India's prime ministerial frontrunner,Narendra Modi of the BJP Party,is raising eyebrows as a member of the RSS movement,or India First.The group is a key supporter of his.It is feared that the goal of the nationalist India First is to make India more strongly Hindu and repress other faiths.
India First has daily branch gatherings,which are being characterised by critics as militaristic.The group's leaders,however,are insisting that Hindu culture actually means respect for all.
There is said to be a feeling rippling through India that the majority Hindus have had to compromise too much for the minorities,and Mr.Modi and his movement would naturally be tapping into that sentiment.*
The US Senate has gotten a closed White House briefing on the Ukraine crisis.Russia,they were told,now has its sights set on the Black Sea port of Odessa in Southwest Ukraine,the annexation of which would give it control of both of the country's main seaports now it has seized Crimea.Odessa is also a link to Russian-occupied Transnistria in neighbouring Moldova.
Efforts by the Ukrainian army to retake buildings from pro-Russian militants in Eastern Ukraine have largely been ineffectual,casting a pall on the 25 May national elections planned by the transitional government in Kiev.Firefights with the militants have resulted in several deaths over the past week.The clashes have spread from Slavyansk in the east to Odessa in the west.Ethnically diverse,Odessa was a major outpost of Tsarist Russia and is majority Russian speaking.
So far,military sources say they have seen no evidence of a Russian troop withdrawal from the border with Eastern Ukraine,despite Russian President Vladimir Putin's statement that such a move was underway.He has made similar statements before that were followed by no significant changes in troop disposition.
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