Mamdani Defeats Ex-Governor Cuomo in NYC Democratic Mayoral Primary Firstpost America
Mamdani Defeats Ex-Governor Cuomo in NYC Democratic Mayoral Primary | Firstpost America | N18G
Mamdani Defeats Ex-Governor Cuomo in NYC Democratic Mayoral Primary | Firstpost America | N18G
Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old Indian-origin Muslim and a left-leaning socialist, has won the Democratic mayoral primary in New York City, defeating former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo conceded the race on Tuesday (June 24), four years after stepping down as governor amidst sexual harassment accusations and alleged mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic response. Mamdani, an aspiring rapper turned politician and the son of Indian-American filmmaker Mira Nair and scholar Mahmood Mamdani, leveraged a strong social media presence to connect with voters. He has nearly a million followers across Instagram and TikTok, where he shares engaging videos, often featuring him navigating New York. With the Democrats nationally still grappling with the aftermath of Trump's presidential election last year, Mamdani's victory in this high-profile city race has done little to calm their nerves. Watch this video to know more.
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Indian Express
42 minutes ago
- Indian Express
From Emergency to now, how censorship became a competitive sport
When the Emergency was declared in 1975, the Hindi newspaper Vir Pratap, like most Indian media, had an editorial problem. First, they tried to leave the editorial space blank. The government said that it was not permissible. Nor were they allowed to fill it with inspirational quotes, even from icons like Mahatma Gandhi or Rabindranath Tagore. This was not a time the government wanted anyone to reiterate Tagore's 'Where the mind is without fear'. 'They said you cannot leave the editorial blank. You have to fill it up,' says Chander Mohan, who, along with his daughter Jyotsna, authored the book Pratap: A Defiant Newspaper. 'That's when my father started writing his life history.' His father, Virendra, had quite a checkered history when it came to speaking truth to power. Accused of making bombs, he had been imprisoned with Bhagat Singh. The Urdu newspaper Pratap had been launched by his father, Mahashay Krishan, in 1919 in Lahore two weeks before the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. Two days after its launch, the British shut it down for a full year. 'The paper was blunt and we were frequently shut down; the editors, my father and grandfather, were imprisoned and fines were imposed repeatedly,' recalls Mohan. As long as the British were ruling India, the narrative was straightforward: Good guy desi Davids taking on bad guy sahib Goliaths. After Independence, it got murkier. The good guys and bad guys now looked the same. The boundaries of freedom of expression felt less clear in free India. The Emergency was lifted in 1977, but the issues of censorship have morphed into a shape-shifting monster. Now, everyone competes in taking offence and banning books and films they deem offensive, the most famous example being the then Congress government's preemptive strike on Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. That set off the 'Big Ban' Theory of everything. Satanic Verses recently returned to Indian bookstores, but that doesn't mean freedom of expression is in fine fettle. The battles, as Alice said in Wonderland, are getting 'curiouser and curiouser'. For example, the Central Board of Film Certification stalled the Malayalam film Janaki vs State of Kerala because it feels a woman who has been assaulted should not be given the name of someone revered as a Goddess. The irony is that Sita from the Ramayana is also a survivor, someone who was kidnapped and endured an Agnipariksha to boot. Instead of acknowledging the parallels the CBFC wants to draw a Lakshmanrekha as if to seal off all possible names of Sita, and one presumes, every other God and Goddess in the pantheon, from possible fictional contamination. That's a slippery slope. Can an out-and-out villain never be named Ram or Lakshmi henceforth? Would a modern-day CBFC take filmmaker Satyajit Ray and novelist Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay to task because Durga in Pather Panchali steals a necklace? And how could a Durga be shown dying anyway? Sometimes names are chosen to make a point. Salman Rushdie deliberately named a bad-tempered bulldog in The Moor's Last Sigh as Jaw-Jaw after Jawaharlal. It upset the Congress, but little came of it. All of this harkens back to an old controversy about Deepa Mehta's 1996 film Fire, where angry protesters felt she had deliberately named the lesbian characters Radha and Sita in order to take an unsubtle dig at Hinduism. Now, taking offence and demanding censorship has become a competitive sport across the political