Exit polls show Modi’s Hindu nationalist party sweeping Delhi election
Prime minister Narendra Modi‘s Hindu nationalist party is projected to have won Thursday’s state election in Delhi, according to exit polls.
Mr Modi’s predicted victory would end a 27-year-long drought for the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Delhi and unseat one of the country’s most prominent voices in opposition to the prime minister – Arvind Kejriwal.
About 60.39 per cent of the eligible 15 million voters in Delhi braved the “very poor” air quality on Wednesday to cast their ballot in the high-stakes election. The results will be declared on Saturday.
Exit polls, conducted by private firms, predicted the BJP would win an absolute majority in the 70-member Delhi assembly, defeating Mr Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party or AAP.
While some exit polls were still yet to be released on Wednesday, a running “poll of polls” placed the BJP on 43 seats, AAP on 26 and the Congress party with just one seat.
However, exit polls have a patchy record in India and have got the results badly wrong in the past, including at last year’s general election.
“Exit polls have always proven to be wrong for the AAP,” said party spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar. “Every time, the AAP has stormed to power with a massive mandate, and this time will be no different,” she added.
Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva welcomed the polls, saying that the party’s victory would be “more spectacular than what the exit polls have shown today”.
In 2020, the AAP won 62 of the total 70 seats, with the remaining eight going to the BJP.
AAP, which grew out of an anti-corruption movement in 2012, tasted its first electoral success in Delhi and has ruled the territory, which houses India’s parliament and federal government offices, for two consecutive terms from 2015.
Mr Kejriwal, 55, an anti-corruption crusader-turned-politician, was arrested on graft charges weeks before the general election began, and alleged a political vendetta by the Modi government. The BJP denies his arrest was politically motivated.
Mr Kejriwal was later released on bail, but resigned as chief minister to focus on campaigning for the Delhi election.
If the exit polls get it right, the BJP winning Delhi would be a crucial step in regaining electoral confidence in the party’s northern heartlands, after it lost its outright majority in last year’s national election and was forced to form a coalition government.
Mr Modi and Mr Kejriwal both campaigned vigorously for the election, with their rallies drawing thousands of supporters.
Both offered to revamp government schools and provide free health services and electricity as well as a monthly stipend of over Rs 2,000 (£18) to poor women.
The BJP was voted out of power in Delhi in 1998 and the Congress party ran the city for the next 15 years until AAP was elected to power.
Thai PM meets Xi in China amid fears for Uyghurs in Thailand
Chinese president Xi Jinping met Thai prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra in Beijing on Thursday amid fears of deportation for the 48 Uyghurs in custody in Thailand.
The Thai leader’s official visit to China this week marks the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries. Rights groups and experts fear during the three-day visit to Beijing, the Chinese government will push the Thai prime minister to accelerate the deportation of the Uyghurs back to China.
The 48 detainees were part of a much larger group of around 350 Uyghur refugees who fled to Thailand following persecution in the northwest Chinese region of Xinjiang in 2014. The detainees have been held in immigration detention for more than a decade.
According to a New York Times report, the detained Uyghurs are forbidden contact with relatives, lawyers, or other advocates and are allegedly subjected to a different standard of care than other detainees. Thailand is not a party to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, which leaves asylum seekers vulnerable to arrest and detention as “illegal migrants”.
The Chinese government has been accused of committing “crimes against humanity” against Uyghurs and Hui Muslims over the past decade through alleged widespread abuses and arbitrary detentions, an allegation that Beijing routinely denies as the “lie of the century”.
The UN says China has detained more than a million minority Muslims, mostly ethnic Uyghurs, since a dramatic escalation of counter-terrorism policies in the spring of 2017. China initially denied the existence of any Uyghur detention centres before defending them as “re-education centres”.
Last month, the UN human rights experts urged the Thai government to not send the Uyghurs back, warning they are at risk of torture, ill-treatment, and irreparable harm if returned.
The detainees “must be provided with access to asylum procedures and other humanitarian assistance”, the special rapporteurs said in a statement, adding half of the group had serious health conditions.
