a military alliance, China refuses to return to the year of 1950,” when Beijing sent soldiers to support North Korea’s invasion of the South and the USSR provided crucial military aid, said Zhu Feng, dean of the School of International Relations of Nanjing University. “It is wrong to believe that China, Russia and North Korea are reinforcing bloc-building.”

Russia looks to China to help ease its isolation

For the Kremlin, Putin’s appearance in Beijing alongside major world leaders is another way to shrug off the isolation imposed by the West on Russia in the wake of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

It has allowed Putin to take to the world stage as a statesman, meeting a host of world leaders, including Modi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. And Putin’s reception by Xi is a reminder that Russia still has major trading partners, despite Western sanctions that have cut off access to many markets.

At the same time, Russia does not want to anger Trump, who has been more receptive than his predecessor, particularly in hearing out Moscow’s terms for ending its war with Ukraine.

“I want to say that no one has been plotting anything; no one was weaving any conspiracies,” Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said about Trump’s social media message. “None of the three leaders had even thought about such a thing.”

Kim Jong Un walks a diplomatic tightrope in Beijing

The North Korean leader’s trip to Beijing will deepen new ties with Russia while also focusing on the shaky relationship with his nation’s most crucial ally, and main economic lifeline, China.

Kim has sent thousands of troops and huge supplies of military equipment to help Russian forces to repel a Ukrainian incursion on their territory.

Without specifically mentioning the Ukraine war, Kim told Putin on Wednesday that “if there’s anything I can do for you and the people of Russia, if there is more that needs to be done, I will consider it as a brotherly obligation, an obligation that we surely need to bear.”

The Institute for National Security Strategy, a think tank affiliated with South Korea’s spy agency, said in a report this week that Kim’s trip, his first appearance at a multilateral diplomatic event since taking power in 2011, is meant to strengthen ties with friendly countries ahead of any potential resumption of talks about its nuclear program with Trump. The two leaders’ nuclear diplomacy collapsed in 2019.

“Kim can also claim a diplomatic victory as North Korea has gone from unanimously sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council for its illegal nuclear and missile programs to being embraced by UNSC permanent members Russia and China,” said Leif-Eric Easley, professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

India’s Modi is playing a nuanced game

Modi is on his first visit to China since relations between the two countries deteriorated after Chinese and Indian soldiers engaged in deadly border clashes in 2020.

But the tentative rapprochement has its limits. Praveen Donthi, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said the Indian leader did not participate in Beijing’s military parade because the “distrust with China still exists.”

“India is carefully walking this tightrope between the West and the rest, especially when it comes to the U.S., Russia and China,” he said. “Because India does not believe in formal alliances, its approach has been to strengthen its relationship with the U.S., maintain it with Russia, and manage it with China.”

Even as he takes some steps toward China, the United States is also on Modi’s mind.

India and Washington were negotiating a free trade agreement when the Trump administration imposed 25% tariffs for New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil, bringing the combined tariffs to 50%.

Trade talks have since stalled and relations have significantly declined. Modi’s administration has vowed to not to yield to U.S. pressure and signaled it is willing to move closer to China and Russia.

But Donthi said India would still like to keep a window open for Washington.

“If Modi can shake hands with Xi five years after the India-China border clash, it could be far easier for him to shake hands with Trump and get back to strengthening ties, because they are natural allies,” he said.

Klug writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Kim Tong-hyung and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea; Ken Moritsugu in Beijing; Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi; and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed to this report.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has unveiled his ambition for a new global security and economic order to challenge the United States and Europe. Xi was joined by Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in China.

In India, tens of thousands of Muslims and people from marginalised groups have seen their homes and businesses demolished by authorities in what the country’s Supreme Court has called “unconstitutional” and “lawless” attacks.

Representatives of the Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, say the demolitions are in response to illegal encroachment.

But critics say the demolitions target Muslims and other minorities, a claim the BJP denies.

101 East investigates if India’s bulldozers are delivering justice – or demolishing it.

India is signaling it may seek to rebalance its global partnerships after Trump’s salvo of tariffs on Indian goods.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva have spoken by phone, their offices said, discussing a broad range of topics that included tariffs imposed by the United States on goods from both countries.

