https://www.prajasattakjanata.page/2025/02/blog-post_11.html https://youtu.be/9GnHJ3XSiI4?t=78

what Somnath Suryavanshi's mother and brother had to say.. https://youtu.be/9GnHJ3XSiI4?t=155

The world isn't close to breaking free from coal — in some countries, demand for it is surging https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/10/world-coal-demand-remains-at-record-high-as-power-demand-surges.html
U.S. exports of coal have been rising steadily to satisfy growing global demand for the world's dirtiest fossil fuel, even though its domestic consumption has decreased.

On top of that, the world's coal capacity reached a new record high of nearly 2,175 gigawatts in 2024, data from Global Energy Monitor showed on Feb. 6. Coal capacity is the overall power output that can be generated from coal-fired power plants.

China recently reported that its coal imports surged 14.4% to a record high in 2024, amounting to 542.7 million metric tons compared with 474.42 million tons the year before.

Hydropower, wind and solar energy made up almost 30% of China's electricity mix in 2023, data from energy think tank Ember Energy showed. When hydropower output drops as a result of insufficient rainfall, the Chinese government often relies on coal power to ensure energy security, Mei added.
"Additionally, another major barrier is not the availability of renewable energy infrastructure, but the difficulty of transmitting solar and wind power across provinces,
In India, climate-induced extreme heat has led to soaring energy demand for cooling, and clean energy sources are not built fast enough to meet the country's growing power demand, said Mei.

India's focus on economic and infrastructure development has also boosted the consumption of cement and steel, industries that are heavily reliant on coal, according to analysts CNBC spoke to.

The South Asian nation's demand for steel is set to grow by 8-9% in 2025, outpacing that of other economies, owing to a pickup in steel-intensive construction in the infrastructure and residential sectors, data from consulting firm Crisil showed.

 Don’t misdiagnose AAP defeat in Delhi election results. It will be fatal to democracy https://theprint.in/opinion/bjp-delhi-elections-2025-aap-defeat/2486293/ Akshay Marathe 09 February, 2025  Delhi’s voters do not dislike Arvind Kejriwal. In fact, even in defeat, AAP secured approximately 44 per cent of the vote, compared to 54 per cent in 2020. Over the last five years, the BJP convinced 10 per cent of Delhi voters—perhaps not inaccurately—that AAP was a false choice or no choice at all. A gun was held to the heads of Delhi’s people: if you do not vote for the BJP, your city government will remain dysfunctional, and your beloved city will decline. It is unthinkable that a Prime Minister would be so cruel and self-serving as to hold his own capital city to ransom the way Narendra Modi has—but that is exactly what happened in Delhi...

How was Sheila Dikshit able to govern Delhi without significant run-ins with the central government? The answer is obvious to anyone willing to look. Between the 2020 and 2025 elections, the Centre amended the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) Act, formally redefining “government” in Delhi as the “Lieutenant Governor”—a political appointee of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). Previously, the Delhi government needed the L-G’s approvals only for major policy decisions, while day-to-day matters remained under the elected government’s control. The amendment, however, effectively transferred all decision-making powers to the central government, making the BJP the de facto ruler of Delhi.

without the BJP’s power grab, none of AAP’s shortcomings would have cost it its majority in Delhi elections 2025.

What global media https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/delhi-election-results-2025-how-global-media-said-about-pm-narendra-modi-aap-arvind-kejriwal-bjps-landmark-win-101739068253053.html  Reuters:"The victory  underscores the party’s growing appeal in urban centers, particularly among middle-class voters who once backed AAP.   Associated Press: AAP’s declining popularity and internal struggles played a role in its defeat.   The Financial Times :  AAP, once seen as a strong regional force, now faces an existential crisis. Losing it to the BJP puts serious questions on its national ambitions. Al Jazeera : this victory is a story of BJP’s micromanagement in constituencies + quoting Nivedita Menon: “It feels like BJP will never lose an election again.  BBC:   BJP, securing Delhi represents more than just electoral success—it marks a crucial foothold in the nation's capital after being out of power there since 1998.

