India’s IT hub faces severe water shortages as key supplies run dry 

India’s IT hub faces severe water shortages as key supplies run dry 
Residents collect portable water from a private tanker in Bengaluru, India on Monday, March 11, 2024. (File/AP)
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Updated 17 March 2024
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India’s IT hub faces severe water shortages as key supplies run dry 

India’s IT hub faces severe water shortages as key supplies run dry 
  • Borewells supplying water to about 30 percent of Bengaluru’s population have run dry
  • Southern Indian city used to have around 2,000 lakes, but only several hundreds are left 

NEW DEHLI: Millions of people in India’s tech hub of Bengaluru are facing an unprecedented water crisis as a key supply of the resource runs dry, in what experts said is a result of unplanned urbanization in the southern metropolis. 

The city also known as Bangalore and more popularly as India’s “Silicon Valley” is located in Karnataka state and is home to thousands of IT companies, startups and international firms like Infosys and Alphabet’s Google. It requires about 2 billion liters of water for its 14 million residents every day. 

More than 70 percent of the city’s population relies on the Cauvery River that originates in the state, but around 4 million other residents who live on the outskirts of the city are dependent on groundwater extracted by borewells and supplied via tankers, which have been running dry after last year’s weak monsoon depleted groundwater levels. 

“In those areas where the public supply of water is dependent on borewells, there we are facing problems because borewells have gone a bit dry,” Tusar Giri Nath, chief commissioner of the Greater Bengaluru Municipal Corp., told Arab News on Sunday. 

“The shortfall is around 15 to 20 percent from the earlier time, and that is being managed by increasing the portable water supply to the places by supplying through tankers.” 

Vivin Andrews, a resident of the city’s Hennur area, has had to pay extra money for a private tanker to supply water to his home every two days. 

“I have lived in this city all my life and my family has been here for generations, but this type of situation has not occurred before,” Andrews told Arab News. 

“We need to make the government accountable and should stop mindless building activities without bothering about the capacity of the city.”

Sandeep Anirudh, a civil society activist and the convenor of Citizens’ Agenda for Bengaluru, said that there is an element of climate change exacerbating the current situation, as the shortage of rainfall last year impacted the Cauvery River and the underground water. 

“But this situation arose because we covered our lakes that used to store water for the city and feed the ground … Bengaluru is facing an existential crisis because of the lack of planning and unplanned development over the decades,” Anirudh told Arab News. 

Bengaluru has undergone rapid urbanization since the early 1990s as its transformation into a major tech center resulted in exponential growth. 

For decades prior, it had a reputation for its wide network of man-made lakes that provided water to the city’s residents; an abundance of greenery, the surrounding forests and a pleasant climate had earned it the moniker “India’s garden city.” 

The city used to have around 2,000 lakes, Anirudh said, but only 400 are left today. 

“The people are now dependent on water supply through tankers to run their day-to-day life,” he added. 

Anupam Manur, an assistant professor at the Bengaluru-based think tank Takshashila Institution, said the price of mobile water, or water supplied through private tankers on wheels, has increased by more than 200 percent. 

“The water crisis in Bangalore is quite severe, though it is not manifested with the same intensity throughout the city. While the center of the city is coping, the periphery is facing the most acute shortages,” Manur told Arab News. 

Though environmental factors also played a role in the crisis, Manur said that “utter mismanagement” by the municipal and state governments is to blame, including uncontrolled urban sprawl, encroachment on the cities’ lakes and unregulated extraction of groundwater. 

“If the mismanagement issues are not addressed, this will become a recurrent problem and will only get aggravated with time. This can result in businesses moving out of the city and reduce the inflow of migrant population to the city,” he said. 

“Bangalore will find it impossible to remain India’s fastest-growing metropolis if it can’t provide water to its residents.” 


