Modi won, but his party lost.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn in for a third term yesterday, but his party won by a much narrower margin than expected, shattering the aura of invincibility that had surrounded him.
The Bharatiya Janata Party still won the most seats but lost dozens of them for a majority, meaning the party will need smaller parties to form a coalition government – a surprising setback.
See the results and points.
The main opposition Indian National Congress performed better than expected, after suffering heavy defeats in the last two elections and being seen by many as irreparably weakened. The Congress and its allies used issues such as unemployment, social justice and the prime minister's ties to India's richest men to boost support for Modi.
context: Modi will become just the second Indian leader to serve a third consecutive term after the country's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and has called his third term “a great achievement in the history of India.”
economy: As the election results became clear, India's stock market plummeted. As of yesterday's close, the market was down 6%, wiping out most of this year's gains.
What Ukraine has lost
Few countries have experienced the devastation that Ukraine has experienced since World War II, but the scale of it has so far been too great to allow us to glimpse it at one time or another.
My colleagues have been the first to publicly document the complete extent of the destruction. Using detailed analysis of years of satellite data, we have compiled a record of towns, streets and buildings that have been razed to the ground. In some places, like the city of Marinca, not a single inhabitant remains. Many people have not only lost their homes, but their communities and histories as well.
“When I close my eyes, I see everything from my old life,” says Irina Khrushkovsa, 34, who was born and raised in the city. “But when I open my eyes, it all disappears.”
Scale of destruction: More buildings have been destroyed in Ukraine than in Manhattan four times. Parts of Ukraine look like Dresden or London after World War II or Gaza after six months of bombing.
Himales: Ukrainian officials said Ukraine used a US-made rocket system to destroy a missile launcher inside Russia, a strike that came shortly after the US gave Ukraine permission to do so.
Israel kills Iranian general in Syria
An Iranian general who was in Syria as an adviser was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Syria, Iranian media reported. He is believed to be the first Iranian killed by Israel since it bombed the Iranian embassy in Syria, bringing the two countries to the brink of war in April.
Iran is currently mired in a leadership crisis sparked by the death of its president last month. A new wave of attacks on Israel seems unlikely. The Iranian was identified as General Saeed Abiyal of the Quds Force, a branch of the Revolutionary Guards.
Gaza: Some Gazans have called for Hamas to accept Biden's proposed ceasefire plan, but are skeptical that the U.S. will actually end the war. In an interview with Time magazine, Biden suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was prolonging the war in order to stay in power.
Other top news stories
Benjamin Bolger has been racking up degrees his whole life. He holds 14 advanced degrees, some of which took years to earn, including a PhD from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
His reason for wanting to go to college is simple: “I love learning,” he told a reporter.
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Arts and Ideas
Chinese websites are disappearing
China's internet is disappearing in pieces, with posts being deleted and censored.
According to a study by China's internet regulator, there were 3.9 million sites as of 2023, down from 5.3 million in 2017. A recent WeChat post said that almost all information shared on the Chinese internet between 1995 and 2005 – news portals, blogs, forums and social media sites – is no longer available.
Archiving websites somewhere is costly and difficult, but Chinese internet publishers are under intense pressure for censorship under Xi Jinping's leadership, Li Yuan writes in his column “New New World.”
Internet companies have strong incentives to over-censor and to make old content disappear by not archiving it.
Two weeks ago, documentary filmmaker Wang Nanfeng searched her name on the film review website Douban but found nothing. “Some of the films I've directed have been removed and banned from the Chinese internet,” she said. “But this time, I feel like I've been erased as part of history.”