Lula confirmed a state visit to India in early 2026 during the call on Thursday, which occurred a day after the Brazilian leader told the news agency Reuters that he would initiate a conversation among the BRICS group of countries on tackling US President Donald Trump’s levies, which are the highest on Brazil and India.

The group of major emerging economies also includes China, Russia and South Africa.

“The leaders discussed the international economic scenario and the imposition of unilateral tariffs. Brazil and India are, to date, the two countries most affected,” Lula’s office said in a statement.

Trump announced an additional 25 percent tariff on Indian goods on Wednesday, raising the total duty to 50 percent. The additional tariff, effective August 28, is meant to penalise India for continuing to buy Russian oil, Trump has said.

Trump has also slapped a 50 percent tariff on goods from Brazil, with lower levels for sectors such as aircraft, energy and orange juice, tying the move to what he called a “witch hunt” against former President Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing ally on trial for an alleged coup plot to overturn his 2022 election loss.

On their call, Lula and Modi reiterated their goal of boosting bilateral trade to more than $20bn annually by 2030, according to the Brazilian president’s office, up from roughly $12bn last year.

Brasilia said they also agreed to expand the reach of the preferential trade agreement between India and the South American trade bloc Mercosur, and discussed the virtual payment platforms of their countries.

Modi’s office, in its statement, did not explicitly mention Trump or US tariffs, but said “the two leaders exchanged views on various regional and global issues of mutual interest.”

India is already signalling it may seek to rebalance its global partnerships after Trump’s salvo of tariffs on Indian goods.

Modi is preparing for his first visit to China in more than seven years, suggesting a potential diplomatic realignment amid growing tensions with Washington. The Indian leader visited Lula in Brasilia last month.

The United States has imposed a punitive 25 percent tariff on India.

US President Donald Trump warns that more could follow.

It’s a spectacular change from six months ago, when the leaders of the two nations declared their friendship at the White House.

So what went wrong – and what will happen next?

Presenter: Dareen Abughaida

Guests:

Brahma Chellaney – Professor of Strategic Studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi and a former adviser to India’s National Security Council

Elizabeth Threlkeld – Senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Stimson Center

Sumantra Bose – Political scientist and professor of International and Comparative Politics at Krea University in India

India and Britain are set to sign a major free trade deal to cut tariffs on goods and increase market access for the two countries.

India will lower tariffs on British goods, including whisky, gin and other drinks as well as cars. The UK, in turn, will import more of India’s textiles, gemstones and other goods.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in the UK to sign the deal. He will also hold talks with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and meet King Charles during his brief stay.

The UK government says the deal – announced in May after years of negotiations – will boost the British economy by £4.8bn a year. It comes after nearly three years of negotiations.

Negotiations on the deal concluded in May and the pact is expected to boost bilateral trade by an additional £25.5bn a year by 2040. Last year, trade between the UK and India totalled £42.6bn.

But it might take at least a year for the deal to come into effect after it is approved by the UK parliament. The deal was okayed by the Indian cabinet earlier this week, news agency PTI reported on Tuesday.

In May, Modi said the deal was a historic milestone that was “ambitious and mutually beneficial”.

The pact would help “catalyse trade, investment, growth, job creation, and innovation in both our economies”, he said in a post on social media platform X.

It’s his fourth visit to the UK since becoming India’s prime minister in 2014.

On Wednesday, Sir Keir called the “landmark” deal a major win for Britain.

“It will create thousands of British jobs across the UK, unlock new opportunities for businesses and drive growth,” he said.

Indian manufacturers are also expected to gain access to the UK market for electric and hybrid vehicles.

The two leaders are also expected to discuss last month’s crash of an Air India jet in which 260 people died when a London-bound flight crashed in Ahmedabad in Gujarat in western India.

Millions of people are on strike across India, shutting down banking, construction, manufacturing and postal services, and disrupting public transport, among other sectors.

Trade unions say they have united to protest against new labour laws and a long-standing policy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to privatise public services and favour big business over workers.

Why are people so angry with these policies?

And what does this mean for Modi’s government and his economic policies known as “Modinomics”?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Amarjeet Kaur – national secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress

Adil Hossain – political anthropologist and assistant professor at Azim Premji University

Daniel Francis – political analyst and political brand consultant

The success of Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s Democratic primary for mayor is thrilling for Hari Kondabolu, a stand-up comedian who’s been friends with him for 15 years.

