Turkey Foreign Minister Hosts Hamas Leadership For Talks On Gaza Ceasefire, Humanitarian Situation
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar addressed growing concerns over Senator Lindsey Graham's proposed U.S. sanctions bill, which threatens a 500% tariff on countries importing Russian oil. With over 80 Senate co-sponsors, the bill may become veto-proof. Jaishankar confirmed India's embassy and ambassador are in active contact with Graham, and emphasized India's energy and security interests. He clarified that India will deal with the situation 'if and when it comes.' The proposed bill has sparked global concern, with potential carve-outs for Ukraine-supporting nations. As India continues energy imports from Russia, this development could test India-US ties. Stay tuned for key updates on this unfolding diplomatic flashpoint.#jaishankar #indiausrelations #russiaoil #lindseygrahambill #indiandiplomacy #modigovernment #usindia #energysecurity #russiaukrainewar #geopolitics #toi #toibharat #bharat #trending #breakingnews #indianews
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Time of India
35 minutes ago
- Time of India
From Pather Panchali to Zohran Mamdani: Why brown people eating with their hands gives the West nightmares - decoding the culture war
The Mamdani Controversy: Rice, Rituals, and MAGA Outcry This summer, a viral video showed New York politician Zohran Mamdani eating biryani with his hands during an interview. In response, Texas Congressman Brandon Gill fumed that 'civilised people in America don't eat like this. If you refuse to adopt Western customs, go back to the Third World. ' His wife Danielle D'Souza Gill – an India-born MAGA pundit – piled on, declaring she 'never grew up eating rice with [her] hands' and 'always used a fork,' insisting her Indian Christian relatives did the same. The outburst ignited a social media firestorm. Critics noted the hypocrisy: Americans routinely devour burgers, tacos, fries, and pizza by hand, yet Gill condemned hand-eating as 'uncivilised.' Many pointed out that billions eat with their hands daily, labelling his comments as pure racism. Images of President Trump eating pizza with his bare hands swiftly made the rounds, mocking the idea that hand-eating is somehow barbaric. In the end, people across Asia stood up for the common practice of eating with one's hands, underlining that dining customs run deep in culture and are not to be dictated by Western lawmakers with fragile sensibilities. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like One of the Most Successful Investors of All Time, Warren Buffett, Recommends: 5 Books for Turning... Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List Click Here Undo Ray's Pather Panchali and Western Snobbery This isn't the first time Western audiences have bristled at seeing Asians eat authentically. When Satyajit Ray 's Pather Panchali debuted in 1955, some Western critics recoiled at its realism. The story begins with a rural Bengali family eating rice with their hands, and French filmmaker François Truffaut quipped he 'did not want to see a movie of peasants eating with their hands.' The New York Times reviewer similarly sniffed that the film was too loose and listless, despite its understated poetry. Even in India, some officials feared the film was 'exporting poverty,' with former actress-turned-politician Nargis Dutt famously making that charge. Ray's work later became a world classic, but the initial response reflects an old bias: Western gatekeepers found an honest portrayal of humble, hand-to-mouth life unacceptable. Poor brown people eating with their hands was not what the Cannes set wanted with their champagne. Why Eating with Hands Feels Better For millions of Indians, eating with one's hands is not just tradition but pleasure. The act engages all five senses. You feel the warmth of the rice and dal as your fingers mix them together. You mould a perfect bite-sized morsel, adding curry or pickle to balance the flavours. The touch tells you if the roti is still soft, if the rice has cooled enough, if the fish bones have been removed. In Ayurveda, eating with your hands is said to activate energy centres connected to digestion. Even without mysticism, there is practicality. Indian food – with its gravies, rice, rotis, and layered textures – is designed to be mixed and balanced bite by bite. Forks and spoons reduce it to awkward scooping, like trying to paint watercolours with a ballpoint pen. Fingers are the original cutlery, tailored to your own grip, temperature tolerance, and tactile sense. The food becomes an extension of you rather than an object to be speared and lifted. Evolution of Etiquette: From Fingers to Forks In truth, using hands to eat is an ancient, global tradition. In Asia – and many parts of the Middle East and Africa – meals are still commonly eaten with the right hand. Indians traditionally wash their hands thoroughly before dining, then use fingertips to feel the temperature of the food and combine flavours. Rice and curry are picked up between the fingers and thumb and brought to the mouth. The