Comment by astar1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by astar1 | Hacker News Reader

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It's becoming an illiberal democracy like Turkey. Which is still a lot different than the US imo.

e.g.:

-After a decade of Modi rule, India now ranked 161 out of 180 in the world press freedom index: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/22/media/india-elections-press-f...

-Political opponents have been arrested on trumped up charges before elections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_of_Arvind_Kejriwal

-Extrajudicial killings on Canadian soil and possible attempt on US soil before they were caught (despite extradition agreements between India and these countries): https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/india-government-agent-as...

I saw an interesting interview from 50's by one of India's founders on the topic of democracy in India: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WyWUlIbcRH8 . It seems India still has a long way to go, and the current government is reversing the trend.

I really hope the west thinks long and hard about foreign investment in/free trade with India without preconditions (although these are doubtful from the US under the current administration, maybe the EU can step up). The west had this idea that opening up trade with China would make the country more democratic and free, but it had the opposite impact (the extra resources only made things worse in these areas at home and aborad, especially after Xi's takeover in 2014).

The first point is completely invalid, here a lot of press, YouTubers berate Indian government in daily basis they do not suffer any setbacks except when netizens call out false propaganda in numbers for both pro and anti government media.

Second point the Indian leader arrested was involved in huge scams in liquor and policy, he used to live in a lavish palace and got called out by enforcement directorate. It's good he got arrested.

Canada has not provided even a single proof for Indias involvement in extrajudicial killings but instead harbor people who threaten Indians regularly. Despite extradition treaty Canada has become a safe harbor of terrorists and refused to extradite terrorists even after repeated requests by India.

Reversing the trend ? Are you kidding me, previous government imposed emergency rule when their position was threatened and commited human rights abuses.

> Despite extradition treaty Canada has become a safe harbor of terrorists and refused to extradite terrorists even after repeated requests by India.

This seems troubling. Can you share some examples of this?

> Canada has not provided even a single proof for Indias involvement in extrajudicial killings

I don't know about Canada, but did you read this about the case in the US?

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-attorney-announces-c...

It's pretty comprehensive that the person hired was connected to the Indian govt.

Some examples:

https://www.opindia.com/2024/12/khalistani-terrorist-pannun-...

https://www.opindia.com/2024/12/we-take-threats-very-serious...

https://www.opindia.com/2024/11/us-supported-khalistani-terr...

Regarding extrajudicial killings if I remember correctly arrested person was Indian, not sure if it was proved that he was connected to Indian govt. And for Canada yes they didn't provide any proof but instead had to backtrack on their statements:

https://www.opindia.com/news-updates/canadian-pm-justin-trud...

Wait, all your links are from opindia

From wikipedia -

OpIndia is an Indian far-right[2] news website known for frequently publishing misinformation.[11][12][28] Founded in December 2014,[18] the website has published fake news and Islamophobic commentary on numerous occasions.[37][43] OpIndia is dedicated to criticism of what it considers liberal media,[14] and to support of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)[47] and Hindutva ideology.[3] According to University of Maryland researchers, OpIndia has shamed journalists it deems to be in opposition to the BJP and has alleged media bias against Hindus and the BJP.[13]

Did you get a chance to read the US attorney's indictment and alleged connections to the Indian govt?

Opindia has no hesitation on declaring itself as a right leaning site but frequently publishing misinformation? That's exaggeration. It backs whatever it writes with independent research, attached videos documents, cctv footage, other news houses as best as it can. Sure it made its mistakes but not so much as other media houses in India.

There are much worse media houses that opindia especially on the left.

And Wikipedia? That's neither reliable or consistent. It itself has been shown to be edited by whimsical propagandists to serve their own means in past.

The articles sources can be checked and not only opindia other news houses have reported on Gurpreet Singh Pannu

Hey, you didn't answer my question about whether you read the indictment or not

I didn't get a chance to read but will surely will, thanks for pointing that

My man, you are trying to reason with a person who follows opindia, just move on with your life.