Mamdani stunned the political establishment when he declared victory in the primary on Tuesday, a ranked-choice election in which his strongest competition, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, conceded defeat.

When he launched his campaign, the democratic socialist ranked near the bottom of the pack. Now, the 33-year-old state assemblyman has a chance to be New York City’s first Asian American and Muslim mayor.

Mamdani’s family came to the United States when he was 7, and he became a citizen in 2018. He was born to Indian parents in Kampala, Uganda.

For Kondabolu, this moment is not just exciting, but emotional.

“I think so many of us have had those experiences in New York of being brown and in a city that has always been really diverse and feels like ours. But after 9/11, like you start to question it like, is this our city too?” Kondabolu said. “And 25 years later … it’s surreal, like this is the same city but it’s not because we’ve elected this person.”

Mamdani’s campaign has piqued the interest of many Indian, Pakistani and other South Asian Americans, as well as Muslims — even those who may not agree with Mamdani on many issues. Some see his rise as a sign of hope in a city where racism and xenophobia erupted following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Riveted by the primary election

Many of New York City’s more than 300,000 South Asian residents have been inspired by Mamdani’s extraordinary trajectory.

“My mom was texting her friends to vote for him. I’ve never seen my mother do that before,” Kondabolu said. “So the idea that it’s gotten our whole family activated in this way — this is, like, personal.”

Snigdha Sur, founder and chief executive of the Juggernaut, an online publication reporting on South Asians, has been fascinated by the response from some people in India and the diaspora.

“So many global South Asians … they’re like, ‘Oh, this guy is my mayor and I don’t live in New York City,’” Sur said.

At the same time, some are also concerned or angered by Mamdani’s past remarks about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whom he called a “war criminal.”

In 2005, Washington revoked Modi’s visa to the U.S., citing concerns that, as chief minister of the state of Gujarat, he did not act to stop communal violence during 2002 anti-Muslim riots that left more than 1,000 people dead. An investigation approved by the Indian Supreme Court later absolved Modi. Rights groups have accused Modi’s government of widespread attacks and discrimination against India’s Muslims and other minorities.

In Michigan, Thasin Sardar has been following Mamdani’s ascent online. When he first heard him, the candidate struck him as “genuine” and he felt “an instant connection,” he said.

“As a Muslim American, this victory puts my trust back in the people,” said Sardar, who was born and raised in India. “I am happy that there are people who value the candidate and his policies more than his personal religious beliefs and didn’t vote him down because of the color of his skin, or the fact that he was an immigrant with an uncommon name.”

New York voter Zainab Shabbir said family members in California and elsewhere have also excitedly taken note.

“My family in California, they were very much like, ‘Oh, it’s so nice to see a South Asian Muslim candidate be a mayor of a major city,’” she said. A brother told her Mamdani’s rise is a great example for his kids, she said.

But the 34-year-old — who donated, voted and canvassed for Mamdani — said it was his vision for New York City that was the draw for her. She and her husband briefly chatted with Mamdani at a fundraiser and she found him to be “very friendly and genuine.”

She suspects that for some who aren’t very politically active, Mamdani’s political ascent could make a difference.

“There’s a lot of Muslim communities like my parents’ generation who are focused a lot more on the politics back home and less on the politics here in America,” said Shabbir. “Seeing people like Zohran Mamdani be in office, it’ll really change that perspective in a lot of people.”

Embracing Indian and Muslim roots

Supporters and pundits agree that Mamdani’s campaign has demonstrated social media savvy and authenticity. He visited multiple mosques. In videos, he speaks in Hindi or gives a touch of Bollywood. Other South Asian American politicians such as Democratic Bay Area congressman Ro Khanna praised that.

“I love that he didn’t run away from his heritage. I mean, he did video clips with Amitabh Bachchan and Hindi movies,” said Khanna, referencing the Indian actor. “He shows that one can embrace their roots and their heritage and yet succeed in American politics.”

But his triumph also reflects “the urgency of the economic message, the challenge that people are facing in terms of rent, in terms of the cost of living, and how speaking to that is so powerful,” Khanna said.