left hand is kept clean and used only for serving or passing dishes. This is not unsanitary by local standards; careful handwashing and using only fingers (not whole hands) is part of the practice. By contrast, formal cutlery arrived in Europe relatively late. Forks spread westward through Byzantium to Italy, and only by the 1500s were forks seen among European elites. Catherine de' Medici famously brought forks to France in 1533, but even then they were a novelty. In Britain, medieval diners ate with fingers and knives until forks became fashionable in the 1700–1800s. Grand dinners with silver knives and forks became the standard only then. Before that, finger-eating was universal. But with the fork's adoption, by the 19th century, finger-eating in polite society was denounced as 'cannibal' behaviour. Western table manners, therefore, are a recent invention, codified after centuries of changing habits. Colonial Attitudes and Modern Double Standards These new Western norms carried moral overtones in the colonial era. British colonialists often disparaged Indian dining customs as primitive. By the mid-1800s, finger-eating was so taboo in polite society that etiquette guides labelled it savage. This historic snobbery resurfaced in the 1950s with Pather Panchali: showing peasants eating rice by hand was literally too unrefined for some Western eyes. Today, the Mamdani case highlights the absurdity of these attitudes. Critics who call hand-eating 'uncivilised' conveniently ignore that Americans and Europeans themselves handle many foods bare-handed. Westerners may scoff, yet most Americans eat pizza, burgers, sandwiches, fries, and chicken wings – with their hands. It is pure hypocrisy. The backlash to Mamdani shows that many people now recognise this: labelling hand-eating as unsanitary or uncivilised is little more than prejudice dressed up in etiquette. The Bottom Line: Etiquette is Cultural In the end, dining manners are deeply cultural and ever-changing. Whether one uses a fork or fingers is a matter of upbringing, not of inherent civilisation. To millions of Asians, using hands is as natural and polite as using cutlery is in the West. Judging one another's table habits misunderstands history. Forks are only a few centuries old, whereas eating by hand dates back to prehistory. Perhaps true civilisation is less about utensils and more about respect – keeping hands clean, sharing food generously, and eating with dignity. In a globalised world, demanding everyone conform to Western-style dining is an anachronism. Rather than policing plates, a more gracious etiquette is recognising that many cultures have perfectly respectable, time-honoured ways of eating – forks or hands included. Because at the end of the day, if you're offended by someone else's fingers touching their rice, it says more about you than it does about them.
Hindustan Times
36 minutes ago
- Hindustan Times
Jaishankar meets national intelligence director, FBI director to wrap up US visit
Washington: External affairs minister S. Jaishankar closed out his three-day visit to the United States after meeting with director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and FBI director Kash Patel. Jaishankar also met with US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard and the two discussed the 'global situation and our bilateral cooperation. (@DrSJaishankar) 'Appreciate our strong cooperation in countering organised crime, drug trafficking and terrorism,' said Jaishankar on X after meeting with Patel. The Indian-origin FBI chief recently spoke publicly about the US-India cooperation in stemming the flow of fentanyl precursor chemicals from China into the United States. The influx of fentanyl and related chemicals has contributed to the ongoing opioid crisis in America, which claimed the lives of over 80,000 people in 2024. 'I literally just got off the phone with the Indian government. I said, I need your help. This stuff's coming into your country and then they're moving it from your country because India is not consuming fentanyl. We're going to find these companies that buy it and we're going to shut them down,' Patel said on a podcast recently, adding that New Delhi and Washington would look to indict companies involved in drug trafficking. In its 2025 Annual Threat Assessment Report, the office of the director of national intelligence stated that India was second only to China as a source of illicit fentanyl precursor chemicals and pill-pressing equipment. Jaishankar also met with US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard. The two discussed the 'global situation and our bilateral cooperation,' said Jaishankar on X. Gabbard was the first senior official from the second Trump administration to visit India. During the visit, she met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and defence minister Rajnath Singh, and attended a high-level intelligence conference in New Delhi. According to the office of the director of national intelligence, her meetings in India focused on defence, counter-terrorism, transnational threats, and intelligence sharing.
