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Last week, India made global headlines again. Not for a diplomatic feat, but for the government’s apparently contradictory stances on the global stage and back at home, especially in regard to protecting media freedom. At the G7 summit held at the German resort of Schloss Elmau, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with several world leaders, signed a joint statement titled ‘2022 Resilient Democracies’, and vowed to protect free flow of information online and offline while guarding the freedom, independence and diversity of civil society actors.
It would have been a welcome pledge, if it had not coincided with the arrest of factchecking agency Alt News’s co-founder Mohammed Zubair’s arrest. Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, said: “it is very important that people be allowed to express themselves freely, journalists be allowed to express themselves freely and without the threat of any harassment.”
Read The Hindu’s editorials on both these developments:
Thin-skinned?
Meanwhile, India appeared to show low tolerance to the comments from the international community on concerning domestic developments. The MEA called the UN Rights Chief’s comment on the arrest of activist Teesta Setalvad “unwarranted”, Kallol Bhattacherjee reports.
The government also accused a U.S. body on religious freedom of bias, over its comment on minority rights in India, Suhasini Haidar reports.
Top five
- Do you know how rebels went on to become presidents, like Gustavo Petro in Colombia? Try out this quiz put together by Srinivasan Ramani
- Is India-Russia defence cooperation under strain? Read Dinakar Peri’s take
- How will G-7’s infrastructure plan impact India? What is the proposed agritech and climate sustainability fund? Will India get adequate funds for infrastructure development? Our Diplomatic Affairs Editor Suhasini Haidar explains
- Stanly Johny writes on the Battle for the Black Sea.
- Getting Sri Lanka out of the economic mess – Prashanth Perumal writes
China watch
- From “have you eaten yet” to “have you tested yet?”: Reporting from Beijing, our China correspondent Ananth Krishnan writes on the country’s latest preoccupation – mass testing for Covid-19.
- Xi Jinping, in rare Hong Kong visit, hails change ‘from chaos to order’.
- Ind-China Border tensions: An official source told our Defence Correspondent Dinakar Peri that China has upgraded firepower on LAC.
Neighbourhood watch
- Sri Lanka has run out of fuel amid its crushing economic crisis. Where do the island’s talks with the International Monetary Fund stand?
- A long-persisting diplomatic flashpoint between India and Sri Lanka is back in the spotlight — the issue of Indian trawlers fishing illegally in Sri Lankan waters, severely impacting war-affected northern Sri Lankan fishermen’s livelihoods.
- Braving the economic meltdown, Sri Lankans held their first pride rally this year. Watch
- After Padma bridge milestone, Sheikh Hasina faces challenges at home and abroad, on Bangladesh’s biggest story this week.
- Reiterating India’s chief concerns in the neighbourhood, NSA Ajit Doval told the Multi-Agency Maritime Security Group that it is important for India to protect its interests amid “international rivalries, competition and clash of interests”.