“We are informed that 23 of the 48 individuals suffer from serious health conditions, including diabetes, kidney dysfunction, paralysis of the lower body, skin diseases, gastrointestinal illnesses, and heart and lung conditions,” they said. “It is essential they be provided with the necessary and appropriate medical care.”
The statement was released days after human rights groups and some Thai lawmakers raised concerns that the transfer to China of the Uyghurs was imminent. The Thai government, however, said it has no such plans.
At least 172 women and children have since been sent to Turkey and 109 were forcibly returned to China, whose whereabouts were unknown to the rights groups.
During Thursday’s meeting, Mr Xi cited projects such as a high-speed railway set to link Bangkok with southwestern China’s Kunming, adding that digital economy and electric vehicles were additional areas for greater cooperation.
“In the face of unprecedented changes not seen for a 100 years, China and Thailand should deepen mutual trust over strategic interests and firmly support each other,” state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) quoted Mr Xi as saying.
Mandatory jail term for Nazi salute under new rules in Australia
Australia on Thursday passed anti-hate crime laws under which a Nazi salute in public, among other similar offences, will be punishable by a mandatory jail sentence.
The laws were passed in an effort to tackle a wave of high-profile antisemitic attacks targeting Jews in Australia in the wake of Israel’s war on Gaza.
The laws will impose jail sentences between 12 months for less serious hate crimes, such as giving a Nazi salute in public, and six years for those found guilty of terrorism offences.
Recent months have seen an escalation of attacks on synagogues, buildings and cars of Jewish community members across the country, including the discovery of a caravan laden with explosives with a list of Jewish targets in Sydney.
“I want people who are engaged in antisemitism to be held to account, to be charged, to be incarcerated,” prime minister Anthony Albanese, who had initially opposed mandatory minimum sentences for hate crimes, told Sky News.
The government’s hate crimes bill was first introduced to parliament last year, creating new offences for threatening force or violence against people based on their race, religion, nationality, national or ethnic origin, political opinion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status.
Home minister Tony Burke, who introduced the amendments enabling the provisions late on Wednesday, said the changes were the toughest laws Australia has ever had against hate crimes.
Self-described Nazi Jacob Hersant was the first person to be convicted in the state of Victoria last year for performing the outlawed Nazi salute.
The 25-year-old gave the salute and praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in front of news media cameras outside the Victoria County Court on 27 October 2023, after he had appeared on an unrelated charge. It was six days after the Victoria state government had made the salute illegal.
Three men were convicted in June 2024 of performing the Nazi salute during a soccer match in Sydney on 1 October 2022. New South Wales state had banned Nazi symbols in 2022. They were each fined and have appealed.
US military plane with Indian immigrants lands in Punjab
A US military plane deporting over a hundred Indian immigrants landed in India’s northern state of Punjab on Wednesday, the first such flight as Donald Trump’s key policies during his second term in office takes shape.
The C-17 plane which took off from Texas on Tuesday landed at Amritsar’s Shri Guru Ramdas Ji International Airport on Wednesday afternoon.
It comes as Indian prime minister Narendra Modi is likely to meet Mr Trump in the White House next week after he agreed his country would “do what’s right” in accepting US deportations. During the phone call, Mr Trump stressed the importance of India buying more American-made security equipment and fair bilateral trade.
Mass deportation of undocumented people living in the US of various nationalities was one of the key policies under the second Trump administration.
Videos showed the US military plane making a landing with media and family members gathering at the airport.
Those who returned were people identified from Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat. Authorities in Punjab have made arrangements to receive and process deportees.
A total of 48 deportees are under the age of 25, including 12 minors and 25 women. The youngest passenger is just four years old, the Indian Express newspaper reported, citing sources.
In terms of regional distribution, the highest number of deportees – 33 each – are from Gujarat and Haryana, followed by 30 from Punjab. Maharashtra has three deportees, while Uttar Pradesh and Chandigarh each have two.
“We discussed it in the meeting chaired by the chief minister today. He has asked us that the Punjab government receive them in a friendly manner,” said Punjab director general of police Gaurav Yadav.
“We shall set up our counters there (at the airport). We are in touch with the central government. Whenever we shall receive any more information, we will share it.”
The deportation has kicked off a political storm in India with the opposition Congress Party calling out the ruling Modi’ government for staying silent on Indians being “humiliated”.
