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Bollywood superstar <keyword id="19895142" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="shah-rukh-khan" source="keywords">Shah Rukh Khan</keyword> recently became the latest high-profile celebrity to receive a death threat. Following a similar series of threats against actor Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Khan was reportedly contacted by an unidentified individual demanding a ransom of Rs 50 lakh. The threatening call has prompted swift police action, as Mumbai Police have registered an extortion case and are actively pursuing leads.<br /><h2>Details of the threat</h2>According to Mumbai Police, the call threatening Shah Rukh Khan came into the Bandra Police Station on November 7. The caller demanded that Khan pay Rs 50 lakh to avoid harm. In response, police officials registered a case under sections 308(4) and 351(3)(4) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which relate to extortion involving threats of death and criminal intimidation.<br /><br />Preliminary investigations traced the call to Raipur, Chhattisgarh. Although there is no official confirmation on the caller's identity, reports indicate that police in Raipur have been alerted and are issuing a notice to a person named Faiyaz Khan, who may be connected to the threat.<br /><br />On the day of the threat, Shah Rukh Khan was spotted outside a dubbing studio in Mumbai, where he is currently working on the Hindi version of <em>The Lion King</em>. The actor was photographed exiting the studio just hours before the threatening call. Since the news of the threat broke, several photos and videos of him from that day have circulated on social media.<br /><h2>Police response and investigation</h2>Mumbai Police are taking the threat seriously and have deployed teams to various locations as part of their investigation. A police team has already departed for Raipur to gather more information and potentially detain suspects. Authorities have not made any arrests yet but are working closely with Raipur police to track down the caller and ensure the safety of Shah Rukh Khan.<br /><br />This incident follows a recent string of threats targeting Bollywood actor Salman Khan, allegedly originating from the <keyword id="20395348" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Lawrence-Bishnoi-gang" source="keywords">Lawrence Bishnoi gang</keyword>. The threats against Salman reportedly demanded a much larger ransom of Rs 5 crore and warned him to apologize at a designated temple or risk his life. The message, sent via WhatsApp, threatened that if Salman did not comply, he would face dire consequences.<br /><br />In response to the threat against Salman, Mumbai Police registered a case and launched an investigation, including tracing the phone number associated with the message. The actor had earlier faced another extortion attempt, during which a man from Jamshedpur was arrested in October for issuing threats to Salman in the name of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang.<br /><br />With investigations underway, Mumbai Police are intensifying efforts to ensure both Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan remain safe. As of now, no arrests have been made, but authorities are committed to finding those responsible and taking appropriate legal action. Fans of both actors have expressed concern and are looking to law enforcement for further updates on the cases.<br /><br /><em>(With inputs from agencies)</em>

After Salman, Shah Rukh Khan receives death threat with Rs 50L demand: Here’s what we know

The <keyword id="19907348" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="National-Investigation-Agency" source="keywords" meta.keywordsubtype="org" meta.entityname="National Investigation Agency" meta.hostid="261" meta.entityid="National Investigation Agency">National Investigation Agency</keyword> (NIA) has announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh for the arrest of <keyword id="21303382" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="Anmol-Bishnoi" source="keywords">Anmol Bishnoi</keyword>, brother of <keyword id="20003807" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="gangster" source="keywords">gangster</keyword> <keyword id="19986154" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Lawrence-Bishnoi" source="keywords">Lawrence Bishnoi</keyword>.<br /><br />Anmol is chargesheeted in two NIA cases registered in 2022. His name gained attention recently in connection with ongoing investigations in Mumbai, particularly related to activities involving a political party. Anmol is also wanted in connection with a shooting incident that occurred outside Bollywood actor <keyword id="19901647" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="salman-khan" source="keywords">Salman Khan</keyword>'s residence earlier this year. <br /><br />The announcement is part of NIA's ongoing efforts to apprehend individuals involved in <keyword id="21142287" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="organized-crime" source="keywords">organized crime</keyword> and related activities. Authorities are urging anyone with information on Anmol Bishnoi's whereabouts to come forward.