Tanzeela Rahman, a daughter of Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh, said she grew up “very low income” in New York.

“I felt seen by him in a way politicians have not seen me ever,” the 29-year-old financial systems analyst said. “I think very few people in government understand … how hard it is to survive in New York City.”

She found Mamdani to be “unabashedly Muslim” and also “a voice, who, literally, to me sounds like a New Yorker who’s stepping in and saying, ‘Hey, let’s reclaim our power,’” she said.

While Mamdani has been speaking to the working class, he had a somewhat privileged upbringing. His mother is filmmaker Mira Nair and his father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a professor at Columbia University.

He lived in Queens but attended the Bronx High School of Science. Even as a teen, he cared about social justice, recalled Kondabolu, his comedian friend.

His campaign messaging on issues such as affordable housing and free bus rides might not resonate with South Asian households in New York City who have income levels above the median. But his campaign and “great kind of sound bites” earned support from that demographic too, according to Sur.

“It was, I think, a surprise that he did so well among the wealthiest, including his own community,” Sur said.

Mamdani’s outspoken support for Palestinian causes and criticism of Israel and its military campaign in Gaza resonated with pro-Palestinian residents, including Muslims, but caused tension in the mayor’s race. Some of his positions and remarks on the charged issue have drawn recriminations from opponents and some Jewish groups, though he’s also been endorsed by some Jewish politicians and activists.

Racism and xenophobia

Mamdani’s success immediately elicited strong anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric from some high-profile conservatives on social media, including pro-Trump media personality Charlie Kirk, who posted that “legal immigration can ruin your country.” In response, Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), the youngest member of Congress, wrote on X: “For years they sold people the lie of ‘we have no problem if you come the right way!’”

Mamdani’s supporters aren’t concerned that racism and Islamophobia will distract from his campaign. Those feelings clearly weren’t “enough for him to lose” the primary, Kondabolu said.

“There’s a new generation that wants their voice heard, and that generation came out in full force, not just by voting, but by, like, getting all these other people to be emotionally invested in this candidate,” he said. “That’s extraordinary.”

Tang and Fam write for the Associated Press. AP writer Matt Brown in Washington contributed to this report.

Donald Trump had said last month that the nuclear-armed neighbours agreed to a ceasefire after talks mediated by the US.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it clear to United States President Donald Trump that a ceasefire between India and Pakistan after a four-day conflict in May was achieved through talks between the two militaries and not US mediation, a top diplomat in New Delhi says.

“PM Modi told President Trump clearly that during this period, there was no talk at any stage on subjects like India-U.S. trade deal or US mediation between India and Pakistan,” Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said in a press statement on Wednesday.

“Talks for ceasing military action happened directly between India and Pakistan through existing military channels, and on the insistence of Pakistan. Prime Minister Modi emphasised that India has not accepted mediation in the past and will never do,” he said.

Misri said the two leaders spoke over the phone late on Tuesday on Trump’s insistence after the two leaders were unable to meet on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada, which Modi attended as a guest. The call lasted 35 minutes.

Trump had said last month that the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours agreed to the ceasefire after talks mediated by the US, and that the hostilities ended after he urged the countries to focus on trade instead of war.

There was no immediate comment from the White House on the Modi-Trump call.

Pakistan has previously said the ceasefire was agreed after its military returned a call the Indian military had initiated on May 7.

In an interview with Al Jazeera in May, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar rejected claims that Washington mediated the truce and insisted Islamabad acted independently.

The conflict between India and Pakistan was triggered by an April 22 attack in Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Kashmir, in which 26 civilians, almost all tourists, were killed. India blamed armed groups allegedly backed by Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denied.

On May 7, India launched missile strikes at multiple sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Over the next three days, the two countries exchanged artillery and air raids, hitting each other’s airbases.

Pakistan said at least 51 people, including 11 soldiers and several children, were killed in Indian attacks.

India’s military said at least five members of the armed forces were killed in Operation Sindoor, under which it launched the cross-border strikes.

Misri said Trump expressed his support for India’s fight against “terrorism” and that Modi told him Operation Sindoor was still on.

One black box found as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits the scene and calls the devastation ‘saddening’.

Investigators and rescue teams are searching the site of one of India’s worst aviation disasters, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has met with the lone surviving passenger, a day after an Air India flight fell from the sky and killed 241 people on the plane and multiple people on the ground.

