<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>President Donald Trump joined Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on stage for a major rally in Houston called "Howdy, Modi!," where the leaders heaped praise onto one another and touted the strong friendship between their countries.&#xa0;</strong></li><li><strong>Organizers say over 50,000 people registered for the event and billed it as one of the largest gatherings for a foreign head of state visiting the US.</strong></li><li><strong>Observers say the 90-minute display is a clear-cut endorsement by Modi of Trump, who is preparing for his 2020 reelection campaign.&#xa0;</strong></li><li><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.</a></strong></li></ul><p>President Donald Trump joined Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a rally on Sunday called "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6QsAVZW96E">Howdy, Modi</a>!" in which both leaders held hands and touted their strong friendship to an audience of tens of thousands of people.&#xa0;</p><p>The community summit hosted by the Texas India Forum was a rare mass display for a foreign leader. <a href="https://www.howdymodi.org/">Organizers</a> said over 50,000 attendees registered for the event held at the NRG Stadium in Houston, and predicted it would be one of the largest gatherings for a foreign head of state visiting the US.</p><p>"Mr. President, this morning in Houston you can hear the heartbeat of this great partnership in the celebration of two of the world's largest democracies," he said to Trump, calling the meeting "<a href="https://twitter.com/howdymodi/status/1175823124690034689">history in the making</a>."&#xa0;</p><p>The elaborate 90-minute event featured 400 performers, including a <a href="https://twitter.com/howdymodi/status/1175792173528342528">yoga performance</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/howdymodi/status/1175800194400735232">traditional dance</a> and music performances.&#xa0;</p><p>Modi and Trump walked hand-in-hand and touted their strong friendship. Modi said Trump was a "true friend" to India, and described the US president as "warm, friendly, accessible, energetic and full of wit."&#xa0;</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>Trump also praised Modi, calling him "one of America's greatest, most devoted, and most loyal friends." He also endorsed his own immigration policies, comparing tightening security at the US-Mexico border to India's security concerns with its neighbor, Pakistan.&#xa0;</p><p>"We are taking unprecedented action to secure our southern border and stop illegal immigration," Trump said of his border security plan, an important campaign issue in Texas.&#xa0;</p><p>"Both India and US also understand that to keep our communities safe, we must protect our borders," he added.</p><p>Mayor of Houston Sylvester Turner also symbolically handed Modi a key to the city.&#xa0;</p><p>&#xa0;</p><p>Modi has emerged as one of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/world/asia/india-election-narendra-modi.html">most powerful politicians in India's history</a> after his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party won a landslide victory in May.</p><p>Modi's visit and piling of praise onto Trump during the rally is being <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-plays-unusual-role-of-warm-up-act-at-massive-rally-for-modi-in-houston/2019/09/22/18cf7a2a-dd50-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html">seen by observers</a> as a clear-cut endorsement of the president as he prepares his 2020 reelection campaign. Modi, too, may have been looking to drum up US support amid criticism of his policies in Kashmir, after he <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kashmir-india-revoke-article-370-quasi-independence-internet-tourists-2019-8">revoked the region's special status</a> last month and has left residents in a near-total communication shutdown.&#xa0;</p><p>The Indian government appears to have recently taken a page out of Trump's playbook, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kashmir-crisis-india-accuses-media-fake-news-using-trump-playbook-2019-9">repeatedly accusing the media of reporting "fake news"</a> on its treatment of civilians in Kashmir.</p><p>Reports indicate that local security forces have&#xa0;<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kashmir-man-blinded-pellets-police-insist-no-major-injuries-2019-8">shot at people with pellet guns</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kashmir-villagers-allege-beatings-abuse-electric-shock">villagers say they've been beaten with sticks</a>, hung upside down, and even electrocuted by Indian army officers.&#xa0;</p><p>According to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-kashmir-detentions/thousands-detained-in-indian-kashmir-crackdown-official-data-reveals-idUSKCN1VX142">Reuters</a>, over 3,800 people in the region have been arrested in the region as of September 6.&#xa0;</p><div></div><div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/democratic-candidates-2020-presidential-debate-us-economy-2019-7">Here's how the top 7 Democratic presidential candidates want to transform the US economy</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

'Howdy, Modi!' India's prime minister joins Trump at rally and touts him as a 'true friend'

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-donald-trump-bio-age-family-key-positions-2019-4">President Donald Trump</a> loves military parades and quoting from the film "Patton," but when it comes to actually treating military personnel and their families with respect, he's got a mixed record.</li><li>He's insulted war heroes and their parents, lambasted generals as "dopes and babies," and blithely dismissed the symptoms of soldiers with traumatic brain injuries.</li><li>Trump also pardoned a convicted war criminal against the objections of the men and women he served with, who described him as "freaking evil."</li><li>Throughout his decades in public life, Trump has epitomized the idea of hollow, performative patriotism.</li><li>This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-donald-trump-bio-age-family-key-positions-2019-4">President Donald Trump</a> isn't the first president to <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1142055388965212161">use the military as a prop</a>, but it's become clear that he's the most brazenly cynical in doing so.</p><p>Ther latest examples of Trump's exploiting the military for his political benefit came at the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/us/politics/state-of-union-transcript.html">State of the Union</a> address this week.</p><p>Trump addressed Army Staff Sgt. Christopher Hake's widow, Kelli, relaying heartbreaking words from a letter Hake wrote to his then 1-year-old son, Gage, while on deployment to Iraq in 2008.</p><p>Hake never made it home. He was killed by a roadside bomb.</p><p>Trump told Kelli and Gage: "Chris will live in our hearts forever. He is looking down on you now. Thank you." That received thunderous applause from the chamber of a joint session of Congress.</p><p>The president then described giving the order to kill Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who Trump said was responsible for the bomb that took Hake's life.