Trump wins the White House in political comeback rooted in appeals to frustrated voters

Updated 31 sec ago
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Trump wins the White House in political comeback rooted in appeals to frustrated voters

Trump wins the White House in political comeback rooted in appeals to frustrated voters
  • The victory marks an extraordinary comeback for a former president who refused to accept defeat four years ago
  • He is the first person convicted of a felony to win the White House and the first former president to regain power since 1892
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States on Wednesday, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who refused to accept defeat four years ago, sparked a violent insurrection at the US Capitol, was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts.
With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency.
The victory validates his bare-knuckle approach to politics. He attacked his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, in deeply personal – often misogynistic and racist – terms as he pushed an apocalyptic picture of a country overrun by violent migrants. The coarse rhetoric, paired with an image of hypermasculinity, resonated with angry voters – particularly men – in a deeply polarized nation.
As president, he’s vowed to pursue an agenda centered on dramatically reshaping the federal government and pursuing retribution against his perceived enemies. Speaking to his supporters Wednesday morning, Trump claimed he had won “an unprecedented and powerful mandate.”
The results cap a historically tumultuous and competitive election season that included two assassination attempts targeting Trump and a shift to a new Democratic nominee just a month before the party’s convention. Trump will inherit a range of challenges when he assumes office on Jan. 20, including heightened political polarization and global crises that are testing America’s influence abroad.
His win against Harris, the first woman of color to lead a major party ticket, marks the second time he has defeated a female rival in a general election. Harris, the current vice president, rose to the top of the ticket after President Joe Biden exited the race amid alarm about his advanced age. Despite an initial surge of energy around her campaign, she struggled during a compressed timeline to convince disillusioned voters that she represented a break from an unpopular administration.
Trump is the first former president to return to power since Grover Cleveland regained the White House in the 1892 election. He is the first person convicted of a felony to be elected president and, at 78, is the oldest person elected to the office. His vice president, 40-year-old Ohio Sen. JD Vance, will become the highest-ranking member of the millennial generation in the US government.
There will be far fewer checks on Trump when he returns to the White House. He has plans to swiftly enact a sweeping agenda that would transform nearly every aspect of American government. His GOP critics in Congress have largely been defeated or retired. Federal courts are now filled with judges he appointed. The US Supreme Court, which includes three Trump-appointed justices, issued a ruling earlier this year affording presidents broad immunity from prosecution.
Trump’s language and behavior during the campaign sparked growing warnings from Democrats and some Republicans about shocks to democracy that his return to power would bring. He repeatedly praised strongman leaders, warned that he would deploy the military to target political opponents he labeled the “enemy from within,” threatened to take action against news organizations for unfavorable coverage and suggested suspending the Constitution.
Some who served in his first White House, including Vice President Mike Pence and John Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, either declined to endorse him or issued dire public warnings about his return to the presidency.
While Harris focused much of her initial message around themes of joy, Trump channeled a powerful sense of anger and resentment among voters.
He seized on frustrations over high prices and fears about crime and migrants who illegally entered the country on Biden’s watch. He also highlighted wars in the Middle East and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to cast Democrats as presiding over – and encouraging – a world in chaos.
It was a formula Trump perfected in 2016, when he cast himself as the only person who could fix the country’s problems, often borrowing language from dictators.
“In 2016, I declared I am your voice. Today I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution,” he said in March 2023.
This campaign often veered into the absurd, with Trump amplifying bizarre and disproven rumors that migrants were stealing and eating pet cats and dogs in an Ohio town. At one point, he kicked off a rally with a detailed story about the legendary golfer Arnold Palmer in which he praised his genitalia.
But perhaps the defining moment came in July when a gunman opened fire at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A bullet grazed Trump’s ear and killed one of his supporters. His face streaked with blood, Trump stood and raised his fist in the air, shouting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Weeks later, a second assassination attempt was thwarted after a Secret Service agent spotted the barrel of a gun poking through the greenery while Trump was playing golf.
Trump’s return to the White House seemed unlikely when he left Washington in early 2021 as a diminished figure whose lies about his defeat sparked a violent insurrection at the US Capitol. He was so isolated at the time that few outside of his family bothered to attend the send-off he organized for himself at Andrews Air Force Base, complete with a 21-gun salute.
Democrats who controlled the US House quickly impeached him for his role in the insurrection, making him the only president to be impeached twice. He was acquitted by the US Senate, where many Republicans argued that he no longer posed a threat because he had left office.
But from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump – aided by some elected Republicans – worked to maintain his political relevance. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican who at the time led his party in the US House, visited Trump soon after he left office, essentially validating his continued role in the party.
As the 2022 midterm election approached, Trump used the power of his endorsement to assert himself as the unquestioned leader of the party. His preferred candidates almost always won their primaries, but some went on to defeat in elections that Republicans viewed as within their grasp. Those disappointing results were driven in part by a backlash to the US Supreme Court ruling that revoked a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, a decision that was aided by Trump-appointed justices. The midterm election prompted questions within the GOP about whether Trump should remain the party’s leader.
But if Trump’s future was in doubt, that changed in 2023 when he faced a wave of state and federal indictments for his role in the insurrection, his handling of classified information and election interference. He used the charges to portray himself as the victim of an overreaching government, an argument that resonated with a GOP base that was increasingly skeptical – if not outright hostile – to institutions and established power structures.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who challenged Trump for the Republican nomination, lamented that the indictments “sucked out all the oxygen” from this year’s GOP primary. Trump easily captured his party’s nomination without ever participating in a debate against DeSantis or other GOP candidates.
With Trump dominating the Republican contest, a New York jury found him guilty in May of 34 felony charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex. He faces sentencing later this month, though his victory poses serious questions about whether he will ever face punishment.
He has also been found liable in two other New York civil cases: one for inflating his assets and another for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996.
Trump is subject to additional criminal charges in an election-interference case in Georgia that has become bogged down. On the federal level, he’s been indicted for his role in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election and improperly handling classified material. When he becomes president on Jan. 20, Trump could appoint an attorney general who would erase the federal charges.
As he prepares to return to the White House, Trump has vowed to swiftly enact a radical agenda that would transform nearly every aspect of American government. That includes plans to launch the largest deportation effort in the nation’s history, to use the Justice Department to punish his enemies, to dramatically expand the use of tariffs and to again pursue a zero-sum approach to foreign policy that threatens to upend longstanding foreign alliances, including the NATO pact.
When he arrived in Washington 2017, Trump knew little about the levers of federal power. His agenda was stymied by Congress and the courts, as well as senior staff members who took it upon themselves to serve as guardrails.
This time, Trump has said he would surround himself with loyalists who will enact his agenda, no questions asked, and who will arrive with hundreds of draft executive orders, legislative proposals and in-depth policy papers in hand.
___
Colvin reported from West Palm Beach, Florida.