The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, en route from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick Airport with 242 people on board, went down shortly after takeoff on Thursday, striking a medical college hostel in the western Indian city.

One of the plane’s black boxes has been found, local media reported, and operations on Friday were focused on locating missing people and recovering aircraft fragments and the remaining black box.

An official from the National Disaster Response Force said it deployed seven teams to the crash site and they have recovered 81 bodies so far.

The crash caused extensive damage and left bodies scattered both inside the aircraft and among buildings at the site.

‘The devastation is saddening’

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the scene in his home state of Gujarat on Friday, meeting with rescue officials and some of the injured in hospital. “The scene of devastation is saddening,” he posted on X.

Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau launched an investigation into the incident.

Medics are conducting DNA tests to identify those killed, said the president of the Federation of All India Medical Association, Akshay Dongardiv.

Meanwhile, grieving families gathered outside the Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad.

Two doctors at the hospital said the bodies of four medical students killed on the ground were released to their families. They said at least 30 injured students were admitted to the hospital and at least four were in critical condition.

Witnesses described hearing a blast on Thursday before dark smoke engulfed the area. “We were at home and heard a massive sound. It appeared like a big blast,” the Reuters news agency quoted 63-year-old resident Nitin Joshi as saying.

Footage from CCTV cameras captured a fireball rising above the crash site shortly after the Dreamliner took off. Parts of the fuselage were found scattered across the hostel complex, and the aircraft’s tail was lodged in the building’s roof.

Boeing said it was ready to send experts to assist in the investigation, which Air India warned would take time. The crash marks the first fatal accident involving a Dreamliner since the aircraft began commercial service in 2011.

Air India CEO Campbell Wilson arrived in Ahmedabad early on Friday.

Modi meets lone survivor

The sole survivor of the crash was seen in television footage meeting Modi at the government hospital where he was being treated for burns and other injuries.

Viswashkumar Ramesh told India’s national broadcaster he still could not believe he is alive. He said the aircraft seemed to become stuck immediately after takeoff. He said the lights came on and right after that, the plane accelerated but seemed unable to gain height before it crashed.

He said the side of the plane where he was seated fell onto the ground floor of a building and there was space for him to escape after the door broke open. He unfastened his seatbelt and forced himself out of the plane.

“When I opened my eyes, I realised I was alive,” he said.

The crash claimed the life of Vijay Rupani, Gujarat’s former chief minister. Police said most passengers were still strapped in their seats when found.

The passengers included 217 adults, 11 children and two infants, a source told Reuters. Air India said 169 were Indian nationals, 53 were Britons, seven were Portuguese and one was Canadian.

The rail link will connect the Kashmir Valley to the vast Indian plains by train for the first time.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has opened one of the country’s most ambitious railway projects, which will connect the Kashmir Valley to the vast Indian plains by train for the first time.

Dubbed by the government-operated Indian Railways as one of the most challenging tracks in the world, the 272-kilometre (169-mile) line begins in the garrison city of Udhampur in the Jammu region and runs through Indian-administered Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar. The line ends in Baramulla, a town near the highly militarised Line of Control dividing the Himalayan region between India and Pakistan.

The Indian government has pegged the total project cost at about $5bn.

The railway line travels through 36 tunnels and over 943 bridges and will facilitate the movement of people and goods, as well as troops, that was previously possible only via treacherous mountain roads and by air.

One of the project’s highlights is a 1,315-metre-long (4,314-foot) steel and concrete bridge above the Chenab River connecting two mountains with an arch 359 metres (1,177 feet) above the water. Indian Railways has compared its height with the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which stands 330 metres (1,082 feet), and said the bridge is built to last 120 years and endure extreme weather, including wind speeds up to 260 km/h (161mph).

Modi visited the Chenab bridge on Friday with tight security, waving an Indian tri-colour flag before boarding a test train that passed through picturesque mountains and tunnels to reach an inauguration ceremony for another high-elevation bridge named Anji.

The railway “ensures all weather connectivity” and will “boost spiritual tourism and create livelihood opportunities”, Modi said.

The prime minister also helped launch a pair of new trains called “Vande Bharat” that will halve the travel time between Srinagar and the town of Katra in the Jammu region to about three hours from the usual six to seven hours by road.