</p><p>Minutes later, Trump used another military family as a prop, this time pulling an Oprah-style stunt where he surprised Sgt. 1st Class Townsend Williams' wife and children with the news that he was not only back from a deployment to Afghanistan - he was in the building and ready for an on-camera reunion.</p><p>Williams was one of the 14,000 US troops deployed to Afghanistan on Trump's orders as the administration has struggled to find a negotiated exit amid an upsurge of violence.</p><p>To recap: Trump used a Gold Star family as a prop to boast about an assassination that he ordered, then followed it up by using another family in a made-for-TV stunt to extol the sacrifices made by "extraordinary military families."</p><p>Nationally televised tributes to military families are lovely gestures, but by using what should have been a humble show of respect to a widow and her child to justify a military action he ordered, Trump explicitly politicized a soldier's death.</p><h2><strong>Trump's love for the military is fickle</strong></h2><p>Trump loves to bask in the reflected glory of veterans, but his tune changes as soon as military personnel don't conveniently fit with his narrative.</p><p>Throughout his decades in public life, Trump has epitomized the idea of hollow, performative patriotism.</p><p>He's had a lifelong love affair with military pageantry. Despite receiving five deferments to avoid serving in Vietnam, Trump said <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/donald-trump-military-service-213392">he felt as if he truly was in the military</a> because he attended an upstate New York military prep school. He's repeatedly touted the idea of military <a href="https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/06/20/president-trump-finally-get-his-military-parade-july-4.html">parades</a>. As an adult, he was <a href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HHGstgVqAtEJ:https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-generals-cabinet-232396+&amp;cd=3&amp;hl=en&amp;ct=clnk&amp;gl=us">known to swoon</a> in the presence of high-ranking generals. He's fond of <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/377889432327561216">quoting</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/377889432327561216">lines</a> from the film "Patton."</p><p>But then Trump ran for president and his view of the institution changed, especially when it clashed with his ideas.</p><p>On the campaign trail, then candidate Trump <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wefb0ESoVDo">infamously refuted</a> pollster Frank Luntz in 2015 for calling Sen. John McCain a "war hero."</p><p>"He's not a war hero," Trump said. "He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured."</p><p>This was just the first time it became clear that Trump likes war heroes, unless they disagree with him.</p><p>In 2016 Trump <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-father-fallen-soldier-ive-made-lot/story?id=41015051">lashed out</a> at the parents of Army Capt. Humayun Khan - a Muslim immigrant from Pakistan who was killed in Iraq in 2004 - after Khan's father, speaking at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, gave a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/29/us/elections/khizr-humayun-khan-speech.html">stirring denunciation</a> of Trump's call to bar immigrants from majority-Muslim countries.</p><p>Khan's mother, who did not speak while standing onstage at the DNC, was "devoid of feeling the pain of a mother who has sacrificed her son," Trump said.</p><p>And as reported in Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig's new book, "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/youre-a-bunch-of-dopes-and-babies-inside-trumps-stunning-tirade-against-generals/2020/01/16/d6dbb8a6-387e-11ea-bb7b-265f4554af6d_story.html">A Very Stable Genius</a>," Trump in 2017 threw a fit at a meeting of the Joint Chiefs and other senior advisers, including then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis (a retired four-star Marine general), calling them "a bunch of dopes and babies" and declaring he "wouldn't go to war with you people."</p><p>What had they done to so offend Trump, who would normally fawn over such decorated veterans?</p><p>They were explaining things like the importance of the post-World War II international order as a security benefit for the US, and that it wasn't the military's job to act as the president's collection agent to shake down NATO allies who the real-estate mogul Trump believed weren't paying their "rent."</p><h2><strong>Trump's disrespect of the military is more than just words</strong></h2><p>As commander-in-chief, Trump sent as many as <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-18/trump-sending-2-100-more-troops-to-the-u-s-border-with-mexico">6,000 troops</a> to the US-Mexico border, where he hoped he could use the military to detain illegal immigration. (It can't: That's forbidden by the <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42659.pdf">Posse Comitatus Act of 1878</a>, which prohibits the military from enforcing the law unless authorized by Congress or the Constitution.) But some of the troops who were <a href="https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/06/06/some-troops-to-spend-the-next-month-painting-border-fence-with-mexico/">deployed domestically</a> were ordered to serve their country by painting portions of Trump's border wall.</p><p>More recently, he restored the rank of Eddie Gallagher, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/us/navy-seals-edward-gallagher-trump.html">a convicted war criminal</a> whose fellow Navy SEALs described as "freaking evil," "toxic," and "perfectly OK with killing anybody that was moving." <a href="https://nypost.com/2019/12/22/navy-seal-eddie-gallagher-meets-with-trump-at-mar-a-lago/">Trump invited him</a> to his Mar-a-Lago resort for a personal meeting, which Gallagher has used as a springboard for TV appearances and apparel sales.</p><p>Against the objections of top Pentagon officials, Trump <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2019/11/15/trump-issues-pardons-war-crimes-cases-despite-pentagon-opposition-move/">issued full pardons</a> to two Army officers convicted of murder.</p><p>After the killing of Soleimani last month and Iran's retaliatory strike on an Iraqi base housing US military personnel, Trump said there were no US casualties. Two weeks later, the Defense Department said 34 troops had been diagnosed with concussions or brain trauma. Trump, normally one to luxuriate in the gory details of battle, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/24/troops-brain-injuries-iran-trump-103625">downplayed their symptoms</a> as "headaches" and "not very serious."</p><p>So while Trump attempts to use the military to polish his political credentials, he does so only when it suits him. When it doesn't, the president insults the dead, brushes off the wounded, uses the living as political pawns, and venerates the war criminal. It's a perverse way of showing respect for the military.</p><p class="tagline">This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author(s).</p>

Trump doesn't really respect members of the military. He uses them as props.

