Latest news with #People'sMarch
Hans India
3 days ago
- Business
- Hans India
Telangana Gears Up to Meet Future Power Demand, Deputy CM Bhatti Vikramarka Highlights Government's Proactive Energy Initiatives
Mahabubnagar: Deputy Chief Minister Bhatti Vikramarka Mallu, speaking at a public meeting in Nawabpet following the inauguration of new 33/11 kV substations in Jadcherla constituency, underscored the Telangana government's strategic efforts to meet the growing power demand and position the state for future energy needs. Addressing concerns raised by political opponents before the elections about possible power shortages under Congress rule, the Deputy CM asserted that the state is now moving beyond mere uninterrupted supply towards achieving surplus electricity generation. Bhatti Vikramarka highlighted the remarkable increase in Telangana's electricity demand as a positive indicator of industrial growth and rising living standards. He pointed out that during the last year of TRS governance in March 2023, the peak power demand was 15,497 megawatts. However, under Congress administration, by March 2025, this figure rose sharply to 17,162 megawatts, an increase of nearly 2,000 megawatts. Despite this surge, he proudly stated, there has not been a single interruption in power supply. Looking ahead, the Deputy CM revealed that by 2035, Telangana's power demand is projected to reach 33,775 megawatts. To meet this anticipated growth, the government has already laid out comprehensive plans to expand production capacity and enhance distribution infrastructure, ensuring that the state's energy supply keeps pace with its development goals. He emphasized the vital role that reliable and abundant power plays in attracting global investors, affirming that Telangana is well-equipped to provide industry and businesses with the electricity required to compete on the world stage. The Deputy CM further reiterated that no external conspiracy can halt Telangana's rise, emphasizing that only a government focused on people's welfare can ensure sustainable development. Addressing welfare schemes, Bhatti Vikramarka noted that 90 lakh families are currently benefiting from government programs such as free 200 units of electricity per household and subsidized fine rice distribution, policies that are unique to Telangana in the country. He highlighted increased diet allowances for schoolchildren, extensive fee reimbursements for higher education, and free healthcare coverage up to ₹10 lakh under the Rajiv Aarogyasri scheme. Youth unemployment is being tackled through government job recruitment and self-employment initiatives under the 'Rajiv Yuva Vikasam' program. The Deputy CM also reaffirmed the government's commitment to farmers by noting direct loan waivers for those with loans up to ₹2 lakh, cash support of ₹12,000 under Rythu Bharosa, and similar assistance for landless agricultural laborers. Housing support is extended to the homeless with ₹5 lakh grants, while monthly pensions are disbursed to the elderly and widows. He proudly mentioned that promises made during the pre-election 'People's March' padayatra, such as ₹70 crore compensation for farmers affected by the Udandapur reservoir project, are being fulfilled promptly under the Congress government. Bhatti Vikramarka also took a strong stand against the previous TRS government's record, accusing it of symbolic gestures without real progress, citing that irrigation projects like Palamuru-Rangareddy, initiated in 2015, failed to deliver water to even a single acre despite a decade passing. In contrast, he credited Congress with making major irrigation projects between Jurala and Srisailam a reality, further enhancing Telangana's agricultural prospects.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
I Protested Trump 1.0 in All Kinds of Ways. Here's Why I'm Sitting Out This Time.
Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Over the past few months, millions of people across the country have poured into the streets to protest the Trump administration, thanks to the organizing efforts of groups like Hands Off and 50501. Sometimes they focus on specific government policies targeting immigrants, tariffs, trans people, and DOGE cuts, but they're broadly all pro-democracy demonstrations that started with the 'People's March' before Trump's second inauguration in January. In previous years, I would have been right there with them, but not this time around. Instead, I smile and wave at the protesters, sometimes raising a fist in solidarity, then I carry on with my day. When I read about them—or the administration's plummeting approval ratings—I feel strangely unmoved. Some observers think these protests are more effective than the ones associated with the first Trump administration, namely the 2017 'Women's March' and the 2020 BLM protests. The main difference seems to be that the earlier iterations had the words women and Black in them, while these are focusing on democracy. The implication is that the earlier protests problematically emphasized identity over democracy and that perhaps that flaw is why we still ended up with a majority of voters signing everyone up for four more years—at least—of Trump. Maybe focusing on identity got us into this mess, or maybe it's the identities we've been focusing on: gender (read: women), race (Black Americans), trans people. But how can identity alone be the scapegoat when 92 percent of Black women voted for democracy in 2024? When Black people have consistently been the most pro-democracy progressive voting bloc in American history? Maybe the real change in the latest protest movements is simply that 92 percent of Black women are fed up with explaining just how much racism costs all Americans. The 92 Percent Movement is about Black women taking time for ourselves even during this political crisis, or maybe especially during it. Some have wondered why more Black people aren't showing at this iteration of anti-Trump rallies. Well, we're taking a breather, or maybe we're just sitting this one out altogether. It seems like an inopportune time to be a political wallflower, but it's not so easy to bounce back from what happened on Nov. 5. We've turned inward, drawing support from other Black women, reminding each other of our worth and protecting our mental health. It's still true what Malcolm X said about Black women being the most disrespected and unprotected in America, so we look out for each other. That's what Michelle Obama did when she decided to skip Trump's inauguration and even Jimmy Carter's funeral, where she would have been seated next to Trump. Nope, not doing it this time. During an interview with Oprah Winfrey, writer Maya Angelou famously advised, 'When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.' I think that applies to countries and electorates too. This wasn't even the first time, so hopefully we really believe them now. Kamala Harris did not lose in a landslide but she should have won in one as the most qualified candidate in recent history, running against an opponent who couldn't be more different. It felt like a referendum on women, specifically Black women. It wasn't just that 8 in 10 Trump voters were white or that 53 percent of white women voters supported him, but that more voters of color were drawn to Trump, including a record number of Latino voters showing support for the Republican candidate. To be fair, Trump's fake populism weakened Democratic support across all minority groups, including Asian Americans and Black Americans, with more younger men of color voting Republican than ever before. Basically, the Trump campaign was able to chip away at a coalition Black women thought they could rely on. Everyone has their reasons for how they voted, but it hurt, and the rejection felt personal on some level. And still, Black women turned out in record numbers to support Harris because we knew just how much was at stake and we wanted to be proud of the role we played in helping to elect America's first female president, a Black woman. My hands were actually shaking when I cast my ballot because I was so excited to be a part of such a historic day and proud of how far we had come as a nation. By the end of the day, I was reminded where I live. I was reminded of what the majority of Americans think about women, especially Black women, and the deliberate ignorance of the misconduct (and downright criminal behavior) of powerful white men. Harris' loss was more than just heartbreaking for us. It provided clarity about just how uninterested America remains in protecting or listening to Black women, and certainly in how little it cares to be run by one. America wants to protect its love affair with white supremacy. At the Democratic National Committee, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries hilariously riffed on a Taylor Swift song when he compared candidate Trump to an old ex-boyfriend who keeps hanging around, saying, 'Bro, we broke up with you for a reason. We are never, ever getting back together again.' But here we are, and it sort of feels as if Black women are the third wheel. White America and its allies have to figure out something about themselves that we can't teach them. They need to realize how whiteness in all its forms—including white supremacy and the way it intersects with democracy—is the biggest identity politics of them all. I've been thinking a lot about George Yancy's New York Times op-ed 'Should I Give Up On White People?,' published two years into Trump's first presidency. In it, he reflects on the hate mail he received, including detailed death threats, after daring to ask white people to reflect on their racial