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    Reluctant at First, Trump Officials Intervened in South Asia as Nuclear Fears Grew

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    After Vice President JD Vance suggested that the conflict between India and Pakistan was not America’s problem, the Trump administration grew concerned that it could spiral out of control.As a conflict between India and Pakistan escalated, Vice President JD Vance told Fox News on Thursday that it was “fundamentally none of our business.” The United States could counsel both sides to back away, he suggested, but this was not America’s fight.Yet within 24 hours, Mr. Vance and Marco Rubio, in his first week in the dual role of national security adviser and secretary of state, found themselves plunged into the details. The reason was the same one that prompted Bill Clinton in 1999 to deal with another major conflict between the two longtime enemies: fear that it might quickly go nuclear.What drove Mr. Vance and Mr. Rubio into action was evidence that the Pakistani and Indian Air Forces had begun to engage in serious dogfights, and that Pakistan had sent 300 to 400 drones into Indian territory to probe its air defenses. But the most significant causes for concern came late Friday, when explosions hit the Nur Khan air base in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, the garrison city adjacent to Islamabad.The base is a key installation, one of the central transport hubs for Pakistan’s military and the home to the air refueling capability that would keep Pakistani fighters aloft. But it is also just a short distance from the headquarters of Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division, which oversees and protects the country’s nuclear arsenal, now believed to include about 170 or more warheads. The warheads themselves are presumed to be spread around the country.The intense fighting broke out between India and Pakistan after 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists, were killed in a terrorist attack on April 22 in Kashmir, a border region claimed by both nations. On Saturday morning, President Trump announced that the two countries had agreed to a cease-fire.One former American official long familiar with Pakistan’s nuclear program noted on Saturday that Pakistan’s deepest fear is of its nuclear command authority being decapitated. The missile strike on Nur Khan could have been interpreted, the former official said, as a warning that India could do just that.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Nuclear-Armed India and Pakistan Have No Bridges Left to Burn

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      When India and Pakistan clash, the world too often dismisses it wearily as just another flare-up of age-old animosities over religion and Kashmir punctuated by inconclusive cross-border skirmishes. As President Trump recently put it — inaccurately — “They’ve had that fight for a thousand years in Kashmir,” and “probably longer than that.”This is somewhat understandable. Despite a few wars and many more scuffles between Muslim-majority Pakistan and predominantly Hindu India, confrontations have always been followed by negotiation and diplomacy, often facilitated by the United States. Even when serious fighting did erupt, established guardrails kept the two sides from coming too close to the unthinkable: using their nuclear weapons.That predictable cycle is a thing of the past. The immediate trigger for the military conflict now underway between the countries was a terrorist attack on Hindu tourists in Kashmir last month that killed 26 people. The incident’s rapid escalation into armed hostilities spotlights a profound and dangerous shift in the India-Pakistan rivalry in recent years that has eliminated the diplomatic space that had allowed the neighbors to avoid a devastating conflict.That shift can be traced to the two countries’ vastly different trajectories.India has emerged as a geopolitical and economic powerhouse and its Hindu nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, has cast it as not only a great nation, but an ascendant great civilization whose moment on the global stage has arrived. This has crystallized an uncompromising mind-set in which New Delhi increasingly views Pakistan not as a disruptive nuisance but an acute threat to India’s rightful rise. India has lost patience with Pakistan’s claim on the Indian-held half of Kashmir, the Muslim-majority region that each side calls its own, and its support of anti-India terrorism.Pakistan, on the other hand, has been mired for two decades in economic, political and security crises. One institution there reigns supreme: a powerful army that dominates decision-making and has very significant conventional and nuclear military capability. Although beleaguered, Pakistan, with its own ambitions to remain a regional power, is unwilling to back down against India and on issues such as Kashmir that are central to its national identity.In decades past, it was usually Indian restraint in the face of Pakistani actions that maintained an uneasy equilibrium. Even after deadly incidents such as the 2008 attack in Mumbai by Pakistan-based terrorists, which killed 166 people, India typically responded with moderation and periodic peace overtures.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Indian Aircraft Pakistan Says It Shot Down

