NEW DELHI: Young Indians could play a crucial role in the ongoing general election in the world’s largest democracy.
With nearly two-thirds of India’s population below 35, and more than 15 million first-time voters aged 18 and 19, young men and women have the power to swing the national vote in any direction.
Ambitious, aspirational and impatient for change, young voters — at least in India’s capital — are less focused on issues such as caste and religion than older generations, according to interviews with The Associated Press.
They are interested, instead, on landing jobs after college, living in cleaner cities with breathable air, increasing women’s safety and competing with the world’s biggest economies.
Current Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to be the favorite, riding a wave of Hindu nationalism that peaked after India’s air force attacked an alleged militant base in Pakistan to avenge a suicide attack that killed more than 40 soldiers in disputed Kashmir.
His main opponent, Congress party’s Rahul Gandhi, hopes to revive the glory of India’s grand old party that ruled the country for more than 50 years, since independence from British colonial rule in 1947.
Here are some of the views of young voters in New Delhi:
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Mayank Thakur, 18, engineering student
“Unemployment is very high in India currently. India has a lot of engineers who haven’t been able to develop their skills because there aren’t enough jobs for them in India.”
“Narendra Modi has provided a lot of facilities for the poor people of this country. In my home state of Uttar Pradesh, villages that were rarely lit now have electricity. Where food used to be cooked on firewood, he has given gas cylinders.”
“India is now a very secure nation in the last five years. When Pakistan attacked us, Narendra Modi gave them a jaw-breaking reply.”
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Vardha Kharbanda, 20, psychology student
“I am looking out for an issue that no government is actually talking about, that is pollution. I have been in Delhi for my entire life and my lungs are gone without ever smoking. So I might just die of lung cancer without touching a cigarette even once. Nobody is talking about pollution.”
“No left and no right can actually run a secular and democratic nation that is multilingual and multicultural in nature. It cannot be done with a single ideology.”
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Arjun Parcha, 32, hospital supplies assistant
“Nowadays, whoever comes into power is busy serving their own interests. Who is looking out for us? Nobody. They are only looking at filling their own pockets. What has happened? Every day we hear about fighting. One party blames the other for corruption, the other blames them back for corruption. There is no solution.”
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Jitesh Nagpal, 20, university student
“For me the biggest issue is job opportunities. Whichever party creates more jobs for the new industries will get my vote because I will have to start looking for jobs very soon.”
“I don’t care much about parties, but there is just one clear candidate for victory and that is Narendra Modi. I don’t think we have a better option to lead the country.”
“I haven’t seen any other strong candidate. I don’t trust Rahul Gandhi yet. Maybe my views about him will change in the future, but not right now.”
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Rajanvir Singh Luthra, 23, YouTube vlogger
“Whichever government comes to power, the first thing they should do is to look after the poor because the rate of poverty is very high in India. No doubt, we now have digital India, we have everything online, but do something for the poor people also.”
“India is still not on top. We don’t have basic facilities. If you go to a government hospital, you have to stand in long lines. You can only go in after waiting and filling forms. A lot of our police officers and other officers are corrupt. There is a lot of corruption in India.”
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Monika Dalal, 20, psychology student
“Women’s safety is the major issue for me. People are talking a lot about it and there are slogans like ‘Save girl child, educate girl child,’ being launched, but I don’t think these concepts are applied to the roots with practicality. I have been to the villages and seen how girls are treated. They are not even educated and if they do go to school, they are forced to marry right after completing grade 12.”
“Modi has done a lot definitely to help us establish ourselves globally and even in the UN By him visiting different countries we are getting recognition there. And they are coming up with some impressive projects to start in India, which has happened because of Modi. So, I think we have really progressed.”
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Kavita Srivastava, 18, studying banking and financial services
“The biggest issue in Delhi is girls’ safety, which is still not 100%.”
“Girls should feel safe leaving their homes and going out at whatever time of the night.”
“I don’t think Rahul Gandhi is the best option. I too am in support of Narendra Modi. I think he has the potential to take India to those heights.”
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Ashutosh Kumar Singh, 24, charity worker
“The issues that should be important aren’t even being discussed. We don’t see or hear about them. The issue should be education and increasing the level of education. Employment should be an issue. And they are working toward that, but it is not considered an important issue. Currently, the state of politics is so lowly in India that people are just busy in pointing fingers and avoiding key issues.”
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Mohammad Anjar, 18, engineering student
“At present only Narendra Modi is fit to run this country because they have done a tremendous amount of work in the last five years. The Modi government is taking the country forward. At least, that is what I hear.”
“Everyone should cast their votes. We all sit at home and say ‘This government is not working, that government is not working.’ Get out of your homes and vote as it is an invaluable weapon.”
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Associated Press video journalist Shonal Ganguly contributed to this report.
