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Hard-line Hindu priest a handful for Modi in heartland Indian state

Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L), Uttar Pradesh governor Ram Naik (C) and India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yogi Adityanath. (Reuters)
Updated 28 March 2017
Reuters
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Hard-line Hindu priest a handful for Modi in heartland Indian state

Updated 28 March 2017
Reuters

GORAKHPUR, India/NEW DELHI: Since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi stunned the political establishment by promoting a hard-line Hindu priest to one of the country’s most powerful positions, Yogi Adityanath has sounded more statesman than rabble-rouser.
Gone is the fiery anti-Muslim rhetoric and promotion of Hindu supremacy for which the saffron-robed 44-year-old is known, and in its place is a message of social inclusion more akin to Modi’s language since sweeping to power in 2014.
“My government will be for everyone, not specifically for any caste or community ... We will work for development of all sections and castes,” Adityanath said shortly after being made chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state.
The words jar with what the shaven-headed leader of the Gorakhnath sect has been saying from public platforms throughout a political career spanning nearly 20 years.
In his northern power base — the down-at-heel town of Gorakhpur near the Nepalese border — Adityanath’s more conciliatory comments have done little to dispel unease among members of the Muslim community, who make up nearly a fifth of Uttar Pradesh’s 200 million or so people.
“We should just go about doing our job and pray the Hindu Yuva Vahini doesn’t take over mosques to build new temples,” said local driver Aijaz Sheikh, referring to the Hindu Youth Force set up by Adityanath in 2002 to carry out his agenda.
“If we react then we will pay the price. The loss will be ours and no Hindu will come to stand with us in Gorakhpur.”
Adityanath’s ascent has prompted widespread questions about India’s secular status, and whether Modi, himself a product of a nationalist Hindu upbringing, intends to pursue more aggressive pro-Hindu policies as he pursues economic reforms.
Adityanath was a key campaigner for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh elections, and the thumping victory he helped deliver underlined how a divisive candidate could eclipse rivals who tried to reach out across communities.
“With Yogi Adityanath’s appointment, vigilantism has been upgraded into state policy,” said Gilles Verniers, assistant professor of political sciences at Ashoka University outside Delhi.

Abattoirs and “Romeo Squads”
In a gleaming white temple compound in Gorakhpur, people crowd Adityanath’s offices to petition his band of fanatical followers in the Hindu Youth Force to settle their personal grievances.
Clerks hammer out their requests on old mechanical typewriters, handing them to members of the force to deal with.
Not all disputes concern religion, but Adityanath’s devotees say their main mission is to fight against creeping encroachment by Uttar Pradesh’s Muslim community.
“It was a very difficult period for Hindus and for Yogi ji,” Mahesh Poddar, a textile merchant who was one of the first people to join the youth force, told Reuters in the temple compound.
“We felt like we were living in a country that doesn’t belong to us.”
Adityanath declined requests for an interview on past actions and his plans as chief minister.
Since his March 19 swearing-in, he has pushed policies that are an extension of Modi’s nationwide agenda, notably demanding state ministers declare their incomes and assets as part of a crackdown on corruption.
At the same time, he has instructed officials to prepare to shut down all mechanized abattoirs, part of a campaign pledge that appealed to Hindus because they view cows as sacred and because slaughterhouses are run mainly by Muslims.
The slaughter of cows is, in fact, prohibited in Uttar Pradesh, although not always enforced, but a blanket ban would also hurt buffalo meat exports.
Meat traders in the state said on Monday they had launched a strike to protest against the closure of butcher’s shops and slaughterhouses considered illegal.
“We are not selling drugs or indulging in criminal activities. We sell meat to feed our families but the government is targeting us because we are Muslims,” Raza Quereshi, a member of the Meat Producers’ Association, told Reuters.
Police have also deployed “anti-Romeo squads” to keep men and women apart in public to protect women from harassment.
But they are also seen by some as an extension of Adityanath’s battle against what he calls “love jihad,” or entrapment of Hindu women to convert them to Islam.
Religious tensions sporadically flare into violence in India, including in 1992 when more than 2,000 people were killed in clashes between Muslims and Hindus sparked by the demolition of a mosque on a contested site in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh.

