Daily Briefing: Marking a year of war in West Asia; PM Modi to meet Maldives President Muizzu today

🚨Big Story

365 days of relentless bombardment, with thousands killed and displaced—October 7 marks 1 twelvemonth of the deadliest conflict successful the Middle East successful caller times, if not, ever.

How it each began? A twelvemonth ago, Hamas launched an onslaught connected Israel, sidesplitting 1,200 radical and taking 250 hostages astatine an all-night euphony festival located astir 3 miles from the Gaza border. In response, Israel initiated a devastating subject violative successful the Gaza Strip, which has resulted successful implicit 40,000 deaths and displaced 1.9 cardinal radical to date.

The theatre of conflict: Beyond Gaza, Israel has conducted strikes successful Syria and Yemen, and has launched a caller onslaught successful Lebanon, expanding the theatre to Iran-backed proxy groups specified arsenic the Hezbollah and the Houthis. It has continued crushed operations successful Gaza portion disregarding calls for a ceasefire from the UN Security Council, and US requests for restraint, though Hamas has already been importantly weakened.

Responses: Middle Eastern powers person taken a mediatory oregon confrontational stance toward Israel. While Turkey has accrued its anti-Israel rhetoric, Qatar and Egypt proceed to play a mediating relation betwixt Israel and Hamas, though their efforts person seen constricted occurrence truthful far.

The West, led by the US, warns against further escalation, commits to humanitarian assistance for Gaza, and stands firmly by Israel, adjacent erstwhile it crosses reddish linesIndia has chosen to dainty coercion arsenic a chiseled contented that needs to beryllium condemned and addressed, abstracted from the governmental question of Israel and Palestine.

In airy of the Israel-Hamas conflict, today’s Opinion conception features columnist Vikram Mehta, who argues that 2024 marked a watershed twelvemonth erstwhile geopolitical, geoeconomic, and geotechnical forces converged to make the “perfect storm” for World War III. He outlines 4 compelling reasons to enactment this assertion.

⚡Only successful Express

Unpacking the stakes: A time up of the Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) Assembly canvass verdicts, we instrumentality a look astatine what’s connected the enactment successful presumption of powerfulness dynamics.

In Haryana, if exit polls are to beryllium believed, the Congress is apt to instrumentality to powerfulness aft a decade. Columnist Neerja Chowdhury writes connected the importance of the authorities which “goes beyond its size” as it could make momentum for the absorption parties successful Maharashtra and Jharkhand, wherever polls are expected to beryllium announced soon.

Meanwhile, the much-anticipated J&K polls – the archetypal to beryllium held successful a decennary – saw parties vying to reshape the region’s future. While immoderate exit polls predicted a hung House, others accidental the Congress-National Conference confederation has an borderline but whitethorn miss the halfway mark.

In today’s dedicated occurrence of our 3 Things podcast, we dive deeper into cardinal narratives that unfolded during the predetermination and what’s truly astatine involvement for the radical of J&K.

📰From the Front Page

‘India Out In’? Prime Minister Narendra Modi connected Monday volition meet Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu presently connected his archetypal bilateral State sojourn to India. Ahead of the meeting, Muizzu flagged the request for fiscal assistance to the land nation. His five-day sojourn could witnesser absorbing developments successful presumption of the India-Maldives narration fixed that the ties betwixt the 2 countries person been nether strain ever since Muizzu rode to powerfulness past November connected an ‘India Out’ predetermination plank.

A faint ray of hope: There was immoderate bully quality for astir 7,346 depositors who invested with the West Bengal-based Rose Valley Group astatine last. They received portion of their wealth backmost successful the archetypal signifier of the long-awaited restitution process of 1 of the biggest fiscal frauds successful the past of Bengal. The Group is estimated to person defrauded investors of implicit Rs 17,000 crore by collecting funds done fake schemes until it went bust successful 2013.

📌Must Read

Travelling down the curve: Even arsenic the satellite is witnessing a play of the alleged ‘revenge travel’ phenomenon, India seems to person evidently mislaid immoderate of its tourism-related sheen station the Covid-19 pandemic. There has been a important surge successful the fig of Indians travelling overseas, exceeding adjacent the pre-Covid levels. However, the representation is not arsenic breathtaking erstwhile it comes to overseas travellers visiting India. The reasons for divergence successful trends are a origin for interest for the country’s tourism industry.

👉And Finally…

60 hours, 6,300 metres… that’s what it took to rescue 2 seasoned mountaineers – British alpinist Fay Manners and Michelle Dvorak – stranded successful Uttarakhand’s Garhwal Himalayas for 2 days without important supplies. While rescue operations led by the Indian Air Force had to tackle the challenges of the Chaukhamba-III terrain, the breakthrough came with the assistance of a French expedition squad operating successful the area.

That’s each for today.

Until tomorrow
Aradhana Kalia and Vibha B Madhava

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