GURGAON: When Shailja Singh headed to her favorite bar for a post-work beer this week she found it shut, victim of a Supreme Court ruling that has stopped India’s burgeoning alcohol and leisure industries in their tracks.
Thousands of liquor outlets were forced to close on April 1 after the order, which barred the sale of alcohol within a 500-meter (500-yard) range of a highway.
The ruling was meant to curb drink driving on India’s roads, the world’s deadliest, but has also shut down many bars, restaurants and hotels that serve tourists and office workers like Singh.
Fortunately for the 23-year-old, only half the bar-and restaurant-filled area in Gurgaon, a satellite city of New Delhi, is affected.
In a sign of the ruling’s arbitrary impact, the bars that fall just outside the 500-meter range are open, meaning she won’t have to go far to get a drink.
But for the businesses affected, the problem is not so easily solved.
“This is one of the most regressive steps that I’ve seen,” said one investor in a pub forced to go dry.
“The prime minister is talking about improving the ease of doing business. But first tell us can we do business to begin with? What are we telling foreign investors — overnight your investments can go?” said the investor, who asked not to be named.
India’s expanding middle class has made it a sparkling market for the alcohol industry.
In 2016 India alcohol sales were worth $40 billion, making it the eighth largest market by value globally.
It is expected to grow by six percent on average annually for the next four years, according to a Euromonitor International estimate.
“The liquor players, the tourism industry, they all had a strategy in place when they set up their businesses and then this verdict came in,” said an analyst at a Mumbai brokerage who asked not be named.
“This was completely unexpected and they will have to restrategise.”
Share prices of listed alcohol makers have already been hit.
United Spirits, which makes Black Label whisky and Smirnoff vodka in India, saw its shares fall by around nine percent on the Bombay Stock Exchange in the days immediately after the ban, despite a rising market.
Hotel and bar operators have also been affected.
Shahira Khan, assistant brand manager at The Beer Cafe chain of bars, said business was struggling.
“Earlier on normal weekdays we would get around 200 people each day. On weekends, around 250 people would walk in. Now we are hardly getting anyone,” she told AFP.
“After all, why would people come in? There is no beer at The Beer Cafe.”
Staff at a luxury hotel in Jaipur, a popular tourist destination in northern India, said they’d had several cancelations after they were forced to stop selling alcohol because the property falls within 500 meters of a highway.
The manager of the Chokhi Dhani said one group of Russian tourists were incensed when they were told they couldn’t get a drink.
“We tried telling them that it was a court order and we couldn’t do anything about it but they were obviously not pleased,” hotel manager Nupur Jain told AFP.
“They complained about how it spoiled all their plans and that they’d come there to have a good time.”
State governments and entrepreneurs have begun finding creative ways around the 500-meter limit.
Some states like Punjab have begun reclassifying highways as local roads to escape the ban, according to media reports.
Meanwhile some shopping malls and bar complexes are reportedly rerouting customers to a different entrance to increase their official distance from the road.
India has the world’s deadliest roads with nearly 150,000 people killed in 2015, according to the ministry of road transport and highways. Of those, 6,755 deaths were due to drunk driving.
The government has proposed more stringent sanctions for drunk drivers including fines of 10,000 ($154) and a jail term.
For the angry pub investor whose business has been wiped out, that is the solution.
“Instead of saying the law will be more stringent on anyone caught driving drunk, you’re saying let’s not sell alcohol. This is like saying there are rapists out there so women should not go out,” he said.
“What kind of a society are we living in?“
A booze ban stresses Indian business
A booze ban stresses Indian business
Russian strike kills 13 in Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia
Public transport was also damaged in the strike
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine: A Russian guided bomb attack on Wednesday killed at least 13 people and injured 63 in Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, authorities said.
The blast left bodies strewn across a road alongside injured residents. Public transport was also damaged in the strike.
Prosecutors in the region said 63 people had been injured. Rescue work had been completed at the site of the attack.
High-rise apartment blocks were damaged along with an industrial facility and other infrastructure, Ukraine’s prosecutor general office said on Telegram. The debris hit a tram and a bus with passengers inside, it added.
As emergency workers tried to resuscitate a man, raging flames, smoke and burnt cars could be seen in the background.
Russian troops had used two guided bombs to hit a residential area, the regional governor Ivan Fedorov told reporters.
At least four of the injured were rushed to hospital in serious condition, Fedorov said, adding that Thursday would be an official day of mourning.
“There is nothing more cruel than launching aerial bombs on a city, knowing that ordinary civilians will suffer,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X, urging Ukraine’s Western allies to step up pressure on Russia.
Regional authorities reported further explosions after the first strike hit.
Fedorov said Russian troops shelled the town of Stepnohirsk, south of Zaporizhzhia, killing two people. Two residents were pulled alive from underneath rubble.
Russia regularly carries out air strikes on the Zaporizhzhia region, which its forces partially occupy, and its capital. Moscow claims to have annexed the Ukrainian region along with four others including Crimea.
Public broadcaster Suspilne also reported two people killed and 10 injured in attacks on several centers in the southern region of Kherson, also partially occupied by Russian forces.
US to announce new weapons package for Ukraine as defense leaders prepare to meet in Germany
- The group’s future is unclear with President-elect Donald Trump set to take office on Jan. 20
- Advisers to Trump have floated proposals to end the Ukraine war that would cede large parts of the country to Russia for the foreseeable future
WASHINGTON: The US is expected to announce $500 million in military aid for Ukraine on Thursday at a final gathering of President Joe Biden’s weapons pledging conferences, meetings Kyiv says have been critical to its defense against Russia.
The Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG), comprised of about 50 allies who usually meet every few months at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, was started in 2022 by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to speed and synchronize the delivery of arms to Kyiv.
The group’s future is unclear with President-elect Donald Trump set to take office on Jan. 20. Advisers to Trump have floated proposals to end the Ukraine war that would cede large parts of the country to Russia for the foreseeable future.
Washington has committed more than $63.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion and the additional $500 million could be announced later on Wednesday, a US official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
On Thursday, the defense leaders will meet at Ramstein Air Base for the 25th UDCG meeting.
“We’re not sunsetting the group. The next administration is completely welcome and encouraged ... to take the mantle of this 50 country strong group and continue to drive and lead through it,” said a senior US defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“It will endure in some capacity, in some form going forward, I believe, regardless of exactly how the next team does or doesn’t pursue it,” the official said.
Trump will have a few billion dollars in appropriated money that he could use for Ukraine’s military needs once he takes office.
The official added that the Thursday meeting would look to endorse roadmaps for Ukraine’s military needs and objectives through 2027.
More than 12,300 civilians have been killed in the Ukraine war since Russia invaded nearly three years ago, the United Nations said, noting a spike in casualties due to the use of drones, long-range missiles and glide bombs.
Ukraine said on Tuesday its forces were “commencing new offensive actions” in Russia’s western Kursk region.
Ukraine first seized part of the Kursk region in a surprise incursion last August, and it has held territory there for five months despite losing some ground.
The apparent escalation in the fighting in the Kursk region comes at a critical time for Ukraine, whose outnumbered and outgunned troops are struggling to repel Russian advances in the east.
Gunfire heard near presidency in Chad capital
- A security source said armed men had attacked the interior of the presidential compound
N’DJAMENA: Sustained gunfire was heard Wednesday evening near the presidency in Chad’s capital N’Djamena, AFP reporters said.
A security source said armed men had attacked the interior of the presidential compound but authorities made no immediate comment.
All roads leading to the presidency have been blocked and tanks could be seen on the streets of the capital, according to an AFP reporter on the scene.
The gunfire erupted less than two weeks after the landlocked country in Africa’s northern half held a contested general election.
The government hailed it as a key step toward ending military rule, but it was marked by low turnout and opposition allegations of fraud.
The election had taken place against a backdrop of recurring attacks by the jihadist group Boko Haram in the Lake Chad region, the ending of a military accord with former colonial master France, and accusations that Chad was interfering in the conflict ravaging neighboring Sudan.
Several hours earlier on Tuesday, China’s foreign minister Wang Li met with President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno and other senior officials.
The former French colony hosted France’s last military bases in the region known as the Sahel, but at the end of November it ended the defense and security agreements with Paris.
Around a thousand French military personnel were stationed there, and are in the process of being withdrawn.
France is now reconfiguring its military presence in Africa after being driven out of three Sahelian countries governed by juntas hostile to Paris — Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
Senegal and the Ivory Coast have also asked France to leave military bases on their territory.
Baby born on migrant vessel in Atlantic: Spanish rescuers
- “Christmas ended in the Canaries with the rescue of a baby born while crossing the sea,” the coast guard said
- A record 46,843 undocumented migrants reached the Canary Islands in 2024
MADRID: Spanish coast guards rescued a baby that was born on an inflatable vessel carrying migrants to the Canary Islands, authorities said on Wednesday.
The newborn was recovered safely along with their mother on Monday, the coast guard service said in a message on X.
They were the latest to make the crossing that has seen thousands drown as migrants try to reach the Atlantic archipelago from Africa.
“Christmas ended in the Canaries with the rescue of a baby born while crossing the sea,” the coast guard said.
A coast guard boat “rescued a mother who had given birth aboard the inflatable craft in which she was traveling with a large group of people.”
The two were taken by helicopter to Arrecife on the island of Lanzarote, it added.
A record 46,843 undocumented migrants reached the Canary Islands in 2024 via the Atlantic route, official data showed this month.
Ethiopians celebrate Christmas as natural calamities and conflict take their toll
- The patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church called for reconciliation and peace in a nation where conflict has been often fueled by ethnic strife
ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia’s Orthodox Christians are celebrating Christmas with prayers for peace in the Horn of Africa nation that has faced persistent conflict in recent years.
Ethiopians follow the Julian calendar, which runs 13 days later than the Gregorian calendar, used by Catholic and Protestant churches. They traditionally celebrate by slaughtering animals and joining family members to break the fast after midnight.
The patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Abune Mathias, in his televised Christmas Eve message called for reconciliation and peace in a nation where conflict has been often fueled by ethnic strife. Different parts of Ethiopia recently have also faced natural calamities, including mudslides. Earthquakes last week in the remote regions of Afar, Amhara and Oromia have displaced thousands.
Despite the signing of a peace agreement to end the armed conflict in the northern region of Tigray in 2022, recurring conflicts in Amhara, Oromia and elsewhere have caused widespread suffering and forced 9 million children to drop out of school, according to UNICEF.
Almaz Zewdie, who was among thousands of Orthodox Christians attending ceremonies in Addis Ababa’s Medhanyalem Church, said she was praying for peace.
She was draped in an all-white traditional attire to mark the end of a 43-day fasting period and the birth of Jesus Christ.
“I lost friends and my livelihood,” said Zewdie, a merchant from the tourist town of Gondar, speaking of the toll of the conflict in Amhara, where government troops have been fighting members of a local militia.
Isaias Seyoum, a priest in Addis Ababa’s Selassie Church, said the celebration of Christmas is more than just feasting and merrymaking. It is also a time to share meals with needy people and help those impacted by conflict, including many sheltering in Addis Ababa, he said.
