Rush Hour: Trump says India seems to be ‘lost to China’, Ajit Pawar accused of misusing power & more

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United States President Donald Trump has said that India and Russia appeared to have been “lost to deepest, darkest China”. The statement came five days after the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin.

“May they have a long and prosperous future together!” said the US president on his social media platform Truth Social, sharing a photograph of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the summit.

Meanwhile, New Delhi on Friday rejected the statements made by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro that the Russia-Ukraine conflict was “Modi’s war”. India’s Ministry of External Affairs described the statements as “inaccurate and misleading”. Navarro had said in August that by purchasing Russian oil “at a discount”, India was helping Russia and harming the US. Read more.

Opposition parties have accused Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar of misusing his power after a video of him telling an Indian Police Service officer to stop acting against allegedly illegal soil mining was widely shared online. Pawar has said that his intention was not to interfere with law enforcement but to ensure...

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