Why India and Pakistan have been fighting over Kashmir
World
Why India and Pakistan have been fighting over Kashmir
May 12, 2025 | 11:31 PM GMT
The Post's Karishma Mehrotra explains why the disputed territory of Kashmir is the focus of ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan.
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Newsweek
40 minutes ago
- Newsweek
The Scholar Who Predicted America's Breakdown Says It's Just Beginning
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Fifteen years ago, smack in the middle of Barack Obama's first term, amid the rapid rise of social media and a slow recovery from the Great Recession, a professor at the University of Connecticut issued a stark warning: the United States was heading into a decade of growing political instability. It sounded somewhat contrarian at the time. The global economy was clawing back from the depths of the financial crisis, and the American political order still seemed anchored in post-Cold War optimism — though cracks were beginning to emerge, as evidenced by the Tea Party uprising. But Peter Turchin, an ecologist-turned-historian, had the data. "Quantitative historical analysis reveals that complex human societies are affected by recurrent—and predictable—waves of political instability," Turchin wrote in the journal Nature in 2010, forecasting a spike in unrest around 2020, driven by economic inequality, "elite overproduction" and rising public debt. A protestor holds up a Mexican flag as burning cars line the street on June 08, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Tensions in the city remain high after the Trump administration called in the National... A protestor holds up a Mexican flag as burning cars line the street on June 08, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Tensions in the city remain high after the Trump administration called in the National Guard against the wishes of city leaders following two days of clashes with police during a series of immigration raids. More Photo byNow, with the nation consumed by polarization in the early months of a second Donald Trump presidency, institutional mistrust at all-time highs, and deepening political conflict, Turchin's prediction appears to have landed with uncanny accuracy. In the wake of escalating protests and the deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles under President Trump's immigration crackdown, Turchin spoke with Newsweek about the latest escalation of political turbulence in the United States—and the deeper structural forces he believes have been driving the country toward systemic crisis for more than a decade. Predicting Chaos In his 2010 analysis published by Nature, Turchin identified several warning signs in the domestic electorate: stagnating wages, a growing wealth gap, a surplus of educated elites without corresponding elite jobs, and an accelerating fiscal deficit. All of these phenomena, he argued, had reached a turning point in the 1970s. "These seemingly disparate social indicators are actually related to each other dynamically," he wrote at the time. "Nearly every one of those indicators has intensified," Turchin said in an interview with Newsweek, citing real wage stagnation, the effects of artificial intelligence on the professional class and increasingly unmanageable public finances. Turchin's prediction was based on a framework known as Structural-Demographic Theory (SDT), which models how historical forces—economic inequality, elite competition and state capacity—interact to drive cycles of political instability. These cycles have recurred across empires and republics, from ancient Rome to the Ottoman Empire. Turchin's forecast is based on a framework known as Structural-Demographic Theory (SDT), which models how historical forces—economic inequality, elite competition, and state capacity—interact to drive cycles of political instability. Turchin's forecast is based on a framework known as Structural-Demographic Theory (SDT), which models how historical forces—economic inequality, elite competition, and state capacity—interact to drive cycles of political instability. Courtesy Peter Turchin "Structural-Demographic Theory enables us to analyze historical dynamics and apply that understanding to current trajectories," Turchin said. "It's not prophecy. It's modeling feedback loops that repeat with alarming regularity." He argues that violence in the U.S. tends to repeat about every 50 years— pointing to spasms of unrest around 1870, 1920, 1970 and 2020. He links these periods to how generations tend to forget what came before. "After two generations, memories of upheaval fade, elites begin to reorganize systems in their favor, and the stress returns," he said. One of the clearest historical parallels to now, he notes, is the 1970s. That decade saw radical movements emerge from university campuses and middle-class enclaves not just in the U.S., but across the West. The far-left Weather Underground movement, which started as a campus organization at the University of Michigan, bombed government buildings and banks; the Red Army Faction in West Germany and Italy's Red Brigades carried out kidnappings and assassinations. These weren't movements of the dispossessed, but of the downwardly mobile—overeducated and