biases and racism in an earlier piece, called 'Dear White America.' Yancy, a Black philosopher, had tried to model radical honesty by acknowledging his own sexism and how being a man affords him privileges compared with Black women. He was calling for white America to, as Luvell Anderson described it, stop believing lies about its history, lies about the havoc whiteness has wreaked and how it weakens democracy. In the end, Yancy decided to focus on the greater good, on the white people who had also reached out to thank him for sharing his thoughts and challenging them to reflect more deeply about their own. I'm glad that worked for Yancy. But the 92 Percent Movement is not about waiting for white people to finally appreciate the many faces of white supremacy. Being a 92 Percenter means turning inward at this critical moment. That's not the same as giving up. We are caucusing among ourselves and rallying around those who have been unceremoniously sidelined and cheering on our rising political stars. Through consumer boycotts and 'buycotts,' we're spending with politics in mind. We're not holding a grudge or licking our wounds—we're trying to process what seems like a tragic misunderstanding America can't see its way out of. At a conference for female leaders, Harris herself spoke about the chilling effect Trump's turbulent first months back in the Oval Office have had on people afraid to speak out. As a college professor, I see that among students, faculty, and administrators alike, who fear becoming targets. But she also said, with a laugh, 'I'm not here to say 'I told you so.' ' Some folks have been asking her to do and say more, as if she ought to be one of the leaders of an anti-Trump push, despite literally being the main person trying to defeat him in the first place. She likely will not be that leader—and it's not a chilling effect that has her and other Black women sitting this one out. We're not afraid. We're just reclaiming our time.
The Guardian
30-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump 100 days: after tepid start, protest movements – and Democrats
Those opposed to Donald Trump's agenda started his second term on a worse footing than the beginning of his first term. This time, the social media platform owners who previously tried to tamp down on false claims stood with him at his inauguration. Some major media outlets attempted to stay in Trump's good graces. Democrats were wrecked by a popular vote loss, believing they lacked the backing to lead an opposition. The courts were stacked in Trump's favor and had ruled the president had absolute immunity from criminal punishment for 'official acts'. 'Strategically, we are objectively worse off this time than we were last time,' said David Karpf, a professor at George Washington University who studies political advocacy and strategy. While Trump's first term began with the massive Women's March, which drew millions from around the country, the second term's resistance grew more slowly and deliberately. As Trump passes his 100th day in the White House, the pushback to his agenda has grown considerably, and both Democratic lawmakers and people across the US have ramped up their actions in opposition to Trump and his policies that have struck directly at the established norms and practices of US governance. This opposition has included street protests across the country that have grown in size since February. The largest single day of protest since Trump retook the White House came on 5 April, dubbed 'Hands Off', when several million people rallied in cities and towns nationwide. The courts have also proved a potent avenue of pushback against the second Trump administration. Legal advocacy groups and Democratic attorneys general have hit Trump with lawsuit after lawsuit over his executive orders and policy directives. The Democratic attorneys general, in particular, have had a high level of success in stalling Trump's policies. Despite the common refrain that the Trump 2.0 protests have been tepid, research from Harvard's Crowd Counting Consortium showed that there were twice as many street protests between 22 January of this year and March than in the same period in Trump's first term. The 2025 People's March on 18 January, the Women's March successor, marked the most protests in a single day in over a year, the consortium found. These large demonstrations have come as the Trump administration cracks down on protesters, trying to deport some who participated in pro-Palestinian protests at their colleges. 'The fact you can get that many million people turning out shows that they are not all afraid enough yet,' said Erica Chenoweth, a Harvard political scientist in the Crowd Counting Consortium. 'It's important to have moments where there are breakthroughs on the public awareness – if you feel like what's going on is wrong, you're definitely not alone, and actually there's a lot of people who agree.' Vincent Bevins, who wrote a book about mass protest movements around the world in the 2010s and how those protests often did not lead to durable change, said the Women's March in 2017 was an important moment for the anti-Trump opposition, but that it didn't get in the way of Trump completing his first term and then winning another one. He said he thought the strategy that protesters are using this term – demonstrate against Trump's overreach instead of his inauguration – was an effective one. 