Provocation, criminal charges
Adityanath, born in the northern state of Uttarakhand, left his family to join the Gorakhnath sect and was quickly chosen to succeed its chief priest. He was elected to parliament in 1998 in his mid-20s and has won re-election four times.
During his career, he has earned a reputation as a fringe firebrand.
News channels have aired footage of some of his public comments, including in 2007 when he said: “If they (Muslims) convert one Hindu girl, we will convert 100 Muslim girls ... if they kill one Hindu, we will also kill 100 Muslims.”
Like many Indian politicians, Adityanath also faces a string of criminal cases, disclosed in the affidavit he filed as a candidate in the 2014 general election.
These include attempted murder, criminal intimidation, promoting religious enmity and defiling a place of worship.
No charges have been framed and Adityanath has said the cases against him were baseless and politically motivated.
In one seen by Reuters at a local police station, a local Muslim politician called Talat Aziz accused Adityanath of deliberately provoking a clash between Muslims and Hindus in 1999 that led to the death of a 26-year-old police constable.
She is still fighting the case, which is pending before a local court.
Close aide Balu Rai said Adityanath had provided ample evidence to prove he was not involved in the death.
Officials in Modi’s office expressed confidence in Adityanath and said they expected him to change his image and policies for the good of the state. 
And although he has clashed with the BJP before and his sect has maintained independence from the ruling party, some expect Adityanath to conform to Modi’s wishes now he is chief minister.
“He is a rabble-rouser whom the party has been using to communalize the agenda, the elections and the discourse,” said journalist and historian Akshaya Mukul. “But I don’t see him slipping beyond the control of the high command.”

Indigenous peoples, impacted by climate change, raise alarm about the planet at COP29

Updated 5 sec ago
AP
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Indigenous peoples, impacted by climate change, raise alarm about the planet at COP29

  • 12 Indigenous people attending this year’s negotiations say one thing about how climate change is impacting their community
Updated 5 sec ago
AP
BAKU: They share stories of rising seas, burning trees, contaminated water and disease. But they also come ready to discuss solutions, sharing work their communities are doing to help confront a major threat to life on Earth: climate change.
For the many Indigenous peoples who attend the annual UN climate talks, this year being held in Azerbaijan, it’s a chance to make their voices heard. Their communities are often hard hit by weather extremes that are made worse by climate change. At the same time, traditional practices make many such communities vital in efforts to combat global warming. After all, for thousands of years Indigenous peoples around the world have successfully cared for lands, finding a balance with nature.
The Associated Press asked 12 Indigenous people attending this year’s negotiations to say one thing about how climate change is impacting their community, or how their community is helping to combat climate change. Here are their reflections:
Saina Ekaterina Savvinova, 53
Indigenous community: Yakut
Location: Yakutsk, Russia
“When I was a child, we had a lot of snow. We played in it. We made labyrinths with it. Now we don’t have much snow.”
Antumalen Ayelen Antillanca Urrutia, 26
Indigenous community: Mapuche Huilliche
Location: Huapi Island, Chile
“As a young Mapuche, I denounce the contamination of my home of Ranco Lake in southern Chile. I live on the third largest lake, on an island in the middle of it, and we do not have drinking water.”
Sydney Males, 27
Indigenous community: Kichwa Otavalo
Location: Otavalo, Ecuador
“We have a connection, like an energy, with the lakes, with the water in general. We have a connection with fire, we have a connection with the the air and other things that you in the Occident don’t have a connection with. So, we have solutions for climate change.”
Big Wind Carpenter, 31
Indigenous community: Northern Arapaho
Location: Wind River Reservation, United States
“We have been in a drought since I was born. We have been in extreme drought the last 30 years and completely surrounded by wildfires.”
Flora Vano, 39
Indigenous community: Melenasian
Location: Port Vila, Vanuatu
“Sea level rise is eating us up. It threatens our food security, contaminates our water source, infrastructure is destroyed and the increase in gender-based violence goes sky high.”
Puyr dos Santos Tembé, 47
Indigenous community: Tembé
Location: Belem, Brazil
“Think about the Amazon. You have trees and rivers, and then you see the rivers, which are the mode of transport for many people, drying up.”
Mingma Chhiri, 40
Indigenous community: Sherpa
Location: Khumbu Pasanglhamu Municipality District, Nepal
“As ethnic people in the area, we don’t destroy any natural beauty. We don’t cut trees. We plant them.”
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, 41
Indigenous community: Mbororo
Location: N’Djamena, Chad
“Right now we are experiencing the biggest floods we have ever had. Two million people have been displaced and thousands are dead.”
Ninawa Inu Pereira Nunes, 50
Indigenous community: Huni Kui
Location: Feijo, Brazil
“The main work we do is to raise awareness among people to stop deforestation. But we are also restoring degraded areas by planting trees. And we are working very hard to strengthen the spirituality of our people by restoring the sources of the rivers and repopulating the streams and rivers.
Marynne Rimbao, 42
Indigenous community: Tombekin
Location: Unda village, Papua New Guinea
“My place is located in one of the remotest places in Papua New Guinea, where there are mining activities. Especially when mining activities are involved, my area is being impacted by climate change when it comes to the environment — the land, the water, the resources, the food and forests — that sustains our livelihood.
Didja Tchari Djibrillah, 30
Indigenous community: Peul Mbororo
Location: Mayo-Kebbi East, Chad
“The community (of pastoralists) contributes to combatting the effects of climate change. When moving from one place to another, we leave cow dung that allows the soil to be fertilized and the ecosystem to regenerate.”
Jackson Michael, 40
Indigenous community: Iban
Location: Borneo, Malaysia
“Heavy rainfall is affecting wildlife. Now the government is making a lot of effort to protect and preserve wildlife.”