<br /><br />Anmol has been linked to various criminal activities and is considered a significant figure in organized crime. Authorities believe that his apprehension could provide crucial insights into broader networks involved in illicit operations across the region.<br /><br />As the NIA intensifies its efforts to track down Anmol, officials are urging the public to come forward with any information that could aid in his capture. This announcement underscores the agency's commitment to combating organized crime and enhancing public safety.<br /><br />The move comes almost nine months after the NIA seized several <keyword id="20154629" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="illegal-arms" source="keywords">illegal arms</keyword> and ammunition, along with incriminating documents, digital devices and cash, in a massive multi-state crackdown in three cases relating to conspiracies and activities of the banned Babbar Khalsa International (BKI) and the Lawrence Bishnoi Crime Syndicate, among others.<br /><br />A total of 32 locations in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, as well as Chandigarh, were raided in January by the NIA teams as part of the mega operation. The seizures in the searches included two Pistols, two magazines and ammunition, along with cash amounting to Rs 4.60 lakh, besides documents and digital devices.<br /><br />The cases in which the NIA swooped down in January were related to the terror activities being carried out by the BKI, a banned terrorist organisation, and the terrorist-gangster networks operating in the country. Such activities include smuggling and induction of terrorist hardware, such as arms and ammunition, explosives and IEDs, across the borders. The terror hardware is being used by operatives/members of terror outfits and Organized Criminal Syndicates for carrying out bomb explosions, targeted killings, extortions, terror funding of terror outfits, etc. in various parts of the country. <br /><br />A total of seven locations were raided in a case registered by NIA against the Organized Crime Syndicate being run on the directions of Lawrence Bishnoi and his associates, including Goldy Brar, under UA(P)A. The Syndicate has spread its mafia-style criminal networks in several states of the country, as well as abroad, in active conspiracy with Harwinder Singh alias Rinda, a 'designated Individual terrorist'. <br /><br />These networks have been involved in many sensational crimes, such as the murders of popular Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala as well as religious and social leaders like Pardeep Kumar, besides large-scale extortions from businessmen and professionals.<br />

NIA declares Rs 10 lakh bounty on gangster Lawrence Bishnoi's brother Anmol

<ul><li><strong>The scandal that led to Chawla’s extradition is 20 years old, an era before IPL began and one-day matches were the rage. <br /><br /></strong></li><li><strong>Chawla is central to the bookie-cricketer nexus and his extradition will pull the lid of many hidden secrets of retired cricketers. <br /><br /></strong></li><li><strong>The case was unraveled by a phone tapping cell in Delhi by an inspector who was keeping a tab on extortionists. <br /></strong></li></ul> Indians have been waiting with bated breath for its famous financial fugitive Vijay Mallya to come home. Instead, an Air India flight brought back another fugitive – a match fixer <keyword id="836059" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sanjeev-Chawla">Sanjeev Chawla</keyword>. For a cricket crazy nation, Chawla is as much a villain as a businessman who refuses to pay his dues.<br /><br />The scandal itself however is 20 years old, an era before IPL began and one-day matches were the rage. It was also the time when mobile phones had expensive incoming calls and more. It is these conversations that had netted Chawla, who runs a restaurant and garments shop in Oxford and lives in a 6-bedroom home, back to Tihar jail.<br /><br />Chawla is central to the bookie-cricketer nexus and his extradition will pull the lid of many hidden secrets of retired cricketers. But, it might also bring other ‘restaurateurs’, ‘gym owners’ and ‘diamond merchants’ who are hand in glove in the deep-running racket.<br /><br /><strong>From the anti-extortion cell of Delhi<br /></strong><br />Like all great crime stories of the times, Chawla’s case was unraveled by a phone tapping cell in Delhi. An inspector <keyword id="8772251" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="ishawar-singh">Ishawar Singh</keyword> was given the task of keeping a tab on extortionists bothering the then-top executives of Apollo Tyres. But in the exhaustive list, Singh found that some of the numbers matched similar calls that <keyword id="281" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Kishan-Kumar">Kishan Kumar</keyword>, a failed Bollywood actor and the brother of T-Series head <keyword id="17091" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="gulshan-kumar">Gulshan Kumar</keyword>, who was shot by Mumbai mafia, according to a detailed report on the<a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/story/20000424-cricket-match-fixing-an-inside-look-at-how-deals-are-struck-and-the-one-involving-cronje-777412-2000-04-24#ssologin=1"> scandal by India Today</a>.