'A repeat of the Women's March would have likely been read in larger society as saying, we wish that Kamala Harris would have won,' and that message does little when Trump already won the White House, Bevins said Though inauguration weekend was quiet in Washington – a drastic change from the estimated half-million people who came to the nation's capital during inauguration weekend in 2017 – people started taking to the streets again by February. The burgeoning, often decentralized anti-Trump protest movement began in part on Reddit. Established advocacy groups also began to rally outside government agencies in Washington as the so-called 'department of government efficiency' moved from agency to agency to slash programs and staff, calling attention to the cuts. Musk, the world's richest person who is cutting government programs through his Doge agency, proved a potent target for protesters, who derided the oligarchy and chanted against kings. An economic boycott of Tesla, Musk's car company, and protests at his dealerships tanked the company's revenues, showing the power of withholding dollars. Some acts of vandalism marked the boycott, leading the government to install harsh penalties for 'domestic terrorism' against the company. Protests grew in size over the next two months, with a 5 April protest dubbed 'Hands Off' drawing several million people to big cities and small towns alike. The protest served as a catch-all for anti-Trump coalitions, and messages calling for Trump to stop meddling with social programs, the courts, immigrants and trans people. In one red area in Minnesota, a newspaper columnist said 5 April was the biggest turnout she or others who attended could remember seeing. 'Politicians from this area might not change their votes or their rhetoric but they had to have taken note of the crowd size,' the Minnesota Star Tribune columnist wrote. The grassroots nature of the current protest movement is beneficial at a time when many don't think the Democratic party has a lot of credibility, said Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. 'I think that actually has the potential to be more effective in the long run,' said West. 'The fact that it's ordinary people from across the country actually gives the protests more authenticity.' Elected Democrats have followed, not led, as grassroots opposition materialized, grasping the energy in the streets and starting to launch opposition movements of their own. Earlier this year, some protests targeted Democrats, asking them to unify as an opposition party. Some elected Democratic leaders said those efforts were misdirected. 'What leverage do we have?' the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, asked out loud in February. Some Democrats said they should work with Trump and Republicans when their priorities aligned. Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, helped allow for the passage of a Republican spending bill, spoiling what little structural opposition the Democrats had in Congress. The missed opportunity led to ongoing calls for Schumer's resignation, which he has rejected. But other Democrats more quickly took up the resistance mantle. The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have toured the states on a 'Stop Oligarchy' tour that has drawn tens of thousands of people. Other elected Democrats and the Democratic National Committee have held town halls in Republican districts, and angry constituents showed up to the few Republican town halls armed with pointed questions. 'What you want to do when you lack the ability to actually stop the madness is provide a vessel for effective outrage and, like, vibes,' Karpf said. 'Vibes aren't enough, but vibes are worth a bit. 'The thing that I like about AOC and Bernie going on tour isn't that that's going to be the turning point that changes it all, because nothing will be right now. But it allows people to come together in solidarity and feel not alone.' As crowds kept showing up to oppose the Trump administration, elected Democrats started finding ways to meet the moment. The New Jersey senator Cory Booker gave a record-breaking 25-hour speech on the Senate floor to draw attention to the harms of Trump's agenda. A group of Democrats, including the Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen, went to El Salvador to call attention to the case of Kilmar Ábrego García, a man deported against court orders. Booker and Jeffries held a sit-in on the steps of the US Capitol on Sunday, inviting other elected officials to join them. 'People have complained Democrats have been too passive, and Booker very effectively made the point that he's really upset about the things that are happening, and he's willing to put himself on the line,' West said. Trump's 100-day approval ratings are the lowest in 80 years, and polls are showing growing opposition to his agenda. But the next opportunity to retake Congress isn't until 2026, and the opposition's most potent adversary, Musk, is reportedly leaving his government role soon. Protests are expected to continue and to grow, organizers say. The next collective day of protest is set for 1 May, May Day, focusing on labor and immigrants' rights. Indivisible, the progressive advocacy group formed during the first Trump administration, has seen its numbers rise considerably since Trump won again in November. Run for Something, an organization that helps progressives run for office, said in April that nearly 40,000 people had reached out to get information on how to launch a campaign since the November 2024 election. While the protests themselves might not succeed in stopping Trump's agenda, they could inspire defections from Trump supporters. Defections help movements grow and then win, said Chenoweth, of Harvard. It's not getting the most diehard Maga people to sour on Trump; it's getting people on the periphery to move one notch over and stop going with the status quo. 'One of the things that's hard for folks is to figure out how to pull apart what looks like this very monolithic extreme group,' Chenoweth said. 'And they're never as monolithic as they look. There are a lot of people in the periphery who are not as extreme as they come across.'