politically alienated. "There's a real risk of that dynamic resurfacing," Turchin said. A 'Knowledge Class' Critics have sometimes questioned the deterministic tone of Turchin's models. But he emphasizes that he does not predict exact events—only the risk factors and phases of systemic stress. While many political analysts and historians point to Donald Trump's 2016 election as the inflection point for the modern era of American political turmoil, Turchin had charted the warning signs years earlier — when Trump was known, above all, as the host of a popular NBC reality show. President Donald Trump takes part in a signing ceremony after his inauguration on January 20, 2025 in the President's Room at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. President Donald Trump takes part in a signing ceremony after his inauguration on January 20, 2025 in the President's Room at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. Melina Mara-Pool/Getty Images "As you know, in 2010, based on historical patterns and quantitative indicators, I predicted a period of political instability in the United States beginning in the 2020s," Turchin said to Newsweek. "The structural drivers behind this prediction were threefold: popular immiseration, elite overproduction, and a weakening state capacity." According to his model, Trump's rise was not the cause of America's political crisis but a symptom—emerging from a society already strained by widening inequality and elite saturation. In Turchin's view, such figures often arise when a growing class of counter-elites—ambitious, credentialed individuals locked out of power—begin to challenge the status quo. "Intraelite competition has increased even more, driven now mostly by the shrinking supply of positions for them," he said. In 2025, he pointed to the impact of AI in the legal profession and recent government downsizing, such as the DOGE eliminating thousands of positions at USAID, as accelerants in this trend. This theory was echoed by Wayne State University sociologist Jukka Savolainen, who argued in a recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that the U.S. is risking the creation of a radicalized "knowledge class"—overeducated, underemployed, and institutionally excluded. "When societies generate more elite aspirants than there are roles to fill, competition for status intensifies," Savolainen wrote. "Ambitious but frustrated people grow disillusioned and radicalized. Rather than integrate into institutions, they seek to undermine them." Peter Turchin forecasted a spike in unrest around 2020, driven by economic inequality, elite overproduction, and rising public debt. Peter Turchin forecasted a spike in unrest around 2020, driven by economic inequality, elite overproduction, and rising public debt. Courtesy of Peter Turchin Savolainen warned that Trump-era policies—such as the dismantling of D.E.I. and academic research programs and cuts to public institutions—have the potential to accelerate the pattern, echoing the unrest of the 1970s. "President Trump's policies could intensify this dynamic," he noted. "Many are trained in critique, moral reasoning, and systems thinking—the very profile of earlier generations of radicals." Structural Drivers Turchin, who is now an emeritus professor at UConn, believes the American system entered what he calls a "revolutionary situation"—a historical phase in which the destabilizing conditions can no longer be absorbed by institutional buffers. Reflecting on the last few years in a recent post on his Cliodynamica newsletter, he wrote that "history accelerated" after 2020. He and colleague Andrey Korotayev had tracked rising incidents of anti-government demonstrations and violent riots across Western democracies in the lead-up to that year. Their findings predicted a reversal of prior declines in unrest. "And then history accelerated," he wrote. "America was slammed by the pandemic, George Floyd, and a long summer of discontent." A police officer points a hand cannon at protesters who have been detained pending arrest on South Washington Street in Minneapolis, May 31, 2020, as protests continued following the death of George Floyd. A police officer points a hand cannon at protesters who have been detained pending arrest on South Washington Street in Minneapolis, May 31, 2020, as protests continued following the death of George Floyd. AP Photo/John Minchillo, File While many saw Trump's 2020 election loss and the January 6 Capitol riot that followed as its own turning point in that hectic period, Turchin warned that these events did not mark an end to the turbulence. "Many commentators hastily concluded that things would now go back to normal. I disagreed," he wrote. "The structural drivers for instability—the wealth pump, popular immiseration, and elite overproduction/conflict—were still running hot," Turchin continued. "America was in a 'revolutionary situation,' which could be resolved by either developing into a full-blown revolution, or by being defused by skillful actions of the governing elites. Well, now we know which way it went." These stressors, he argues, are not isolated. They are systemwide pressures building for years, playing out in feedback loops. "Unfortunately," he told Newsweek, "all these trends are only gaining power."