spectrum. Most people protesting books have never read them. It's just a shortcut to political fame. And it does not require a state of Emergency because it's always open season, whether it's for a stand-up comic like Kunal Kamra or an Instagram influencer like Sharmishta Panoli. Even an apology and a deleted post are not remorseful enough. The issue is not really what they said. It is the political dividends to be gained by making an example of them. On the other hand, everyone knows that in an age of e-books and VPNs, a ban is hardly a hurdle for a book from reaching readers. And more Indians are now aware of a Malayalam film called Janaki v State of Kerala than ever before, thanks to the CBFC controversy. Meanwhile, the censorship story has an odd new avatar. According to media reports, the CBFC directed the makers of the new film Sitaare Zameen Par to include an inspirational quote from the Prime Minister in its opening disclaimer. 'Let us all build a society where no dream or goal is impossible,' says the Prime Minister. 'Only then will we be able to build a truly inclusive and developed India.' It's a fine sentiment and a laudable aspiration. It's just that at one time, censorship was about what one could or could not say. The new twist is that the censor board can now also tell one what one must say. Roy is a novelist and the author of Don't Let Him Know
The Wire
44 minutes ago
- The Wire
Piloo Mody, a Parliamentarian Who Left a Mark With His Wit and Humour
This article is part of a series by The Wire titled ' The Early Parliamentarians ', exploring the lives and work of post-independence MPs who have largely been forgotten. The series looks at the institutions they helped create, the enduring ideas they left behind and the contributions they made to nation building. Piloo Mody was an architect, politician, one of the founding members of the Swatantra Party and a veteran parliamentarian. He was elected to the 4th and 5th Lok Sabhas and served in the Rajya Sabha from 1978 until his death in 1983. As a parliamentarian he left his imprint, complete with humour. Born into an affluent Parsi family on November 14, 1926, Mody was one of the sons of Sir Homi Mody. He had two brothers, Kali Mody, a pioneer of credit card operations in India and Russi Mody, a former chairman of TISCO Limited. Piloo studied at the Doon School, Dehradun. After that, he studied architecture at Sir J.J. College of Architecture, Bombay (now Mumbai), and completed his Bachelor of Architecture. To pursue his master's degree in architecture, Mody attended the University of California, Berkeley, US. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who went on to become prime minister of Pakistan in the 1970s, was his college roommate as well as a close friend. After completing his studies, he married Lavina (Vina) Colgan, a Swiss-born-American and his classmate at Berkeley, on January 3, 1953. After his stint at Berkeley he returned to India. He worked for two years on the Chandigarh Capital Project with Le Corbusier. Another significant building that Mody designed in collaboration with Durga Bajpai is the Oberoi Hotel in New Delhi. He also designed the Chennai headquarters of Engineering Construction Corporation, a former subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro Ltd. It won the Federation Internationale de la Precontrainte prize for excellence in pre-stressed concrete from India. The couple set up an architecture firm, Mody and Colgan, in 1953 at Stadium House, Churchgate. Their first project was a residential apartment at Marine Lines for senior officials of TISCO. They also designed the front casing of one model of the Voltas Air conditioner. Mody's other projects include residential project Olympus, three TELCO offices, the headquarters of Bharat Bijlee, Mukand Iron and Steel, Sandoz, Voltas and Diners Club and Business Service centres. In political life, Mody was an advocate of liberalism and freedom. He was associated with the Swatantra Party as its founding member and was executive vice-president of the party. As parliamentarian In the 1967 general election, Mody was elected to the 4th Lok Sabha, representing the Godhra constituency in Gujarat. In 1971 he was re-elected and served in the 5th Lok Sabha until March 1977 but lost with a narrow margin in 1977. Mody merged his Swatantra Party with Charan Singh's Bhartiya Kranti Dal in 1974, which eventually merged with Janata Party in 1977. After an absence of a year from parliament, on April 10, 1978 Mody joined the Rajya Sabha and served there until his death in 1983. Besides his professional pursuits, Mody was known for his constant use of wit and humour in his parliamentary speeches. Due to his conservative and pro-US views, Mody was often accused by the members of the ruling Congress party of being a 'Washington parrot'. To counter that, once he came to the House wearing a placard reading, 'I am a CIA agent.' The chairman