Indian brands tap heritage to boost sales after Prada 'sandal scandal'
MUMBAI/MILAN (REUTERS)Indian footwear sellers and artisans are tapping into national sentiment following the Prada 'sandal scandal' in a bid to boost sales of ethnic slippers with history dating back to the 12th century, and in hopes of reviving a struggling craft.Sales are surging over the past week for the 'Kolhapuri' sandals that have garnered global attention after Prada sparked a controversy by showcasing similar designs in Milan without initially crediting the footwear's origins.After viral photos from a fashion show drew criticism from Indian artisans who make the sandals - named after a historic city in Maharashtra state - Prada was forced to acknowledge that its new open-toe footwear was inspired by ancient Indian designs.Social media has been abuzz in recent days with criticism and sarcastic memes, with politicians, artisans and a trade body demanding due credit to Indian heritage.Prada has said it will arrange follow-up meetings with artisans. In a statement to Reuters on Tuesday, it added the Italian group intends to make the sandals in India in collaboration with local manufacturers, if it commercialises them.Prada does not have a retail store in India and its products are usually reserved for the super rich - its men's leather sandals start retailing at $844, while Kolhapuris can be priced as low as $12.
But linking of the Prada name to the Kolhapuri sandals, which are made by around 7,000 artisans, is providing a business opportunity in India.
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Middle East Eye
7 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
Israel's war on Gaza has exposed 'deep divide' within Brics, experts say
As Brics gears up for its annual summit in Rio de Janeiro next week, the group's reluctance to mobilise against Israel's war on Gaza has left a gaping hole in its credibility as an institution purportedly meant to represent the Global South, experts and scholars have said. The failure of Brics to take a bold stance and build consensus in addressing a perilous global climate involving multiple wars and an escalating crisis in the Middle East - including Israel's unprovoked attack on Iran, a member of Brics - illustrates the limitations of the grouping and a structural inability to pose a serious challenge to the US-led world order, the scholars said. Since its inception in 2009, Brics has been touted as an attempt to consolidate economic cooperation as well as reform the international system to better serve the interests of developing economies. Its success has been, at best, patchy, with the group being dogged by internal contradictions and competing member interests that have only appeared to deepen over the past decade. Next week's summit in Rio, starting on 6 July, is already a diluted affair, with both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping expected to skip the event for reasons that perfectly encapsulate the ambivalence surrounding both the efficacy as well as the political posturing of the bloc itself. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters With Brazil a signatory to the International Criminal Court and compelled to arrest Putin, the Russian leader decided he would join the summit online rather than turn the event into a diplomatic headache that both countries would rather avoid. Likewise, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi also invited for a state visit to Brazil, the optics of the Indian premier being serenaded on the sidelines of a Brics summit reportedly prompted the Chinese leader to downgrade the importance of the gathering by sending his prime minister instead. 'If Brics' goal is seen as creating an alternative center of political and economic power, Gaza has revealed a deep divide within the organisation' - Somdeep Sen, University of Pretoria As a result, not much is expected to come of the summit. "My feeling is that this summit will simply focus on keeping things chugging along, so to speak, without any major consideration or targeted language in the outcome documents focusing on the big-ticket, geopolitical issues of the day," Priyal Singh, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, told Middle East Eye. Other observers, like Farwa Aamer, director of South Asia Initiatives at the DC-based Asia Society Policy Institute, described Xi Jinping's decision to pull out of the event as a significant and missed opportunity for Beijing and Delhi to speak face-to-face. The absence of Xi Jinping and Putin would also mean that Modi would be the most prominent leader at the summit, which brings about its own set of challenges. India and Brics As one of the core members of Brics, Delhi has been foundational to the development of the collective. It has also leveraged its decade-old position in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and now Brics, as well as its proximity to western powers through its growing economy, to stake a claim as a leader of the Global South and an interlocutor with the West. But under Modi, India has increasingly moved closer to the US, with observers noting that Delhi has sought to clarify that it sees Brics as an economic rather than a geopolitical project. Delhi has also been seen as insistent on both slowing the expansion of Brics as a means to halt Chinese influence over new members already within its sphere of influence