GURGAON: When Shailja Singh headed to her favorite bar for a post-work beer this week she found it shut, victim of a Supreme Court ruling that has stopped India’s burgeoning alcohol and leisure industries in their tracks.
Thousands of liquor outlets were forced to close on April 1 after the order, which barred the sale of alcohol within a 500-meter (500-yard) range of a highway.
The ruling was meant to curb drink driving on India’s roads, the world’s deadliest, but has also shut down many bars, restaurants and hotels that serve tourists and office workers like Singh.
Fortunately for the 23-year-old, only half the bar-and restaurant-filled area in Gurgaon, a satellite city of New Delhi, is affected.
In a sign of the ruling’s arbitrary impact, the bars that fall just outside the 500-meter range are open, meaning she won’t have to go far to get a drink.
But for the businesses affected, the problem is not so easily solved.
“This is one of the most regressive steps that I’ve seen,” said one investor in a pub forced to go dry.
“The prime minister is talking about improving the ease of doing business. But first tell us can we do business to begin with? What are we telling foreign investors — overnight your investments can go?” said the investor, who asked not to be named.
India’s expanding middle class has made it a sparkling market for the alcohol industry.
In 2016 India alcohol sales were worth $40 billion, making it the eighth largest market by value globally.
It is expected to grow by six percent on average annually for the next four years, according to a Euromonitor International estimate.
“The liquor players, the tourism industry, they all had a strategy in place when they set up their businesses and then this verdict came in,” said an analyst at a Mumbai brokerage who asked not be named.
“This was completely unexpected and they will have to restrategise.”
Share prices of listed alcohol makers have already been hit.
United Spirits, which makes Black Label whisky and Smirnoff vodka in India, saw its shares fall by around nine percent on the Bombay Stock Exchange in the days immediately after the ban, despite a rising market.
Hotel and bar operators have also been affected.
Shahira Khan, assistant brand manager at The Beer Cafe chain of bars, said business was struggling.
“Earlier on normal weekdays we would get around 200 people each day. On weekends, around 250 people would walk in. Now we are hardly getting anyone,” she told AFP.
“After all, why would people come in? There is no beer at The Beer Cafe.”
Staff at a luxury hotel in Jaipur, a popular tourist destination in northern India, said they’d had several cancelations after they were forced to stop selling alcohol because the property falls within 500 meters of a highway.
The manager of the Chokhi Dhani said one group of Russian tourists were incensed when they were told they couldn’t get a drink.
“We tried telling them that it was a court order and we couldn’t do anything about it but they were obviously not pleased,” hotel manager Nupur Jain told AFP.
“They complained about how it spoiled all their plans and that they’d come there to have a good time.”
State governments and entrepreneurs have begun finding creative ways around the 500-meter limit.
Some states like Punjab have begun reclassifying highways as local roads to escape the ban, according to media reports.
Meanwhile some shopping malls and bar complexes are reportedly rerouting customers to a different entrance to increase their official distance from the road.
India has the world’s deadliest roads with nearly 150,000 people killed in 2015, according to the ministry of road transport and highways. Of those, 6,755 deaths were due to drunk driving.
The government has proposed more stringent sanctions for drunk drivers including fines of 10,000 ($154) and a jail term.
For the angry pub investor whose business has been wiped out, that is the solution.
“Instead of saying the law will be more stringent on anyone caught driving drunk, you’re saying let’s not sell alcohol. This is like saying there are rapists out there so women should not go out,” he said.
“What kind of a society are we living in?“
A booze ban stresses Indian business
A booze ban stresses Indian business
Blinken in Ukraine on unannounced visit to show US support
- Blinken arrived by overnight train from Poland and was due to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
Marking his fourth visit to Kyiv since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022, Blinken arrived by overnight train from Poland and was due to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to an AFP journalist accompanying him.
The visit comes just weeks after the US Congress finally approved a $61 billion package of financial aid for Ukraine after months of political wrangling, unlocking much-needed arms for the country’s stretched troops.
The aid is expected to flow at an accelerated pace as Washington seeks to make up for lost months while Congress struggled to agree on assistance.
“First this trip is to send a strong signal of reassurance to the Ukrainians who are obviously in a very difficult moment both with grinding battle on the Eastern Front but also with the Russians now expanding some cross-border attacks into Kharkiv,” a senior US official who spoke on condition of anonymity told reporters aboard the train.