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      Tensions between India and Pakistan have risen sharply in the weeks since a terrorist attack in Kashmir. On Wednesday, India hit Pakistan and appears to have lost aircraft in the strike.Indian aircraft went down after the country launched attacks against Pakistan this week, in what it said was retaliation for a terrorist attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir that killed 26 people and caused tensions between the two nations to boil over.The exact number and variety of lost aircraft is not yet clear.Two or three Indian aircraft went down inside India’s border, according to Indian officials, Western diplomats and local media reports. Pakistan, for its part, claims it shot down five planes and at least one drone: three Rafale fighter jets, one MIG-29 fighter aircraft, one Su-30 fighter jet and one Heron drone.The New York Times was unable to independently verify these claims.John E. Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a nonprofit research group based in Alexandria, Va., said those five aircraft and the drone could have been downed by surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles. “Pakistan has both,” he said.Here is what to know about the aircraft Pakistan’s military says it shot down.RafaleThe Rafale is a twin-engine fighter jet that can take off from an aircraft carrier or a base onshore, according to its French manufacturer, Dassault Aviation.In April, the Indian government signed a deal with France to purchase an additional 26 of the aircraft for the Indian Navy, to be delivered by 2030. According to Dassault Aviation, India had previously ordered 36 Rafales.Photos from the village of Wuyan in India-administered Kashmir, showed debris identified as an external fuel tank for a plane. Trevor Ball, an associate researcher at Armament Research Services, said that the tank was likely from a French-made Mirage or Rafale fighter jet, but he could not confirm whether the fuel tank came from an aircraft that had been hit by enemy fire.MIG-29The Soviet-designed MIG-29 is a twin-engine fighter aircraft developed to counter U.S. fighters like the F-16. The Soviet Air Force began using MIG-29s in the 1980s, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, many former Soviet republics continued to use the plane. It has also been a popular export; over 30 nations have used or operated it, according to the U.S. Army Training Command.The plane was originally intended for dogfighting enemy aircraft, though some MIG-29s have been outfitted for attacking ground targets.The MIG-29 is often a competitor with the F-16 in international arms sales Mr. Pike said, adding that it was a “competition which it frequently loses.”Su-30The Su-30 is a twin-engine fighter jet developed in the Soviet Union in the 1990s by Russia’s Sukhoi Aviation. It can be used for air-to-air combat, or missions striking targets on the ground, according to a U.S. Army analysis.It’s significantly bigger than the MIG-29, at nearly 72-feet long and with a wingspan of over 48 feet. (The MIG-29 is nearly 57-feet long and has a wingspan of around 37 feet.)Heron DroneHeron drones encompass a family of Israeli-made unmanned aerial vehicles. U.S. government assessments list India as having at least one variant.Shawn Paik More

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      The Symbolism Behind India’s ‘Operation Sindoor’

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      The name for the military attack on Pakistan brings to mind a woman who became shorthand for the grief wrought by a terrorist attack.Himanshi Narwal was first a symbol of tragedy, then a target of hate.Last month, Ms. Narwal was captured in an image sitting beside her slain husband, who was among 26 people killed in a terrorist attack on the Indian side of Kashmir. As India struck Pakistan on Wednesday in retaliation, Ms. Narwal became shorthand for why India picked the name “Operation Sindoor” for its military action.Sindoor, or vermilion powder, is a traditional marker of the marital status of Hindu women. Married women wear it either in the parting of their hair or on their foreheads, and they wipe it off if they become widowed. During the April 22 terrorist attack, many women lost their husbands, who were targeted because they were Hindu. But few received the media attention that Ms. Narwal has after the image of her by her husband’s side went viral.The Indian government’s choice of the name Operation Sindoor signaled its intention to avenge the widowed women. On social media, the Indian Army announced the strikes with a stark image that included a jar of spilled sindoor, which resembled spattered blood.“Operation Sindoor” also signals to right-wing Hindu groups — many of which favor more traditionally defined gender roles — that the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is listening to their demands for vengeance.Carrying the body of Vinay Narwal, a naval officer who was killed in the attack last month.Bhawika Chhabra/ReutersBut some feminists have criticized the use of the word sindoor.Hindu nationalism is predominantly driven by a male view of the world, said V. Geetha, a feminist historian who writes about gender, caste and class. “Women figure in it as objects to be protected or as mother figures goading their men to prove their heroism,” Ms. Geetha said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      India and UK Strike Trade Deal Amid Trump’s Tariff Upheaval