<br /><br />Singh saw that two numbers that calling Kishan were keeping in touch regularly and the conversations got longer and frequent during the South Africa and India cricket series. One of them was a London-based garment owner Chawla and the other was an illegal bookmaker masquerading as a printing press owner, Rajesh Kalra.<br /><br /><div type="image" title="sanjeev chawla 1" msid="74115096" hostid="261"></div>

<br /><br /><strong>Cronje complained of payment delays<br /></strong><br />Thus began the conversations that sent ripples across the world. The now-deceased <keyword id="138175" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Hansie-Cronje">Hansie Cronje</keyword> who was then the captain of South Africa - made deals, complained of payment delays and made ‘assurances’ of his teammates’ scores. And then, there were conversations between Chawla and Kalra who fought about a ‘match script’. Cronje later also confessed and quit but before he could turn into a valuable witness, he was killed in a passenger airline crash in 2002. <br /><br />But the tapes were more than enough. There were smart conversations and ‘hints’ that Delhi police duly decoded. Both Chawla and Cronje called a Lajpat Nagar number on the same day, which was picked up too. These revelations came as a shocker to cricket fans but also answered nagging doubts on why a batsman missed that ‘obvious’ run or why a fielder left an easy catch.<br /><br />Chawla was arrested in 2001 by the Scotland Yard but was released due to insufficient evidence. Another charge sheet was filed in 2013 by Delhi police who trumped the London police with their Sherlock Holmes-like attention to detail. The long-standing battle has now brought the criminal home. It could also help police join the dots with 90% of the bookies who have left the country in<a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/sport/story/20000710-cricket-match-fixing-delhi-businessman-rattan-mehta-tops-cbis-bookies-suspect-list-779038-2000-07-10#ssologin=1"> a huff soon after</a> – to Miami and many other locales not to mention the many in Greater Kailash and Vasant Vihar of Delhi. <br /><br /><br /><br />

Sanjeev Chawla, the man behind the Hansie Cronje match fixing scandal, who opened a dark door of scams in cricket crazy India

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Wikimedia Commons</span></p><p class="caption">Chotta Rajan. Date unknown.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Indonesian police have arrested one of India's most wanted gangsters, sought in more than two dozen murder cases, on the resort island of Bali, Indian federal police said on Monday, ending a two-decade-long international manhunt.</p><p>Rajendra Nikalje, widely known as Chhota Rajan, has been on Interpol's wanted list since 1995 for running a crime syndicate that engaged in extortion, arms smuggling and contract killing.</p><p>Nikalje, a career criminal who got his start petty theif who eventually found himself under the tutelige of Bada Rajan in the 1980s. After the death of Bada, Nikalje took his place in the criminal organization and assumed the alias "Chhota Rajan."</p><p>Nikalje was then a top aide to Dawood Ibrahim, a terrorist who carried out <span>India's deadliest bombing, which killed at least 250 people and wounded more than 700 in Mumbai in 1993.</span></p><p><span>At that point, Nikalje broke with Ibrahim, and positioned himself as a "patriotic" gangster, who worked with authorities to track down Ibrahim<a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/wanted-criminal-chhota-rajan-arrested-in-indonesia/" target="_blank"> according to The Indian Express</a>. Since then, Nikalje has been plagued by assassination attempts from his former boss-turned rival.</span></p><p><span>In 2000, Ibrahim's shooters nearly killed Nikalje in a hospital in Bangkok, but he escaped. Earlier this year, Ibrahim sent sharpshooters to Newcastle, Australia, where Nikalje was staying, to kill him, but he escaped again after being reportedly tipped off by Indian authorities.</span></p><p><span><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Indian policemen checks the charred remains of several cars in Bombay on March 13, 1993. This bombing created the rift between Nikalje and Ibrahim.</p></div><p></p></div></div></span></p><p><span>At 55 years old and with poor health, Nikalje constantly feared for his life. He got in touch with Indian authorities, whom he reportedly has deep ties with and had planned to give himself up, <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/wanted-criminal-chhota-rajan-arrested-in-indonesia/" target="_blank">according to The Indian Express</a>.