Diwali 2025: Lamp Lit in White House, Smokescreen over Delhi

Indian women journalists take on Taliban, Ashley Tellis freed pre-trial, Piyush Pandey dies at 70, fries debut with 'Masala Movie', why India tea isn't everyone's cuppa, and who makes Indian policy?

Edited by Pratik Kanjilal

We don’t usually open with entertainment, but this article in The Tribune is very special: Naseeruddin Shah remembers Om Puri, his friend from the National School of Drama, who would have turned 75 last weekend. Shah is one of India’s finest writers but passed himself off as a great actor, until he outed himself with his extraordinary memoir, And Then One Day (Hamish Hamilton, 2014).

In more entertainment news, George Nolfi, writer and director of the Matt Damon and Emily Blunt starrer The Adjustment Bureau, has teamed up with Sharad Devarajan’s Graphic India to adjust the film for Indian audiences. The Hindi version will tap into Indian philosophical traditions to re-explore themes in the $127 million Hollywood grosser, like determinism versus free will.

Now, back to business

Bengaluru-based Infosys has closed a 15-year contract worth GBP 1.2 billion ($1.59 billion) with the British National Health Services for a new payroll platform. It’s a useful bailout for India’s second-largest IT firm, when the global economy is being slowed by trade wars and adverse US visa policies. The new system will manage payroll for 1.9 million employees across England and Wales and process GBP 55 billion every year. And Gautam Adani, who has recovered from an attack by US short-seller Hindenburg Research (which has since shut shop), has partnered with Google to set up an AI hub, a gigawatt-capacity data center worth $15 billion in Andhra Pradesh, India. It will also set up a network to generate and store power in the state.

Don’t believe your eyes: Indian-Americans back Democrats

In an exclusive for the India House Foundation, information researcher Joyojeet Pal of the University of Michigan follows the money to bust the myth that the Indian-American diaspora has turned to the right, influenced by dominant right-wing politics in India and PR events like Howdy Modi. He finds that Indian-American political donors are solidly Democrat. Money talks more persuasively than political rhetoric.

Indian women journalists take on the Taliban, and win

Delhi became a battleground between the Taliban and the world’s women, who are outraged because Afghanistan is the only country which bans women from schools, universities, parks, gymnasiums, mosques and markets. The women won.

Taliban foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi lit the fuse by disinviting women journalists from his press conference in the Afghan Embassy. Bad move, because Indian media, for all its many and diverse faults, has phalanxes of women journalists in important positions. The Indian government, which failed to support them, got tarred and feathered. Indian male reporters were also pilloried for failing to walk out in solidarity. A second press conference was called to repair the damage, where Muttaqi, in fluent Hindustani, said that women’s education is not haram, but simply deferred until his supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada issues an order.

Sadly, it appears that the gifted Reuters photographer Danish Siddiqui, who was callously shot by the Taliban while on duty, was not remembered too frequently in these events with the Taliban on Indian soil.

Courtesy: Danish Siddiqui Foundation

Indian-American analyst arrested, to face trial in DC

Ashley Tellis, expert on the security and strategic affairs of India and South Asia in relation to great powers like the US, China and Russia, was arrested in DC last weekend for improper handling of secret US government documents, over 1,000 of which were discovered by the FBI in his basement. At a hearing in which they secured his freedom pending trial, Tellis’s lawyers argued that he had retained the papers from scholarly motives supporting US interests, and not for espionage, as the prosecution suggested.

Tellis is a senior fellow and the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is also an unpaid adviser to the State Department and a contractor in the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, a think tank entrusted with future-proofing American security. The Justice Department has not accused him of working for a foreign power, but the case details Tellis’ meetings with Chinese officials, and his lawyers will contest such a charge.

The matter is being linked to current politics because it is being heard in the Eastern District of Virginia, which is headed by Lindsey Halligan, who replaced Erik S Siebert. Halligan’s office has indicted former FBI director James B Comey and New York attorney general Letitia James, both political adversaries of President Trump. However, FBI surveillance of Ashley Tellis began during the Biden administration. A clear picture of the case would require more information than is presently available.

Who sets Indian policy?

Something about President Trump’s communications with Indian PM Modi is intriguing the home country and the diaspora ― who’s telling how much of the truth? The question first arose when Trump announced a ceasefire between India and Pakistan before Delhi could. Islamabad acknowledged Trump’s intervention because it wants to repair relations, New Delhi denied any communication from Washington because its leader is projected as a strongman who can’t be pushed around. Trump repeated his claim so many times that the opposition made it an issue to bait the PM with. And the government stuck to its stand that the US plays no role in setting Indian policy.

Now, Trump has announced that Modi assured him that India would stop buying Russian oil, for which Trump had imposed 50% trade tariffs and made talks difficult. Modi has now admitted to speaking with Trump ― only to exchange Diwali greetings. But Trump has said that he also got an assurance about oil imports stopping. “While Mr Modi conceals, Mr Trump reveals,” writes Jairam Ramesh of the Congress party on Twitter. “This is the 4th time in 6 days that the US President has announced India’s policy.”