Pawan Khera, chairman of the Congress party’s media and publicity department, said: “Looking at the pictures of Indians getting handcuffed and humiliated while being deported from the US saddens me as an Indian.”
India has said it will cooperate with the US and was ready to accept the deported Indians after verification.
New Delhi said it was against illegal immigration, mainly because it is linked to several forms of organised crime, and has not objected to the US deporting its citizens.
“For Indians, not just in the United States but anywhere in the world, if they are Indian nationals, and they are overstaying or they are in a particular country without proper documentation, we will take them back, provided documents are shared with us so that we can verify their nationality that they are indeed Indians,” India’s External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said last month.
“If that happens to be the case, then we will take things forward. We will facilitate the return to India,” Mr Jaiswal said.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said earlier this week the deportation flights were an effective way to stem the flow of illegal migration, which he said was destructive and destabilising.
It is however not the first time the US has deported Indian immigrants in expensive military or chartered flights.
India’s junior External Affairs Minister Kirti Vardhan Singh told India’s parliament that 519 Indian nationals were deported to India between November 2023 and October 2024, citing US government data.
Between 2018 and 2023, a total of 5,477 Indians have been deported by the US to India, according to official US immigration and customs data.
More similar flights are expected. However, the exact number of undocumented Indian immigrants in the US remains unknown.
The US is believed to have identified about 18,000 undocumented Indians who could be sent back.
The Pew Research Center estimates there are around 725,000 undocumented Indian migrants in the US, making them the third-largest group of illegal immigrants in the country after those from Mexico and El Salvador.
However, a 2022 Department of Homeland Security report said around 220,000 Indians were living in the US without authorisation.
Netflix India shares 2025 lineup heavy on Bollywood star children
Netflix has revealed its Indian original content lineup for 2025, with over 25 projects across films, series, sports, and unscripted programming.
Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan makes his Netflix debut with The Ba***ds of Bollywood, which he directed. The series, which follows an ambitious outsider and his friends as they navigate the larger-than-life yet uncertain world of Bollywood, is produced by Shah Rukh Khan and wife Gauri Khan’s production company Red Chillies Entertainment.
From YRF Entertainment comes Akka, set in the 1980s matriarchal society of a fictional city of Pernuru, South India and will star National award winner Keerthy Suresh, Radhika Apte, and Tanvi Azmi.
Also from YRF is Mandala Murders, a moody series starring Vaani Kapoor and Surveen Chawla that delves into ritualistic killings linked to a centuries-old secret society.
Glory, starring Divyenndu, Pulkit Samrat, and Suvinder Vicky, is a murder mystery set in the sporting world, following legendary boxing coach Raghubir Singh who is forced to reunite with estranged sons after a savage attack.
Marking Netflix’s first foray into Telugu series, Super Subbu stars Sundeep Kishan and Mithila Palkar in a comedy drama about a man’s job as an adult sex education teacher in a remote, conservative village.
Bringing together two Bollywood legacies is Nadaaniyan, starring Saif Ali Khan’s son Ibrahim Ali Khan in his debut and Sridevi’s daughter Khushi Kapoor in a film that follows a South Delhi diva who hires a boy with a middle-class background to pose as her boyfriend. Hijinks ensue in the romance that also stars Mahima Chaudhary, Suniel Shetty, Dia Mirza and Jugal Hansraj.
Speaking of Bollywood legacies, Netflix will also release Dining with the Kapoors, which claims to offer an intimate look into Bollywood’s iconic Kapoor family, featuring multiple generations including Ranbir Kapoor, Karisma Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor Khan.
The Royals brings together The Perfect Couple’s Ishaan Khatter with Bhumi Pednekar in a breezy romcom that follows prince Aviraaj Singh trying to save his dysfunctional royal family from financial ruin with CEO Sophia Kanmani Shekhar, who in turn is hoping to keep her startup away from aggressive investors.
Toaster, starring Rajkummar Rao, Sanya Malhotra, and an ensemble cast including Archana Puran Singh and Abhishek Banerjee, looks to be a fun ride as it follows a miser obsessed with the titular toaster he gifted at a wedding and somehow finds himself in the midst of murder and utter chaos.
