The furious debate over whether U.S. strikes obliterated Iran’s nuclear program or only delayed its progress toward being able to build a nuclear weapon by a few months skips over a key component in the equation: Iran’s political calculation.
If Iran were to make the decision to build a nuclear weapon, it would be betting that it can complete the job and establish deterrence before the U.S. and Israel intervene—through military action, economic pressure or diplomacy—to stop it.
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The Union cabinet on Tuesday approved ？1 trillion each for schemes to promote employment, as well as research, development, and innovation (RDI) in the country.
The employment-linked incentive (ELI) scheme, aimed at generating 35 million jobs in two years, will provide direct financial benefits up to ？15,000 to 19.2 million first-time employees, Union minister of information and broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw said.
“This overall encourages youth to look at formal wage-led jobs instead of part-time, gig or other informal means of livelihood. Coming at a time of reduced interest rates and income tax reduction at entry level, it should be both beneficial for youth to come into employment as well as have a lot more disposable income for consumption," noted Lohit Bhatia, president-workforce management at Quess Corp, one of India's largest staffing firms.
First-time employees are those who register with the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) for the first time. Employees with annual salaries up to ？1 lakh will be eligible.
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Establishments, which are registered with EPFO, will be required to hire at least two additional employees (for employers with less than 50 employees) or five additional employees (for employers with 50 or more employees), on a sustained basis for at least six months.
The benefits would be applicable to jobs created between 1 August 2025 and 31 July 2027. For the manufacturing sector, incentives will be extended to the 3rd and 4th years as well.
For an additional employee with an EPF base wage of up to ？10,000, the employer will receive up to ？1,000 proportionately. For an additional employee with an EPF base wage between ？10,000 and ？20,000, the employer will receive ？2000. Similarly, for an additional employee with an EPF base wage of over ？20,000 but under ？1 lakh, an employer will get ？3,000 as incentives.
The ELI scheme was originally mentioned in the FY25 budget as part of five schemes to facilitate employment, skilling and other opportunities.
A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that an employer in the non-manufacturing sector hiring 100 additional employees could receive up to ？72 lakh over two years, while a manufacturing sector employer could get ？1.44 crore over four years.
The industry welcomed the ELI scheme. "By incentivizing first-time workers, boosting manufacturing, and encouraging employer participation, it reflects smart, inclusive policymaking. Its emphasis on dignity, security, and formalization aligns deeply with industry aspirations, said Anish Shah, a former president of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Ficci).
Also Read | Switching jobs? Delhi High Court makes big observation on non-compete clause
“It tackles two of the biggest challenges in India’s labour market—youth unemployment and informal hiring," pointed out Kartik Narayan, chief executive officer at staffing firm TeamLease Services.
However, an HR consultant said that ？1 lakh annual salary amounts to about ？8,000 per month. "This amount often doesn’t meet the minimum wage bracket and the candidate has to be extremely unskilled. In a job market where the supply of skilled workforce is available, why would the company look for unskilled talent and then invest in them to see a return on their investment," the consultant said on the condition of anonymity.
Bino Paul, professor at the School of Management and Labour Studies at Tata Institute of Social Sciences said that the scheme has the potential to generate positive spillovers. "If the policy is governed constructively, it augments the productive employment opportunities. Thus, it will foster India's progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8, creating a symbiotic link between decent work and economic growth," he said.
According to Rahul Ahluwalia, founding director at Foundation of Economic Development, the scheme focuses on India's biggest asset—labour. "We have regulatory costs which often disincentivize businesses from hiring more. A push to add employees to the roster is likely to reduce that burden on businesses, but we must also cut regulatory costs so businesses can thrive on their own," Ahluwalia said.
The scheme is expected to fuel demand for labour, said Neeraj Hatekar, professor at the School of Development, Azim Premji University. "But demand for labour is derived demand, it comes from the rest of the economy. "If the rest of the economy does well, more people are employed."
The RDI scheme
The RDI scheme will encourage research in sunrise sectors as well as domains relevant for economic security, strategic purpose, and self-reliance. Its key purpose is to provide long-term financing or refinancing with long tenors at low or nil interest rates to spur private sector investment in RDI.
Mint reported on 16 April that the Centre was considering a $4-billion incentives scheme to promote the development of patents and design innovation in critical electronics. The programme is a part of the overall RDI scheme approved on Tuesday.