Piyush Pandey, who desi-fied Indian advertising, dies at 70

Pioneering adman Piyush Pandey of Ogilvy India has died aged 70. Pandey changed the face of Indian advertising by turning to the Indian languages, themes and imagery to make ads which were often more memorable than the TV programs they appeared with. He ‘vernacularized’ the industry when chutney tongues like Hinglish were challenging the English hegemony, and helped India to wake up from the colonial hangover. Business tycoon Gautam Adani says that he gave advertising “swadeshi swagger”. Not so. He did something more pleasant — he gave voice to the soul of India. Pandey is survived by his siblings Ila Arun (the singer) and Prasoon Pandey (also a filmmaker), among others. He will be remembered for campaigns like Asian Paints’ ‘Har Ghar Kuchh Kehta Hai (Every home says something)’. And this one:

Pall of Diwali smoke stifles Delhi

AQI (Air Quality Index) is a serious matter in heavily polluted Delhi, and is followed as passionately as cricket scores and lottery numbers at this time of year, when the smog of Diwali blots out the skies. This year, public attention is on two institutions: the Supreme Court, which has allowed the use of oxymoronic ‘green crackers’ in Delhi, and the chief minister of Delhi, who lurched between AQI, AIQ and IQ (what, no AI?), in a manner designed to assure all that she knows nothing about the matter.

It’s become a national joke:

But be serious: Sushant Singh of Yale suspects that while pollution figures from north India are always shocking, what we see after the numbers after intense governmental massaging, even pummelling.

Other reports speak of monitoring stations being shut down to doctor the record.

And Indian Express profiles two of the many significant people who have fled polluted Delhi in search of healthier climes ― Ziro Music Festival founder Anup Kutty and Sanjoy K Roy, one of the key people behind the Jaipur Literature Festival. Usually, the quest leads to Goa.

SB509 vetoed, but Diwali cheer from coast to coast in the US

California Governor Gavin Newsom has vetoed Senate Bill 509, which proposed to train the police specifically to detect “transnational repression” ― foreign state action against immigrant populations, like the attacks on Sikh activists in Canada and New York City. But it had divided Sikh and Hindu communities, both of which are big in California, and the governor decided that existing processes would suffice. California Sikhs, an influential community, have criticized Newsom’s veto.

California has also joined Pennsylvania and Connecticut in declaring Diwali a state holiday. It will be effective from next year in the state. New York, New Jersey and Texas, among others, have recognized Diwali via school holidays. And in recognition of the growing importance of the Indian-American community, which he called “a serious group of people”, President Trump lit a lamp in the Oval Office.

The cookery guys at the New York Times are also alert to Diwali: “If you’re celebrating Diwali, you’ll love the fudgy chew of this almond-topped badam burfi and this coconut kalakand. I’m excited to wrap these potato-pea samosas, which are wonderful with mint chutney.” Where’s the saunth, then?

And in the midst of this, Kash Patel took MAGA heat for a well-meaning AI-designed tweet:

After seeing this greeting card, MAGA told Patel to get himself deported and “go home”. His home is New York City.

There’s happier news from Manchester, UK: the Diwali Basket Brigade marshalled its resources to deliver food hampers to deprived families across the UK, to celebrate the real spirit of Diwali.

Tariff & visa hardships continue

Leading H-1B visa sponsor Tata Consultancy Services has said that it will not make a single fresh hire in that category. The Economic Times had listed the top US corporations dependent on foreign workers, which had signaled a turn towards new hiring policies a year ago. Newsweek has the current list of companies which have stopped sponsoring H-1Bs. Meanwhile, in India, the textile sector is facing strong headwinds due to 50% tariffs, reports CNBC. India exports textiles worth $36.5 billion globally, with about a third destined for the US. The sector had been growing at 5% until the summer, but was down 10% year on year in September, with unsold inventories piling up, production lines halted and skilled workers going unemployed.

The politics of partitions and saris

In Asia Sentinel, old India hand John Elliott has reviewed Sam Dalrymple’s first book, Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia. While Partition has defaulted to the vivisection of Punjab, where the goriest stories came from, it also divided Bengal, which still has a visible refugee legacy. And Kashmir and Palestine, which made grim headlines this year, are both consequences of callous British mapmaking as the empire, which had stretched from Aden to Mandalay, imploded under the financial burden of World War II. Dalrymple also notes that the origins of political Hindutva lie in the tacit British assumption that Hindustan was for Hindus.

The New York Historical and the Center for Women’s History have collaborated to put up an exhibition on saris “as art and political statement”. Meaning, that the show visually explores the contribution of South Asians to making culture and politics in the First World. The New York Times notes that the Indian delegation at the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship, held in Berlin in 1929, did not have a flag because they represented a colony. Led by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, they tore up some of their sarees to create a flag of their own. Amidst anti-immigration rhetoric and raids, the sari exhibition, which will run until April, speaks of truth and resistance.

The bite in the ‘Masala Movie’

McCain Foods Canada has premiered the short film Masala Movie to launch its new regional flavours McCain Masala Fries and Chili Garlic Potato Bites, a north Indian staple. The film channels the chatpata magic of Bollywood. It’s a professional production by a team led by ad filmmaker Nitin Menon which includes two of the people behind Slumdog Millionaire ― choreographer Longinus Fernandes and assistant director Maxima Basu, who also designed costumes for Bajirao Mastani. Indian markets have been fully loaded with Indianized chips for a couple of decades, but they’re a novelty elsewhere.

In other entertainment news, film producer Anjay Nagpal, who has worked with Todd Phillips in Joker and Dev Patel in Monkey Man, and has adapted Abraham Verghese and Aravind Adiga for the screen, is the new executive director of the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles.

Not everyone’s cuppa cha

The iconic India Tea logo was created in 1976 to certify the geographical origin of Darjeeling, Assam and Nilgiri teas. It reflected tea-growers’ recognition that tea could be branded and propagated worldwide like champagne and coffee. While India teas are indeed travelling, and some cafes in Europe and the US now know the difference between first flush, second flush and dust and fannings, business has been slow. You can now order a ‘Chai Latte’, of course, but it’s nothing like the craze that the East India Company prospered from, when the tea trade spanned Asia, Europe and North America. And you can still fling a dummy tea chest from the gunwale of a ship tied up at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston harbor, replaying the Boston Tea Party, just for old times’ sake.