Modi’s visit to Indian-controlled Kashmir on Friday is his first since a military conflict between India and Pakistan brought the nuclear-armed rivals to the brink of war last month when the countries fired missiles and drones at each other.

The conflict was triggered after a shooting attack in late April that left 26 men, mostly Hindu tourists, dead in Indian-controlled Kashmir. India blamed Pakistan for supporting the attackers, a charge Islamabad denied.

India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety.

Armed groups in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

India insists the Kashmir armed groups are backed by Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denies.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said India “only paused” its military action against Pakistan, in his first speech to the nation since a ceasefire following a fierce military confrontation last week that threatened a fifth all-out war between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Speaking on Wednesday, the ultranationalist Hindu leader said in New Delhi that his government will not make a distinction between governments that support “terrorism” and “terrorist groups”. He said India would “retaliate on its own terms” if there is any future “terror” attack on the country.

The Indian military launched multiple missile attacks targeting sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir on May 6, claiming it had hit “terrorist infrastructure”.

Pakistan rejected that claim.

Pakistan chose to “attack” India rather than combat terrorism, Modi stated, asserting that his country “will not tolerate nuclear blackmail”.

“We will be monitoring every step of Pakistan,” Modi added, saying that “This is not an era of war, but this is not an era of terrorism, either.”

Turning to the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan, Modi said, “Terror and trade cannot go together, water and blood cannot flow together.”

The treaty, brokered by the World Bank, has long survived multiple crises between the two rivals. However, India’s recent decision to stop the flow of water signals a sharp diplomatic shift, using water that Pakistan relies on for agricultural and civilian purposes as leverage.

Pakistan’s Finance Minister said in an interview with the Reuters news agency on Monday that the Indus Waters Treaty, unilaterally suspended by India, “has to be rolled back to where it was”.

 On Monday, United States President Donald Trump claimed that by helping to broker the ceasefire, his administration had prevented “a nuclear conflict”.

New Delhi has blamed Islamabad for a deadly April 22 attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir in Pahalgam, during which 26 people were killed – a charge Pakistan strongly denies.

According to their partial counts, the fighting since last week killed around 60 civilians on both sides.

Indian and Pakistani military to review ceasefire

India’s and Pakistan’s top military commanders were expected to revisit a recently brokered ceasefire agreement on Monday evening.

The Indian Army earlier reported a “calm night”, as authorities said the night passed peacefully across disputed Kashmir and the international border, with no new incidents reported.

A senior Indian defence official confirmed that talks, originally scheduled for noon local time, were pushed to later in the day. The discussions, analysts say, will likely focus on technical details to prevent future flare-ups rather than shape long-term policy.

Abdul Basit, a South Asia specialist at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said the purpose of the exchange is to establish clear lines and avoid missteps.

“The goal is to avoid any miscalculations, because right now one spark could quickly move towards a nuclear catastrophe,” Basit told the AFP news agency.

The spike in hostilities had marked the most serious confrontation between the nuclear-armed neighbours since their last declared conflict in 1999.

As tensions cooled, Indian authorities reopened 32 airports on Monday that had been shut down due to the fighting.

Both sides claim victory

Civilians in Kashmir have suffered the most in the crossfire.

Military leaders in both countries spent Sunday delivering pointed briefings, each asserting they had won while pledging restraint.

“We have delivered the promise we made to our people,” Pakistan’s military spokesman Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry declared, describing the recent operation as a “success on the battleground”.

Air Vice Marshal Aurangzeb Ahmed added that Pakistan had “re-established deterrence and neutralised key threats”.

India’s Lieutenant General Rajiv Ghai insisted that his country had shown “immense restraint,” but warned: “Any threat to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and safety of our citizens will be met with decisive force.”

Both nations remain on high alert despite the temporary calm, as the world watches for signs of lasting de-escalation or a reignition of hostilities.

New Delhi, India — Addressing a rally of supporters in September 2024, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi confidently asserted that his Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would create a new Jammu and Kashmir, “which would not only be terror-free but a heaven for tourists”.