and, therefore, temper what is being interpreted as a group geared to take on western hegemony. Whereas there has been significant talk of Brics launching its own currency to replace the US dollar, India has shown it has no interest in doing so, opting instead to champion trade among Brics members via their national currencies. But it's the question of Israel's war on Gaza and the inability of the group to provide leadership to the Global South that has showcased the weakness of the collective. "If Brics' goal is seen as creating an alternative centre of political and economic power, Gaza has revealed a deep divide within the organisation," Somdeep Sen, a research associate at the Centre for Asian Studies in Africa at the University of Pretoria, told MEE. Whereas South Africa has led a case of genocide at the International Court of Justice, and Brics has supported the case as a group, the only other member countries to sign on are Brazil and Egypt. On the other end of the spectrum, Delhi has emerged as one of Israel's biggest defenders since 7 October 2023, after the Hamas-led attacks on Israel. India has also sent weapons to Israel for its war on Gaza, including combat drones and AI weapons, construction workers to replace Palestinian workers, and has refused to endorse an arms embargo on Israel. Delhi's role has even prompted some observers to advise Washington to consider the Brics as a partner instead of an adversary. "Though Brics contains US rivals Russia and China, it also counts as its members Washington's partner states such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, and UAE, which have their own interests different from Moscow and Beijing," Sarang Shidor from the Quincy Institute said this week. Shidor added that Brics could actually help "moderate" China and Russia. But Patrick Bond, from the University of Johannesburg, says it's not just a select few countries that are closer to the US than they would actually like to admit. He told MEE that efforts to valorise Brics as posing weighty opposition to western hegemony detract from the fact that every Brics nation, besides Iran, was economically benefiting from Israel's military-industrial complex. Bond says that while there was a global call for an arms embargo and a halt to economic trade with Israel, Brazilian, Russian and South African companies were still exporting energy to Israel, while DJI, the Chinese state-owned company, was still selling drones to the Israeli military. Moreover, Chinese and Indian companies were involved in the functioning of Israeli ports where weapons and resources were being received. Structural challenges Singh, from the ISS, says that despite the failures, Brics has managed to establish possibly the world's preeminent "mini-lateral" platform amongst countries from the Global South to coordinate a response to the western-led international order. "For some countries, notably South Africa, Brics is also seen as a critical foreign policy component in advancing its 'South-South' agenda, which aims to develop deeper bilateral relations with countries from the Global South based on common values and shared historical experiences," Singh adds. But Singh acknowledges that this agenda has struggled to take shape, by his estimate, because of the inclusion of new initiatives that have detracted from what he describes as the core effort of refining a common agenda towards tackling the international governance system and international financial institutions. In other words, the problem with Brics is structural. Can the Brics end US hegemony in the Middle East? Read More » Whereas the group has issued a call for a ceasefire as well as civilian protection in Gaza, where over 56,000 people have been killed, none of these collective decisions are in any way binding on individual states and therefore have had no effect on individual states' foreign policy objectives. It is "this variance" and "competing interests" between states, Singh says, that keeps the Brics from pursuing greater institutionalisation in the form of either a permanent secretariat or legally binding summit decisions. The contradictions and lack of collective action have left scholars like Sen with a deep sense of cynicism over Brics as a unit. "With Russia facing global isolation, India led by a far-right government pursuing its own interests with little interest in pursuing a collective Brics vision, we can expect a severe weakening of the organisation," Sen said. However, Singh notes that where the group does face the possibility of collapsing under the 'collective weight of its contractions,' he says that the grouping is still likely to stand and continue to have a role, even if only symbolically. "I think its utility, at a symbolic level at the very least, cannot be understated - not just for India or South Africa - but for all five core members," Singh says. "The grouping is essentially a vital component of each of the core members' foreign policy commitments as it relates to concepts and ideas surrounding South-South cooperation, progressive internationalism, and strategic non-alignment. "While these are not necessarily individual common undercurrents for each of the core members, there are nonetheless elements of these that weave themselves into the international relations of all members, making Brics a particularly compelling grouping to remain committed to." Additional research by Amber Rahman.