</span></p><p>"We tracked Chhota Rajan's movements closely and informed the police in Indonesia and Australia," said Anil Sinha, director of the Central Bureau of Investigation in the Indian capital.</p><p>"Eventually the Indonesian police managed to arrest him. We are making arrangements to bring him to India and pursue all criminal cases against him."</p><p>Gangsters like Nikalje, who operated in the financial capital, Mumbai, have long drawn attention in India, with their exploits featuring in Bollywood films and newspaper articles.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Thomson Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>His arrest comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government ratchets up diplomatic pressure on neighbor and arch-rival Pakistan to hand over his former partner and underworld boss, Dawood Ibrahim, suspected of militant links.</p><p>Indian authorities say they have shared evidence of Ibrahim's whereabouts with Pakistan, which rejects India's claim that he is living there.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-most-dangerous-roads-khardung-la-india-motorbike-motorcycle-2015-9">Here's what it's like to drive on one of 'the world's most dangerous roads'</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="pycWFvdzq-Tih18eF6xItYnqhToi8sMu" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

One of India's most wanted gangsters has finally been captured after 20 years on the run

<h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></h2>
<p><em>In many places attacking the rights of gay people can still be politically useful and popular</em></p>
<p>IN THE argot of human rights, LGBT means lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender--a catch-all term for sexual minorities. But Yahya Jammeh, president of Gambia for 20 years, has a different reading. "As far as I am concerned," he thundered during a televised speech in February, "LGBT can only stand for leprosy, gonorrhoea, bacteria and tuberculosis." He compared gay people to vermin, and said his government would fight them as it does malaria-bearing mosquitoes, "if not more aggressively".</p>
<p>Gay sex is illegal in Gambia, as it is in 37 of Africa's 54 countries. Documented evidence of a criminal homosexual conspiracy to poison Gambian culture remains elusive. But politicians remain vigilant: in August the government brought in fresh anti-gay legislation. A few weeks later ministers in Chad approved a bill mandating prison sentences of 15 to 20 years for gay sex. Across Africa, and elsewhere in the world, politicians have found gay people a useful scapegoat to distract from corruption or other domestic problems, to shore up conservative constituencies, or to steal a march on political rivals.</p>
<p>The best-known example is Uganda. In 2009 David Bahati, an MP, introduced a bill which would have imposed the death penalty in cases of "aggravated homosexuality", a term that covers gay sex with people under 18 and people with disabilities or HIV. <span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">There was a furious response from <keyword id="6356001" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="international">international</keyword> human-rights groups and some governments. The bill lost its harshest provisions, including the death penalty.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"> In February, after some apparent hesitation, Yoweri Museveni, Uganda's long-standing president, signed the bill into law. He accused Uganda's critics of acting like latter-day colonialists seeking to impose their values on Africa.</span></p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Similar rhetoric had been heard two months earlier when Goodluck Jonathan, the president of Nigeria, signed a bill outlawing displays of same-sex affection, banning groups devoted to gay people's rights and introducing 14-year prison sentences for anyone entering into a gay marriage or other contractual union.</p>
<p>As in Uganda and Gambia, Nigeria already had a law on the books prohibiting gay sex. To the extent that Nigerian gay activists had a legislative agenda, it did not include gay marriage. The UN human-rights chief said of the Nigerian bill that she had rarely seen a law that "in so few paragraphs directly violates so many basic, universal human rights."</p>
<p>Russia has also been targeting gay people. In 2012 Vitaly Milonov, a legislator in St Petersburg, spearheaded the city's adoption of a law banning homosexual "propaganda" to minors. In June 2013 the Duma passed its own version, making "propaganda" about "non-traditional sexual relationships" a crime. Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, finds gay-bashing politically appealing. It runs together various favoured themes: that the West is a corrupting influence best rejected; that tolerance and liberalism are alien to traditional Russian values; that the Orthodox church should be given a more prominent role.</p>
