‘No true escape' from the Indian heatwave & the ‘allure' of the manufacturing bet

The Print

5 days ago

US President Donald Trump's blueprint for Apple product manufacturing can be found in Devanahalli and 'changes spurred by Foxconn are rippling through Bengaluru', report Alex Travelli and Hari Kumar in The New York Times . 'In India, Apple is doubling down on a bet it placed after the Covid-19 pandemic began and before Mr. Trump's re-election,' they write.
'Mamdani has publicly held Modi responsible for the 2002 riots, even though the Indian Supreme Court dismissed the case against the prime minister in 2022. The New Yorker, were he to aspire to a political role in Gujarat, wouldn't be contesting on a BJP ticket. That much is certain,' he writes. 'What's more disappointing to liberals is that even the once-dominant Indian National Congress, whose leader Rahul Gandhi is Modi's biggest opponent and challenger, wouldn't have much use for someone like Mamdani.'
New Delhi: Zohran Mamdani's historic win in New York's democratic primary has triggered a storm in India's Right wing. In a different scenario, were he to contest elections in India, his brand of politics and identity wouldn't find many takers, writes Bloomberg Opinion columnist Andy Mukherjee.
The report refers to 'the allure of bringing back manufacturing'. 'Wages are rising 10 to 15 percent around the Foxconn plant. Businesses are quietly making deals to supply Foxconn and Apple's other contractors,' it reads.
The report further adds, 'India's most urgent reason for developing industry is to create jobs. Unlike the United States, it does not have enough: not in services, manufacturing or anything else. Nearly half its workers are involved in farming. With India's population peaking, it needs about 10 million new jobs a year just to keep up.'
NYT also zooms into Rajasthan's Sri Ganganagar, the hottest place in India this past June.
'For many Indians, there is no true escape from the heat. Air-conditioning is an impossible dream. Work is done outside, under the sun, and not to work means not to eat. In the face of those realities, the daily rhythms of life are changing in India, the most populous country on a continent that is warming at a rate twice as fast as the global average,' says the report.
The Washington Post reports Monday's blast at a pharmaceutical factory in Telangana, in which at least 36 people were killed.
'Labour and human rights watchdogs have warned of inadequate safety measures and lax oversight in some Indian factories,' reports Joshua Yang.
The report adds that a 2020 US State Department report on human rights in India found that 'health and safety inspection capacity was insufficient, and enforcement often poor'. According to Global union federation InustriALL, about 235 workers died across 116 industrial accidents in India between May 2020 and June 2021, Yang writes.
In an opinion piece for The Guardian, Nilanjana Bhowmick assesses the space Indian women occupy in public spaces, arguing that they do not want 'safe zones'.
More than 50 percent of women in Indian towns and cities do not leave their homes even once a day, and only 48 percent of women in urban India are even allowed to leave home alone, the article says.
'With so few women occupying public spaces, our presence continues to feel unfamiliar—something to be stared at, questioned or interrupted,' Bhowmick writes.
'What is needed is to socialise boys and men to be more comfortable around women – as equals, not anomalies. Studies have shown that a majority of Indian boys grow up without meaningful interactions with girls or any kind of education that teaches respect, equality or consent. The idea that women belong at home, in the private sphere, is still deeply rooted,' she adds.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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