Topline
The latest attempt to hold executives accountable for bank failures was approved by members of the Senate Banking Committee Wednesday as it passed a bill that would let regulators take back compensation for executives of failed banks and institute penalties for misconduct.
President of the United States of America Joe Biden (L) engages in a conversation with Prime … [+]
Key Facts
The Recovering Executive Compensation from Unaccountable Practices Act, or RECOUP Act, would allow the FDIC to to take back all or part of the compensation received by bank executives during the two years before a collapse and would strengthen regulators’ ability to ban or remove executives who fail to appropriately oversee and manage their bank.
Micron Technology’s plans come as the White House presses U.S. chip companies to invest in India to “decrease the risks of doing business in China,” Reuters reported, adding that Modi has a vision of making India a hub for semiconductor manufacturing and testing.
Modi’s visit also faces heat from human rights groups that criticized Biden for hosting a state dinner—an honor he’s bestowed on only two others since taking office—for a leader who was banned from the U.S before he was prime minister for supporting Hindu extremist groups who rioted and targeted Muslims.
White House officials have said Biden will privately question Modi over human rights concerns, Politico reported.
Key Background
Narendra Modi served as Chief Minister of Gujarat and as a member of parliament before becoming prime minister in May of 2014. He was barred him from entering the United States in 2005 after he didn’t stop a series of deadly riots by Hindus against minority Muslims in his state, according to the Wall Street Journal. Modi was the only person ever denied a U.S. visa based on the religious freedom law, and India returned the favor in 2020 when it turned down a travel request for members of a U.S. government panel seeking to review its religious freedom, Reuters reported. Mistreatment of Muslims in India, a primarily Hindu country, has included mob killings, housing discrimination, a ban on headscarves in one state and laws making it harder for inter-faith marriages to take place. Modi’s ban was lifted after his election as prime minister, and this week will be his seventh visit to the United States since and his first designated state visit. On Thursday, Modi will speak to Congress, making him the only Prime Minister of India to address Congress twice, India Today reported. Experts in international law say Biden has relied heavily on Modi both to not support Russia, a strong economic partner, in its war with Ukraine and to provide a check on China, Politico reported, counting India, Australia and Japan as democracy-promoting countries in the Pacific.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi waves to supporters after performing yoga on the North Lawn of … [+]
Chief Critic
Ricken Patel, founder of the Avaaz nonprofit, is one of several human rights activists who have publicly questioned Biden’s decision to remain silent on what he called the country’s “slide toward autocracy” under the right-wing Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. In a column in the Los Angeles Times, Palel said India’s “human rights record has worsened significantly during Modi’s tenure.” In a soon-to-be-released book, researchers Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia said they have found about 250 non-violent political prisoners—lawyers, writers, human rights activists and others—who were put in jail without being formally charged or tried between when Modi came to power and last July. Salil Tripathi, a member of the board of PEN International, wrote in Time that India’s interests are “not aligned with western interests” and accused the Biden administration of “helping (Modi) write the script of his re-election campaign.”
Crucial Quote
“We make our views known,” White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters on Tuesday. “We do so in a way where we don’t seek to lecture or assert that we don’t have challenges ourselves.”
Big Number
8th. That’s how India ranks among the countries that are at the highest risk for mass killing in 2022 and 2023, according to The Early Warning Project, a collaboration between the Holocaust Memorial Museum and Dartmouth College. The government’s systematic discrimination against the Muslim minority has continued to intensify amid mounting reports of violence—met with impunity—and efforts to restrict Muslim rights, the most recent report says.
Tangent
Thousands of Indian Americans are planning to be on the South Lawn of the White House when the Bidens welcome Modi Thursday, the Economic Times reported, “the first time any country-specific dispora is invited to the White House in such large numbers,” community leader Adapa Prasad told the publications Asian News International and DD News, India’s public broadcaster, on Tuesday reported a “vibrant Indian diaspora” celebrating outside of the White House ahead of Modi’s visit, which was later debunked by AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair. Zubair said the group was of vacationers from India on a tour of Washington D.C., and one man pictured is a manager from a Mumbai-based tourism company.
Further Reading
From Tesla CEO Elon Musk to astrophysicist Neil De Grasse Tyson: PM Narendra Modi meets a diverse group in the US (Forbes India)
In Hosting Modi, Biden Pushes Democracy Concerns to the Background (New York Times)
Biden will not ‘lecture’ Modi on human rights, White House says (Reuters)
BBC Offices Raided By Indian Tax Officials After Critical Modi Documentary—Prompting Concerns For Press Freedom (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/06/21/biden-courts-indias-modi-amid-battle-with-china-for-influence—despite-protests/