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      The two countries signed a deal three years after negotiations began to strengthen alliances in what the British prime minister called a “new era” of trade.Britain and India agreed to a trade deal on Tuesday, strengthening economic ties between two of the world’s largest economies amid President Trump’s upheaval of the global trade system.The deal, which the British government said would increase bilateral trade by £25.5 billion ($34 billion), comes three years after the negotiations began. Intense talks between Jonathan Reynolds, Britain’s business and trade secretary, and Piyush Goyal, India’s commerce minister, took place last week to finalize the outstanding issues.The British government said India had reduced 90 percent of tariffs on goods, and within a decade most of those would become tariff free. Duties on British whiskey and gin would be halved, to 75 percent, and eventually be lowered to 40 percent. India will also reduce its car tariffs, which exceed 100 percent, to 10 percent under a quota. Britain, in turn, reduced tariffs on clothes, footwear and food products including frozen prawns.Last year, trade in goods and services between India and Britain, the world’s fifth and sixth largest economies, totaled £42.6 billion, according to British data.The trade agreement comes as many countries are seeking to bolster alliances and trade flows after Mr. Trump sent shock waves through the global economy by announcing, and then pausing, high tariffs on dozens of countries. The uncertainty created by the policy whiplash is expected to dampen investment and economic growth around the world.Officials in Britain, which squeezed out 0.1 percent economic growth in the final quarter of last year, have tried to increase investment from foreign companies and sign more trade deals. Other negotiations, including those with South Korea, are continuing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump’s Tariff Threat for Drug imports Poses Big Political Risks

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      Levies on Americans’ daily prescriptions and other medicines could raise costs, spur rationing and lead to shortages of critical drugs.President Trump’s decision to move a step closer to imposing tariffs on imported medicines poses considerable political risk, because Americans could face higher prices and more shortages of critical drugs.The Trump administration filed a federal notice on Monday saying that it had begun an investigation into whether imports of medicines and pharmaceutical ingredients threaten America’s national security, an effort to lay the groundwork for possible tariffs on foreign-made drugs.Mr. Trump has repeatedly said he planned to impose such levies, to shift overseas production of medicines back to the United States. Experts said that tariffs were unlikely to achieve that goal: Moving manufacturing would be hugely expensive and would take years.It was not clear how long the investigation would last or when the planned tariffs might go into effect. Mr. Trump started the inquiry under a legal authority known as Section 232 that he has used for other industries like cars and lumber.Mr. Trump said in remarks to reporters on Monday that pharmaceutical tariffs would come in the “not too distant future.”“We don’t make our own drugs anymore,” Mr. Trump said. “The drug companies are in Ireland, and they’re in lots of other places, China.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Apple Plunges 9 Percent, Leading a Tech Sell-Off