<ul class="generic-article__summary--ul content--ul"><li class="generic-article__summary--li content--li"><strong>With at least two major regional elections in 2020, all eyes are on how the BJP will arrest the fallout from the citizenship act and local poll defeats.</strong></li><li class="generic-article__summary--li content--li"><strong>Analysts say the BJP will concentrate on centralising power and a hardened focus on Hindu nationalism.</strong></li></ul><br />December was a difficult month for <span class="text"><a href="https://www.scmp.com/topics/india" class="link-text">India</a> </span>Prime Minister <span class="text"><a href="https://www.scmp.com/topics/narendra-modi" class="link-text">Narendra Modi</a> </span>and Amit Shah, his top lieutenant in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).The BJP is facing the biggest challenge of its five-and-a-half-year rule as it scrambles to defuse crises on multiple fronts. How Modi and Shah, the home minister, respond to these problems could determine whether the party maintains its comfortable political edge over rivals, observers say.<br /><br />The current problems – <span class="text"><a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3043741/thousands-take-part-rival-protests-over-indias-citizenship-law" class="link-text">mass protests</a> </span>over a controversial <span class="text"><a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3042045/modis-surgical-strike-muslims-puts-india-war-itself" class="link-text">citizenship law</a> </span>and back-to-back state election defeats – are seen in some quarters as an early sign that the public is pushing back against their aggressive advocacy of the Hindu nationalist agenda over broader national interests.<br />Activists wear masks of Home Minister Amit Shah, Indian Prime Minister <keyword id="6354477" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Narendra-Modi">Narendra Modi</keyword> and West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh during a protest against the citizenship bill. Photo: AFP<br /><br />The two men are lifelong members of RSS, the hardline Hindu nationalist group that serves as the ideological fountainhead of the BJP.<br /><br />Political researcher Neelanjan Sircar said the state election defeats also happened “due to the BJP’s desire to centralise power in Modi and Shah. It does not want strong regional leaders and units”.<br /><br />At the moment, the biggest headache for the BJP going into 2020 is the mass protest action around the country over the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, which was passed on December 12. The law paves the way for immigrants from non-Muslim minorities from Afghanistan, Pakistan and <keyword id="6354759" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bangladesh">Bangladesh</keyword> to obtain Indian citizenship.<br /><br />Demonstrators, many of whom are students, say the legislation brings out into the open what they claim is the BJP’s plan to systematically drive out the country’s 200 million Muslims as it seeks to create a <em>Hindu Rashtra,</em> or a Hindu nation.<br /><br />The belief is that the CAA, along with the government’s plan to initiate a National Register of Citizens, will create a scenario wherein Muslims who do not have documents to prove their citizenship will be declared illegal immigrants. Hindus and other minorities will not face such a predicament.<br /><br />Modi and Shah have found themselves in an embarrassing bind over this issue because while Shah had explicitly outlined this plan in multiple speeches – saying it targeted “infiltrators” and not Muslims – Modi came out after the protest to directly contradict this position. The prime minister declared his government had no plans to implement the National Register of Citizens.<br /><br /><br /><strong><span class="generic-article__body article-details-type--strong content--strong">ELECTION SETBACKS</span></strong><br />If this was not enough of a quandary, the BJP is also reeling from two setbacks in state elections.<br /><br />Earlier in December, the BJP’s oldest ally, the regional party Shiv Sena – with which it has partnered for 25 years – cut ties with the Modi administration and formed a coalition government with the opposition Congress to govern the state of Maharashtra following state polls there.<br /><br />On Christmas Eve, the BJP lost power in Jharkhand, a small but crucial state which holds 40 per cent of India’s mineral wealth. Despite ruling the state for five years, the BJP could only manage 25 seats in the 81-member assembly, while the Congress and its ally got 46 seats. This was its fifth major loss in regional polls in the last year.<br /><br /><br /><br />Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses a rally to launch the BJP campaign for the upcoming Delhi assembly elections. Photo: EPA-EFE<br /><br />With at least two major regional elections in 2020, in the capital New Delhi, and in the eastern state of Bihar, all eyes are on how Modi and Shah arrest the fallout from the citizenship act saga and the poll defeats.<br /><br />Also weighing on their popularity is the slowing economy, which grew at its lowest rate since 2013 in the July-September quarter.<br /><br />Sircar, an assistant professor at the Ashoka University in the state of Haryana, cautioned against using state poll results as a crystal ball into Modi and Shah’s longer term fate as the ruling party had been struggling to win state elections even before it cruised to a general election victory in May.