Modi wins, but his party suffers
Indian Prime Minister Modi announced his third re-election yesterday. But his party won by a much smaller margin than expected, and the aura of invincibility around Modi has been shattered.
His Bharatiya Janata Party still won the most parliamentary seats but lost dozens of seats and fell short of an outright majority. The BJP will therefore need smaller parties in its alliance to form the government, a surprising setback.
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The main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, performed better than expected. Many believe the party has been irrevocably weakened after crushing defeats in its previous two elections. The Congress party and its allies have stepped up their opposition to Modi by exploring issues such as unemployment, social justice and Modi’s ties to Indian billionaires.
context: Modi will become only the second Indian leader to serve a third consecutive term, after first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Modi called his third term a “historic feat in India’s history.”
economy: Indian stocks plunged as the election results became increasingly clear. As of the end of trading yesterday, the market was down 6%, nearly erasing this year’s gains.
what ukraine has lost
Since World War II, few countries have experienced such devastation as Ukraine. But so far, the scale is so large that it can only be glimpsed.
My colleagues released the first comprehensive picture of the damage. Through detailed analysis of years of satellite data, they created a record of every town, every street, every bombed building. In some places, such as the city of Marinka, not a single resident survived. Many lost more than just their homes. They lost their community, their history.
“If I close my eyes, I can see everything from my past life,” said Iryna Hrushkovksa, 34, who was born and raised in the city. “But if I open my eyes, everything disappears.”
Scale of destruction: More than four times as many buildings were destroyed in Ukraine than every building in Manhattan was razed to the ground. Parts of Ukraine look like Dresden or London after World War II, or Gaza after half a year of bombing.
Hymas: Ukraine used a US-made rocket system to destroy a missile launcher in Russia, a Ukrainian official said. The attack came after the United States gave Ukraine permission to do so.
Israel kills an Iranian general in Syria
Iranian media said an Israeli airstrike in Syria killed an Iranian general who served as an adviser there. he It is believed to be the first Iranian killed by Israel since the two countries nearly went to war in April after Israel bombed the Iranian embassy in Syria.
Iran is currently mired in a leadership crisis triggered by the death of its president last month. A new wave of attacks on Israel seems unlikely. The Iranian was identified as General Seyyed Abiyar, a member of the Quds Force, a branch of the Revolutionary Guards.
Gaza: Some Gazans are urging Hamas to accept President Joe Biden’s proposed ceasefire, but remain skeptical that the United States can truly end the war. In an interview with Time magazine, Biden said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was prolonging the war to stay in power.
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Benjamin Bolger spent his life accumulating degrees. He holds 14 advanced degrees, some of which took years to complete, such as a PhD from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
The reason he went to college was simple: “I like to study,” he told our reporter.
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sports news
Transfer transaction table: Your weekly guide to transfers across Europe this summer.
continue: Driver Esteban Ocon will leave Alpine Racing at the end of the Formula 1 season.
French Open: Novak Djokovic withdrew due to injury and Coco Gauff, Iga Swiatek and Carlos Alcaraz all won.
art and ideas
Chinese websites are disappearing
China’s Internet is disappearing in chunks. Posts are being removed and censored.
The country’s internet regulator found that there were 3.9 million websites as of 2023, down from 5.3 million in 2017. A recent article on WeChat reported that between 1995 and 2005, almost all information shared on the Internet in China—news portals, blogs, forums, social media sites—is no longer available.
Li Yuan wrote in a column in “New New World” that although archiving websites anywhere is costly and difficult, China’s online publishers face tremendous censorship pressure under Xi Jinping.
Online companies have more incentives to over-censor and make old content disappear by not archiving it.
Two weeks ago, documentary director Wang Nanfu searched for his name on the film review website Douban, but found nothing. “Some of the films I directed have been deleted and banned from the Chinese Internet,” she said. “But this time, I feel like I’m being erased as part of history.”
