Latest news with #Indians'
Time of India
8 hours ago
- Time of India
59 destinations offer Indians visa-free access
India passport NEW DELHI: Indian passport has gained heft by jumping eight positions to be ranked 77th in the Henley Passport Index-2025. Indian passport holders now have visa-free or visa-on-arrival (VoA) access to 59 destinations. The jump this year comes after a five-place drop in 2024 over the previous year in this index - which ranks 199 countries based on the number of destinations their citizens can travel to without a prior visa. Two new destinations - Philippines and Sri Lanka - have been added to Indians' list this year which saw the country's spot rising from 85 in 2024 to 77 . In 2023, India was at the 80th spot. The most popular visa-free destinations for Indians include Malaysia, Indonesia, Maldives and Thailand.
San Francisco Chronicle
20 hours ago
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Trump's racist name games are straight out of a totalitarian playbook
At the beginning of any totalitarian regime, alteration of the past is a top priority, and President Donald Trump's first six months in office seem to be no exception. This week, Trump called for the team names of the Washington Commanders and the Cleveland Guardians to be restored to the Redskins and the Indians, complete with the resurrection of the old Indians' mascot/logo Chief Wahoo, a thoroughly racist caricature. 'The Washington 'Whatever's' should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team,' Trump wrote in a social media post that seemed designed to distract America's attention away from Jeffrey Epstein, adding, 'Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them. Times are different now than they were three or four years ago. We are a Country of passion and common sense. OWNERS, GET IT DONE!!!' The owners, of course, won't get it done. They know how that would play out after their multimillion-dollar rebranding efforts. As for Native Americans clamoring for going back in time, I'd like to see the polling on that assertion. Oh, wait, a 2020 poll of Native Americans by UC Berkeley and University of Michigan researchers found that half believed the name 'Redskins' offensive, while 65% said they found the 'tomahawk chop' stadium gesture at odds with, you know, not being a racist. No doubt Trump has conducted his own poll because he went further, vowing to block the Commanders from building a new stadium in the nation's capital if the team's owner refuses to make their racist name great again. That threat to billionaire Commanders owner Josh Harris — who also has a stake in the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers and the NHL's New Jersey Devils — comes as his football team is scheduled to move back to the District of Columbia and a new stadium in 2030. But after a decades-long pressure campaign that resulted in the 2021 name change, reverting to the old one will likely prove more difficult than repainting an end-zone logo. Trump is also very offended that the name of Cleveland's baseball team no longer offends so many people and is pressuring the owners of the team formerly known as the Indians to re-offend. So far, that doesn't seem likely. 'Not something I'm tracking or have been paying a lot of attention to, but I would say generally I understand that there are very different perspectives on the decision we made a few years ago,' Guardians President of Baseball Operations Chris Antonetti said. 'But obviously it's a decision we've made and we've gotten the opportunity to build the brand as the Guardians over the past four years and are excited about the future.' Trump's pressing the issue of sports team names is part of a larger rebranding offensive designed to take the country back to the bad old days. When Trump isn't threatening the NFL, MLB and network late-night talk show hosts, he's been busy erasing U.S. Army base names and renaming U.S. Navy ship names he doesn't like. After the George Floyd murder in 2020, Congress voted to change seven Army bases named after Confederate generals, most prominently Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Benning in Georgia. Braxton Bragg was regarded as one of the most incompetent rebel generals, but he happened to be from North Carolina, and Henry Louis Benning was a leading white supremacist who once said, 'If things are allowed to go on as they are … we will have black governors, black legislatures, black juries, black everything. Is it supposed that the white race will stand for that?' Our terribly clever secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, used a fascinatingly cute gambit to restore the base names: He found soldiers who had a connection to the bases while sharing their old names. Goodbye, Braxton Bragg, hello Roland Bragg, a World War II paratrooper. Sen. Angus King, the Independent from Maine, told Hegseth the bases were named for 'people who took up arms against their country on behalf of slavery,' which didn't seem to faze the former Fox News weekend analyst. 'There is a legacy, a connection' for older U.S. Army veterans, Hegseth countered, to which King responded that his answer and actions were 'an insult to the people of the United States.' Throw in the recent decision by Trump and Hegseth to change U.S. Navy ship names, most prominently those named after the late San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and the late civil rights icon, Rep. John Lewis, and the at-best thinly disguised pattern is laid bare. Want more? The Pentagon's pogrom/purge of alleged DEI promotion in its online presence and libraries initially wiped out any mention of Navajo Code talkers or the Tuskegee Airmen, a far greater affront than any sports franchise name. All of this adds up to more than a diversion from the Epstein case. If they do, we're history.
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Business Standard
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Datanomics: Indian students' dreams of studying abroad still in limbo
The recent increase in student visa application fees by Australia and the United States (US), coupled with the latter's restrictive visa issuance policies, may make it harder than before for Indian students to choose their dream destinations to study abroad. Blurring American dream Indians' share in the total F1 (student) visas issued by the US has nearly halved from 29.35 per cent in 2022-23 (FY23) to 15.65 per cent in the first eight months of FY25, marking a near 38 per cent year-on-year decline.
