Explore Business Standard
Populism
Several thousand people rallied Sunday in the Serbian capital, accusing the populist government of cracking down on environmental activists opposed to a large European Union-backed lithium excavation project planned in the Balkan country. The protest outside the headquarters of the state RTS television station in central Belgrade comes after tens of thousands rallied in recent weeks against the opening of the lithium mine in western Serbia. The state-controlled TV station is accused of ignoring the detentions of anti-lithium excavation activists. Environmental organizations reported detentions of dozens of their activists after a big rally last month in Belgrade and elsewhere in Serbia, saying their homes were searched, laptops and phones confiscated while many faced threats on social media. Activist Nina Stojanovic told the crowd on Sunday that a total of 30 to 60 people have been detained or questioned in the past two months throughout Serbia. We are here to protect everyone, to
NATO will celebrate on Thursday 75 years of collective defense across Europe and North America as Russia's war on Ukraine enters its third year and sorely tests the allies' resolve while rising populism gnaws at their unity. At a cake-cutting ceremony in Brussels, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his counterparts will mark the moment the alliance's founding treaty was signed on April 4, 1949, in Washington. A bigger celebration is planned when NATO leaders meet in Washington from July 9 to 11. Sweden's foreign minister, Tobias Billstrm, is taking part in the first ministerial-level meeting since his country became NATO's 32nd ally last month. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 drove Sweden and its Nordic neighbor Finland into NATO's arms. The alliance's ranks have almost tripled over more than seven decades from its 12 founding members, but Finland and Sweden joined in record time to shelter under NATO's collective security guarantee, after coming und
Portugal's political future is hanging in the balance after a general election Sunday, with two moderate mainstream parties closely contesting the race and set to wait weeks for a decision on the winner after an unprecedented surge in support for a populist party that finished third. The center-right Social Democrat-led Democratic Alliance won 79 seats in the 230-seat National Assembly, Portugal's Parliament, after all votes cast in Portugal were counted. The center-left Socialist Party, in power the past eight years, got 77 seats. The deciding votes will come from voters abroad to distrubte the final four parliamentary seats after an election night full of suspense. That count could take more than two weeks. The hard-right Chega (Enough) party came in third with 48 seats, a milestone result that presented an unprecedented challenge to politics-as-usual, underscoring a drift to the right in the European Union. Smaller parties took the rest of the vote in an election that saw turno
Freebies are never 'free' and when political parties offer such schemes, they must be required to make the financing and trade-offs clear to voters, RBI Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) Member Ashima Goyal said on Sunday, adding this would reduce the temptation towards "competitive populism". Goyal further said a cost is imposed somewhere when governments provide freebies, but this is worth incurring for public goods and services that build capacity. "Freebies are never free... specially harmful are subsidies that distort prices," she told PTI in an interview. Noting that this hurts production and resource allocation and imposes large indirect costs, such as the water table falling in Punjab due to free electricity, Goyal said such freebies come at the cost of low quality health, education, air and water that hurt poor the most. "When parties offer schemes they must be required to make the financing and such trade-offs clear to voters. This would reduce the temptation towards ...