Day: December 16, 2019

Riots Across India Against Modi’s Hindu Nationalism

We begin with the fifth day of rioting across India against a law which grants citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from three Muslim-majority countries. Dr. Sumit Ganguly the Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University and author of “The Oxford Handbook of India’s National Security” joins us to discuss the uproar on campuses against this divisive law championed by Prime Minister Modi and his BJP government. While calling for calm Modi argues the law aims at providing a haven for those fleeing religious persecution but critics say it is part of the Hindu nationalist government’s agenda of marginalizing Muslims and is an attack on the secular foundation of India’s constitution. With many protesting because they see the law as anti-Muslim, others in border regions fear a flood of migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. We will also look into today’s guilty verdict of a former BJP lawmaker from Modi’s ruling party who raped and kidnapped a girl in 2017, a case which has forced India to face the issue of sexual violence and the epidemic of rape across the country. Not only did the powerful politician kidnap and rape the girl for a week at his home, her father was assaulted for protesting to the police and later died. The young victim then tried to set herself on fire outside the home of the State’s chief minister but was stopped by onlookers. Then in July the girl was severely injured in a staged car accident when the car she was in was hit by a truck.

What Went Wrong at the Madrid Climate Talks

Then we get an assessment of what went wrong at the Madrid COP25 climate talks, who was to blame, and what can be done to revive a process that is increasingly lagging behind the urgent need for global action in the face of a worsening climate crisis. Rachel Cleetus, the policy director with the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists who has been attending international climate negotiations since 2009, including the just-concluded UN climate talks in Madrid, joins us to discuss a planet on fire and our window of escape getting harder to reach the longer we wait to act.

Russia’s State Media Gloats at Putin’s Control of Trump

Then finally we speak with Julia Davis, the founder and editor of Russian Media Monitor and a featured expert with the Atlantic Council’s Disinformation Portal who has an article at The Daily Beast “Russia’s State TV Calls Trump Their Agent”. We discuss the gloating on Russian state media over Trump and the GOP’s trashing of Ukraine and the rewarding of Russia to the point the main TV channel Rossiya 1 aired a segment on Foreign Minister Lavrov’s Oval Office visit with Trump, entitled, “Puppet Master and Agent – How to Understand Lavrov’s Meeting With Trump”.