Entrepreneur
6 hours ago
- Entrepreneur
Rare Earth Curb To Affect Smartphone Makers, Price Hike Likely: Experts
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. As new restrictions on rare earth magnets imposed by China are starting to choke India's auto sector – heavily dependent on the import of the magnets – another sector which can be affected in the near future is smart phones. Smartphone makers might try to absorb the hit for a while, but if disruptions continue, it can lead to price hikes or even delays in new launches. In smartphones, magnets made from Neodymium and Dysprosium are used in speakers and microphones, haptic motors, and camera modules for OIS, etc. China holds almost a monopoly in processing rare earth elements. These rare earth metals are specially used to make powerful small size magnets that are found in almost every smartphone's components like in speakers, vibration units and display systems. As China tightens exports citing national security reasons, it has effects across the world. The problem: Price hike, delay in new launches "For India, this could lead to delays in getting key components or paying more to source them. Right now the bigger impact is being felt by sectors like electric vehicles but smartphones may also face similar issues in the coming time," said Munish Vaid, vice president, Primus Partners. Most Indian smartphone manufacturers depend on global supply chains which trace back to China. Therefore, even if India is not directly buying the raw material, any disruption at the source will affect the country. "While some of the final assembly for these components happens in India, rare earth magnet assembly for OIS, haptics, etc., is done outside India. While the auto sector might face the immediate effect of shortages and supply chain disruptions. Smartphones, although using less volume per unit of these magnets, given the sheer volume of smartphones produced, could see fewer advanced features, supply chain disruptions, or increased costs if the issue persists," said Parv Sharma, Senior Analyst, Counterpoint Research. China's curbs on rare earth exports threaten not only India but also global supply chains. With China controlling about 60 percent of global rare earth mining and over 90 percent of processing capacity, countries are likely to face bottlenecks, despite efforts on localizing production. If the situation drags on, the costs of smartphones are likely to go up. "Smartphone makers usually plan ahead and have stock for a few months, but rare earth magnets are used in components like speakers and motors that are hard to replace on short notice. If Chinese exports slow down or prices rise, that added cost will eventually add up in the final product. It may not be huge at first, but for low-end smartphones, where margins are thin, these can either reduce margins for companies or consumers will have to bear the burden of price rise," explained Vaid. How can India seek immediate relief Indian OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers are likely to accelerate efforts to diversify rare earth sourcing from regions such as Australia, Africa, and Myanmar. In the short run, India should look at building reserves and sourcing from other friendly countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Russia or Brazil. These countries have rare earth deposits and are eager to reduce global dependence on China. India already has some rare earth reserves of its own. "We need to ramp up local processing and manufacturing capabilities. The government's production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes could be expanded to support this space. Also, we should invest in recycling, old smartphones and electronics contain magnets that can be reused if we set up the right infrastructure. At the same time, our manufacturers and tech companies need to innovate," Vaid added. "We expect a stronger push to develop domestic refining capabilities. The government may also ramp up exploration and extraction of rare earth reserves in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha to strengthen long-term self-reliance in critical materials," said Soumen Mandal, senior analyst, Counterpoint Research. According to IDC, in the first quarter of 2025, India's smartphone shipments reached 32 million units. The number of phones made in India every year is big, hence, even a small increase in component prices can add up quickly. "With newer smartphones packing in more features, like better sound, stronger vibrations and advanced displays, the reliance on rare earths is increasing. The impact may not be as huge as in cars, but it is something that could affect both pricing and innovation down the line," Vaid explained. There will be challenges in the near term to increase value addition in India — in the longer-run India will have to look for alternative sources — increase local production and recycle to de-risk from the global supply chain.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
American Politics Only Pretends to Work
