Ladakh stand-off: Trump butts in

The Hindu Newsletter - Ladakh stand-off: Trump butts in Wednesday 27, May 2020 [alt_text]( The Evening Wrap Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. We hope you are staying home and staying safe. Here are the big stories that you need to follow today: Ladakh stand-off: Trump butts in U.S. President Donald Trump has once again offered to play the role of a global statesman and peacemaker, this time declaring himself [“ready, willing and able” to “mediate or arbitrate” the “raging border dispute” between India and China](, amid the [continuing standoff between the militaries]( of the two neighbours at the Line of Actual Control (LAC). In the past, too, Trump has, on several occasions, offered to mediate between India and Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. New Delhi had rejected it every time. Trump’s first offer to mediate last year was, in fact, swiftly followed by the removal of the special status enjoyed by Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370, seen widely as a move by India to fortify its position before any such intervention could take place. Yet, here we are again. “We have informed both India and China that the United States is ready, willing and able to mediate or arbitrate their now raging border dispute. Thank you!” Trump said in an early morning tweet. Meanwhile, [the Chinese government today said that the situation at the border with India is “overall stable and controllable](,” and both the countries have proper mechanisms and communication channels to resolve the issues through a dialogue and consultation. “We have been following the important consensus reached by the two leaders and strictly observing the agreements between the two countries,” a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said, apparently referring to the directions of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi after their two informal summits, when they asked the militaries of the two countries to take more confidence-building measures to maintain peace along the border. On the eve of a Suo Motu Hours before taking suo motu cognisance yesterday of “certain lapses” in government measures [dealing with migrant workers](, the Supreme Court received a stinging letter from 10 senior lawyers that slammed its “self-effacing deference” to the government, and “unwillingness” and “apparent indifference” in the face of the “enormous humanitarian crisis”. A report by our Supreme Court correspondent Krishnadas Rajagopal details the concerns raised by senior lawyers, including P. Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal, Prashant Bhushan, Indira Jaising, Vikas Singh, Iqbal Chavla, and Navroz Seervai. The lawyers said the way the Supreme Court chose to [trust the “bland assertions and patently incorrect statements” made by the Centre reminded them of how it had functioned during the Emergency era](.” The lawyers’ letter, in particular, referred to how the [Supreme Court on March 31 “expressed satisfaction”]( immediately after the Solicitor General Tushar Mehta made a statement that “no migrant person was walking on the roads in an attempt to reach his/her hometown/village”. The court had even gone to the extent of saying that the [migrants’ exodus was due to panic created by fake news](. A President under fact-check An interesting battle is now brewing between President Donald Trump and social media platform Twitter after it attempted, for the first time, to place fact checks on the President’s tweets. In a tweet on Tuesday, Trump had claimed that mail-in ballots would be “substantially fraudulent” and result in a “rigged election.” He also singled out the governor of California over the issue. Hours later, Twitter posted a blue exclamation mark alert underneath those tweets, prompting readers to “get the facts about mail-in ballots” and directing them to a page with information aggregated by Twitter staff about the claims. Twitter has faced numerous calls to remove some of Trump’s tweets that contain false information or to even remove or block his account, but has largely resisted such action. The company even has a ‘world leaders policy’ that makes exceptions to some of its content standards for heads of state, on the grounds that it’s important to preserve their speech as a matter of public record. Trump reacted with characteristic bluster. “Twitter is now interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election. They are saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive corruption and fraud, is incorrect, based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN and the Amazon Washington Post....,” he tweeted on Tuesday. Bloomberg is also reporting today that Trump is threatening to shut down social media companies altogether. In fact, barely an hour ago, he tweeted, “Twitter has now shown that everything we have been saying about them (and their other compatriots) is correct. Big action to follow!” It has long been a claim of the political right in the U.S. that sites like Twitter are biased against conservative or right wing voices, and censorship of content deemed to be false or misleading actually constitutes a ‘violation of free speech’. Covid watch: Numbers and Developments India’s total count of cases rose to 1,54,609 at the time of publishing this newsletter, and the death toll has reached 4,400. The Health Ministry today said the recovery rate in the county is 42.4%. In Brief: Class 10 and 12 students who had travelled to a different State or district when schools were closed during the lockdown can appear for [pending Board exams]( in their current location, Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ announced today. The Minister said these students will not be required to travel back to the previous Board exam centre. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will announce modalities of registrations for such requests, he said. The ongoing heat wave over several parts of north and central India is likely to continue during the next 24 hours, the India Meteorological Department said on Wednesday, even as the southwest monsoon advanced further in the Bay of Bengal. North and central India have been reeling under a severe heat wave, and temperatures have soared over 47° Celsius at a few places. Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday [said that a full lockdown was damaging](, and the sooner we got out of it, the better. He said this during an online interaction with Prof. Johan Giesecke, member of the Technical Advisory Group for Infectious Hazards of the WHO, and Prof. Ashish Jha, Dean of Brown University School of Public Health, as part of his series of conversations with academics and experts. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. You are receiving this email because you are a user of [thehindu.com]( If you do not wish to receive any such emails, [unsubscribe here.](mailto:rm-0b4k5hhzbf2f90kauhqqkhbysa8hkxs@newsalert.thehindu.com?subject=Unsubscribe&body=You will be unsubscribed from our mailing list.) To ensure you continue to receive emails from The Hindu in your inbox, please add newsletters.th@newsalert.thehindu.com to your contact. 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