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<p><keyword id="6358883" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Politics">Politics</keyword> also drove Mr Museveni's decision to sign Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act. Mr Museveni is a wily operator who has occupied the presidency since 1986; he had not previously found it necessary to tighten Uganda's anti-gay provisions. But facing a re-election bid in 2016, he chose to ride the homophobic wave his allies in parliament had created for their own purposes.</p>
<p>Mr Jonathan, meanwhile, is up for re-election next year and has encountered a crisis of confidence over his handling of the Islamists of Boko Haram and his poor domestic record; attacking gay people was a distraction, and one that Nigeria's Muslims and Christians, often daggers drawn, would both support.</p>
<p>An enemy within can be handy for all sorts of leaders, and often more or less any old enemy will do. Some leaders' anti-gay language has a conspiratorial tone that feels borrowed from the anti-Semitic diatribes of another time: gay people are portrayed as in thrall to alien values and particularly dangerous to children.</p>
<p>Recent developments in the West also create exotic targets against which divisive leaders can define themselves without taking on any particularly powerful enemy at home. Nigeria's law would surely not have taken its current form had gay marriage not made such remarkable advances in Europe and America.</p>
<p>None of this would work if there were not deep wells of homophobia to draw on. Over 95% of Ugandans and Nigerians disapprove of homosexuality. Four-fifths of Russians say that they have no gay acquaintances (though many may be wrong to say so).</p>
<p>Such numbers say little about the intensity of anti-gay feeling in each country. They are certainly not evidence of a clamour for legislative attacks on homosexuals; activists often point out that gay people in places like Nigeria were able to lead relatively untroubled, if intensely private, lives before they became political targets. But the feelings they represent offer an opportunity for politicians seeking a quick populist win.</p>
<p>Some argue that the colonial provenance of anti-gay laws, in Africa and elsewhere, shows that these feelings have little genuine cultural basis. Imperial British authorities were certainly not slow to impose such laws on the lands they occupied, and they were often imported directly from home; in several former British colonies such provisions are numbered 377 in the legal code, indicating their common source.</p>
<p>Attitudes in some former British colonies in the Caribbean are particularly distressing; in Jamaica vigilantes harass gay people as police look the other way. The prime minister, Portia Simpson-Miller, has defended gay people and pledged a parliamentary vote of conscience on the country's 19th-century "buggery law", although this has not taken place.</p>
<h3>It's a sin</h3>
<p>To see the colonial legacy as the root of the problem, though, is to go too far. It underrates the energy that post-colonial governments have put into keeping these laws on the books, or adding to them. Governments have not been shy about amending other colonial-era laws they see as no longer needed.</p>
<p>A more contemporary and pernicious Western influence is that of conservative American evangelists who export their anti-gay message to places where it may meet more receptive ears, along with money that makes it all the more attractive. In Uganda's case, they appear directly to have influenced the drafting of legislation.</p>
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<p>Whether domestic or imported, religion matters. A survey of 39 countries by the Pew Research Centre last year found a strong correlation between a country's tolerance for homosexuality and its religiosity. African and Middle Eastern nations are the least tolerant; in several Muslim countries homosexuality is a capital crime. Russia, a relatively godless place, is an exception to the rule.</p>
<p>So, increasingly, is America, though in the opposite direction; it is more tolerant than its levels of religious belief would predict. The greatest exception along those lines is Brazil, where attitudes are broadly tolerant and, as in Argentina and parts of Mexico, gay marriage is now legal. Homophobic violence, though, remains a problem.</p>
<p>None of the new laws seems to have been vigorously enforced. But the climate of hostility and fear their passage generates can make life unpleasant for gay men and women, and their mere existence presents opportunities for extortion and blackmail. In 2011 David Kato, a prominent Ugandan campaigner for gay people's rights, was murdered after a tabloid newspaper published his picture, along with those of 99 other homosexuals, under the headline "Hang them!" Homophobic attacks rose tenfold in Uganda after the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act, according to a local group. Gay people in Nigeria have been set upon by mobs.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>The simultaneous advance of gay rights in the developed world and its retreat in some other places throws up difficult dilemmas for the West. When gay people's rights are respected at home it is hard to justify turning a blind eye to hideous abuses abroad, particularly in countries with budgets propped up by foreign aid. Yet shout too loudly and you become vulnerable to Mr Museveni's charge of neo-colonialism--and you may jeopardise the safety of the men and women you seek to help.</p>