Seven months later, that promise lies in tatters. On April 22, an armed group killed 25 tourists and a local pony rider in the resort town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, setting off an escalatory spiral in tensions between India and Pakistan, which New Delhi accuses of links to the attackers – a charge Islamabad has denied.

The armies of the two nuclear-armed neighbours have exchanged gunfire for three days in a row along their disputed border. India has suspended its participation in the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) that Pakistan counts on for its water security, and Islamabad has threatened to walk out of past peace deals. Both nations have also expelled each other’s diplomats, military attaches and hundreds of civilians.

But India is simultaneously waging a battle on territory it controls. In Indian-administered Kashmir, security forces are blasting the homes of families of suspected armed fighters. They have raided the homes of hundreds of suspected rebel supporters and arrested more than 1,500 Kashmiris since the Pahalgam killings, the deadliest attack on tourists in a quarter of a century.

Yet, as Indian forces comb dense jungles and mountains to try to capture the attackers who are still free, international relations experts and Kashmir observers say the past week has revealed major chinks in Modi’s Kashmir policy, which they say appears to be staring at a dead end.

The Pahalgam attack “punctured the balloon of the ‘New Kashmir’ narrative”, said Sumantra Bose, a political scientist whose work focuses on the intersection of nationalism and conflict in South Asia.

‘Making tourists a target’

In August 2019, the Modi government withdrew the semi-autonomous status of Indian-administered Kashmir without consultation with either the political opposition or Kashmiris. That special status had been a critical condition for Kashmir to join India following independence from the British in 1947.

The Modi government argued that successive governments had failed to truly integrate Jammu and Kashmir with the rest of India, and that the semi-autonomous status had played into the hands of secessionist forces that seek to break the region from India.

The abrogation of the constitutional provision that gave Kashmir its special status was accompanied by a major crackdown. Thousands of civilians were arrested, including leaders of mainstream political parties – even those that view Kashmir as a part of India. Phone and internet connections were shut off for months. Kashmir was cut off from the rest of the world.

Yet, the Modi government argued that the pain was temporary and needed to restore Kashmir to what multiple officials described as a state of “normalcy”.

Since then, the arrests of civilians, including journalists, have continued. Borders of electoral constituencies were changed in a manner that saw Jammu, the Hindu-majority part of Jammu and Kashmir, gain greater political influence than the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley. Non-Kashmiris have been issued residency cards – which was not allowed before 2019 – to settle there, sparking fears that the Modi government might be attempting to change the region’s demography.

And though the region held the first election to its provincial legislature in a decade in late 2024, the newly elected government of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has been denied many of the powers other regional governments enjoy – with New Delhi, instead,  making key decisions.

Amid all of that, the Modi government pushed tourism in Kashmir, pointing to a surge in visitors as evidence of the supposed normalcy that had returned to the return after four decades of armed resistance to Indian rule. In 2024, 3.5 million tourists visited Kashmir, comfortably the largest number in a decade, according to government figures.

But long before the Pahalgam attack, in May 2024, Abdullah – now, the chief minister of the region, then an opposition leader – had cautioned against suggesting that tourism numbers were reflective of peace and stability in Kashmir.

“The situation [in Kashmir] is not normal and talk less about tourism being an indicator of normalcy; when they link normalcy with tourism, they put tourists in danger,” Abdullah said in May last year. “You are making the tourists a target.”

Al Jazeera reached out to Abdullah for a comment on the current crisis but has yet to receive a response.

On April 22, that Modi government narrative that Abdullah had warned about was precisely what left the meadows of Pahalgam splattered in blood, said Praveen Donthi, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group. “New Delhi and its security agencies started buying their own assessment of peace and stability, and they became complacent, assuming that the militants will never attack tourists,” he said.

Until the Pahalgam attack, armed fighters had largely spared tourists in Kashmir, keeping in mind their importance to the region’s economy, noted Donthi. “But if pushed to the wall, all it takes is two men with guns to prove that Kashmir is not normal,” he said.

Dealing with Kashmir, dealing with Pakistan

On April 8, just two weeks before the attack, Indian Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah, who is widely seen as Modi’s deputy, was in Srinagar, Kashmir’s largest city, to chair a security review meeting. Abdullah, the chief minister, was not a part of the meeting – the most recent instance where he has been kept out of security reviews.