Interpol says over 2,500 arrests in human trafficking crackdown

Interpol says over 2,500 arrests in human trafficking crackdown
Updated 21 min 2 sec ago
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Interpol says over 2,500 arrests in human trafficking crackdown

Interpol says over 2,500 arrests in human trafficking crackdown
  • People rescued included people coerced into begging in Iraq or to serve in private households across the Middle East

LYON: Interpol said Wednesday that a six-day international police operation against human trafficking had led to more than 2,500 arrests and the rescue of over 3,000 potential victims.
The operation, called "Liberterra II", took place between September 29 and October 4 and was the largest-ever operation against human trafficking and people smuggling by the global law enforcement organisation.
People rescued included minors forced to work on farms in Argentina, migrants in nightclubs in North Macedonia, people coerced into begging in Iraq or to serve in private households across the Middle East, Interpol said.
Raids led to the rescue of "3,222 potential victims of human trafficking and identified 17,793 irregular migrants", it said.
In addition to police raids, authorities also reinforced strategic border points, monitored nearly 24,000 flights and deployed officers to known trafficking and smuggling hotspots, said the organisation, which is based in Lyon, France.
Nearly eight million checks were carried out against Interpol's databases, and a total of 2,517 arrests were made during the week, of which 850 were specifically on human trafficking or migrant smuggling charges, according to the organisation's preliminary figures.
"In their relentless pursuit of profit, organised crime groups continue to exploit men, women and children -- often multiple times over," said Interpol secretary general Jurgen Stock.
"The results of this operation highlight the vast scale of the challenge facing law enforcement, underscoring that only coordinated action can counteract these threats," he said.


World leaders send congratulations as Donald Trump claims victory

World leaders send congratulations as Donald Trump claims victory
Updated 11 min 26 sec ago
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World leaders send congratulations as Donald Trump claims victory

World leaders send congratulations as Donald Trump claims victory
  • Leaders from Israel, Ukraine, India, UK, France, Czechia, Italy send messages
  • Hamas urges Trump to end war on Gaza, while Iran downplays poll outcome

DUBAI: World leaders have started offering their congratulations to Donald Trump following his self-proclaimed victory in the US presidential election on Wednesday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed Trump’s return, describing it as “history’s greatest comeback.”  

Netanyahu emphasized that Trump’s leadership represented “a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.”  

The Israeli leader expressed hope that the renewed partnership would strengthen strategic ties and deepen cooperation on key issues.

Highlighting the historic bond between the two nations, Netanyahu was optimistic about what he described as a promising chapter for US-Israel relations.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy congratulated Trump on his “impressive” victory.

“I appreciate President Trump’s commitment to the ‘peace through strength’ approach in global affairs. This is exactly the principle that can practically bring just peace in Ukraine closer,” Zelenskiy wrote on X.

NATO chief Mark Rutte wrote on X: “I just congratulated Donald Trump on his election as President of the United States. His leadership will again be key to keeping our Alliance strong. I look forward to working with him again to advance peace through strength through NATO.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was looking forward to working with Trump.

“Heartiest congratulations my friend @realDonaldTrump on your historic election victory,” Modi wrote on X. “As you build on the successes of your previous term, I look forward to renewing our collaboration.”

Iran’s government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said the livelihood of her nation’s citizens would not be impacted by the US election, according to semi-official Tasnim news agency.

Iran’s currency fell Wednesday to an all-time low following the news that Trump was on the verge of clinching the US presidency again, trading at 703,000 rials to the dollar.

In 2015, at the time of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, it was at 32,000 to a dollar.

Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in 2018, sparking years of tensions between the countries that persist today.

Referring to it as an “historic election victory,” Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he looked forward to working with Trump.

“From growth and security to innovation and tech, I know the UK-US special relationship will continue to prosper on both sides of the Atlantic for years to come.”

France’s President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X: “Congratulations, President Donald Trump.”  

Macron’s message was accompanied by calls from within his administration for Europe to focus on self-reliance in the wake of Trump’s return.

French government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon underscored the need for European independence in key areas.

“We must not ask ourselves what the United States will do, but what Europe is capable of doing,” Bregeon said during an interview with RTL, emphasizing the importance of defense, industrial recovery, and decarbonization efforts.

“We must take charge of our own destiny,” Bregeon added, reflecting a growing sentiment for strategic autonomy in Europe.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala wrote on X: “Our shared goal is to ensure that the relations between our countries remain at the highest level, despite changes in administration, and that we continue to develop them for the benefit of our citizens.” 

Italy’s right wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said a Trump victory would strengthen ties between the two countries.

In a post on X, Meloni offered her “most sincere congratulations” to Trump, and said Italy and the US had an “unshakeable alliance.”

“It is a strategic bond, which I am certain we will now strengthen even further,” she said.

Senior Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, called on Trump to avoid the perceived policy missteps of President Joe Biden.

“We urge Trump to learn from Biden’s mistakes,” the official emphasized, referencing dissatisfaction with the Biden administration’s handling of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Abu Zuhri described the Democratic Party’s likely loss as “the natural price” for its leadership’s “criminal stance” toward Gaza.

Highlighting expectations for Trump, he said the former president’s return puts him “to the test” to act on his promises.

 


Pilots missing as military jet crashes in Vietnam, state media reports

Pilots missing as military jet crashes in Vietnam, state media reports
Updated 06 November 2024
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Pilots missing as military jet crashes in Vietnam, state media reports

Pilots missing as military jet crashes in Vietnam, state media reports

HANOI: Two pilots were missing in Vietnam after a Russian-made Yak-130 light combat training aircraft crashed on Wednesday in the central province of Binh Dinh, state-affiliated newspapers reported.
The incident was initially reported by the websites of VnExpress and state-run Tuoi Tre, citing representatives of the military, but the articles were later taken down from their sites.
Vietnam’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request to comment.
Last year, a pilot was killed during training while trying to land a Russian-made Su-22 jet at a local airport.