Saif Ali Khan reunites with his Salaam Namaste director Siddharth Anand in the latter’s streaming debut, Jewel Thief – The Heist Begins. A high stakes thriller about a jewel thief hired by a powerful crime lord to steal the elusive African Red Sun diamond, the film sees what happens when a meticulously planned heist goes awry.
New seasons of popular series Khakee, Rana Naidu, Kohrra, and international Emmy-winning Delhi Crime are also set to return to Netflix this year.
Earlier this year, Netflix released subscriber numbers for the last quarter of 2024, which showed that the streamer’s gamble with live sporting events had paid off spectacularly, as November’s Mike Tyson and Jake Paul boxing match drew 108 million viewers worldwide, making it the most-streamed sporting event ever.
With that in mind, Netflix will be hosting more live events like WWE wrestling, which will be available with Hindi commentary this year.
China announces wave of tariffs on US goods as Trump trade war begins
Donald Trump’s policy of imposing tariffs on rival nations reignited the first trade war of his new presidency on Tuesday, as China retaliated with its own wave of levies and an investigation into the U.S. tech giant Google.
The foreign ministry in Beijing imposed 15 percent tariffs on coal and liquefied natural gas, while oil and agricultural equipment from the U.S. will face a 10 percent levy. The new tariffs will take effect on Monday.
Trump’s 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods, which Beijing called a “serious violation” of international trade rules, came into effect on Tuesday. It followed the announcement of a 25 percent tariff on imports from both Canada and Mexico – though the implementation of these tariffs was paused at the last minute.
During his first presidential term, Trump initiated a two-year trade war with China over its U.S. trade surplus, with tit-for-tat tariffs upending global supply chains and damaging the world economy.
“The trade war is in the early stages so the likelihood of further tariffs is high,” Oxford Economics said in a note as it downgraded its China economic growth forecast.
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China’s commerce ministry said it would impose export controls on tungsten, tellurium, ruthenium, molybdenum and ruthenium-related items in order to “safeguard national security interests”.
Beijing controls much of the world’s supply of such rare earths, which are critical for the production of many electronic components as well as the global clean energy transition.
“The U.S.’s unilateral imposition of tariffs seriously violates the rules of the World Trade Organisation,” the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. “It is not only unhelpful in solving its own problems, but also undermines the normal economic and trade cooperation between China and the U.S.”
China also hit back at the U.S. with an investigation into Google for alleged anti-trust violations. Stocks in Hong Kong declined after China’s retaliation, while the dollar strengthened and the Chinese yuan fell.
The retaliatory levies were announced hours after Trump said he planned to speak with China’s president Xi Jinping by telephone.
China had urged Trump against imposing additional tariffs on an estimated $400 billion in goods that Washington purchases from Beijing annually, urging dialogue while vowing to impose “countermeasures” if the U.S. president went ahead.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy earlier this year said that “there is no winner in a trade war or tariff war”, adding that it didn’t serve the interests of either side or the wider world.
In 2018, during his first term, Trump initiated a brutal two-year trade war with China over its massive U.S. trade surplus, with tariffs imposed by both sides on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of goods.
In 2020, China ended the row by agreeing to spend an extra $200 billion a year on U.S. goods, but the plan was derailed by the Covid-19 pandemic. China’s annual trade deficit has since widened to $361 billion, according to Chinese customs data released last month.
Trump suggested on Monday that the European Union would be his next target for tariffs, but did not say when that might happen.
Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, said Brussels would be ready for tough negotiations, but underlined the need to lay foundations for a stronger partnership with the EU’s largest trade and investment partner.
“We will be open and pragmatic in how to achieve that. But we will make it equally clear that we will always protect our own interests – however and whenever that is needed,” she said.
Japan Airlines plane collides with Delta jet at Seattle airport
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating after a Japan Airlines flight hit a Delta Airlines plane as the aircraft were taxiing at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Wednesday.
The strike happened around 10:40 a.m. in an area that is not under air traffic control, according to the agency. The Delta plane’s wing tip was struck by the Japan Airlines aircraft. The Delta flight was heading to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with 142 customers on board. The customers deplaned and later boarded another plane to their final destination.