Japanese troops to train with Australia, US militaries in Darwin

Updated 42 sec ago
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Japanese troops to train with Australia, US militaries in Darwin

  • The deployment has special significance given Darwin was a major base for Allied forces in World War Two
Updated 42 sec ago
Reuters
SYDNEY: Japanese troops will begin regular deployments in northern Australia as part of military cooperation with Australia and the US, Australia’s Defense Minister Richard Marles said on Sunday.
Around 2,000 US Marines are already hosted in Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory, for six months of the year amid growing concern among Washington and its allies about China’s growing military power in the Indo Pacific region.
“Today we are announcing that there will be regular deployments of Japan’s amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade to Australia,” Marles said at a televised press conference in Darwin, alongside US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani.
“Having a more forward leaning opportunity for greater training with Japan and the US together is a really fantastic opportunity for our defense,” Marles told Sky News on Sunday, according to a transcript.
The deployment has special significance given Darwin was a major base for Allied forces in World War Two and was heavily bombed by Japanese forces. The wartime air raids on the port city are sometimes described as Australia’s Pearl Harbor.
Austin said on Sunday he was confident the US will provide the capabilities set out in the AUKUS deal, which will see Australia buy US nuclear submarines and develop a new class of nuclear-powered submarines with the US and Britain.
The US Defense Department was focused “on a smooth and effective transition” to the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, Austin said.
“I’m really proud of the things that this administration has accomplished over the last four years, in terms of what we’ve done in this region to strengthen alliances and to work with countries that share the vision of a free and open Indo Pacific,” Austin added.
Sunday’s trilateral meeting between Australia, the US and Japan in Darwin is the 14th meeting of its kind between the three allies.
At the last trilateral, held in Singapore in June, the nations expressed serious concern about security in the East China Sea and said they opposed “any destabilizing and coercive unilateral actions” there, a veiled reference to China.
China, building its military capacity in the Indo Pacific, in September carried out the rare launch of intercontinental ballistic missile that landed in the Pacific Ocean. The test launch was described as concerning by several Pacific nations including Australia.

Bangladesh extends armed forces judicial powers

Updated 4 min 23 sec ago
AFP
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Bangladesh extends armed forces judicial powers

  • Order extends for two more months the powers of the armed forces to engage in day-to-day enforcement activities like the police, including making arrests
Updated 4 min 23 sec ago
AFP

Dhaka: Bangladesh’s interim government has extended the judicial powers of the armed forces granted after the August revolution that toppled ex-leader Sheikh Hasina.
The government order, issued November 15, extends for two more months the powers of the armed forces to engage in day-to-day enforcement activities like the police, including making arrests.
“The armed forces will carry out the orders assigned to us by the government,” army spokesman Sami-Ud-Daula Chowdhury said Sunday.
Former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, 77, had ordered police to crush student-led protests — a deadly crackdown that left at least 700 people dead — before she fled by helicopter to India on August 5.
Her 15-year regime was marred by incidents of preventing the opposition from exercising their democratic rights.
Since then, a caretaker government, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, has been tasked with implementing democratic reforms and holding elections.
The army was brought in to restore security with many people having lost confidence in the police.
Only officers with the rank of captain or above are authorized to make an arrest, high court lawyer Imam Hasan Tareq said Sunday.
The powers have been extended to include the coast guard and border security units.