ordered him to remove it. He did so, remarking, 'I am no longer a CIA agent.' Once, during a debate, J.C. Jain, a member of the ruling party, started needling Mody. He lost his temper and shouted at Jain, 'Stop barking.' Jain was up, yelling and pleading with the chair, 'Sir, he is calling me a dog. It is an unparliamentary language.' Chairman Hidayatullah agreed and ordered, 'This will not go on record.' Not to be outdone, Mody corrected himself by saying, 'All right then, stop braying.' Jain did not know what the word implied, and it stayed on record. Once, a minister, during a heated argument, said, 'I am not supposed to respond to every barking dog.' Then Mody rose to speak and said, 'Speaker, Sir, on the treasury benches, we have great people sitting, pillars of the government, pillars of democracy. And, we are dogs, and everyone knows how a dog treats a pillar.' The House burst out in laughter. Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty When Giani Zail Singh, as Home Minister, was piloting a bill in the Rajya Sabha, Mody participated in the debate. While replying to the debate, Gianiji, referring to Mody's comments on the Bill, stated in Hindi, ' Piloo Mody to bade seasonal member hain.' The whole House started laughing. Another minister, sitting next to Gianiji, whispered to him to say that the word is 'seasoned'. Thereupon Gianiji again said, ' Mujhe to angrezi thodi aati hai. Inko to inki biwi ne angrezi padhai hai.' Mody thumped his desk and raised a point of order. The whole House was looking at Mody. The Deputy Chairman asked, 'What is your point of order?' Mody stated, 'Gianiji is grossly misinformed. My wife did not teach me English. I taught her English.' The whole House burst into laughter again. Mody's wife was Swiss. Similarly, once, there was a debate in Parliament about the import of railway tracks and wagons for quick replacement. Indradeep Sinha, an opposition member, believed these should be manufactured locally instead of importing because it caused delays. Mody interrupted to say that the delay was caused not by importing it but by manufacturing it. Sinha replied to Mody, 'You are not the sole importing agent. There are so many others.' The Chairman corrected Sinha, 'No, he is not an importing agent. He is an exporting agent.' Mody added, 'I export ideas in a barren market.' When Shyam Lal Yadav was elected as the Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha, members of various political parties in the House started extending their congratulations to him. Mody congratulated and warned the newly appointed Deputy Chairman, 'I beg to move a vote of congratulations to my friend, Shri Shyam Lal Yadav. I have no doubt in my mind that my good friend will continue to be as partisan as he was in the past. I want to assure my friend, neighbour, and colleague that I wish him very happy times in the Chair with the least amount of acrimony and warn him that if he does not behave when he returns to this Chair, I will sit on him.' The Deputy Chairman, when not presiding, sits next to the Leader of the Opposition. Mody's sense of humour was not only in his speeches but in his writings too. He was known to address Indira Gandhi as IG in his letters and sign off as PM (Piloo Mody). He often told Indira Gandhi, 'I am the permanent PM; you are temporary.' In 1975, at the time of the Emergency in India, Mody was arrested on the orders of the Indira Gandhi government, using the controversial powers granted by the MISA and was in Delhi's Tihar Jail and Rohtak Jail for 16 long months. Apart from being a humorous parliamentarian and brilliant architect, Mody was a renowned author, having two books to his credit. His first book, Zulfi, My Friend (1973), was penned on the life and times of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Mody's second book was Democracy Means BREAD AND FREEDOM (1979), which he wrote during his 16 months in jail. The book was an attempt to trace the genesis of democracy and search for the origins of the attitudes and institutions that sustain it. Mody also served as editor of an English weekly, March of the Nation, published from Bombay, and wrote numerous articles for the national and international newspapers and magazines. A few days before he died in his sleep, Piloo Mody, the irrepressibly buoyant MP who for over a decade brought to Indian politics a special flavour of wit, wacky humour and wisdom, told India Today that "The world revolves around an idea. Every problem has its solution, given a clean heart, good intention and determination." He also explained his plans to start a new political party. But he passed away on January 29, 1983. He was 57. Qurban Ali is a trilingual journalist who has covered some of modern India's major political, social and economic developments. He has a keen interest in India's freedom struggle and is now documenting the history of the socialist movement in the country.