<br />The Congress, which held power for decades and which continues to be led by the country’s influential Nehru-Gandhi clan, swept regional polls in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan months before the general election.<br /><br />But what the results do reveal is that local elections are no longer swayed by Modi’s popularity alone, said Sircar, whose research interests include studying election data.<br /><br />After 2014, when Modi first came to power, his party won state elections in most major states and governed over 70 per cent of India’s land mass until March 2018. This has now come down to half, partly due to the BJP’s efforts to centralise power in the two leaders, said Sircar.<br /><br />Meanwhile, continuing confusion in the opposition ranks is harming efforts to build an anti-BJP front. The Congress, for instance, still has a temporary party chief in <keyword id="689" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sonia-Gandhi">Sonia Gandhi</keyword> after her son and former party chief Rahul Gandhi quit, taking blame for its election defeat. The fragmentation of opposition unity is likely to rear its head during the upcoming Delhi elections, in which the Congress might not want to ally with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to defeat the BJP.<br /><br /><br />Congress president Sonia Gandhi and ex-party president Rahul Gandhi (L) attend a sit-in protest. Photo: AFP<br /><strong><span class="generic-article__body article-details-type--strong content--strong"><br />HONEYMOON PERIOD</span><br /></strong>Another crucial reason why the current situation might not affect the BJP’s long-term standing is timing. There is an important reason it introduced the legislation in the first six months of its five-year term.<br /><br />“The BJP has been very effective in setting its own narratives and winning elections. Hence, while it does seem like the BJP is floundering, it is too early in its term for it be considered a threat to their popularity,” said Sudha Pai, a retired professor in political science from New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.<br /><br />Pai points to the 2019 elections, when Modi managed to divert attention away from issues such as development, infrastructure, a slump in the economy and the highest unemployment rate in 45 years, to rake up nationalism against Pakistan and come back to power with an enhanced margin.<br /><br />The BJP has probably learned this from experience. In 2016, India’s campuses were rocked with student protests against the government but this did not feature in the discourse during the general elections. The face of the protests, youth activist Kanhaiya Kumar, lost by over 400,000 votes to a controversial BJP leader, Giriraj Singh.<br /><br /><br /><br />A man wearing a mask of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi waves the BJP flag during a rally in New Delhi. Photo: AP<br /><span class="generic-article__body article-details-type--strong content--strong"><strong><br />COURSE CORRECTION?</strong></span><br /><br />Since Modi’s re-election in May, his government’s two major moves – the decision to revoke <span class="text"><a href="https://www.scmp.com/topics/kashmir" class="link-text">Jammu &amp; Kashmir’s special status</a> </span>and bifurcate the state, and the citizenship law amendment – have seen a similar approach being employed. Both were passed in Parliament without much debate, despite acrimonious opposition.Even in the face of the protests, Modi and Shah have remained defiantly supportive of the police action, which has so far resulted in 23 deaths. Most of these occurred in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, where the BJP’s controversial chief minister <keyword id="43254" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Yogi-Adityanath">Yogi Adityanath</keyword> hailed the police crackdown.<br /><br />But both Pai and Sircar believe the protests and Jharkhand defeat will come as a rude shock to the BJP. “No matter what the final outcome is, there is a sense that the mood in the country is changing, that nationalism might not be enough to win elections any more and that the BJP is not invincible,” said Pai.<br /><br />Such widespread protests have not occurred in the last few decades. “Somewhere, this is affecting Modi’s popularity, bit by bit,” Pai said.<br /><br />Indian Prime Minister and BJP leader Narendra Modi. Photo: DPA<br /><br />Opinions are mixed on whether these issues will result in a course correction in the next four years of the BJP’s term.<br /><br />Sircar does not see a shift by the BJP any time soon. “I don’t see the BJP’s model changing. Centralising power in their own hands is a very important project for both Modi and Shah. Taking decisions without consultation is also integral to it; to consult means to slow down the process,” said Sircar.<br /><br />Pai, however, is slightly more optimistic, but also believes the next four years will see a hardened focus on Hindu nationalism. “It depends on what happens with the protests and how long they sustain. But I think the BJP will realise that nationalism and warmongering have diminishing returns. It will have to deliver.”<br />

After a torrid December, how will India’s Narendra Modi, Amit Shah and the BJP fare in 2020?

<ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>India's parliament passed a new amendment to its citizenship law earlier this month, providing a pathway to citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian religious minorities while singling out its minority Muslim population. </strong></li><li><strong>The amended act has been <a href="https://twitter.com/UNHumanRights/status/1205451656495861761">slammed by critics</a> and has sparked deadly protests around the country.</strong></li><li><strong>The fight that has erupted over the citizenship bill is reflective of the country's <a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2124474/india-no-country-muslims">rising tide of bigotry</a> directed towards minorities, in particular, its Muslim population, which makes up about 14% of the country's massive 1.3 billion people.</strong></li><li><strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</strong></li></ul><p>A controversial amendment to a law was recently passed in India, sparking deadly protests around the country and leading some to question the country's democratic values.</p><p>On December 11, India's parliament passed an amendment to its Citizenship Act of 1955, which sets out guidelines for becoming a citizen in the country. The 2019 revision added a religious element to the bill, providing a pathway to citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian religious minorities who fled neighboring Muslim-majority countries Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. </p><p>The amended act has been <a href="https://twitter.com/UNHumanRights/status/1205451656495861761">slammed by critics</a> as anti-Islam, and they say it further marginalizes India's sizeable Muslim minority. Violent protests have erupted across the country in response, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/india-burning-protests-new-citizenship-act-2019-12">resulting in the deaths of six people</a>. Dozens more have been arrested or injured in clashes with police.</p><p>The fight that has erupted over the citizenship bill is reflective of the country's <a href="https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2124474/india-no-country-muslims">rising tide of bigotry</a> directed towards minorities, in particular, its Muslim population, which makes up about 14% of the country's massive 1.3 billion people.</p><p>The bill has also handed more power to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu-nationalist government in crafting a country which affords more rights to its Hindu majority and leaves room for further discrimination in the areas of governance and public space. </p><h2><strong>What exactly does the bill say?</strong></h2><p><strong></strong></p><strong></strong><p>India's Citizenship Act was first established in 1955 and created comprehensive guidelines related to citizenship in the country.</p><p>It has been amended several times, including at 2003 amendment that authorized the government to keep a national register of all of its citizens (referred to as the NRC). Today, the register has not yet been implemented except in the northeastern state of Assam, which is home to a Muslim-majority population. </p><p>The most recent changes to the Citizenship Act (often referred to locally as CAB or CAA) were passed by India's lower house of parliament - the Lok Sabha - on December 10, before being cleared by the upper house of parliament  - the Rajya Sabha - a day later. The bill was signed into law by President Ram Nath Kovind.</p><p>The bill was introduced by Indian home affairs minister Amit Shah, a leading member of ‎Modi's right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, and it promised to provide refuge for persecuted religious minorities from three neighboring Muslim-majority countries who entered India before 2015.</p><p>Notably, the act excludes Muslim migrants "as they do not face religious persecution in these Islamic countries," India's parliament <a href="https://pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=195783">said in a statement</a> after the bill's passage. </p><p>The bill also leaves out two neighboring Buddhist countries, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, which have experienced major refugee crises in recent years. There are about 59,000 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees residing in over 100 camps in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, according to <a href="https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/article30328790.ece">Indian magazine Frontline</a>, and about 30,000 that live outside these camps.</p><p>The bill also ignores what the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=22491&amp;LangID=E">UN has deemed the world's most persecuted minority</a>, the Rohingya Muslims, who suffered ethnic and religious cleansing at the hands of the Burmese military in Myanmar. Authorities <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-india-idUSKCN1AU0UC">have reportedly pledged</a> to deport the estimated 40,000 Rohingya refugees currently residing in India, despite facing danger in their home state. </p><p>"The only religion that the Modi government follows is the Constitution of India," the statement added.</p><p>In the statement, Shah "reiterated that the Bill is not against any Minority in India and the rights of each Indian Citizen will be equally protected."</p><p>The bill does not apply to Assam and other indigenous areas.</p><p>A spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=25425&amp;LangID=E">called</a> the act "discriminatory in nature" and said it undermines India's democratic framework:</p><p>"The law isn't truly about protecting the region's religious minorities," <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/17/india-citizenship-law-protests-narendra-modi-amit-shah-founding-fathers/">wrote Ravi Agrawal and Kathryn Salam of Foreign Policy</a>. "Instead, it challenges India's secularism by making religion part of the basis for citizenship."</p><p>The Citizenship Act has spurred thousands of people from human rights groups, universities and religious groups to come out in protest this month. On December 15, clashes between police and students escalated on two Muslim university campuses - Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh and of Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi - resulting in police <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/17/india-protests-students-condemn-barbaric-police">using batons and tear gas on students</a>.</p><p>The unrest has even led authorities to deploy army personnel and <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/curfew-relaxed-few-hours-guwahati-assam-boils-caa-1628386-2019-12-15">impose a curfew in Assam</a>, as protests boil over. </p><h2>This is not the first time the government has targeted its Muslim population</h2><p><strong></strong></p><strong></strong><p>India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has taken steps to further marginalize the country's Muslim population since coming into power in 2014.