From Godhra to Godse, the rise of propaganda films in India https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4BvqL7Uh8w  Since 2014, there has been a noticeable surge in the production of political and ideological films in India. More of these are slated for release in 2025. These films, many of which align with the Hindutva agenda, frequently target minorities, and contribute to the growing polarization in society.

https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/international/indians-unnerved-bytrumps-immigration-clampdown   ICE’s Fiscal Year 2024 report estimates 2,647 Indians detained for deportation in FY2024, and lists nearly 18,000 undocumented Indian nationals among 1.5 million individuals marked for deportation. The Indian detainees were the fourth largest group, following Mexico (5,089), Honduras (2,957) and Guatemala (2,713).  

“We have a very good relationship with India,” Trump had remarked, but he had told House Republicans at a Florida retreat earlier that day that he would impose tariffs on countries that “harm” America, identifying China, India and Brazil as “high-tariff countries”.... Indeed, the Trump administration is set to pressure India to further scale up its military purchases from the US, from fighter jets and armoured combat vehicles to aero-engines, missiles and drones...

Does Trump’s Attempted “Dismantling” of Spook-Infested, Regime Change Agency USAID Herald a New Foreign Policy Era? https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/02/will-trump-doge-sink-spook-infested-regime-change-agency-usaid-and-does-assault-herald-a-new-foreign-policy.html by Conor Gallagher February 5, 2025

USAID’s funding often supports media outlets, educational programs, and NGOs that promote pro-Western narratives. https://x.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/1886208239991431607 

Trump’s takedown of USAID, like much of his 2nd term, motivated by vengeance for the Russiagate hoax. The left-liberal-center spectrum that drove Russiagate for 4 years has since forgotten about it, but for MAGA Russiagate is red hot live & a great mobilizer.  https://x.com/MarkAmesExiled/status/1886192778608070749 

https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1886082749779607997 Hegemony was going to end sooner or later, and now the U.S. is basically choosing to end it on its own terms. It is the post-American world order - brought to you by America itself.

Even the tariffs on allies, viewed under this angle, make sense, as it redefines the concept of "allies": they don't want - or maybe rather can't afford - vassals anymore, but rather relationships that evolve based on current interests.

Western-Backed NGOs: A Hollow Version of Civil Society https://jacobin.com/2025/02/western-ngos-funding-civil-society  Byv
Almut Rochowanski ..deploying their vast fortunes to pursue their own ideas of what ails the world and how to fix it, creating entire countries’ NGO sectors from scratch, micromanaging them with armies of program officers, and, as the ultimate prize, capturing policymaking in the countries targeted by their munificence.. 

After World War II, in parallel to decolonization, NGOs — tellingly, “nongovernmental organizations” — rose slowly but unstoppably to become one of the main players in international development aid, because donor countries did not trust the (Third World) state with social and economic agendas...

Western legislative traditions going back to the nineteenth century reflected the classic civil right of freedom of association and thus provided a regulatory framework for associations in the literal sense: people coming together as members of a club or union, taking action primarily through members’ volunteer activities to benefit each other or the common good, funded by default by membership fees. The NGOs that Western governments finance with their development aid budgets look nothing like this, but more like start-ups run by social entrepreneurs. Instead of members and volunteers, they have bosses and employees organized in strict hierarchies, and hard borders separate those who build lucrative careers managing NGOs from those who benefit from their assistance.

Since last year, the European Commission has been hammering out a new directive on “transparency of interest representation carried out on behalf of third countries,” which explicitly includes NGOs as the carriers of such “interest representation.” ..