Time of India
39 minutes ago
- Time of India
How Ukraine can cope with the US pause on crucial battlefield weapons
The U.S. pause in weapons shipments to Ukraine coincides with intensified Russian attacks, creating vulnerabilities in Ukrainian cities due to the shortage of Patriot air defense missiles. While Ukraine is scaling up its domestic defense production, particularly in drones and artillery shells, European countries are increasing their military aid to compensate for the U.S. pause. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads The decision by the United States to pause some weapons shipments to Ukraine has come at a tough time for Kyiv: Russia's bigger army is making a concerted push on parts of the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line and is intensifying long-range drone and missile attacks that increasingly hammer civilians in Ukrainian has been Ukraine's biggest military backer since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor on Feb. 24, 2022. But the Trump administration has been disengaging from the war, and no end to the fighting is in sight, despite recent direct peace a look at Ukraine's options following the U.S. pause of some arms deliveries:Specific weapons needed from U.S. Amid recurring concerns in Kyiv about how much military support its allies can supply and how quickly, Ukraine has raced to build up its domestic defense country's output has gradually grown, especially in the production of more and increasingly sophisticated drones, but Ukraine needs to speedily scale up some high-tech U.S. weapons are irreplaceable. They include Patriot air defense missiles , which are needed to fend off Russia's frequent ballistic missile attacks, but which cost $4 million each. That vital system is included in the pause, and many cities in Ukraine, including Kyiv, could become increasingly vulnerable.A senior Ukrainian official said Thursday that Patriot systems are "critically necessary" for Ukraine, but U.S.-made HIMARS precision-guided missiles, also paused, are in less urgent need as other countries produce similar assets."Other countries that have these (Patriot) systems can only transfer them with U.S. approval. The real question now is how far the United States is willing to go in its reluctance to support Ukraine," he told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of sensitivity of the official said that Patriot missiles exist in sufficient numbers globally, and he said that accessing them requires political resolve."There are enough missiles out there," he said, without providing also stated that Ukraine has already scaled up its domestic production of 155 mm artillery shells, which were once critically short, and is now capable of producing more than is currently contracted. "Supplies from abroad have also become more available than before," he plan Amid at times fraught relations with U.S. President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been enlisting greater European help for his country's arms manufacturing countries don't have the production levels, military stockpiles or the technology to pick up all the slack left by the U.S. pause, but Zelenskyy is recruiting their help for ambitious joint investment legislation to help Ukrainian defense manufacturers scale up and modernize production, including building new facilities at home and abroad, will be put to a vote in the Ukrainian parliament later this month, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov announced this said last month that major investments will go to the production of drones and artillery shells."The volume of support this year is the largest since the start of the full-scale war," he said about commitments from foreign Trump, there have been no new announcements of U.S. military or weapons aid to Ukraine. Between March and April, the United States allocated no new help at all, according to Germany's Kiel Institute, which tracks such the first time since June 2022, four months after Russia's full-scale invasion, European countries have surpassed the U.S. in total military aid, totaling 72 billion euros ($85 billion) compared with 65 billion euros ($77 billion) from the U.S., the institute said last battlefield problem Without Patriot missiles, as well as the AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missile and shorter-range Stinger missiles that are also included in the pause, Ukrainian cities likely will take a bashing as more Russian missiles pierce air the front line, Ukrainian troops haven't recently voiced complaints about ammunition shortages, as they have in the past. They have always said that during the war, they have never had as much ammunition to as their disposal as Russian army faces a different problem: It's desperately short-handed. It's turning to drones to compensate for its manpower shortage, and analysts say the front isn't about to about the timing of the U.S. pause, the Ukrainian official emphasized the need for stable, reliable supply lines."This is war - and in war, steady deliveries are always crucial," he said.