The secretary intends in particular to detail how US aid will “be executed in a fashion to help shore up their defenses and enable them to increasingly take back the initiative on the battlefield.”
The last visit by a senior US official was in March, when National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan went to Ukraine.
Russia is “clearly throwing everything they have in the east and expanding the fighting to Kharkiv is representative of that strategy,” the official said.
“But we have a lot of confidence that the Ukrainians will increasingly be effective in pushing the Russians back as our assistance flows in both from the United States and other allies and partners.”
In addition to holding talks with Zelensky, Blinken is expected to meet with his counterpart Dmytro Kuleba as well as members of the civil society and additionally deliver a speech focused on “Ukraine’s strategic success.”
Also up for discussion is a bilateral defense agreement that the United States hopes to conclude before the NATO summit in Washington in July.
“The negotiations are in their final stages, we’re very close,” the US official said.
Biden signs ban on imports of Russian nuclear reactor fuel into law
- Russia is the world’s top supplier of enriched uranium, and about 24 percent of the enriched uranium used by US nuclear power plants come from the country
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden signed a ban on Russian enriched uranium into law on Monday, the White House said, in the latest effort by Washington to disrupt President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The ban on imports of the fuel for nuclear power plants begins in about 90 days, although it allows the Department of Energy to issue waivers in case of supply concerns.
Russia is the world’s top supplier of enriched uranium, and about 24 percent of the enriched uranium used by US nuclear power plants come from the country.
The law also unlocks about $2.7 billion in funding in previous legislation to build out the US uranium fuel industry.
“Today, President Biden signed into law a historic series of actions that will strengthen our nation’s energy and economic security by reducing, and ultimately eliminating, our reliance on Russia for civilian nuclear power,” Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said in a statement.
Sullivan said the law “delivers on multilateral goals we have set with our allies and partners,” including a pledge last December with Canada, France, Japan and the United Kingdom to collectively invest $4.2 billion to expand enrichment and conversion capacity of uranium.
The waivers, if implemented by the Energy Department, allow all the Russian uranium imports the US normally imports through 2027.
Police aim to break up pro-Palestine protests in Amsterdam
- The Eindhoven University of Technology confirmed that there were “dozens of students peacefully protesting outside next to ten to 15 tents”
AMSTERDAM: Police moved in to end a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Amsterdam on Monday after protesters occupied university buildings in various Dutch cities to condemn Israel’s war in Gaza, ANP news agency reported.
Earlier on Monday, a Dutch protest group said it had occupied university buildings in the Dutch cities of Amsterdam, Groningen and Eindhoven.
In a post on social media site X, Amsterdam police said the university had filed a police report against the protesters for acts of vandalism.
Police made sure no one entered the university buildings and asked protesters to leave the premises voluntarily.
A spokesperson for the University of Amsterdam confirmed the occupation and said it had advised people not affiliated with the protest to leave the building.
The Eindhoven University of Technology confirmed that there were “dozens of students peacefully protesting outside next to ten to 15 tents.”
Students in the Netherlands have been protesting against Israel’s war in Gaza since last Monday and Dutch riot police had previously clashed with protesters at the University of Amsterdam.
Students in the US and Europe have also been holding mostly peaceful demonstrations calling for an immediate permanent ceasefire and for schools to cut financial ties with companies they say are profiting from the oppression of Palestinians.
Ukraine’s first lady and foreign minister visit Russia-friendly Serbia
- Although Serbia has condemned the Russian aggression on Ukraine, it has refused to join international sanctions against Moscow
BELGRADE, Serbia: Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba made a surprise visit to Russia-friendly Serbia on Monday, together with Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, in a sign of warming relations between the two states.
On his first visit to Serbia since the start of the Russian aggression on Ukraine in 2022, Kuleba met Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and new Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic, whose government includes several pro-Russian ministers, including two who have been under US sanctions.
A statement issued by the prime minister’s office after the talks said that “Serbia is committed to respecting international law and the territorial integrity of every member state of the United Nations, including Ukraine.”
Although Serbia has condemned the Russian aggression on Ukraine, it has refused to join international sanctions against Moscow and has instead maintained warm and friendly relations with its traditional Slavic ally.
Serbia has proclaimed neutrality regarding the war in Ukraine, and its authorities repeat that Serbia does not supply weapons to any parties. However, there are reports that Serbia has delivered weapons to Ukraine through intermediary countries. The visit by Kuleba and Zelenska, who toured the Serbian capital with Serbian first lady Tamara Vucic on Sunday, was met with criticism in Moscow. Comments by readers in the Russian state-run media such as “shameful” were published by RIA Novosti.