This comes at a time when India's gross expenditure on R&D has doubled from ？60,196 crore in 2010-11 to ？127,380 crore in 2020-21. However, the share of expenditure on R&D as a part of the country's total economic output has consistently fallen from about 0.83% in 2009-10 to 0.64% in 2020-21.
Ajai Chowdhry, chairman of industry body Epic Foundation and cofounder of HCL, said that domestic R&D investment “has long been a concern, remaining significantly lower than 2-5% invested by nations like the US, Japan, and China." The Centre said it will seek to boost the ratio of expenditure on R&D to India's total economic output—which fell to 0.64% in FY21, from 0.83% in FY10, echoing Chowdhry.
"The private sector's contribution has been particularly limited. The government's approval of the RDI scheme is to encourage the private sector to pick up strategic areas, and create products for both India and the global market. This fund will also enable translational research by the private sector. We need belief in our own capabilities, invest in secure and indigenous infrastructure, and become a product nation by leading with conviction, not dependency. The R&D fund will play a pivotal role in realizing this vision," he added.
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Ashok Chandak, president of fellow industry body India Electronics and Semiconductor Association, added that the fund can boost “high-impact R&D opportunities in semiconductors, electronics systems, and embedded technologies—enabling the creation of robust pipelines for product commercialization and deep-tech venture growth."
The scheme, and its ？1-trillion outlay, will be governed broadly by the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“The RDI scheme will have a two-tiered funding mechanism. At the first level, there will be a special purpose fund (SPF) established within the ANRF, which will act as the custodian of funds. From the SPF funds shall be allocated to a variety of second-level fund managers. This will be mainly in the form of long-term concessional loans," the statement added.
Sports policy
Vaishnaw said the new sports policy that Union cleared on Tuesday is aimed at elevating India to the top five rankings of all sporting nations. The policy will focus on scouting and nurturing talent, attracting international sports events to India, promoting sports manufacturing, and making sports a key part of the national education policy.
“There will also be leagues for different sports created under the policy, to make Indian sportspersons competitive," said Vaishnaw.
CINCINNATI—The first wave of immigrants to arrive in this hilltop neighborhood perched above the Ohio River were Germans who opened taverns, Catholic churches and schools.
More than 150 years later, immigrants from Guatemala are remaking East Price Hill, replacing empty storefronts on Warsaw Avenue, the main thoroughfare, with barbershops, taquerias and supermercados.
“We wouldn’t have a local economy if not for them holding it up," said Ashley Feist, commercial-real-estate director at Price Hill Will, a local nonprofit.
The public clash over the Trump administration’s sweeping deportations has centered on the economic and social fallout in big, Democratic-run cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, where President Trump has promised to focus his enforcement efforts. Yet deportations are also hitting less prominent places: smaller cities and neighborhoods across the Rust Belt, where economists say recent immigration has helped boost faltering economies and offset long-running population declines.
Over the past decade, immigrants, largely from Latin America, have moved into depressed, working-class urban neighborhoods in cities across the U.S., drawn by low rents and proximity to jobs. In recent weeks, cities including St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Buffalo, N.Y., were hit by immigration raids.
In Cincinnati, federal agents on May 31 showed up in the neighborhood and arrested four people, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. She said all four were in the U.S. illegally, including two who had public-intoxication and driving under the influence charges on their records. At least two people were arrested outside the Kroger supermarket on Warsaw Avenue, eyewitnesses said.
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Businesses in East Price Hill, including a small grocery store run by Guatemalan immigrants, have seen a drop-off in shoppers since recent ICE arrests in the community.
The arrests cast a shadow over the local economy. Restaurant tables emptied. Kitchen workers stayed home. Fruit vendors disappeared from the streets. The number of shoppers at stores shrank, and those who still went didn’t linger for long.
Federico Ventura, whose Guatemalan immigrant family runs a small grocery store in East Price Hill, said shoppers were slow to return. “They think any truck with tinted windows is ICE," he said.
When Ventura’s parents opened the store in the early 2000s, the neighborhood had few Latino residents, and its population was shrinking as middle-class families moved to the suburbs.
The foreclosure crisis that began in 2006 hit particularly hard. Many of the neighborhood’s stately old homes fell into disrepair and some were torn down, leaving the area pockmarked with empty lots. The remaining residents complained about rising crime. Out-of-state investors bought up hundreds of foreclosed houses and turned them into rentals.