There is a pervasive feeling—rising up from the precarious working poor, through the illusory middle class, and now even brushing the edges of the elite—that something in America is broken. The carefully curated illusions of American life, which held just enough weight to seem real for much of my millennial lifetime, are beginning to collapse. These illusions were constructed in the shadow of post-Reagan neoliberalism, just as the rot began to eat away at the gains of the postwar economy. Poverty and racism have always made liberty and justice feel like empty promises for many, but for protected classes, the illusion could endure. So much so that by the time I reached college—coinciding with the first term of Barack Obama—it was fashionable to declare that we had entered a post-racial America. Now those delusions lie bloodied in the street. We have seen law-abiding citizens snatched off the street, a billionaire oligarch turned loose to deconstruct the civil service. Meanwhile, that chasm between those with more than enough and those with nothing keeps widening. If there was an 'Obama legacy,' then it's mostly vanished. The optics of progress have failed to mask its absence. On May 16, Maryland Governor Wes Moore—a Democrat, a Rhodes scholar, and the only Black governor in the country—sent a letter to the president of the Maryland State Senate, vetoing a bill passed by the state legislature that would have created a reparations commission to study the economic and social case for compensating Black Marylanders for the enduring harms of slavery and its legacy. The headlines suggested betrayal. 'Maryland Governor Vetoes Reparations Bill,' read The New York Times' headline. 'Gov. Moore vetoes bill creating a state commission to study reparations,' wrote The Baltimore Banner. But the governor's letter tells a more nuanced story. 'I strongly believe now is not the time for another study,' Moore wrote. 'Now is the time for continued action that delivers results for the people we serve.' The sentiment that a substantial body of research exists bears out. The evidence is already there. The impacts of slavery, redlining, racial violence, and economic exclusion have been documented in study after study by universities, think tanks, and government agencies alike. The racial wealth gap in America—which is a topic that does not want for robust news coverage or analysis—remains staggering: The average white family holds nearly 10 times the wealth of the average Black family. In cities like Baltimore and all across the country, formerly redlined neighborhoods remain poorer, sicker, and less resourced than their white counterparts. Economist Sandy Darity, the Brookings Institution, and the Federal Reserve have all produced rigorous economic models showing the effects of slavery and other racist programs on Black wealth and showing how reparative programs could substantially narrow these disparities—even lengthening the lives of Black Americans. Echoing these findings, The California Reparations Report proposed direct cash payments and broad institutional reforms—ranging from guaranteed access to health care and housing to tax-exempt status for reparations payments—as essential components of a comprehensive state-level strategy to repair the enduring economic and social harms of slavery and its afterlives. But here's the rub: The bill that Moore spiked was never actually about discovering new facts to lay alongside the vast mountain of already-obtained knowledge. Rather, it's a quintessentially American ritual. A performance of forward motion that, in reality, preserves the status quo: activity masquerading as achievement. We are not waiting for more data. We are waiting for the willpower of political elites to catch up to the facts we have already gathered about the state of the world. We are hoping that we might create a force strong enough to dissolve the lucrative web of mutual dependence that exists between politicians, their funders, and their funding recipients—an arrangement that allows the few to profit from the entrenched policies that impoverish the many. For much of my lifetime, the nation, like our tech devices, has operated like a machine engineered for planned obsolescence: appearing functional on the surface but designed to slowly degrade beneath the hood. Our dissatisfaction is tempered by the allure of a shiny new upgrade that promises new features each campaign cycle. Like our top-grossing movies, election cycles are reboots and franchises. That includes our politics. Our institutions don't just fail; they are built to delay, to degrade, to defer. We pretend they work, and when they don't, we hold another hearing, commission another report, launch another study, believe another is hardly the first to challenge these neglectful impulses. More than a decade ago, The Atlantic published Ta-Nehisi Coates's landmark essay 'The Case for Reparations.' It was not merely a manifesto but a meticulous historical excavation—from redlining in Chicago to the GI Bill's racist exclusions—that laid out in irrefutable detail how government policy, not just private prejudice, created Black disadvantage. It forced a national conversation. But again, the response was mostly talk. On June 1, however, Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols—who once opposed reparations—announced a historic local plan for survivors and descendants of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The city would fund direct payments and long-term support programs. It is a rare instance where moral clarity translated into material commitment. But Tulsa is the exception, not the rule. This policy of forever kicking the can down the road in the name of respecting some phantasmal process is not unique to reparations. The same pattern plays out across the political spectrum: Universal basic income pilots have consistently shown that giving people money reduces poverty, homelessness, and even mental illness—yet most federal assistance remains conditional and insufficient. Restorative justice programs show lower recidivism than punitive sentences—particularly for youth—yet U.S. incarceration rates have remained the highest in the world since 2002. The information is known. The solutions exist. They are simply not acted upon. The political class often blames this inertia on partisan gridlock. But that too is an illusion—one as fragile as it is convenient. The apparent opposition between parties