作者： bharat.cn

India’s internet-savvy PM Narendra Modi said he may soon abandon his highly-trafficked social media pages, prompting an outpouring of posts from supporters begging him to stay, and threats of an exodus to locally-made platforms.
“This Sunday, thinking of giving up my social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & YouTube. Will keep you all posted,” Modi said in a tweet on Monday, offering no further explanation for the decision.

Yet this relationship is a new one. India has traditionally looked closer to home to satisfy its military needs – to the mighty Soviet Union. Though a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War, India has long relied on Russian arms imports. Today, Russian weaponry accounts for roughly 60-70 percent of India’s arms imports.

And business only blossomed further after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Defense deals between Russia and India are set to exceed $16 billion. The latest orders include the S-400 air-defense system, joint production of Kalashnikov rifles and Kamov helicopters for the navy.

During the recent DefExpo 2020 exhibition in Lucknow, New Delhi signed 14 memorandums of understanding with Russian firms for the development and production of land, air and naval systems.

Despite some challenges, India has been able to successfully integrate systems from across the world, including both the US and Russia — two major military competitors and geopolitical adversaries. This ability to balance relations between rival superpowers has led to India being dubbed a ‘swing power’ by some experts.

India’s second-largest mobile service provider, Vodafone Idea, is at the brink of collapse, threatening a staggering blow not just to the country’s telecoms sector but also to the country’s sluggish economy.
What was once a high-flying operator, the joint venture between the UK’s Vodafone Group and India’s Idea Cellular was brought to its knees when India’s Supreme Court ruled in October that the company owed the government billions of dollars in usage charges and licence fees. The court gave Vodafone Idea 90 days to pay, with the deadline later extended to March 17.
Following a period of intense negotiations, the financially stressed telecoms operator sent a letter to the government on Wednesday seeking a series of relief measures including deferred and reduced payments of its overdue levies.
Vodafone Idea’s 300 million subscribers remain on tenterhooks waiting to see if the company can weather the storm. It has lost over 100 million customers since 2016, and more than 36 million subscribers switched from Vodafone Idea in November alone.
Vodafone Idea owes US$4 billion to the government in additional revenues, on top of an overall debt of US$14 billion accumulated through short-sighted strategies, a bleeding balance sheet and continuing operational losses – making it one of India’s most indebted companies.
The Digital Communications Commission – the highest decision-making body under India’s Ministry of Communications – held a crisis meeting on Friday, where top government officials were expected to discuss how to resolve the situation, but the meeting ended with no credible outcome.