Over the past decade, Latin American immigrants, many from Guatemala, helped temper East Price Hill’s economic decline. They came because of cheap housing, the neighborhood’s location near jobs in downtown Cincinnati and because some Guatemalans already lived in the area.
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Federico Ventura’s parents opened the small grocery store in East Price Hill in the early 2000s, when the neighborhood had few Latino residents.
Between 2010 and 2020, East Price Hill added close to 2,000 Hispanic residents, which helped keep the population nearly steady at around 15,000 as others departed, according to Census Bureau figures. That influx has accelerated since 2020, locals say. As older shops and restaurants closed, immigrants opened new ones, keeping Warsaw Avenue lively. The newcomers also filled crumbling apartment complexes, propping up the local real-estate market.
Tensions have flared along the way. The newcomers drove down apartment vacancies, contributing to rising rents that are a sore spot for longtime residents. In the 2024 presidential election, Ohio voted to elect Trump, who promised to close borders and deport immigrants. But Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, voted for Kamala Harris.
Barbara Rich, who works at an East Price Hill hardware store, said she feels like some immigrants haven’t become enmeshed enough in the community, including learning English. When locals staged a protest against the recent ICE arrests in early June, people driving by in a car stuck their middle fingers at the protesters, said Walter Vasquez, a neighborhood resident and missionary for a local religious organization, who witnessed the arrests at the supermarket.
Some immigrants, meanwhile, complain about crime. They also say nonimmigrant residents target them in robberies because immigrants tend to carry cash and are reluctant to approach police.
Around the Midwest, Pittsburgh’s Hispanic population roughly doubled between 2010 and 2023, according to census estimates. The number grew by 92% in Cincinnati and by 75% in Columbus, Ohio. This far outpaces Hispanic population growth throughout the U.S.
“The types of changes that have taken place in Price Hill have taken place in at least hundreds of neighborhoods in dozens of cities," said A.K. Sandoval-Strausz, a professor of history at Pennsylvania State University.
Many of these places are now sites of immigration raids. Authorities also arrested and deported a recent high-school graduate from Honduras in a different part of Cincinnati this month.
The East Price Hill arrests rattled a neighborhood where many newcomers are in the U.S. illegally but have managed to work. Immigration agents grabbed one man from Guatemala as he stopped at the supermarket on the way to a birthday party, said Vasquez, the neighborhood resident, who witnessed the arrest.
Locals are worried because immigration agents often use unmarked cars, making them hard to spot. “They might show up in a Prius," he said.
A neighborhood fruit vendor, an immigrant from Guatemala, said she used to sell 10 to 12 fruit cups a day. After the arrests that fell to one to three, and she worries about being able to pay her apartment rent.
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A fruit vendor from Guatemala said her business took a hit after the local immigration arrests.
At the Valle Verde restaurant, business declined around 50% after the arrests, and servers only make a fraction of what they used to in tips, said the owner, another Guatemalan immigrant. When customers call for pickup for dishes such as tacos and enchiladas, they sometimes ask if immigration agents are nearby, she said.
A mattress-shop owner said he recently asked his brother in his native Mauritania for $500 to cover a utility bill because business has plummeted.
Shaundale Green, who cuts hair at an East Price Hill barbershop, said the majority of his customers are Hispanic immigrants. Business had been good, he said on a recent weekday, pointing at the sign listing prices of $30 to $40 for a cut.
But fear was keeping many clients home, eating into his income. “They ain’t going out any more," Green said.
Write to Konrad Putzier at konrad.putzier@wsj.com
While Israel and the U.S. were bombing Iran’s nuclear sites, another battlefield emerged behind the scenes: the financial infrastructure that keeps Tehran connected to the world.
Israeli authorities, and a pro-Israeli hacking group called Predatory Sparrow, targeted financial organizations that Iranians use to move money and sidestep the U.S.-led economic blockade, according to Israeli officials and other people familiar with the efforts. U.S. sanctions, imposed off-and-on for decades due to Tehran’s nuclear program and support for Islamist groups, have aimed to cut Iran off from the international financial system.
Predatory Sparrow, which operates anonymously and posts updates of its activities on X, said this past week that it crippled Iran’s state-owned Bank Sepah, which services Iran’s armed forces and helps them pay suppliers abroad, knocking out its online banking services and cash machines. Iranian state media acknowledged the damage.