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Remoaner cranks are finally giving up
The last time I saw Gina Miller was outside the Supreme Court in 2019, after Baroness Hale, of spider-brooch fame, ruled Boris Johnson's prorogation of parliament to be 'unlawful'. Surrounded by fellow Remainers, Miller, who had taken the case to the highest court in the land, emerged victorious to the cheers of EU-flag wavers. 'Today is not a win for any individual or court,' she said, reading a prepared statement in her trademark Euro-blue blazer. 'It's a win for parliamentary sovereignty.' It was an interesting hot take from the woman who spearheaded two legal attempts to reverse a 'once in a lifetime' democratic vote to leave the EU in 2016, supported by 17.5 million people. It came after she had led the People's March for a(nother) People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, alongside Vince Cable, Caroline Lucas and Anna Soubry (remember them?). By her own admission, Miller was the poster girl for Remain – a cause that she recently revealed may have been a contributing factor to her developing cancer. The 59-year-old said she was even abused while hooked up to a chemotherapy drip at a London hospital, when a fellow patient shouted: 'You're that Brexit woman. I f---ing hate you'. Yet it was a cross she was willing to bear. Even after Johnson claimed to have 'got Brexit done', Miller continued campaigning through her True and Fair party, standing as the candidate for Epsom and Ewell at the last general election. She was not elected, coming sixth out of the seven candidates and losing her deposit with a 1.5 per cent share of the vote. Now it appears that the British-Guiana-born lawyer turned campaigner has finally had enough of politics altogether, after it emerged that True and Fair was dissolved via voluntary strike-off last week. It means the party will not make an appearance at next month's local elections. Could this finally signal the end of Project Fear? Let's jolly well hope so. While we still have some Brussels backers trying to make out that Brexit had nothing to do with Sir Keir Starmer being offered a favourable 10 per cent tariff by Donald Trump, compared to the 20 per cent slapped on the 'protectionist' EU, the time has surely now come to celebrate the end of Euromania once and for all. I remember witnessing peak Remain in the back of a taxi with Labour MP Barry Gardiner as we returned from a Question Time appearance in Dewsbury in 2018. Gardiner, then shadow trade secretary, tried to argue that if Brexit went ahead 'there wouldn't be a sheep left in the fields of England'. From memory, his argument centred on the idea that a free trade deal with America would wipe out our entire livestock. A most unlikely claim when it comes to sheep, as Wales alone harbours around 70 per cent more sheep than the entire United States. Such was the level of scaremongering during that fretful period that even this didn't seem especially bonkers alongside claims that leaving the bloc would 'spark a year-long recession' (George Osborne), cause World War Three (David Cameron), result in Scotland winning a second independence referendum (Cameron again) and decimate Britain's influence on the world stage (Emmanuel Macron). Far from being 'at the back of the queue', as Barack Obama once threatened, the Prime Minister is now in pole position for a US trade deal that even he and his fellow Eurolovers once claimed would result in Brits being force fed hormone-injected beef and chlorinated chicken. These were the very ideologues who once balked at the idea of turning the UK into Singapore on Thames – now they're hankering after its functioning low-tax state and seven per cent growth rate – as Leavers suggested they should nearly a decade ago. We're in this mess precisely because we haven't maximised our post-Brexit freedoms – and instead stuck with the big state, high tax, virtue-signalling globalism that has turned Europe into such a basket case that it cannot even adequately defend Ukraine from a Russian invasion. The Remainers claimed Brexit would break Britain. But in reality it's fallen foul of their own smug status quo-ism and the kind of anti-democratic lawfare waged by Miller and her Remainer ilk. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
