Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a growing protest movement in India, alleged Russian drone strikes in the Black Sea, and Houthi attacks on Saudi infrastructure.

Modi’s Cockroach Infestation

Indian police detained several leaders of the so-called Cockroach movement on Tuesday after they defied a police order prohibiting them from entering a historic protest site. The arrests came the same day that embattled Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed delegates at a Bloomberg summit in the nation’s capital and described India as a “mother of democracy.”

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at a growing protest movement in India, alleged Russian drone strikes in the Black Sea, and Houthi attacks on Saudi infrastructure.

Modi’s Cockroach Infestation

Indian police detained several leaders of the so-called Cockroach movement on Tuesday after they defied a police order prohibiting them from entering a historic protest site. The arrests came the same day that embattled Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed delegates at a Bloomberg summit in the nation’s capital and described India as a “mother of democracy.”

The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), satirically named after Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), emerged in May after Indian Chief Justice Surya Kant likened the country’s unemployed youth to “cockroaches” and “parasites of society.” Denouncing lackluster job creation and poor education policy, including leaked medical exam results, the youth-led Cockroach movement has transformed into one of Modi’s most significant political challenges in years.

Protests took on a new sense of urgency this month after an investigation by the Indian Express revealed that two members of India’s three-person Election Commission had raised serious questions about a national program to clean up the country’s electoral rolls. Last year, ahead of critical state elections, the commission began removing more than 130 million names from voter lists, which the BJP says includes 30 million people who........

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