The group also breached Nobitex, Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, popular with locals for transferring money overseas. The hackers extracted about $100 million in funds and forced the platform to shut down, according to the exchange.
Iran’s government pulled the plug on much of the country’s online activities to prevent further attacks and keep a lid on dissent. Non-Iranian websites were blocked. Citizens were warned against using foreign phones or messaging platforms that it claimed could collect audio and location data for Israeli spies. Government officials were banned from using laptops and smartwatches.
Predatory Sparrow said the two hacks were directed against the “financial lifelines" of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the most powerful faction of Iran’s military that also controls swaths of the economy. “Noble people of Iran! Withdraw your funds before it is too late," it tweeted.
Both targeted companies remain hobbled. Nobitex said it faced serious challenges in restoring services and was aiming to relaunch trading this coming week. Some Bank Sepah users say online they still aren’t receiving deposits.
The group didn’t say if it was acting on behalf of Israeli authorities. “The group’s sophistication, target selection and geopolitical messaging fit the profile of an Israel-aligned, state-sponsored cyber actor," said Deddy Lavid, chief executive of Cyvers, a Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity firm.
Predatory Sparrow didn’t respond to requests for comment sent to the administrator of its Telegram group.
The cyberattacks hit an economy already battered by U.S. sanctions that bar the purchase of Iran’s oil or interactions with its banks. Iran’s economy is highly dependent on a select few trading partners, notably China. Annual inflation runs above 40%, according to the World Bank. A constant flight of skilled workers has also throttled Iran’s economic growth.
Israel confirmed a cease-fire with Iran on Tuesday. But cybersecurity experts and Israeli officials expect the cyberwarfare to continue. “Israel will likely keep launching precision cyberstrikes against the regime’s power centers," said Lavid.
Officials at Israel’s National Bureau for Counter-Terror Financing said they didn’t have information on links between Predatory Sparrow and Israeli authorities. They said Israel was broadly targeting the economic infrastructure that allowed Iran to finance its military and proxies, imposing sanctions earlier this month on its central bank and other banks used by the IRGC.
The NBCTF, which is overseen by the defense ministry, plans to issue orders to exchanges outside Iran to help it seize more of Nobitex’s crypto holdings. It has identified a further $150 million in funds held by Nobitex, the officials said.
Pro-Iran cyber groups have hit back, targeting Israeli government websites with denial-of-service attacks, in which hackers aim to overwhelm computers that route internet traffic with a flood of requests, and sending phishing messages to Israelis in a bid to compromise their phones. The Israel National Cyber Directorate said Iran’s cyberattacks hadn’t caused damage in recent weeks.
Paranoia swept through the Iranian population as the attacks, both physical and cyber, mounted. “It’s better to cut [the internet] off. Israel can see everything," said Mohammad Ghorbaniyan, a Tehran-based money changer whom the U.S. sanctioned several years ago for allegedly aiding Iranian hackers, an accusation he denies.
The Bank Sepah hack last Tuesday halted payments, including salaries owed to military retirees, according to Fars News Agency, which is controlled by the IRGC. Many of its cash machines stopped working. The U.S. Treasury Department said last year that Bank Sepah, which has branches on Iranian military bases, helps Iran’s defense ministry pay foreign suppliers via a sprawling shadow-banking network.
Nobitex went offline the next day. The Tehran-based crypto exchange has processed transactions in excess of about $22 billion for users since its 2017 launch, according to blockchain research firms and the officials from Israel’s NBCTF.
“This attack had political motives to create emotional distress and damage the Iranian people’s property," Nobitex’s chief executive, Amir Rad, said in a video posted on its Telegram channel.
As in Russia and other countries cut off from international finance, cryptocurrencies, in particular dollar-pegged stablecoins such as tether, have emerged as a vital workaround in Iran, providing a medium through which users can shift money between local and foreign banks.
Nobitex’s 11 million customers use the platform to swap Iranian rials for tether, which they can convert into other traditional currencies abroad. Rad has said on his LinkedIn account that Nobitex’s goal is to allow Iranians to trade crypto despite “the shadow of sanctions."
