US secretary of state John Kerry is right to engage with India.  Gary Cameron  / Reuters
US secretary of state John Kerry is right to engage with India. Gary Cameron / Reuters

Better US-India links will be of great benefit



With US secretary of state John Kerry due to arrive in India today, some observers have wondered why he is not concentrating instead on halting the carnage in Gaza. But others see the visit as recognition of the importance of the relationship between Washington and Delhi, for which the BJP’s election victory has provided the chance of a reboot, particularly after the diplomatic spat earlier this year.

Despite the desperate suffering of the Palestinian civilians who are bearing the brunt of Israel’s attacks, the reality is that Mr Kerry has to fulfil long-standing engagements. The US – and the West in general – has a clear interest in engaging with India and encouraging it to play a greater role in international affairs. Mr Kerry himself noted both the potential and the previous stutters between the two countries, when he said on Monday that this was “a potentially transformative moment [for a bilateral relationship that has] not yet always fully blossomed”.

From the US perspective, a strong and prosperous India will help provide a counterweight to China’s increasing influence. But despite prime minister Narendra Modi’s commanding electoral mandate to pursue economic reforms and the BJP’s absolute majority in parliament, nobody ought to expect that this will happen quickly or easily.

The US must support Indian efforts to meet its potential. These include economic reforms to inject meritocracy into its domestic markets and address the pervasive corruption. Foreign direct investment should be encouraged, which would bring international standards of management into play. The difficulties of this are already clear, with India threatening to derail the biggest global trade agreement in 20 years because it would affect its archaic and inefficient food subsidy programme.

So, too, India has to address issues of social justice, whether it is in the form of social mobility, sexual violence against women or, again, the corruption that means ability and endeavour are not properly rewarded.

India’s foreign policy, which includes meddling in Afghanistan with the goal of needling Pakistan, also clearly needs attention. Delhi can be a powerful force for good in the region and globally if it adopts more mature policies. And on that front, the links between India and Israel could be used to influence Tel Aviv, to the benefit of the Palestinians. India is capable of achieving all this, to the advantage of all its citizens.

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Jigra
Director: Vasan Bala
Starring: Alia Bhatt, Vedang Raina, Manoj Pahwa, Harsh Singh
Rated: 3.5/5
How to wear a kandura

Dos

  • Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion 
  • Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
  • Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work 
  • Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester

Don’ts 

  • Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal 
  • Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
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Politics in the West
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts

Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.

The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.

Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.

More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.

The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.

Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:

November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.

May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.

April 2017Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.

February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.

December 2016A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.

July 2016Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.

May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.

New Year's Eve 2011A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding