Shortage of TB Meds in India, ‘World’s Pharmacy’ and Epicentre of the Disease; Obsession with Short-Term GDP Growth Misses Broader Issues

AIADMK says farewell to the BJP, FBI warned US Sikhs of risk, Moody gives negative rating to Aadhaar, heat inequality in Kolkata, UK applies Gillette’s razor test to refugees, Archie on Netflix

A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by MK Venu, Seema Chishti, Siddharth Varadarajan, Sushant Singh, Sidharth Bhatia and Tanweer Alam | With inputs from Kalrav Joshi and Anirudh SK | Editor: Pratik Kanjilal

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Snapshot of the day

September 25, 2023

Pratik Kanjilal

The special session of Parliament will be remembered for the abusive attack on BSP MP Danish Ali by BJP MP Ramesh Bidhuri in the Lok Sabha, which the former health minister Harsh Vardhan found amusing. Ironically, we know about this because Sansad TV focuses on the ruling party, at the expense of the Opposition. But the Rajya Sabha also resounded with unprecedented “political sloganeering” from the visitors’ gallery, which is generally strictly policed.   

(Source: https://twitter.com/satishacharya) 

Last week, the BJP gained an ally in the south when the Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka signed up with the National Democratic Alliance. Today, however, the AIADMK in Tamil Nadu bid the saffron party farewell.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Minorities has deposed before the US Commission for International religious freedom about the “massive, widespread and systematic violation of the rights of religious minorities in India… India risks becoming one of the world’s main generators of instability, atrocities and violence” says Fernand de Varennes. 

 The murder of civil engineer Nurul Hasan in Satara, by a mob which stormed a mosque during evening prayers, is the latest in a series of communal incidents from Maharashtra.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken weighed in on Canada’s allegation against India, saying Washington expects “accountability” from India. The MEA, which responded to the Canadian charge with a strident denial and an accusation that Canada is now a safe haven for terror, has yet to say anything about the half-a-dozen of so official calls from Washington for India to cooperate with Ottawa’s probe.

After the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada, the FBI warned some Sikh activists in California that may also be at risk. The value of India-US ties, which now include a strategic relationship, is several times that of India-Canada ties, notes The Intercept. True or not, that is what the Indian establishment must have assumed. “A less haughty, quicker-thinking figure than Modi would also have understood that Nijjar’s murder, appalling in itself, raised significant matters of state that Trudeau could not ignore,” says The Guardian, as it reminds readers of the poisoning of Sergei Skripal in the UK.

Australia is in a delicate position following the India-Canada diplomatic spat. It is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, whose signals intelligence has