Daily Briefing: India, Japan unveil ambitious roadmap; Ram Temple ‘theft’ caught on-camera; and more

38-year-old Babita Dhakad, a resident of Jaipur, has grabbed national attention with her alleged online journey into extremist circles that so far remained invisible even to those around her. Her move to establish contacts with the top leadership of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) has left investigators searching for answers — not just about the alleged links, but also about how an ordinary resident of the city’s outskirts ended up in conversations with one of the most wanted terror networks. More than a year ago, she started interacting with “jihadi and anti-national” social media pages, handles and profiles, which, officials say, was simply “borne out of curiosity”. On June 22, Rajasthan’s Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested her under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

With that, let’s move on to the top stories from today’s edition:

PM Modi, Takaichi strengthen India-Japan ties

Ram Temple ‘theft’ footage

Messi’s magic

🚨 Big Story

India and Japan on Thursday unveiled a raft of initiatives while positioning economic security and energy resilience as the defining pillars of the next phase of their bilateral ties. These include a joint roadmap on economic security, a new framework on mobility, and an artificial intelligence (AI) partnership. The two sides moved to deepen maritime and defence cooperation in the Indo-Pacific with plans for more naval exercises, defence technology collaboration, and an early convening of the India-Japan 2+2 ministerial dialogue. The announcement comes amid shifting geopolitics and global energy disruptions owing to the West Asia crisis.

Both India and Japan sought to advance their cooperation “to enhance the resilience and competitiveness of both countries in the field of AI.” This move aims to bring about innovation and growth in both countries, in order to build a safe, secure, trustworthy, inclusive, human-centric, sustainable, accountable, and innovation-oriented AI ecosystem, a joint statement on AI released following the talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi stated. Later, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas and the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said they will also cooperate on the strategic stockpiling ecosystem.

Deepening ties: The number of Japanese companies making efforts now to do business in India has increased multifold, thanks to the steady growth of the Indian economy despite global challenges. Realizing that India offers stability in an increasingly uncertain world, a small number of top Japanese corporations are also sending their most capable Japanese staff to explore opportunities in India. Investment in real estate, technology startups and steelmaking are on the rise. The key to success in India for these companies is to provide products and services suited to Indian conditions, competitively priced and produced on a large scale.

⚡ Only in Express

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“We are sitting on a hunger strike out of helplessness.”

Patidar farmers across Gujarat have gathered to demand higher compensation for the use of their land for high-voltage transmission infrastructure for power from the Khavda Renewable Energy Zone in Kutch district. The towers for the high-tension power transmission cables are being installed by Halvad Transmission Ltd, a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) of Adani Energy Solutions Ltd (AESL) – the country’s largest private-sector power transmission and distribution company. Farmers in the Morbi district claim they are the “worst affected” by the project. While the state Congress launched a rally in support of the farmers last month, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is yet to engage seriously with the protesters. On Tuesday, day 13 of the protest fast, when The Indian Express visited the Jetpar village, nine farmers were sitting on hunger strike.

📰 From the Front Page

Under scanner: Virtual private network (VPN) providers may now be required to establish a local India presence, as the Centre moves to introduce an expansive legal framework to curtail them and appoint key personnel to serve as a liaison with the government. The government believes that VPNs are being increasingly used by people to get around the blocking of apps and online content. The move is necessitated due to an implicit acknowledgement that the 2022 directives, which required VPN service providers to store a vast amount of customer data, may not have been able to yield satisfactory results.

Theft row: A thorough scanning of 45 days of CCTV footage recovered from the Ram temple’s Pilgrim Facility Centre in Ayodhya has revealed that at least five of the eight men, who were arrested for the alleged theft of donated funds, removed and hid cash during the counting process. A police officer told The Indian Express, “Unfortunately, the temple does not retain more than 45 days of CCTV footage. So we cannot say with certainty for how long this theft has been going on.” However, the agency through which these counting personnel were hired claimed that it did not scout for the men. These names were recommended for appointment by the State Bank of India where the donated money was deposited, the agency said.

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Right to protest: The Bombay High Court on Thursday set aside Mumbai Police’s year-long externment order against a political activist, and observed that merely arranging a morcha or a protest against “certain decisions” of the BJP-led government at the Centre could not be a ground for externment. The single-judge bench of Justice Madhav J Jamdar asked police if citizens were being made “slaves of the government” by slapping cases for opposing government decisions, and why they could not stage protests. Justice Jamdar sought an answer why Mumbai Police relied on FIRs in earlier protests by the petitioner where slogans including ‘BJP government murdabad’, ‘Amit Shah murdabad’ were raised.

📌 Must Read

In our Opinion section today, Sumit Ganguly delves into the consequences of the US Supreme Court’s verdict upholding birthright citizenship on Indians legally working in the country. Ganguly writes: “Yet, as recent immigrants who are non-white and mostly of other faiths — as opposed to the numerically dominant Christians — they can easily become the object of scapegoating. Common tropes suggest that anti-immigrant sentiment toward Indian Americans stems from the belief that they are unfairly seizing job opportunities and are abusing the visa system. Sadly, the current administration has done little to quell these fears and has instead fanned them. Though profoundly disturbing, hopefully these sentiments are only the latest version of anti-immigrant bigotry and will abate over time.”

Of donations and more: The recent allegations of theft of donation funds at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya have brought the hidden world – involving authorised personnel, counting halls, bank officials, auditors, and surveillance cameras – into public view. But Ayodhya is far from India’s only temple handling massive offerings. Shrines such as Tirupati, Jagannath, Vaishno Devi, Siddhivinayak, and Kashi Vishwanath receive hundreds of crores in donations every year, besides tonnes of gold, silver, and jewellery. My colleague Deeptiman Tiwary examines the donation systems, oversight mechanisms, and governance frameworks at five of India’s biggest temples and compares them with those at the Ram Temple.

⏳ And Finally…

Unstoppable: Lionel Messi scored zero World Cup goals at 23. He has scored 19 in six tournaments since then. Messi, in the match against Austria, does not run. And as Sriram Veera describes, Messi standing still in the right place is the most dangerous thing to happen on a football pitch. “Most players run and then deal with the ball. Messi runs as though the ball is not there, as though controlling it costs nothing, takes nothing from the stride. At full pace he moves the way other players move when unburdened. The ball simply accompanies him.” The question worth asking here is not how long he can keep going. It is why Messi keeps getting better.

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🎧 Lastly, don’t forget to tune in to today’s episode of our 3 Things podcast, where we discuss the chargesheet filed in the 1990 abduction and killing of Kashmiri Pandit Sarla Bhat; Centre’s new QR code-based track and trace system for medicines; as well as the government’s concern over WhatsApp’s new ‘username’ feature.

That’s all for today. Have a wonderful day!

Until next time,

Ariba

Business As Usual by E P Unny