masks a deeper consensus: Both benefit from a system that rewards performative conflict over substantive change, ensuring that donor interests and institutional power remain undisturbed regardless of which party holds office. What has not changed since the 1990s is the sheer number of Americans who do not vote at all. In 1992, Joan Didion wrote in The New York Review that political apathy was a misdiagnosis: the real condition was disenchantment, a loss of faith that the system could deliver anything meaningful. And while raw turnout numbers have rebounded from the dismal 1990s, it remains the case that disaffection is a constant presence. I saw it firsthand while teaching an introductory sociology class in Washington, D.C., in the autumn of 2024. As expected in a presidential election year, every discussion of social issues circled back to politics. My students, who represented the population of their majority-Black, working-class university, were thoughtful and interested but wary. One student offered the familiar argument: that nonvoters had only themselves to blame; they are uninformed and unengaged. But an older Black woman in the class cut in. She worked with unhoused Washingtonians who, she said, don't see much difference between life under either party. And how could they? Their material circumstances have not changed. In 2024, the Democratic Party—once the party of labor—ran its campaign flanked by billionaires and Bush-era Republicans. While Donald Trump performed populism in a McDonald's, Kamala Harris held fundraisers with Mark Cuban and the Cheneys. Campaigns are fought on vibes and not policy. While Kamala Harris had a 'Brat Summer,' Trump, a Manhattan-made real estate developer, played to rural crowds. Their policy disagreements and, especially, their pro-war consensus on foreign policy and neoliberal economics are rarely discussed. One party cosplays populism, and the other cosplays credibility. All that has shifted since the '90s is which party plays which role. What has changed since the Clinton era is not political substance but political spectacle. Social media has democratized access to information and sharpened our ability to see the rupture between what is promised and what is real. There is now a generation fluent in disillusionment. The Democratic National Committee itself has become a case study in illusion maintenance: from undermining Bernie Sanders as the leading candidate in 2020 to burying debates, to pretending Joe Biden's cognitive decline is a fabrication rather than a crisis of leadership. When David Hogg—a Parkland school shooting survivor and one of five DNC vice chairs—challenged the party's refusal to reckon with younger, more progressive voters and threatened to primary incumbents, he wasn't breaking ranks; he was breaking the fourth wall. And now his sentence may be ousting. My generation has watched the lives promised to us slip away based on a political consensus we were not alive to agree upon, conceived by a club we've not been invited to join. While a cycle of progress and backlash has emerged on some social issues, such as same-sex marriage and abortion, neoliberal financial policies embraced by both major parties have left millennials unable to buy houses, afford kids, or even buy groceries without financing them through buy-now-pay-later apps like Klarna—which is now facing losses and pausing its IPO in part because we can't pay them back. Meanwhile, policies supporting deregulation of financial markets, tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, and austerity measures have persisted throughout our lifetimes. These are the policies that political elites keep recycling as 'solutions' to our problems; meanwhile, these strategies only further widen income inequality and economic insecurity. Banking deregulation under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 paved the way for risky financial practices that led to the 2008 financial crisis. Similarly, trade agreements like NAFTA, which went into effect in 1994, prioritized corporate interests over labor protections, resulting in job losses and stagnant wages for American workers. Just a few weeks ago, the Senate, by bipartisan acclamation, passed an industry-friendly crypto deregulation bill, the direct fruits of crypto donors drowning Washington in slush money. This is a deeply entrenched way of doing business, one that reflects a larger failure to adapt to changing economic realities and contribute to ongoing challenges faced by younger generations. We should think of Governor Moore's veto like this: He didn't reject reparations; he rejected this whole charade. And the culture is catching up. Even our consumer habits reflect the growing revolt against disposability. Across the country, citizens are fighting for 'right to repair' laws, demanding that tech companies let people fix their own devices rather than forcing them to buy replacements. Behind that demand is a deeper yearning—for durability, for agency, for something built to last. We should want the same from our politics. But our civic infrastructure is designed more for optics than policy action. Commissioned research is a dress rehearsal for a play that will never debut. A 25-hour 'filibuster' that blocked no bill is marketing for Senator Cory Booker's new book. Every moral breakthrough is deferred until the next election cycle. We have outsourced moral courage to process. Governor Moore's veto was a rare political moment that acknowledged what so many Americans now suspect: We are not in need of more evidence or rhetoric—we are in need of political will and action. We know how to fix what's broken. The question is whether we still have the courage to stop pretending and pick up the tools to repair it.