</p><p>The NRC's exclusive use in Assam has been derided by critics as a way to of stoking religious tensions. According to a <a href="http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/C-01/DDW18C-01%20MDDS.XLS">2011 census</a>, Muslims makeup nearly 35% of Assam's population, and are a majority in eight of the state's districts. </p><p><a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/assam-final-nrc-list-out-over-19-lakh-people-excluded-1593769-2019-08-31">In August</a>, 1.9 million people from the region were excluded from the register, effectively stripping them of citizenship. <a href="https://amnesty.org.in/news-update/uncertain-destiny-for-millions-in-assam-post-nrc/">Amnesty International</a> has criticized the NRC and says it leaves the futures of millions of people in the region uncertain.</p><p>In September, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/india-building-mass-detention-center-illegal-immigrants-assam-citizenship-2019-9/commerce-on-business-insider">India began construction</a> on a large-scale detention center in the Goalpara district of Assam meant to hold at least 3,000 detainees, according to Reuters. </p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kashmir-india-revoke-article-370-quasi-independence-internet-tourists-2019-8">And in August</a>, India also revoked part of its constitution which gave the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir a special status and quasi-independence. Over the past four months, Kashmir, which is home to a significant Muslim population, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/12/kashmiri-artists-resisting-india-months-long-lockdown-191207062705088.html">has been off from communication, held on lockdown</a>, and is now directly under the control of India's federal government in New Delhi. </p><p>As part of shutting down communication, residents in Kashmir have lost access to phone lines and the internet. According to advocacy groups, the internet shutdown in the region is the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/indias-internet-shutdown-in-kashmir-is-now-the-longest-ever-in-a-democracy/2019/12/15/bb0693ea-1dfc-11ea-977a-15a6710ed6da_story.html">longest-ever crackdown imposed on a democracy</a>. Only authoritarian countries, like China and Myanmar, have experienced longer internet shutdowns.</p><p>The four-month internet blackout has been so severe that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/whatsapp-kashmir-accounts-removed-internet-blackout-2019-12">WhatsApp is deleting the accounts</a> of residents in the region because they've been inactive for so long. </p><h2><strong>State-sanctioned discrimination against Muslims has had dire consequences</strong></h2><p><strong></strong></p><strong></strong><p>The Modi government's attitudes and policies towards minority groups has sparked racially motivated clashes, and observers say that the ruling Hindu party has fostered a culture of impunity through its inaction in addressing violence.</p><p>Shah, who crafted the citizenship bill, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/india-election-speech/amit-shah-vows-to-throw-illegal-immigrants-into-bay-of-bengal-idUSKCN1RO1YD">vowed in April</a> to throw illegal Muslim immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh into the Bay of Bengal. He has also <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/lok-sabha-2019/story/bjp-amit-shah-hindu-refugees-mamata-bannerjee-1499691-2019-04-11">previously referred</a> to illegal immigrants as "termites." </p><p>India has also seen an increase in attacks against its Muslim minority in recent months. A February 2019 report from <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/02/18/violent-cow-protection-india/vigilante-groups-attack-minorities">Human Rights Watch</a> found that between May 2015 and December 2018, at least 36 Muslims were killed across 12 Indian states. Roughly 280 people were injured across 20 states during the same period, the rights group added.</p><p>In a particularly gruesome case last year, an eight-year-old Muslim girl was kidnapped, raped, and killed in Jammu and Kashmir by a group of Hindu men with the intention of committing the crime <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/six-men-convicted-in-rape-of-8-year-old-girl-that-shocked-india/2019/06/10/cde7b17c-8b5f-11e9-b162-8f6f41ec3c04_story.html">in order to drive away Muslim nomads in the area</a>. </p><p>The country has also seen a <a href="https://www.trtworld.com/asia/in-southern-kashmir-there-s-little-enthusiasm-for-india-s-elections-26253">crackdown on protests</a>, attacks on the <a href="https://thewire.in/politics/narendra-modi-amit-shah-bjp-india-media">free press</a>, and history books <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/india-modi-culture/">have been rewritten</a> in favor of Hindu achievements.</p><h2>India is inching towards fascism</h2><p>Experts have noted that India is straying away from its democratic values under the Bharatiya Janata Party. </p><p>"There is absolute political consensus within the Bharatiya Janata Party that India is culturally a Hindu country," Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2019-12-17/citizenship-law-moves-india-closer-to-being-hindu-country">Los Angeles Times</a>. </p><p>Harish Pullanoor, an editor at Quartz India, <a href="https://qz.com/india/844672/along-with-narendra-modis-rise-india-has-displayed-classic-signs-that-foreshadow-fascism/">wrote</a> in 2016 that India was "displaying classic signs that foreshadow fascism," including the disenfranchisement of religious minorities. </p><p>"The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders," wrote Umberto Eco, an Italian philosopher, who wrote of a <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/">list of features</a> that define a fascist state.</p><p>In April, several Muslim merchants in Old Delhi described fears of religiously-motivated violence against them. </p><p>"I could be lynched right now and nobody would do anything about it," Abdul Adnan, a Muslim businessman, told <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/world/asia/modi-india-elections.html">The New York Times</a>. "My government doesn't even consider me Indian. How can that be when my ancestors have lived here hundreds of years?"</p><p>According to The Times, the consensus among Indian activists and liberal political analysts is that the country, under Modi, has become "more toxically divided between Hindus and Muslims."</p><p>"In plain language, they are what we now call communal fascists," Aditya Mukherjee, a retired historian told The Times. </p><p>Historian Ramachandra Guha wrote in an op-ed in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/14/india-was-miracle-democracy-its-time-downgrade-its-credentials/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/14/india-was-miracle-democracy-its-time-downgrade-its-credentials/">The Washington Post</a> in August that it was time to downgrade India's status as a world-class democracy. </p><p>"Given the lack of any sort of credible opposition to the Bharatiya Janata Party, the atmosphere of fear among religious minorities and the attacks on a free press, we are now a 40-60 democracy," he wrote of India. </p>

The world's largest democracy is heading toward modern-day fascism