The Herald Scotland
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Cleveland Guardians respond to Trump about restoring Indians name
Nope. The dialog was back in the news Sunday, July 20, courtesy of President Donald Trump. Via a post on Trump's Truth Social, the president claimed that the Native American people want the names reverted back. "There is a big clamoring for this," wrote Trump. "Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them. Times are different now than they were three or four years ago." "The Washington "Whatever's" should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team. There is a big clamoring for this. Likewise, the Cleveland Indians, one of the six original baseball teams, with a storied past. Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them. Times are different now than they were three or four years ago. We are a Country of passion and common sense. OWNERS, GET IT DONE!!!" - Donald Trump via Truth Social Trump also expressed his own desire to see the names changed back, calling on each team's owners to "GET IT DONE!!!" However, despite the president's pleas, the Guardians seem uninterested in going back in time. Cleveland Guardians respond to Trump's comments In a meeting with reporters Sunday, Guardians' president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said that he was unaware of Trump's statements prior to the meeting and that changing the name back to the 'Indians' was "not something [he has been] tracking or [has] been paying a lot of attention to." "We've gotten the opportunity to build the brand as the Guardians over the last four years and are excited about the future," said Antonetti. Cleveland's PBO is obviously hinting at the idea that the team does not plan on returning to the Indians' moniker any time soon. Antonetti did note that he understands the different perspectives people may have on the name change, but did not provide any indication that the team plans on reverting to its former name. Trump's history with Cleveland baseball Trump has been involved with Cleveland's MLB franchise for over four decades at this point. The President even attempted to buy the team back in 1983, but his deal was eventually rejected. Since the name change, Trump has been adamant that the change was a mistake, claiming that the decision was made only as a means to be "politically correct" when it was first announced. During his election campaign in 2024, Trump continued expressing his discontent with the change. While speaking at a rally in Ohio, Trump compared the name 'Cleveland Guardians' to a group of people "in charge of a trust fund." COMMANDERS: Reveal alternate uniforms that nod to their Super Bowl glory Have the Washington Commanders made a statement? Not yet. That said, they likely will not be reverting to their former name either. Since new Commanders owner Josh Harris took control of the team in 2023, he has maintained a staunch stance that his team will not be returning to their former name. Harris has previously stated that the name has been "embraced by our team, by our culture, by our coaching staff," expressing a strong connection with the brand and looking to build a future with the organization as it currently is. That said, earlier this month, the Commanders unveiled an alternate uniform for the upcoming season that will take their title-starved fans back to the Joe Gibbs glory years. The Commanders are set to wear what is basically the same look the team had while reaching four Super Bowls between the 1982 and '91 seasons, winning the Lombardi Trophy three times during that span. Contributing: Nate Davis The USA TODAY app gets you to the heart of the news -- fast. Download for award-winning coverage, crosswords, audio storytelling, the eNewspaper and more.
Time of India
5 days ago
- Health
- Time of India
Ooh, Aah, Ouch? Billion-$ Market Feels Your Pain
Mumbai: Indians are increasingly popping over-the-counter pills, using sprays or rubbing in creams to soothe their aches and pains, adding more than a billion dollars to the pain management market over the past five years. The category is the biggest within the non-prescription segment, and has seen about five brands launched every week on average since the pandemic, industry executives said, citing Nielsen data. There were 1,552 brands -including Volini, Omnigel, Dolo and Saridon -to tackle the twinges in 2020; now, there are 2,771. Consumers are more attentive to alleviating any pain on a more immediate basis, said Shivam Puri, managing director at Cipla Health, which sells the biggest rubefacient brand, Omnigel. Rubefacient are gels and creams for topical application. "Rise of urbanisation and increase in chronic illnesses have led to the need for faster, more convenient formats that are accessible across platforms," said Puri. This is despite medical professionals advising caution on random use of painkillers. The pain relief category is often lifestyle-driven in urban markets, especially with gym and sports injuries. As a result, the market for analgesics (pain relief medication) and rubefacient more than doubled to Rs 15,905 crore as of May this year, from Rs 6,820 crore as of May 2020, growing at a compounded annual rate of 18%. This is three times faster than overall over-the-counter market growth, which rose at 6% CAGR to Rs 80,000 crore. Analgesics account for 75% of the pain medication market and within analgesics, paracetamol is the biggest contributor, according to data from market researcher PharmaTrac. Covid has changed Indians' views on pain management, said Sandeep Verma, head for consumer health business for South Asia at Bayer Pharmaceuticals, which sells Saridon. "A lot of Indians view taking pain relief medication as a sign of weakness or worry about becoming dependent on it. Covid made many of us more aware of how stress, exhaustion, and even mild but recurring pain can chip away at our wellbeing and productivity," he said. "More people are starting to understand that living with untreated pain impacts their quality of life." Experts said pain management medications are also used to treat inflammation and adjacent issues, widening the need for the pills. "The analgesic segment that is dominated by paracetamols has been growing at a steady rate of 10%. This is because paracetamol medications are taken alongside other conditions that could include arthritis, any other bacterial or viral infection," said Sheetal Sapale, vice president, commercial, at PharmaTrac. Nitin Kumar Sinha, consultant physician at Mumbai-based WeCare Wellness, said lifestyle-related problems - including rising stress levels, lack of sleep and increasing obesity - are reasons for increasing demand for pain medications.