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      Apple led a sell-off of tech stocks on Thursday, falling about 9 percent. Its drop was one of its steepest intraday declines since early 2019, when the company plunged 10 percent after it warned that iPhone sales in China would fall short of its expectations at the time.Wall Street analysts who follow the company have been looking for signs that Apple will be granted a tariff exemption by the White House, as it did when the Trump administration began its previous round of tariffs in 2018. But after President Trump’s news conference yesterday, there was no indication that Apple would receive any relief.As a result, many analysts were scrambling to update their forecasts on Apple’s profits. The company counts on the sale of devices for three-quarters of its nearly $400 billion in annual revenue, and it makes almost all of its iPhones, iPads and Macs overseas.The investment bank TD Cowen estimates that every 10 percent of tariffs on a product imported from China, India or Vietnam — where Apple does most of its manufacturing — would reduce the company’s profit by more than 3.5 percent. The Wall Street advisory said Apple could offset that profit decline with a 6 percent price increase for every 10 percent of tariff. Given that China is being hit with 54 percent tariffs and that it makes 90 percent of the world’s iPhones, the price of most $1,000 iPhones would jump to about $1,300. More

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      Roy L. Prosterman, 89, Dies; Worked to Secure Land for the Rural Poor

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      Seeing land rights as the key to lifting up the impoverished, he pushed authoritarian governments as well as emerging democratic ones to distribute farmland.Roy L. Prosterman, a lawyer who left a lucrative corporate law practice to champion land reform in the underdeveloped world, died on Feb. 27 at his home in Seattle. He was 89.His death was announced by the Seattle land-rights institute Landesa, of which he was a founder. The organization did not specify a cause.Mr. Prosterman worked with governments in some 60 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America over nearly six decades, crafting plans to give a degree of ownership to peasant families. Sometimes the governments he worked with obtained land by expropriating large tracts, with compensation to the owners. At other times, the government simply gave away land it owned.Seeing land rights as the key to lifting up the world’s millions of rural poor people, he pushed authoritarian governments in places like Vietnam and El Salvador, as well as emerging democratic ones in countries like India, to distribute farmland to impoverished farmers.Mr. Prosterman, center, conducting interviews in China in an undated photo. Beside him is Tim Hanstad, his longtime colleague and a co-founder of Landesa.via LandesaIn an obituary, Landesa said that millions of people had benefited from the programs created by Mr. Prosterman and his group. Landesa, which was founded in 1981 as the Rural Development Institute at the University of Washington and became an independent organization in 1992, was “an early, and often lonely, voice recognizing the importance that access to land and security of land has in uplifting the lives of the poor in agrarian economies,” the Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote in the preface to “One Billion Rising: Law, Land and the Alleviation of Global Poverty” (2009), a book edited and partly written by Mr. Prosterman.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Modi lands in Mauritius to back sovereignty claim over Chagos and boost maritime security

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      Your support helps us to tell the storyFrom reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.Your support makes all the difference.Read moreNarendra Modi was set to support Mauritius in its dispute with Britain over the Chagos archipelago as India’s prime minister arrived in the Indian Ocean nation to a grand welcome on Tuesday. Mr Modi was received in the strategically located maritime neighbour by prime minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam and was scheduled to meet president Dharam Gokhool.The Indian leader was expected to attend National Day celebrations in the capital Port Louis on 12 March as the chief guest. A contingent of the Indian military and a naval ship were set to participate in the event as well.India’s foreign ministry said the prime minister would discuss the Chagos dispute and reaffirm Delhi’s longstanding support for Mauritius’ sovereignty over the islands.“We have continued to support Mauritius and will continue to do so,” foreign secretary Vikram Misri told reporters in New Delhi. “I would imagine that during the visit there will be an opportunity perhaps for the Mauritius side to update us on any issues that might still be outstanding if there are any issues by that time.”The Chagos archipelago, part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, is a group of seven atolls comprising over 60 islands. One of the atolls, Diego Garcia, is operated by the US as a forward operating base for its forces in the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific, making it a key strategic hub.Mauritius gained independence in 1968, but the UK kept control of the Chagos islands and forcibly displaced an estimated 2,000 native people to establish the Diego Garcia base, which was leased to the US.India sees Mauritius as a key ally in countering China’s ever-growing influence in the Indian Ocean and enhancing regional security.Narendra Modi receives a guard of honour in Mauritius More