Without foreign grant funding, the majority of NGOs in the Global South would not exist at all. ... Without foreign financing, the NGO sector would have never generated a high-earning, aloof upper class, similar to that of investment bankers and management consultants in the West.

https://discomfortzone.substack.com/p/western-backed-ngos-a-hollow-version 

https://www.cruz.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Letters/20170314_Letter%20toTillersononMacedoniaUSAID.pdf 

“Antiwar” Trump wants the US to ethnically cleanse Gaza. https://jacobin.com/2025/02/trump-netanyahu-meeting-gaza   Two years ago, J. D. Vance wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal endorsing Donald Trump on the grounds that Trump was antiwar. In that op-ed, Vance brought up the Abraham Accords between Israel, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates in a way that suggested that, by brokering that deal, Trump had brought peace to the Middle East.  in Feb 25,  The United States, Trump said, should “take over” Gaza. “We’ll own it.” Its entire population of around two million Palestinians would leave. The United States would raze all the destroyed buildings, “level it out,” and rebuild the territory from scratch as the “Riviera of the Middle East.” 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/miss-the-trump-foreign-policy-jd-vance-11675699749 

https://thedispatch.com/article/how-j-d-vance-became-the-veepstakes-favorite/ In 2022, Vance won the Ohio GOP Senate nomination by securing the decisive endorsement of Donald Trump, and two years later the 39-year-old senator is the odds-on favorite to be selected as Trump’s running mate. 

 After multiple Indian deportees claimed that they were handcuffed and had their legs chained during the long flight, the United States embassy maintained that it was enforcing immigration laws against “inadmissible and removable aliens,” while the Chief of the US Border Patrol shared photos of shackled Indians boarding the plane. https://thewire.in/diplomacy/us-border-chief-posts-video-of-shackled-indians-boarding-plane-opp-calls-it-black-day-for-india 

The treatment of Indian citizens onboard the US military plane sparked an outcry from the opposition.

On Wednesday afternoon, 104 Indians arrested for entering the United States were deported to India on a US military plane after a gruelling 40-hour flight. On arrival at Amritsar air force base, they were grilled by security personnel, before they were allowed to return to their homes late in the night.

06/02/2025

‘Never Thought She’d Be Sent Back in a Month’: Families Grapple With Deportation of Kin From US

by Kusum Arora

 Families of deported Indian migrants revealed that the US primarily targeted those who had entered the country recently, many through illegal routes. https://thewire.in/diplomacy/families-grapple-with-deportation-of-kin-from-us 

Among them is 20-year-old Ajaydeep from Mahal village in the Amritsar cantonment, who went to the US via a ‘dunki’ route just 15 days ago. His grandfather confirmed that Ajaydeep had spoken to his mother before being deported. His mother, present at the airport exit gate, declined to speak to the media.

Another case is that of Harwinder Singh from Tahli village in Hoshiarpur district, who had illegally entered the US a month ago. At his home, villagers gathered to console his wife and brother, who disclosed that they had paid Rs 42 lakh to a travel agent to facilitate his journey.

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I risked everything for America—confinement, torture: Robin Handa returns to Haryana

https://theprint.in/ground-reports/i-risked-everything-for-america-confinement-torture-robin-handa-returns-to-haryana/2481990/ 

“The hands and feet of children and women were tied in chains. The Punjabis were forced to remove their turbans on the plane, and wore them only after landing in India,” he said. Handa was part of the first batch of 104 illegal immigrants that the United States deported to India on 5 February. A bitter and humiliating end to their American dream.

Handa’s father Manjeet Singh paid Rs 45 lakh to send his son to America via the ‘dunki’ route – portrayed in Shah Rukh Khan’s 2023 film of the same name. The endeavour cost him a chunk of his land. While agents promised to send his son to the US in just a month, it took seven months for Robin to reach there.

Robin took a flight from Mumbai to Ghana on 24 July, from where he travelled by road to reach Brazil. He told ThePrint about crossing “the Amazon jungles, seas and rivers” before moving on to Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and finally the US border.

He recalled his days in the Amazon rainforests, where he survived with little to no supplies. “There were 30 people in our group whom our agent was helping to cross the border. These people were from India, Nepal and Bangladesh. Agents used to beat them and did not even give them food,” he remembered.

by Krishan Murari