Analysts say this underscores that the Modi government views Kashmir’s security challenges almost exclusively as an extension of its foreign policy tensions with Pakistan, not as an issue that might also need domestic input for New Delhi to tackle it successfully. India has long accused Pakistan of arming, training and financing the armed rebellion against its government in Indian-administered Kashmir. Pakistan claims it only offers moral and diplomatic support to the secessionist movement.

The Pahalgam attack has shone a light on the folly of the Modi administration’s approach, Donthi said.

“Projecting this as a security crisis that is being fuelled entirely by Pakistan can make it useful politically, domestically, but it’s not going to help you resolve the conflict,” he said.

“Unless the Indian government starts engaging with the Kashmiris, there can never be a durable solution to this violence.”

So far, though, there is little evidence that the Modi government is contemplating a shift in approach, which appears shaped “to cater to domestic jingoism and hyper-nationalist rhetoric”, Sheikh Showkat, a Kashmir-based political commentator, said.

The focus since the Pahalgam attack has been to punish Pakistan.

Since 1960, the IWT – the water-sharing agreement between India and Pakistan – survived three wars and has been widely hailed as an example of managing transnational waters.

Under the treaty, both countries get water from three rivers each, from the Indus Basin: three eastern rivers – the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej – to India, while three western rivers – the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab – carry 80 percent of water to Pakistan.

But the future of that pact is uncertain with India suspending its participation in the treaty after the Pahalgam attack. Pakistan has responded by warning that attempts to stop or divert water resources would amount to “an act of war”. Islamabad has also warned that it might suspend its participation in all bilateral treaties, including the 1972 Simla Agreement, signed after their 1971 war, which in essence demarcates the Line of Control, the de-facto border, between them.

“Pakistan genuinely views this matter [the loss of water] in existential and even apocalyptic terms,” said Bose, the political scientist. “India knows this – and it signals a policy of collective punishment towards Pakistan, which impacts tens of millions of people.”

However, experts have raised several questions about India’s and Pakistan’s announcements.

How can India practically stop water when it does not have the capacity to hold these powerful rivers? Can it divert water, risking flooding in its own territory? And if Pakistan walks away from the Simla Agreement, is it in effect signalling a state of war?

“All of these measures are juvenile, on both sides,” said Bose, but with “concrete implications”.

For its part, India has been seeking to renegotiate the IWT for several years, claiming that it does not get its fair share of the water. “The recent Kashmir crisis gives [New] Delhi an opportunity, a pretext to pull the trigger on the treaty,” said Showkat, the Kashmiri-based commentator.

Will Modi change his Kashmir approach?

Two days after the Pahalgam attack, Modi was touring Bihar, the eastern state due for elections later this year. Addressing an election rally, the prime minister said that he would chase the attackers “to the end of the earth”.

To Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a Modi biographer, such speeches are reflective of what he argues is the sole objective of Modi’s Kashmir policy: “maximising the core electoral constituency of the BJP in the rest of the country by being tough on Kashmir”.

Since independence, the BJP’s ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, has viewed Kashmir as an unfinished project: The RSS for decades called for the region’s special status to be scrapped, and for a firm security-driven approach to the Muslim-majority region.

“Now, the only thing is, ‘We want revenge’,” said Mukhopadhyay, referring to the jingoism that currently dominates in India.

Since the attack, several Kashmiris have been beaten up across India, with landlords pushing out tenants and doctors turning away Muslim patients. Social media platforms are rife with inflammatory content targeting Muslims.

The International Crisis Group’s Donthi said that the Pahalgam attack, in some ways, serves as “a shot in the arm” for Modi’s government. While the security challenges in Kashmir and the crisis with Pakistan represent strategic and geopolitical tests, “domestically, it is a great position for the Modi government to be in”.

He said this was especially so with a weak opposition largely falling in line – the principal opposition Congress party has backed a muscular response to Pakistan for the attack.

However, Bose, the political scientist, argues that the Modi government was not focused on short-term political calculations. Modi’s comments in Bihar, and the largely unchecked hate against Kashmiris and Muslims spreading across Indian social platforms and on TV channels, were reflective of the BJP’s broader worldview on Kashmir, he said.

Kashmir is an ideological battle for Modi’s party, he said, adding, “This government is never going to change its Kashmir policy.”