The airport worked with both airlines to deplane passengers and bring them to the terminal. Incoming flights were temporarily paused due to the incident. No one was injured.
“We apologize for the experience and delay in travels,” Delta said in a statement.
The FAA announced it is investigating the incident, while the National Transportation Safety Board said it was aware of the incident and is monitoring the situation.
The Independent has emailed Japan Airlines for comment.
The incident comes a week after an American Eagle regional jet collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River near Washington D.C., killing 67 people. Three soldiers were on the helicopter and 64 people were on the plane.
The soldiers were involved in a training session, officials said after the collision. There are no definitive answers as to what may have caused the crash but investigators suspect the helicopter was flying higher than its allowed 200 feet altitude.
Preliminary data shows the Black Hawk was flying at an altitude of 325 feet when it was struck by the helicopter.
A few days later, a medical transport plane crashed in Philadelphia, killing six people on board. The aircraft was heading to Springfield, Missouri with 11-year-old Valentina Guzmán Murillol, her mother, Lizeth Murillo Osuna and four crew members. The child just underwent treatment at Shriners Children’s Philadelphia hospital. It’s not yet known what led to that crash either.
In an X post on Wednesday, Elon Musk announced his intentions to “make rapid upgrades to the air traffic control system.” Days earlier, the FAA’s primary aircraft safety notification system failed for several hours, the Tesla CEO claimed.
Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency as a “special government employee,” said his team would be working on the matter.
British investigative journalist banned from Cambodia
The Cambodian government has banned a British journalist from entering the country in a move press groups condemned as an attack on independent media.
Gerald Flynn, 33, who writes for Mongabay, was stopped from entering Cambodia at the Siem Reap International Airport on 5 January, the publication said.
The journalist was returning from a holiday in Thailand when he was denied entry and forced on a plane back to Bangkok.
Immigration officials told Mr Flynn that he was permanently banned from Cambodia due to an “error on a document submitted as part of his last visa extension application”, Mongabay said, adding that he held a valid work permit as well as a 12-month extension to his multiple-entry business visa issued on 6 February 2024.
The journalist was also shown immigration documents indicating that he had been added to Cambodia’s blacklist on 25 November. Mr Flynn was blacklisted days after a France24 documentary critical of the Cambodian carbon offsetting efforts was aired in which he was interviewed.
The country’s environment ministry and the project proponent Wildlife Alliance dismissed the documentary and accused the French broadcaster without evidence of “using old images” to mislead the public, according to the publication.
The immigration office reportedly claimed Mr Flynn had applied for a visa to work as an electrician despite having worked as a journalist for more than five years in Cambodia.
“Sad to confirm that I was denied re-entry to Cambodia on Jan 5 and, a month later, it’s no clearer as to whether I can return, but it does seem to be retaliation for my journalistic work,” Mr Flynn wrote on X.
Mr Flynn, who had been working in Cambodia since 2019, told the Guardian the situation for the media had deteriorated in the last five years. “We’ve seen more arrests, more lawsuits, more harassment, both physical and online. We’ve even had journalists killed,” he said.
“The government’s intolerance towards anything that they deem critical has made it very risky for all journalists in Cambodia to continue operating.”
Human Rights Watch said the ban on Mr Flynn was a “blatant attack” on journalism and served as another example of the Cambodian government’s “intolerance of critical and investigative journalism”.
Media watchdog RSF joined press groups in condemning the incident. Mr Flynn was targeted in retaliation for his reporting on environmental issues, Cédric Alviani, director of the Paris-based group, said.
The media watchdog ranked Cambodia 151st out of 180 countries on its latest international press freedom index.
Press freedom is routinely curtailed in Cambodia through arbitrary arrests of journalists and environmental activists.
Journalist Chhoeung Chheng was shot dead by an assailant last December while reporting on the transport of alleged illegally cut timber in the Boeung Per Wildlife Sanctuary.
In November, six prominent environmental activists were detained for three days and questioned while investigating an illicit timber trafficking network in Stung Treng province that Mr Flynn had reported on for Mongabay, Human Rights Watch said.
Another Cambodian journalist, Mech Dara, was accused of disseminating fake news and detained on charges of incitement.