Topics: Bangladesh

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Super Typhoon Man-yi topples trees, power lines in the Philippines

Updated 46 min ago
AFP
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Super Typhoon Man-yi topples trees, power lines in the Philippines

  • Man-yi still packing maximum sustained winds of 185 kilometers per hour after making landfall late Saturday
  • Man-yi is expected to ‘slightly weaken’ to a typhoon before hitting main island of Luzon
Updated 46 min ago
AFP

MANILA: Super Typhoon Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and ripped off corrugated iron roofing as it swept across the storm-weary Philippines on Sunday, following an unusual streak of violent weather.
Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185 kilometers per hour after making landfall on lightly populated Catanduanes island late Saturday.
More than 650,000 people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the national weather service warned of a “potentially catastrophic and life-threatening” impact from the storm.
“There have been no reported casualties, perhaps because people followed the evacuation orders,” Catanduanes provincial disaster operations chief Roberto Monterola said on Sunday, as clean-up efforts on the island got underway.
“All the towns sustained damage, but we expect those in the north to have more problems,” Monterola said.
“It’s just a breeze and a drizzle now.”
Man-yi is expected to “slightly weaken” to a typhoon before hitting Luzon — the country’s most populous island and economic engine — on Sunday afternoon, forecasters said.
Severe flooding and landslides were expected as Man-yi dumped “intense to torrential” rain over provinces in its path, with more than 200 millimeters (nearly eight inches) forecast in the next 24 hours, the weather service said.
Panganiban municipality in the northeast of Catanduanes took a direct hit from Man-yi.
Photos shared on the Facebook page of Mayor Cesar Robles showed toppled power lines, damaged houses, and trees and corrugated iron sheets strewn on the roads.
“Pepito was so strong, I have never experienced a typhoon this strong,” Robles said in a post, using the local name for Man-yi.
“It is still a bit unsafe there are still bursts of wind and there are many debris.”
Marissa Cueva Alejandro, 36, who grew up in Catanduanes, said typhoons were getting stronger.
“Before, we would only experience (typhoon) signal number three to four, but now typhoons are getting as strong as signal number five,” she said, referring to the weather service’s five-tiered wind warning system.
Man-yi is the sixth storm in the past month to batter the archipelago nation. At least 163 people died in the previous storms, that also left thousands homeless and wiped out crops and livestock.
Climate change is increasing the intensity of storms, leading to heavier rains, flash floods and stronger gusts.
About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the Southeast Asian nation or its surrounding waters each year, killing scores of people, but it is rare for multiple such weather events to take place in a small window.
Robert Tancino, a government ambulance driver in Tiwi municipality in Albay province, which faces Catanduanes, said his area appeared to be largely unscathed.
“Not too many trees fell and the roads are otherwise clear. I did not see any damage among the houses here,” Tancino said.
The weather forecaster has hoisted its second-highest typhoon signal over several provinces along Luzon island’s east coast where Man-yi is expected to make its second landfall.
Around 2,000 people were in emergency evacuation shelters in Dipaculao municipality in Aurora province.
Others have stayed home to protect their property and livestock, or because they were skeptical of the warnings, said Geofry Parrocha, communications officer of Dipaculao disaster agency.
“Some of our countrymen are really hard-headed. They do not believe us until the typhoon arrives,” Parrocha said.
Tourists emptied out of coastal resorts ahead of the typhoon.
“Our facilities are deserted,” said Irene Padeo, reservation officer of the L’Sirene Boutique Resort in Baler town in Aurora, shortly before Man-yi was due to make landfall in neighboring San Luis.
“Our outdoor items have all been packed and taken indoors. We tied down all the rest.”
On its current trajectory, Man-yi will cross north of Manila and sweep over the South China Sea on Monday.
Man-yi hit the Philippines late in the typhoon season — most cyclones develop between July and October.
Earlier this month, four storms were clustered simultaneously in the Pacific basin, which the Japan Meteorological Agency said was the first time such an occurrence had been observed in November since its records began in 1951.