09-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
The Remoaner cranks are finally giving up
The last time I saw Gina Miller was outside the Supreme Court in 2019, after Baroness Hale, of spider-brooch fame, ruled Boris Johnson's prorogation of parliament to be 'unlawful'. Surrounded by fellow Remainers, Miller, who had taken the case to the highest court in the land, emerged victorious to the cheers of EU-flag wavers. 'Today is not a win for any individual or court,' she said, reading a prepared statement in her trademark Euro-blue blazer. 'It's a win for parliamentary sovereignty.' It was an interesting hot take from the woman who spearheaded two legal attempts to reverse a 'once in a lifetime' democratic vote to leave the EU in 2016, supported by 17.5 million people. It came after she had led the People's March for a(nother) People's Vote on the final Brexit deal, alongside Vince Cable, Caroline Lucas and Anna Soubry (remember them?). By her own admission, Miller was the poster girl for Remain – a cause that she recently revealed may have been a contributing factor to her developing cancer. The 59-year-old said she was even abused while hooked up to a chemotherapy drip at a London hospital, when a fellow patient shouted: 'You're that Brexit woman. I f---ing hate you'. Yet it was a cross she was willing to bear. Even after Johnson claimed to have 'got Brexit done', Miller continued campaigning through her True and Fair party, standing as the candidate for Epsom and Ewell at the last general election. She was not elected, coming sixth out of the seven candidates and losing her deposit with a 1.5 per cent share of the vote. Now it appears that the British-Guiana-born lawyer turned campaigner has finally had enough of politics altogether, after it emerged that True and Fair was dissolved via voluntary strike-off last week. It means the party will not make an appearance at next month's local elections. Could this finally signal the end of Project Fear? Let's jolly well hope so. While we still have some Brussels backers trying to make out that Brexit had nothing to do with Sir Keir Starmer being offered a favourable 10 per cent tariff by Donald Trump, compared to the 20 per cent slapped on the 'protectionist' EU, the time has surely now come to celebrate the end of Euromania once and for all. I remember witnessing peak Remain in the back of a taxi with Labour MP Barry Gardiner as we returned from a Question Time appearance in Dewsbury in 2018. Gardiner, then shadow trade secretary, tried to argue that if Brexit went ahead 'there wouldn't be a sheep left in the fields of England'. From memory, his argument centred on the idea that a free trade deal with America would wipe out our entire livestock. A most unlikely claim when it comes to sheep, as Wales alone harbours around 70 per cent more sheep than the entire United States. Such was the level of scaremongering during that fretful period that even this didn't seem especially bonkers alongside claims that leaving the bloc would 'spark a year-long recession' (George Osborne), cause World War Three (David Cameron), result in Scotland winning a second independence referendum (Cameron again) and decimate Britain's influence on the world stage (Emmanuel Macron). Far from being 'at the back of the queue', as Barack Obama once threatened, the Prime Minister is now in pole position for a US trade deal that even he and his fellow Eurolovers once claimed would result in Brits being force fed hormone-injected beef and chlorinated chicken. These were the very ideologues who once balked at the idea of turning the UK into Singapore on Thames – now they're hankering after its functioning low-tax state and seven per cent growth rate – as Leavers suggested they should nearly a decade ago. We're in this mess precisely because we haven't maximised our post-Brexit freedoms – and instead stuck with the big state, high tax, virtue-signalling globalism that has turned Europe into such a basket case that it cannot even adequately defend Ukraine from a Russian invasion. The Remainers claimed Brexit would break Britain. But in reality it's fallen foul of their own smug status quo-ism and the kind of anti-democratic lawfare waged by Miller and her Remainer ilk.