<p><br>America has taken the most hawkish approach. In 2011 Barack Obama's administration issued a memo formally integrating the promotion of gay people's rights into its diplomacy, including in this the setting of foreign-aid policy. After the Ugandan law was passed America cancelled joint military drills, cut aid and applied travel bans. Some other Western countries followed suit, as did the World Bank. The hard line triggered harsh reactions in some African countries. The European Union has taken a softer approach, finding it more productive to work the phones, exert quiet influence and avoid celebrating victories.</br></p>
<h3>Domino dancing</h3>
<p>Optimists think that, one way or another, outsiders can make a difference. On August 1st Uganda's Constitutional Court overturned the Anti-Homosexuality Act, ruling that there was no quorum in the parliament when it passed the bill in December 2013. What drove the decision--an unusually quick one, by the court's standards--remains unclear.</p>
<p>Anti-gay campaigners accused Mr Museveni of leaning on the court to overturn the law, a few days before he was due to fly, along with dozens of other African leaders, to Washington for an America-Africa summit. If so, it might well be because he faced pressure. Even before the ruling Mr Museveni had begun to waver; in July his government pleaded that the law had been "misinterpreted" by outsiders.</p>
<p>The technical nature of the court's ruling did not quell activists' jubilation. Campaigners in court cheered and draped themselves in a huge rainbow flag. A few days later a few dozen campaigners held a celebration on the shores of Lake Victoria. Remarkably, local police provided them with an element of security. Some MPs want to introduce a new anti-gay bill into parliament.</p>
<p>Yet this week Mr Museveni appeared to warn against such a move. In a long, eccentric article in a Ugandan news weekly, he suggested that a new law could endanger Uganda's trade relationships because "the homosexual lobby can intimidate potential buyers".</p>
<p>If outside pressure had some effect on Mr Museveni--he says it did not--it does not mean it will work more widely. Long a "donor darling", and more recently a military partner of the United States, Uganda has strong links with Western governments. European and American officials were in constant contact with Mr Museveni's government behind the scenes after the law was passed; the public pressure brought to bear on Uganda was only half the story.</p>
<p>Nigeria, a far larger economy with less dependence on aid, is a different case. And as for Russia, Western attacks only play into Mr Putin's hands. Campaigners found it more useful to run a celebrity-led pro-gay campaign around the Sochi Winter Olympics earlier this year than to attack the country's laws head-on.</p>
<p>Moreover, says Kevin Watkins, head of the Overseas Development Institute, a London-based think-tank, even in countries that do receive aid, "conditionality"--tying funds to particular policies--tends not to work. He and others point out that advancing gay people's rights has always been a domestic civil-rights phenomenon. Rather than withholding aid, they argue, better for Westerners to support grassroots organisations which agitate for change.</p>
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<h3>Left to their own devices</h3>
<p>Well-known international human-rights groups devote as much attention to the quiet cultivation of links with local activists as they do to public denunciations of laws they disagree with. The advance of democracy can help insofar as it creates space for civil-society groups and strengthens independent institutions like judiciaries; but democracy can also facilitate demagoguery. One observer points out that anti-gay bills have failed to get far in Ethiopia and Rwanda, two authoritarian states, while becoming law in the messy semi-democracies of Nigeria and Uganda.</p>
<p>Westerners can help in other ways, too. Asylum courts have not always taken the most enlightened approach to applications from gay people. In recent years European and British judges have ruled that sexual orientation may be considered a ground for asylum if the applicant can demonstrate a convincing fear of persecution. This is not always easy in countries where suppressing one's sexuality may be the only way to guarantee personal safety.</p>
<p>The other way in which people in the West might make a difference is available only to a few--gay celebrities who obscure this aspect of their lives. With popular culture ever more global, an increase in the number of openly gay football heroes or Hollywood stars could have an effect.</p>