Topics: typhoon weather Philippines

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China’s president vows to work with Trump team as he meets Biden in Peru

Updated 17 November 2024
Reuters
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China’s president vows to work with Trump team as he meets Biden in Peru

  • “China’s goal of a stable, healthy and sustainable China-US relationship remains unchanged,” Xi said
  • Trump has vowed to adopt blanket 60 percent tariffs on US imports of Chinese goods as part of a package of “America First” trade measures
Updated 17 November 2024
Reuters

LIMA, Peru: Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday vowed to work with the incoming US administration of President-elect Donald Trump as he held his final talks with outgoing President Joe Biden on key conflicts from cybercrime to trade, Taiwan and Russia.
Biden met Xi at a hotel where the Chinese leader was staying, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Lima, Peru, for their first talks in seven months.
“China’s goal of a stable, healthy and sustainable China-US relationship remains unchanged,” following the election, Xi said, acknowledging “ups and downs” between the countries.

“China is ready to work with the new US administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation and manage differences,” he added.
Biden told Xi that the two leaders haven’t always agreed but their discussions have been “frank” and “candid.”

US President Joe Biden speaks during a bilateral meeting with China's President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC Summit in Lima, Peru, on Nov. 16, 2024. (REUTERS)

The talks come two months before Trump assumes office. He has vowed to adopt blanket 60 percent tariffs on US imports of Chinese goods as part of a package of “America First” trade measures. Beijing opposes those steps. The Republican president-elect also plans to hire several hawkish voices on China in senior roles, including US Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state and Representative Mike Waltz as national security adviser.
Biden has aimed to lower tensions with China, but Washington is incensed by a recent China-linked hack of the telephone communications of US government and presidential campaign officials, and it is anxious about increasing pressure by Beijing on Taiwan and Chinese support for Russia.
Taiwan President Lai Ching-te is planning to stop in the US state of Hawaii and maybe Guam on a sensitive visit that is sure to anger Beijing in the coming weeks, Reuters reported on Friday. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s former economy minister Lin Hsin-i met Biden at the summit on Friday and invited him to visit Taiwan in the near future.
China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory. The US is Taiwan’s most important international backer and arms supplier, despite the lack of formal diplomatic recognition.
Biden also wants China’s help with North Korea, whose deepening ties with Russia and deployment of troops in the war with Ukraine has worried Washington.

China’s economic hit
At the same time, Beijing’s economy is taking a stiff hit from Biden’s steps on trade, including a plan to restrict US investment in Chinese artificial intelligence, quantum computing and semiconductors and export restrictions on high-end computer chips. All of those topics are expected to figure into the talks, US officials said.
China routinely denies US hacking allegations, regards Taiwan as internal matter and has protested American statements on Sino-Russian trade. A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington declined to comment.
“When the two countries treat each other as partner and friend, seek common ground while shelving differences and help each other succeed, our relationship would make considerable progress,” Xi said as he met with Biden, according to a simultaneous translation.
“But if we take each other as rivals or adversary, pursue vicious competition, and seek to hurt each other, we would roil the relationship or even set it back.”
On Wednesday, Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan described the transition as “a time when competitors and adversaries can see possibly opportunity.” Biden is stressing with Xi the “need to maintain stability, clarity, predictability through this transition between the United States and China.”
Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based international relations scholar, said China wants the meeting to ease tensions during the transition period. “China definitely does not want relations with the United States to be thrown into turmoil before Trump formally takes office,” said Shen.
Pacific Rim leaders gathered at the APEC summit are assessing the implications of Trump’s return to power as US president on Jan. 20. The South American summit offers new signs of the challenges to the United States’ power in its own backyard, where China is on a charm offensive.
Xi, who arrived in Lima on Thursday, plans a week-long diplomatic blitz in Latin America that includes a refurbished free-trade agreement with Peru, inaugurating the massive Chancay deep-water port there and being welcomed in Brazil’s capital next week for a state visit. China also announced plans to host the APEC summit in 2026.
China is seeking Latin America’s metal ores, soybeans, and other commodities, but US officials worry they may also be looking for new US-adjacent military and intelligence outposts. Chinese state-backed media has called those accusations a smear.
A US official said Washington’s commitment to the region was strong and that Chinese infrastructure investment overseas has declined in recent years due to domestic challenges and problems with the projects.
But Ryan Berg, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, said Xi would meet with a good reception in the region.
“Biden’s trip will be overshadowed very clearly by all of the things that Xi Jinping will be up to when he visits APEC,” he said. “When Xi meets with Biden part of his audience is not – it’s not solely the White House or the US government. It’s about American CEOs and continued US investment or trying to renew US investment in China and get rid of the perception that there’s a hostile business environment in China.”

Topics: China-US trade war Donald Trump Xi Jingping APEC

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