A week after Spain’s floods, families hope that the missing are alive with 89 unaccounted for

A week after Spain’s floods, families hope that the missing are alive with 89 unaccounted for
Updated 06 November 2024
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A week after Spain’s floods, families hope that the missing are alive with 89 unaccounted for

A week after Spain’s floods, families hope that the missing are alive with 89 unaccounted for
  • Spanish authorities say that 89 people are confirmed to be missing one week after the catastrophic floods in the eastern Valencia region

SEDAVI: Francisco Murgui went out to try to salvage his motorbike when the water started to rise.
He never came back.
One week after catastrophic flooding devastated eastern Spain, María Murgui still holds out hope that her missing father is alive.
“He was like many people in town who went out to get their car or motorbike to safety,” the 27-year-old told The Associated Press. “The flash flood caught him outside, and he had to cling to a tree in order to escape drowning. He called us to tell us he was fine, that we shouldn’t worry.”
But when María set out into the streets of Sedaví to try to rescue him from the water washing away everything in its path, he was nowhere to be found.
“He held up until 1 in the morning,” she said. “By 2, I went outside with a neighbor and a rope to try to locate him. But we couldn’t find him. And since then, we haven’t heard anything about him.”
Spanish authorities issued their first tally of the missing on Tuesday when a Valencia court said that 89 people are confirmed to be unaccounted for.
The number only corresponds to the eastern Valencia region, where 211 of the 217 confirmed deaths took place when entire communities were swamped by tsunami-like floods on Oct. 29-30. Most people were caught off guard by the deluge. Regional authorities have been heavily criticized for having issued alerts to mobile phones some two hours after the disaster had started.
The Superior Court of Valencia said that the figure was based on those cases whereby families had provided information and biological samples of their unlocated loved ones. It added that there could easily be more missing people whose families have not officially reported to authorities.
The court said that 133 of the dead had been identified using fingerprints or DNA samples. Another 62 bodies remained unidentified.
Spanish state broadcaster RTVE has shown a steady stream of appeals by people searching for family members.
María Murgui herself has posted a missing person’s message on social media with a photo of her father, a 57-year-old retiree.
“This is like riding a rollercoaster. Sometimes I feel very bad and sometimes I feel better. I try to stay positive,” she said. “This truly is madness. We don’t know what else to do. Neither does anybody else in town.”
Central government passes relief package
Meanwhile, the gargantuan recovery efforts in Sedaví and dozens of other communities slowly moved forward.
The central government on Tuesday approved a 10.6-billion-euro ($11.6-billion) relief package for 78 communities where at least one person has died from the floods. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez compared it to the measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The package includes direct payments of 20,000 euros to 60,000 euros ($21,800-65,000) to owners of damaged homes, and financial aid for businesses and municipal governments.
“We have a lot of work left to do, and we know it,” Sánchez said.
Sánchez said he will ask the European Union to help pay for the relief, saying “it is time for the European Union to help.”
Many people are still without basic goods amid scenes of devastation
The floods have left behind post-apocalyptic scenes.
In town after town, streets are still covered with thick brown mud and mounds of ruined belongings, clumps of rotting vegetation and wrecked vehicles. A stench arises from the muck.
In many places, people still face shortages of basic goods, and lines form at impromptu emergency kitchens and stands handing out food. Water is running again but authorities say it is not fit for drinking.
The ground floors of thousands of homes have been ruined. It is feared that inside some of the vehicles that were washed away or trapped in underground garages there could be bodies waiting to be recovered.
Thousands of soldiers are working with firefighters and police reinforcements in the immense emergency response. Officers and troops are searching in destroyed homes, and in the countless cars strewn across highways and streets or lodged in the mud in canals and gorges.
Authorities are worried about other health problems in the aftermath of the deadliest natural disaster in Spain’s recent history. They have urged people to get tetanus shots, to treat any wounds to prevent infections and to clean the mud from their skin. Many people wear face masks.
Thousands of volunteers are helping out, but frustration over the crisis management boiled over on Sunday when a crowd in hard-hit Paiporta hurled mud and other objects at Spain’s royals, Sánchez and regional officials. It was their first visit to the epicenter of the flood damage.