<p>The dearth of such figures suggests that, for all the progress that has been made in respecting the rights of gay people in the rich world, there is still a worry that in some careers being openly gay will not work. The wells of homophobia on which populist politicians can draw in Africa and elsewhere seem not to have dried up quite as much as people might like to believe.</p>
<p>There are large parts of the world where the rights of gay people are not, at present, a political punchbag. China is not a particularly gay-friendly place; until 1997 homosexuality was illegal, and until 2001 it was officially considered a mental illness.</p>
<p>Yet the issue has not been heavily politicised, and in cities gay life is far easier than it was. A court recently heard a case brought by activists against a clinic that offered "gay-conversion" therapy. In Hunan province a 19-year-old caused a stir when he challenged the provincial authority's decision not to allow him to register an organisation devoted to gay people's rights.</p>
<p>In India the past decade has brought considerable change. The first national magazine for gay people, Pink Pages, was launched in 2009. Gay-pride marches, if not necessarily very large ones, are a common sight in big cities. Bollywood has produced sympathetic films.</p>
<p>Yet even if it is becoming slightly easier among India's elite to be openly gay, almost no one in public life dares declare it. And the legal position for homosexuals is in flux. In July 2009 a high court ruled that the ban on "carnal intercourse against the order of nature" in the penal code violated India's constitution, a ruling which in effect decriminalised gay sex.</p>
<p>In December 2013 two Supreme Court judges overturned the ruling. They said that parliament could pass a law to legalise gay sex; at the moment, that looks unlikely. Other straws in the wind suggest that India's laws could become less gay-friendly. Adoption by gay parents is not banned (adoption rules make no reference to sexuality), but on August 6th the national cabinet reportedly decided to block it, perhaps because of pressure from Hindu nationalist groups.</p>
<p>Across South-East Asia, meanwhile, tolerance varies markedly. Religion is partly behind that: homosexuality is legal in Indonesia except for Aceh, a conservative Muslim state. In Brunei, which has begun to implement a sharia-based penal code, "sodomy" is punishable by stoning to death. Malaysia and Singapore both retain colonial-era prohibitions on sex between men, though with varying degrees of punishment: fines, imprisonment for up to 20 years and whipping in Malaysia; imprisonment for up to two years in Singapore.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>Though poor, conservative and the possessor of a shameful record on human rights more generally, Vietnam offers a counter-example. Hanoi, the capital, has hosted gay-pride parades since 2012. Bills to legalise same-sex marriage nearly passed this year in both Vietnam and Thailand, which has long been far more tolerant of transgender people than the West has. Singapore offers an example of another sort. Though gay men remain in a precarious legal position, the country's gay-pride event, Pink Dot, has grown in each of its six years of existence: this June it drew a record crowd of 26,000.</p>
<p>As the South-East Asian experience demonstrates, a country's laws on homosexuality do not always predict the degree of freedom granted to gay men and women. Cameroon has passed no anti-gay legislation in recent years, and has thus largely escaped the opprobrium of Western governments and campaigners. But it prosecutes the laws on its books with particular vigour: arrests have been made on the basis of text messages and clothing choices.</p>
<h3>Love comes quickly</h3>
<p>In most Western countries it was only after other social battles had been won that gay people began to be tolerated and their legal rights secured. And some Westerners have already forgotten how recently those changes came about. Less than 50 years ago gay sex, let alone marriage, was illegal over broad swathes of the now comparatively enlightened world (see map). It was only ten years ago that America's Republicans made use of votes on gay marriage to help them win elections by rousing social conservatives (some Democrats now do the same thing in the opposite direction).</p>
<p>In the end gay people in the developing world will probably win their rights as they did in the West. Civil-society organisations, enlightened political and judicial leadership, and the advance of the liberal idea that the state has no business regulating the harmless activities of adults will all play a role.</p>
<p>Most powerful, though, is likely to be people's discovery that they have perfectly decent gay friends, neighbours, even relatives. The most pernicious thing about institutionalised homophobia and legal repression is that they make this realisation so hard. Once the wall begins to crack, though, it can quickly come tumbling down.</p>
<p>Click <a href="http://www.store.eiu.com">here</a> to subscribe to The Economist</p>
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