“Nobitex has been the main option for the Iranians to skip the sanctions," said Amit Levin, a former Israeli prosecutor and ex-investigator at the Binance crypto exchange who now advises companies on financial-crime compliance.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had also turned to Nobitex for international payments, according to the Israeli officials and blockchain researchers. Crypto analytics firm Elliptic has found that two IRGC operatives, whom the U.S. accused of conducting ransomware attacks on American companies, used Nobitex to make transfers.
Rad said he didn’t believe that the IRGC was moving money through Nobitex because he operated a transparent platform that was closely monitored.
Predatory Sparrow has been wreaking havoc on Iran since at least 2021. In earlier hacks, the group disabled gas-station payment systems across the country and triggered a fire at an Iranian steel plant.
For their operation against Nobitex, the hackers managed to obtain the keys for the exchange’s cryptocurrency wallets, which were held by key personnel within the company, said Rad.
Predatory Sparrow then “burned" the stolen $100 million by sending the tokens to other digital wallets the group itself couldn’t access. These wallets’ addresses, which are made up of long strings of numbers and letters, contained profane phrases like “F—IRGCterrorists."
Nobitex’s initial investigation into the breach indicated that Israel’s government had likely supported it, Rad said, though he declined to provide proof of his claim. He said Nobitex was a private, independent company with no affiliation to the Iranian state, including the IRGC.
Write to Angus Berwick at angus.berwick@wsj.com
Three years ago, Ibrahim Traoré was a junior army officer in Burkina Faso’s armed forces. Today, he has emerged as a surprising anti-Western hero preaching self-reliance and resilience with fans across Africa and beyond.
Since toppling the West African country’s previous military leader in 2022 and making himself president, Traoré has won the kind of glowing admiration from people across the continent that has eluded African leaders since the days of antiapartheid icon Nelson Mandela and the generation that led the independence struggles.
“Many Africans are disillusioned with the West," said Ayotunde Abiodun, an analyst with SBM Intelligence, a Nigeria-based geopolitical research consulting firm. Traoré, he said, has become the anti-imperialist face of that sentiment.
Russia has tried to court him, seeing him as a way to accelerate the decline of France’s influence across the arid countries of the Sahel, the wide band of land bordering the southern reaches of the Sahara.
But Traoré has his own agenda of reviving the Pan-African movements of the past. Whether he succeeds in putting Burkina Faso on a stronger footing and pushing back a long-running Islamist insurgency could influence what happens elsewhere across the region.
The 37-year-old appears to be genuinely popular as people across the region tire of a generation of aging leaders widely seen as corrupt and beholden to the West.
In April, thousands of Burkina Faso citizens poured into the streets of Ouagadougou, the capital city, in solidarity with Traoré after an alleged counter-counter-coup failed to oust him from office.
The protesters were also incensed by comments by Gen. Michael Langley, head of U.S. Africa Command, accusing Traoré of misusing the country’s gold reserves. Traoré partisans saw Langley’s comments as a pretext for Western intervention, and members of the African diaspora held solidarity marches to show their support for him.
In London, Traoré supporters held banners that read, “Hands off African resources, Hands off Ibrahim Traoré." In Jamaica, demonstrations took place outside the U.S. Embassy in Kingston, and on the north coast in Montego Bay, where protesters sang, played drums and hailed Traoré as a “Black liberator."
Motorized rickshaws, a common mode of transport among working people, display photos of the beret-wearing Traoré in Nairobi, a city on the opposite side of the continent.
Part of Traoré’s appeal comes from how he styles himself after his countryman and Pan-Africanist leader Thomas Sankara.
Often called “Africa’s Che Guevara," Sankara renamed the Republic of the Upper Volta as Burkina Faso, or “land of the upright people," and set about making the country more self-sufficient before he was assassinated in 1987. In taking a leaf out of his book, Traoré has revived interest in Sankara and his pan-Africanism. Last month, a newspaper published by the Nation of Islam, the Black religious and political movement of Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan, featured side-by-side photos of Traoré and Sankara on its front page.
Traoré primarily came to power on a promise to improve security, however.
As a captain, he ousted Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who had himself overthrown a civilian government eight months earlier. Both Traoré and Damiba had justified their actions by accusing their predecessors of failing to quell dual insurgencies by Islamists affiliated with al Qaeda and Islamic State.
Traoré has since surfed a wave of public discontent with France, the former colonial power, whose continued involvement in the political and economic lives of its former West African colonies created resentment, according to analysts.