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/FBI</span></p><p class="caption">Tashfeen Malik is pictured in this undated handout photo provided by the FBI, December 4, 2015.</p></div><p></p></div></div>The couple who killed more than a dozen people at a community center in San Bernardino, California, might have flown under the radar with the help of a "secret" US policy that bars immigration officials from scrutinizing the social-media profiles of foreigners seeking visas, ABC News <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/secret-us-policy-blocks-agents-social-media-visa/story?id=35749325">reports</a>.</p><p>US officials were reportedly worried about potential backlash if the government were to disclose that it looked at social media to screen visa applicants, John Cohen, a former acting under-secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, told ABC.</p><p>A former senior counterterrorism official told the network that US officials "felt looking at public postings" of foreign US visa applicants "was an invasion of their privacy."</p><p>Cohen cited leaks from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who revealed extensive surveillance by the agency, as contributing to fears that reviewing the social media accounts of visa applicants could hurt the country's standing with civil rights groups and European allies.</p><p>"It was primarily a question of optics," he told ABC. "There were concerns from a privacy and civil liberties perspective that while this was not illegal, that it would be viewed negatively if it was disclosed publicly."</p><p>Tashfeen Malik, a native of Pakistan, moved to California last year with Syed Rizwan Farook, a US citizen who is thought to have met Malik on a 2013 trip to Saudi Arabia. Malik was on a K-1 visa, which allowed her to move to the US to marry Farook, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/us/san-bernardino-attacks-us-visa-process-tashfeen-maliks-remarks-on-social-media-about-jihad-were-missed.html?_r=0">according to</a> The New York Times. She reportedly passed three US background checks as she immigrated from Pakistan.</p><p>The Times reported that on social media platforms, Malik commented openly that she supported violent jihad and wanted to be a part of it. The FBI said these extremist social media posts were "extensive," according to ABC.</p><p>ABC and The Times didn't note which social media platforms Malik was thought have posted on. But shortly after the attack earlier this month at the Inland Regional Center, investigators found Malik <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/san-bernardino-shooter-isis-cnn-2015-12">had pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi</a> on Facebook as the attack was unfolding. </p><p>Investigators believe the attack was likely inspired by ISIS (also known as ISIL and the Islamic State), but not ordered by or coordinated directly with the terrorist group.</p><p>Officials have acknowledged, however, that Malik posted these social-media messages under a pseudonym. So it's possible that even if the US had looked into her online presence, they wouldn't have found <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/san-bernardino-suspects-radicalized-target-practice-2015-12" target="_blank">evidence of "radicalization."</a></p><p>A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told ABC that the US has begun three pilot programs to include social media in their reviews of visa applicants.</p><p>President Barack Obama has ordered a review of the K-1 visa program, which will look at whether immigration officials could conduct more extensive background checks without significantly slowing down the process, according to The Times. The US is also reviewing about 90,000 K-1 visas that were issued in the past two years.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/barack-obama-responses-mass-shootings-gun-control-san-bernardino-planned-parenthood-2015-12">The number of times Obama has had to respond to mass shootings during his presidency is staggering</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="pwMXJheTom9Ojq5vMNhtAPAEE0JThHXm" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

A secret US policy reportedly prevents officials from looking at the social media of visa applicants

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Diplomatic relations between the United States and Australia grew surprisingly tense in recent days, after reports emerged of a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-australia-prime-minister-turnbull-phone-call-2017-2">contentious phone call</a> between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Wednesday.<p>Trump accused Turnbull of using a recently brokered refugee resettlement deal to send the US the "next Boston bombers," calling the arrangement "the worst deal ever" before hanging up on him, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/no-gday-mate-on-call-with-australian-pm-trump-badgers-and-brags/2017/02/01/88a3bfb0-e8bf-11e6-80c2-30e57e57e05d_story.html?utm_term=.d9634d85b59e">The Washington Post</a>.</p><p>The fate of the refugee deal has been unclear ever since Trump signed an executive order halting refugee arrivals into the US for 120 days and barring travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries.</p><p>The Australian government this week sought reassurance that the deal will be honored regardless of the immigration ban. And though the White House has said the deal will be honored, details are still up in the air.</p><p>Here's everything you need to know about the deal that has sparked a small diplomatic crisis between two usually friendly nations:</p><h3>What the refugee deal is</h3><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Last November, the Australian government announced it had <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com.au/australia-has-a-new-deal-to-settle-nauru-and-manus-island-refugees-in-the-us-2016-11">reached an agreement</a> with the Obama administration to resettle in the United States refugees who are currently held in detention facilities on two islands far from the Australian mainland: Nauru and Manus Island.<p>The exact number of refugees being resettled wasn't specified by the Australian government, but White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer pegged it at <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/01/white-house-australian-refugees-deal-resettle-extreme-vetting">approximately 1,250</a> - not quite the "thousands" Trump had claimed in his tweet.</p><p>The nationalities of the refugees have not been confirmed by the Australian government, but <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-exclusive-us-officials-postpone-interviews-with-asylum-seekers-held-in-australian-camps-2017-2">refugee advocates say</a> many are from Iran, Iraq, Somalia, and Sudan - countries on which Trump recently imposed immigration restrictions - as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some of the refugees are also stateless.</p><p>Just two months before the deal was struck, the Australian government <a href="http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/media/speech-at-president-obamas-leaders-summit-on-refugees">announced</a> it would take in asylum-seekers from US-backed detention facilities in Costa Rica.</p><p>While the agreement is not explicitly a quid pro quo arrangement, the two deals ensure the countries are essentially swapping refugees with one another, with each country relieving the other of the responsibility of detaining asylum-seekers.</p><h3><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></h3><h3>Why the international community dislikes it</h3><p>Australia has long been <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=54669#.WJTychiZP1w">criticized</a> by countries around the world - including the US - for its practice of turning back asylum boats, implementing mandatory detention policies, and transferring refugees to other countries.