> they do not suffer any setbacks

hmm: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/13/india-arrests-raids-targ...

> Second point the Indian leader arrested was involved in huge scams in liquor and policy.

unproven, and the timing could not have been more suspicious:

"Amnesty International, an international human rights group said that the arrest of Kejriwal and the "freezing of Indian National Congress’ bank accounts", a few weeks before India's general elections showed "the authorities’ blatant failure to uphold the country’s international human rights obligations".[45][46]"

> Despite extradition treaty Canada has become a safe harbor of terrorists and refused to extradite terrorists even after repeated requests by India.

How about despite an extradition treaty, India has never submitted a claim against these so called terrorists and like normal democracies use the courts to argue their case for extradition. In Canada the courts are generally far more independent than those in India. Note - speech calling for a separate state by itself is not terrorism in any country that values free speech (heck half of Quebec regularly does this), only calling or acting for violence means crossing that line, i haven't seen any evidence for the latter (but I'm open to be proven wrong - from independent credible sources unlike those you listed).

> Reversing the trend ? Are you kidding me.

Yes, according to the article I originally cited and others, India has become less democratic. Caste violence and religious tension (i.e. chants of "love jihad") seems to have gotten worse - true to India's founders video in the 1950's I shared of democracy in India.

The first link you shared of hrw...in one of the incidents it showed the arrest of newsclick.

The problem with international media houses is that they don't report why someone has been arrested on what charges and with what process. Newsclick offices has been raided for allegedly taking funding from CCP for propaganda and also inciting Delhi riots.

The second instance when the hrw is saying that Delhi police arrested 'peaceful protesters', there were RIOTS! A police offices was stabbed in two digits, a boy' limbs were amputed while being alive and left to burn in his shop. They were not peaceful protests in any case.

Amnesty international did the same thing. It did not report why Kejriwal was arrested. Kejriwal's lavish mansion made with money of tax payers has been a topic of mockery by Indian public. His party lost elections badly because people knew that the arrest was not whimsical.

I won't comment on topic of court more, as I don't know you can be right.

Independent credible sources :p. Name any media house and I can show how they have repeatedly used media as a propaganda page with full of fake news whether left or right(except reuters maybe). The only thing credible is reading from multiple sources to know fully about an incident. What I like about Opindia is that it provides a very comprehensive coverage of every incident with sources and proofs at every line and has even corrected itself in past for mistakes.

India has not become less democratic that is just a farce by some parties who neither have any agenda, neither consistent neither in touch with what people want, they are just envious that they are being repeatedly loosing elections in multiple states of India. They only cry India is less democratic when they lose elections.

The opposing party repeatedly wants a caste census and invites regularly people of different castes against other castes. In fact caste violence is at its lowest period, since from my parents times. Young generation have stopped believing in birth castes except to make Instagram reels. Love jihad, I can show you hundreds of cases when a member of a community (you can guess) has posed as member of other religious group for an affair to be finally have his identity revealed after marriage after which domestic violence and sexual exploitation of the victim arises. Now before you say that it is a 'Hindutva majoritian' agenda, well not when the church groups of Kerala raise the same issue in their community.

I'm unclear which of those things you don't think applies to the US as well?

It may not be as blatant, but the current administration is openly attempting to muzzle the press (i.e. banning the AP from Whitehouse), the last few US elections have been mired in law enforcement interactions (FBI investigation into Hilary's emails, Trump's various trials), and extrajudicial killings on foreign soil have openly been a thing since Obama's drone-strike-happy administration.

it's still no where near the same. Adani, india's richest man, has close connections to Modi and is under indictment by the US for bribery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_against_Gautam_Adan... .

He also bought one of india's last major independent traditional media outlets (NDTV) years ago. The comparison I can think of is if MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News were all run like Fox news in terms of alignment with Trump. In a country where 25% the population is illiterate this is especially concerning as a significant portion of the electorate can only access their news from traditional media (TV, radio).

oh i forgot to add, the internet penetration rate is around 50% in India, so 50% of the population can't even access youtube on demand.

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