Al Etihad
11 hours ago
- Al Etihad
Trump says US will start talks with China on TikTok deal this week
5 July 2025 08:32 AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters)US President Donald Trump said on Friday he will start talking to China on Monday or Tuesday about a possible TikTok said the United States "pretty much" has a deal on the sale of the TikTok short-video app."I think we're gonna start Monday or to China, perhaps President Xi or one of his representatives, but we would we pretty much have a deal," Trump told reporters on Air Force month, Trump extended to September 17 a deadline for China-based ByteDance to divest the US assets of TikTok.A deal had been in the works this spring to spin off TikTok's US operations into a new US-based firm, majority-owned and operated by US investors, but it was put on hold after China indicated it would not approve it following Trump's announcements of steep tariffs on Chinese said the United States will probably have to get a deal approved by China. When asked how confident he was that China would agree to a deal, he said, "I'm not confident, but I think so. President Xi and I have a great relationship, and I think it's good for them. I think the deal is good for China and it's good for us."
Gulf Today
a day ago
- Gulf Today
Russia first country to recognise Taliban govt
Afghanistan's government said on Thursday that Russia had become the first country to officially recognise its rule, calling it a "brave decision". The Taliban swept back to power in 2021 after ousting the foreign-backed government and have imposed an austere version of Islamic law. They have keenly sought official international recognition and investment, as the country recovers from four decades of war, including the Soviet invasion from 1979 to 1989. The announcement was made after Afghanistan's Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi met Russia's ambassador to Afghanistan, Dmitry Zhirnov, in Kabul on Thursday. "This brave decision will be an example for others... Now that the process of recognition has started, Russia was ahead of everyone," Muttaqi said in a video of the meeting on X. The flag of Afghanistan flutters at its embassy in Moscow on Friday. Reuters "Russia is the first country which has officially recognised the Islamic Emirate," Taliban foreign ministry spokesman Zia Ahmad Takal told AFP, using the government's name for their administration. Muttaqi said it was "a new phase of positive relations, mutual respect, and constructive engagement", the foreign ministry posted on X. Russia's foreign ministry added on Telegram: "We believe that the act of official recognition of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will boost the development of productive bilateral cooperation between our countries in several areas." It highlighted potential "commercial and economic" cooperation in "energy, transportation, agriculture and infrastructure". 'Fight terrorism' The ministry said that Moscow hoped to continue helping Kabul "reinforce regional security and fight against the threats of terrorism and drug-trafficking". Moscow has taken recent steps to normalise relations with the Taliban authorities, removing them from a list of "terrorist organisations" in April and accepting a Taliban ambassador in Kabul. In July 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the Taliban "allies in the fight against terrorism". Russia was the first country to open a business representative office in Kabul after the Taliban takeover, and has announced plans to use Afghanistan as a transit hub for gas heading to Southeast Asia. 'Allies' Only Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates recognised the Taliban during their first stint in power from 1996 to 2001. This time, multiple other states, including China and Pakistan, have accepted Taliban ambassadors in their capitals, but have not officially recognised the Islamic Emirate since the end of the then-insurgency's two-decade war with US-led NATO troops. There has been limited but growing engagement with the Taliban authorities, particularly from regional neighbours, but also major global players China and Russia. China on Friday said it welcomed Russia's decision. An official gestures next to the flag of Afghanistan as he stands on the balcony of the Afghan embassy in Moscow on July 4, 2025. AFP "As a traditional friendly neighbour of Afghanistan, the Chinese side has always believed that Afghanistan should not be excluded from the international community," foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said. However, restrictions on women and girls, barring them from education and squeezing them from public life, have been key sticking points for Western nations. Multiple Afghan women activists were quick to condemn Russia's recognition. The move "legitimises a regime that bans girls from education, enforces public floggings, and shelters UN-sanctioned terrorists", said Mariam Solaimankhil, former member of Afghanistan's parliament. "The move signals that strategic interests will always outweigh human rights and international law." Senior Taliban figures remain under international sanctions, including by the United Nations. Another former MP in Kabul, Fawzia Koofi, said any recognition of the Taliban "will not bring peace it will legitimise impunity" and "risk endangering not just the people of Afghanistan, but also global security". Agence France-Presse