The Hindu
an hour ago
- The Hindu
Donald Trump officials to give first classified briefing to Congress on Iran strikes
Senators are set to meet with top national security officials Thursday (June 26, 2025) as many question President Donald Trump's decision to bomb three Iranian nuclear sites — and whether those strikes were ultimately successful. The classified briefing, which was originally scheduled for Tuesday (June 24, 2025) and was delayed, also comes as the Senate is expected to vote this week on a resolution that would require congressional approval if Mr. Trump decides to strike Iran again. Democrats, and some Republicans, have said that the White House overstepped its authority when it failed to seek the advice of Congress and they want to know more about the intelligence that Trump relied on when he authorised the attacks. Iran-Israel conflict LIVE updates 'Senators deserve full transparency, and the administration has a legal obligation to inform Congress precisely about what is happening,' said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who said on Tuesday (June 24, 2025) that it was 'outrageous' that the Senate and House briefings were postponed. A similar briefing for House members was pushed to Friday (June 27, 2025). CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth are expected to brief the senators on Thursday (June 26, 2025). Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was scheduled to be at the Tuesday briefing, but will not be attending, according to a person familiar with the schedule. The briefing could be contentious as questions have swirled around Mr. Trump's decision to strike Iran and whether the attacks were successful. A preliminary U.S. intelligence report found this week that Iran's nuclear programme had been set back only a few months, contradicting statements from Mr. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the status of Iran's nuclear facilities, according to two people familiar with the report. The people were not authorised to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. On Wednesday (June 25, 2025), Ms. Gabbard and Ratcliffe sent out statements backing Trump's claims that the facilities were 'completely and fully obliterated'. Ms. Gabbard posted on social media that 'new intelligence confirms what @POTUS has stated numerous times: Iran's nuclear facilities have been destroyed.' She said that if the Iranians choose to rebuild the three facilities, it would 'likely take years to do.' Mr. Ratcliffe said in a statement from the CIA that Iran's nuclear programme has been 'severely damaged' and cited new intelligence 'from a historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years'. Most Republicans have staunchly defended Mr. Trump and hailed the tentative ceasefire he brokered in the Israel-Iran war. House Speaker Mike Johnson even went as far as to question the constitutionality of the War Powers Act, which is intended to give Congress a say in military action. 'The bottom line is the commander in chief is the president, the military reports to the president, and the person empowered to act on the nation's behalf is the president,' Mr. Johnson told reporters. But some Republicans — including some of Trump's staunchest supporters — are uncomfortable with the strikes and the potential for US involvement in an extended Middle East conflict. 'I think the speaker needs to review the Constitution,' said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. 'And I think there's a lot of evidence that our Founding Fathers did not want presidents to unilaterally go to war.' Mr. Paul would not say if he is voting for the resolution by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., that would require congressional approval for specific military action in Iran. The resolution is likely to fail as 60 votes would be needed to pass it and Republicans have a 53-47 majority. But Kaine says it's important to put the Senate on the record. 'You have a debate like this so that the entire American public, whose sons and daughters are in the military and whose lives will be at risk in war, get to see the debate and reach their own conclusion together with the elected officials about whether the mission is worth it or not,' Mr. Kaine said. While he did not seek approval, sent congressional leaders a short letter Monday serving as his official notice of the strikes, two days after the bombs fell. The letter said that the strike was taken 'to advance vital United States national interests, and in collective self-defense of our ally, Israel, by eliminating Iran's nuclear programme'.