India’s population skews young, which may sway its elections
India’s population skews young, which may sway its elections
- More than 15 million first-time voters have the power to swing the national vote in any direction
- Current Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to be the favorite
Pakistan ex-PM Khan, wife appeal graft convictions: lawyer
- Imran Khan was sentenced to 14 years and his wife to seven earlier this month
- A special graft court found the pair guilty of ‘corruption and corrupt practices’
Khan was sentenced to 14 years and his wife to seven earlier this month in the latest case to be brought against them.
“We have filed appeals today and in the next few days it will go through clerical processes and then it will be fixed for a hearing,” Khan’s lawyer Khalid Yousaf Chaudhry said.
The papers were filed at the Islamabad High Court.
A special graft court found the pair guilty of “corruption and corrupt practices” over a welfare foundation they established together called the Al-Qadir Trust.
Khan, 72, has been held in custody since August 2023 charged in around 200 cases which he claims are politically motivated.
Kremlin says it has yet to hear from US about a possible Putin-Trump meeting
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it appeared a “certain amount of time” was needed before a meeting between the two leaders could take place. He said Russia understood that Washington was still interested in organizing such a meeting.
Putin said on Friday that he and Trump should meet to talk about the Ukraine war and energy prices, issues that the US president has highlighted in the first days of his new administration.
India minister pledges to evict ‘illegal’ immigrants from capital
NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s closest political ally has pledged to rid the capital of “illegal’ immigrants if his party wins looming elections, in a forceful appeal to his party’s Hindu constituency.
Interior minister Amit Shah said every unlawful migrant from neighboring Bangladesh would be expelled from New Delhi “within two years” if his party succeeded in next month’s provincial polls.
“The current state government is giving space to illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingyas,” Shah told an audience of several thousand at Sunday’s rally.
“Change the government and we will rid Delhi of all illegals.”
India shares a porous border stretching thousands of kilometers with Muslim-majority Bangladesh, and illegal migration from its eastern neighbor has been a hot-button political issue for decades.
There are no reliable estimates of the number of Bangladeshis living illegally in Delhi, a city to which millions have flocked in search of employment from elsewhere in India over recent decades.
Critics of Modi and Shah’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accuse the party of using the issue as a dog whistle against Muslims to galvanize its Hindu-nationalist support base during elections.
Delhi, a sprawling megacity home to more than 30 million people, has been governed for most of the past decade by charismatic chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
Kejriwal rode to power as an anti-corruption crusader a decade ago and his profile has bestowed upon him the mantle of one of the chief rivals to Modi and Shah’s party.
His popularity has been burnished by extensive water and electricity subsidies for the capital’s millions of poorer residents.
But he spent several months behind bars last year on accusations his party took kickbacks in exchange for liquor licenses, along with several fellow party leaders.
Kejriwal denies wrongdoing and characterised the charges as a political witch-hunt by Modi’s government, and despite resigning as chief minister last year vowed to return to the office if his party won re-election.
The BJP has led a spirited campaign in its efforts to dislodge Kejriwal’s party ahead of the February 5 vote.
Modi is expected to make a pilgrimage to the ongoing Kumbh Mela, the biggest festival on the Hindu calendar, to bathe in the sacred Ganges river on the day of the Delhi assembly vote.
Results of the election will be published on February 8.
Ukraine’s Zelensky urges action against ‘evil’ on Auschwitz anniversary
- The Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022
- Zelensky warned that the memory of the Holocaust is growing weaker
KYIV : Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday said the world must unite against evil, in comments marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Nazi death.
The Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 claiming that the government in Kyiv contained neo-Nazi elements and saying the country must be demilitarized.
Zelensky warned that the memory of the Holocaust is growing weaker and said some countries are still trying to destroy entire nations.
“We must overcome the hatred that gives rise to abuse and murder. We must prevent forgetfulness,” he said, according to a statement from the presidency.
“And it is everyone’s mission to do everything possible to prevent evil from winning,” he added.
The foreign ministry said in a statement that Russia’s invasion “brought back to Ukrainian soil horrors that Europe has not seen since World War II.”
“Jewish communities of Ukraine are also suffering from constant Russian terror, in particular in the cities of Dnipro and Odesa, which have a population of over a million, and other localities,” it added.
The Holocaust decimated the Jewish community in Ukraine, which during World War II was part of the Soviet Union.
It was not the first massacre of Jewish people in Ukraine’s history, which had seen previous anti-Semitic pogroms.
Russia drone barrage sparks fire in western Ukraine
KYIV: A barrage of more than 100 Russian drones sparked a fire at an industrial facility in western Ukraine and damaged residential buildings in other regions, Ukrainian officials said Monday.
The Ukrainian airforce said Moscow had dispatched 104 drones, including attack drones, and that 57 of the unmanned aerial vehicles had been shot down.
Emergency services in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region said the strikes had resulted in two fires at an industrial facility, and that firefighters were working to extinguish one.
They did not specify the type of facility hit but said there were no casualties.
The airforce said there was damage in four Ukrainian regions including Kyiv, where AFP journalists heard drones flying overhead and air defense systems countering the attack.