</p><p>The average amount of time refugees are held in the detention facilities is 469 days, and nearly one-third of those detained have been held for more than two years, according to <a href="https://www.border.gov.au/ReportsandPublications/Documents/statistics/immigration-detention-statistics-30-nov-2016.pdf">data from the Australian government</a>.</p><p>Beyond that, the offshore detention centers have become infamous for reports of human-rights abuses and violence against detainees, many of whom are children.</p><p>Humanitarian workers who have visited the Nauru and Manus Island detention centers allege that instances of violence, sexual assault, and degrading treatment are commonplace, and many refugees and asylum-seekers suffer severe mental-health problems due to their prolonged detention and uncertainty for their future.</p><p>Even North Korea, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/nov/10/un-countries-line-up-to-criticise-australias-human-rights-record">The Guardian reported</a>, slammed Australia at a United Nations human-rights council session in 2015, saying it had "serious concerns" about reports of human-rights violations at the facilities.</p><p>The deal for the US to resettle the refugees has therefore come under some scrutiny, as it essentially legitimizes Australia's practice of intercepting asylum seekers and detaining them instead of forcing the country to change its policies.</p><p>The US agreement to resettle the refugees has been given the blessing of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN's refugee agency, which will help the two countries in the resettlement process - but, like the US-Australia deal, it's a one-off arrangement that likely won't be repeated.</p><p>The UNHCR maintains that Australia's policy of detaining asylum-seekers offshore is illegal.</p><p>"We, all of us, are very clear that this is a one-off, good offices, exceptional humanitarian type of involvement because we do not believe that the future of handling this lies in sending people to Manus Island and Nauru," Volter Turk, assistant high commissioner with the UNHCR, told <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/world/australia/refugee-deal-united-states-nations.html?_r=0">The New York Times</a> last November.</p><h3>Why Australia won't just resettle the refugees on its mainland</h3><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>The Turnbull government has been ironclad in its opposition to resettling the refugees detained on Nauru and Manus Island, arguing that the issue is one of border security.<p>Although the country recently pledged to up its <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1617/RefugeeResettlement#_Toc461022107">annual refugee intake</a> to 19,000 from 13,750 in 2015-16, most of those arrivals are resettled through the UN's refugee agency. They arrive in Australia legally, whereas those who travel by boat do so illegally.</p><p>Australia is loath to accept the boat-borne arrivals, on grounds that successful asylum-seekers who make the journey by boat will embolden others to attempt the same and perpetuate the business of human smuggling.</p><p>In fact, Turnbull is so opposed to allowing the refugees detained on Nauru and Manus to enter Australia, his administration refused to entertain an <a href="http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2016/10/31/nz-says-australia-won-t-accept-refugee-deal.html">offer from New Zealand</a> to resettle 150 of those refugees per year. The line of reasoning was that should those refugees eventually gain New Zealand citizenship, they would also gain travel rights to Australia.</p><p>"It's a back-door way to get into Australia, and would have been a green light to people smugglers," Australia's immigration minister, Peter Dutton, told media last April.</p><p>Even when Australia announced the refugee deal with the US, Turnbull took pains to describe the situation as a "one-off agreement" that would not be offered to future asylum-seekers attempting the journey to Australia by sea.</p><p>"We need to send, now more than ever, the clearest and most unequivocal message to people smugglers and their would-be passengers that, if they seek to come to Australia unlawfully, they will not succeed," <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/2016-11-13/press-conference-minister-immigration-and-border-protection">Turnbull said</a> at a November press conference announcing the deal.</p><p>Turnbull even announced a so-called "<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-14/dozen-naval,-abf-ships-sent-off-to-block-people-smugglers/8023636">ring of steel</a>" to enforce Australia's border in preparation for the deal, lest the news encourage a wave of asylum-seekers to attempt to travel to Australia by sea in the hopes that they, too, can be resettled in the US.</p><p>The government launched "the largest and most capable maritime surveillance and response fleet Australia has ever deployed," specifically to intercept boats of asylum seekers and turn them away from the country.</p><h3>What's next</h3><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Australians have been wondering about the future of the deal since the moment it was announced by Turnbull, as it's no secret that Trump has been opposed to allowing refugees into the US.<p>In the wake of the now-infamous phone call between Trump and Turnbull, the White House has said it plans to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-asylum-idUSKBN15F2RM">honor the deal</a> and apply "extreme vetting" to all the arrivals. Indeed, the executive order Trump signed barring all refugees for 120 days included an exception for preexisting international agreements, widely presumed to refer to the deal with Australia.</p><p>But recent reports from <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-exclusive-us-officials-postpone-interviews-with-asylum-seekers-held-in-australian-camps-2017-2">Reuters</a> and <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/01/politics/australia-us-refugee-deal-turnbull-trump/">CNN</a> indicate that US immigration officials have been postponing interviews with asylum-seekers on Nauru, raising speculation that the Trump administration is already seeking to block or renegotiate the resettlement deal.</p><p>It's also unclear what US-Australian relations will look like going forward, especially if the refugee deal collapses. Australia has long been a strong ally of the US, and is the only country to have fought alongside it in every conflict since World War I.</p><p>Top Republican senators <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mccain-australia-trump-call-2017-2">showed support for Australia</a> on Wednesday and Thursday, and Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee both phoned Australia's ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey, to reassure him of US support.</p><p>And on Friday, Trump extended something of an olive branch to Turnbull in a tweet:</p><div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/vetting-process-refugees-enter-us-syria-iraq-executive-order-ban-libya-sudan-2017-1">Here's the 20-step vetting process refugees must follow to enter the US</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="85bTliOTE6PEStnPOWCubLqNpvHjIvIg" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

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