In what appears to be damage control, soon after his talks with Kuleba on Monday, Vucevic was to meet the Russian ambassador to Belgrade and the two were to tour a big storage facility for Russian gas that is being imported to Serbia.
Pro-Russian President Vucic has informally met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy three times on the sidelines of international conferences. Serbia has supplied Ukraine with humanitarian and financial aid.
Vucic has for years claimed to follow a “neutral” policy, balancing ties among Moscow, Beijing, Brussels and Washington. Although he has repeatedly said that Serbia is firm on its proclaimed goal of seeking European Union membership, under his authoritarian rule the Balkan country appears to be shifting closer to Russia and especially China.
During a high-stakes visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Belgrade last week, China and Serbia signed an agreement to build “ironclad” relations and a “shared joint future.”
Modi’s BJP skips Kashmir as Indian election enters fourth phase
- Millions of Indians across 96 constituencies began voting on Monday
- Ruling party is not fighting elections in Kashmir for first time in 30 years
NEW DELHI: India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is not contesting elections in the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir for the first time in nearly three decades, as voting in the latest round of the national polls got underway on Monday.
The world’s most populous country began voting on April 19 in a seven-phase election that is scheduled to take place over six weeks, with ballots set to be counted on June 4.
India has 968 million people eligible to vote in the general election, where incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist BJP are aiming for a rare third consecutive term in power.
Monday’s voting involved 96 constituencies in the fourth round of polling.
While the BJP, which has been in power since 2014, and its allies are contesting every other part of India as they look to secure a majority of the 543 parliamentary seats, the party is sitting out in the northern Himalayan territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
This year marks the region’s first election since Modi’s government stripped the valley of its special autonomous status and statehood — which was granted by the Indian Constitution — on Aug. 5, 2019. The move unilaterally revoked the relevant provisions under Article 370, scrapping Kashmir’s flag, legislature, protections on land ownership and fundamental rights, sparking fears of demographic engineering in the region.
“It’s really surprising that the BJP, which claimed to have over 800,000 cadres in the valley, failed to find a single candidate. It shows that the BJP is not popular in the valley,” Sanjay Tickoo, the Srinagar-based leader of the Hindu minority group Kashmiri Pandit, told Arab News.
“I am expecting a record turnout to show the central government what (they) have done to the people of Jammu and Kashmir. This is the reflection of anger … no one is happy in the valley after the abrogation of Article 370.”
Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir is part of the larger Kashmiri territory, which has been the subject of international dispute since the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. Both countries claim Kashmir in full and rule in part.
Modi said his government had been focusing on jobs and development as part of an effort to end violence in the valley, which has for decades witnessed outbreaks of separatist insurgencies to resist control from the government in New Delhi.
But after the BJP lost Kashmir’s three seats in the 2019 election, the party’s popularity slid further after it revoked the region’s autonomous status later the same year and subsequently imposed months of strict communication blockade and jailed hundreds of political leaders.
“The vote expresses not only anger but also apprehension against the anti-Muslim rants that have been going on as well as whatever they have done in Kashmir,” Professor Sheikh Showkat, a Srinagar-based political analyst, told Arab News.
Altaf Thakur, BJP spokesperson in Kashmir, said the party was still taking part in the Kashmir polls by supporting other regional parties.
“It is not correct to say that we are not fighting the election, we are playing the role of kingmaker and whichever way the cadres of the BJP will go, we will win,” he told Arab News.
“It’s not important whether we stand in the elections or not, the important thing is that we have to defeat the dynasty rulers,” he said, referring to the main contenders in the Kashmir polls, the National Conference and People’s Democratic Party.
While they are fighting each other in the valley, both parties have said they oppose the BJP and are part of the Congress party-led opposition alliance, known as India.
For some Kashmiri voters, Monday’s vote was about speaking up for themselves.
“The BJP knew that they cannot tolerate the wrath of the people of Kashmir. They fled the contest without a fight,” Aijaz Ahmed, a businessman from Srinagar, told Arab News.
“I voted today because it gave me an opportunity to express myself and tell the government in Delhi that you cannot keep us silenced. We want an atmosphere without fear and a region where our own identity is not questioned.”
