The Big Story: Breaking bread
In addition to all the oil and gas talk and business deals, Narendra Modi's visit to Doha, Qatar, over the weekend included a rather unexpected image: The dapper Indian prime minister, pocket square and all, sitting amidst hundreds of uniformed Indian labourers at a Workers' Camp in the city. Modi later also tweeted about "smiles and snacks", and spoke to them about their concerns, promising action.
The picture was unusual because of something that New Delhi rarely acknowledges: The woeful plight of Indian workers in the Gulf. The region contains about seven million Indians, the largest portion of the Indian diaspora that still holds citizenship and continues to remit a massive amount of money to the country.
Yet because India depends heavily on the Gulf nations, particularly the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, for its energy needs, it rarely speaks up on behalf of workers who are routinely abused, kept in horrible conditions and often have to work without pay or the freedom to exit a job. Human Rights agencies continue to describe work conditions in the Gulf, especially the draconian kafala system still operational in Qatar, as being akin to slavery.
The fall in oil prices has also affected Indians in the Gulf, with massive lay-offs traveling through the region, the effects of which will be felt most in Kerala. But again, this has come with the classic lack of attention to the rights of workers, with many simply being asked to pack up and return to India.
The joint statement issued at the end of Modi's visit included a reference to the Qatar side briefing the India side "on the reform in labour laws which would protect the interest of skilled and unskilled labour", but it remains to be scene what will actually be done. Modi simply thanked the Qatari Emir for hosting Indians in his country.
Hopefully his second visit to the Gulf will convince the prime minister that New Delhi needs to be paying closer attention to the needs of its citizens in the region that sends more money to the country than all Foreign Direct Investment put together.
The Big Scroll
Exploitation of labour in the Gulf begins right at home in India. Low oil prices are seriously hurting the Gulf – and the 7 million Indians who live there. The true story behind reports of hundreds of labourers dying to build Qatar's World Cup 2022.
Political Picks
1. The Election Commission has written to the Law Ministry asking for legal powers to countermand polls in cases where there is evidence of cash-for-votes.
2. The Congress' chief ministerial candidate in Punjab, Captain Amarinder Singh, is facing a spot of embarrassment with the Enforcement Directorate sending a notice to his son, Raninder Singh, in connection with alleged foreign bank accounts.
3. More Congressmen are calling for Vice President Rahul Gandhi to be put in charge of the party, with former law minister Ashwani Kumar saying "younger people" should be given charge, and former Rural Development minister Jairam Ramesh saying Rahul Gandhi is the "de facto" chief, and should "take over formally".
4. Murmurs continue to emerge about the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam joining hands with the ruling National Democratic Alliance, although Jayalalithaa's party leaders have denied it.
5. Reports continue to emerge from Jawahar Bagh, the scene of the clashes in Mathura: the Indian Express tells the story of a Delhi lawyer topping the list of cost records kept by the Netaji cult, while the Telegraph looks at the other bills lying around.
Giggle
Punditry
1. "In the two years of Modi's prime ministership, the BJP's principal achievement has been to make the unsayable, sayable", writes Mukul Kesavan in the Telegraph.
2. Manas Chakravarty in Mint looks at the terribly difficult decision up ahead for Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan in Tuesday's monetary policy review.
3. Weeding out corruption from Kashmir must be the first priority, writes Sajad Padder in the Indian Express, saying the highly politicised civil society of Kashmir stays silent on this.
Don't Miss
Anoop Sarkar explains how common Malayalam slang terms came from sources as random as an infamous German warship and a particularly disliked British officer.
"Sir Arthur Rowland Knapp was a British officer of the Indian Civil Services, who served as the collector of the Malabar district of the Madras presidency. His inexperience and lack of understanding about the nuances of local culture led to a lot of his administrative reforms being ineffective and unpopular.
It is believed that even after he was long gone from Malabar, Sir Knapp’s name became synonymous with incompetence; eventually being assimilated into Malayalam as Knappan."
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