In a popular move, Traoré expelled French troops, who had also been unable to tame the insurgencies. U.S. Green Berets, who had arrived to train local commandos shortly before the coup, suspended military aid after the putsch.
Donning the populist mantle, Traoré renegotiated international gold-mining contracts to guarantee the government a greater share of the revenue. He distributed tractors and cheap fertilizer to farmers and built factories, such as a tomato-processing plant and the country’s first gold refinery—efforts to keep value-added businesses at home.
A survey by Afrobarometer, a Ghana-based pollster, found last year that a majority of Burkina Faso’s people supported military rule as the best way to combat corrupt civilian elites. The survey showed that across the continent, more than half of Africans were willing to tolerate military intervention in politics if “elected leaders abuse power for their own ends." Two-thirds, however, rejected military rule as the default system of government.
Analysts say Traoré has gained strong support from the country’s rural poor by placing land under state control, nullifying previous land allocations that favored agribusinesses and recognizing customary rights of rural communities. Supporters see the measures as an attempt to undo decades of land policies that favored corporate investors over smallholder farmers, said Burkina Faso analyst Luc Damiba.
The new land policies have also gained him favor from young people, who have cheered his promise of land and agricultural training.
Analysts say sections of Burkina Faso’s urban, educated classes, including academics, journalists and civil？society activists, worry that Traoré doesn’t intend to return the country to elected civilian government. Traoré has postponed elections scheduled for last year until 2029, saying voting will take place when the military has wrestled enough territory from jihadists to allow all citizens to vote.
Like the African liberation leaders of the 1960s, Traoré has cozied up to Moscow.
Last month, he attended a Moscow parade celebrating the Soviet Union’s role in defeating Nazi Germany.
Russia has launched an influence operation in Burkina Faso involving pro-Moscow local radio stations as well as sports and musical events, says the nonprofit African Digital Democracy Observatory. Paid content lauding Traoré also began to appear across pro-Russian social-media platforms after he seized power, according to a 2023 report by the Paris-based watchdog All Eyes on Wagner.
“Allowing Burkinabé to sleep peacefully and live without hunger. These are his ambitions. This man deserves the greatest respect," read a caption on one Traoré portrait. The posts were disseminated widely across the continent by the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary force active in Africa, the watchdog said, though only a fifth of Burkina Faso’s population has internet access and only 12% use social media, limiting the domestic influence of online campaigns.
Russia has a clear interest in getting on Traoré’s good side. Hobbled by Western sanctions, it needs gold to shore up its struggling economy and has expanded its presence around West Africa through resource？for？security pacts, providing military trainers, mercenary units and media campaigns in exchange for mining rights.
Burkina Faso, a major gold producer, struck a deal with the Russian company Nordgold, which took an 85% stake in a gold-mining project. The government, which retained 15% of the ownership, expects the project to contribute $101 million to its coffers over an eight-year span.
However, unlike in countries like Mali or the Central African Republic, where Moscow’s mercenaries play a key role in protecting local regimes, Traoré has been reluctant to accept Russian boots on the ground. A 400-strong contingent of Russian mercenaries, who arrived in Ouagadougou with much fanfare last year, departed within three months, according to current and former French and Burkinabé officials.
“Traoré feels the army is the guarantor to preserve his country’s sovereignty," said a former minister in the Burkina Faso government. “Russian mercenaries are not his cup of tea."
Traoré’s Achilles’ heel, however, may be the very issue he used to sell his power grab: security.
Violence has gotten worse since the military seized power.
More than 17,000 people have been killed in insurgent violence since the takeover—more than triple the death toll from the final three years of civilian rule, according to an analysis by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, part of the Pentagon’s National Defense University. The center analyzed data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a U.S.-based nonprofit monitoring service.
In August, jihadists massacred hundreds of villagers in Barsalogho, a remote town in north-central Burkina Faso.
Rights groups report that the Burkina Faso military has committed extrajudicial killings and arbitrary detentions during Traoré’s time in power, and has used an emergency law to forcibly conscript civilians, including critics and activists, to quell dissent.
Burkina Faso officials didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“There’s a possibility for this symbolism and popular legitimacy that he enjoys right now to erode if there’s no improvement in the security situation and economic condition of the Burkina Faso people between now and then," said Abiodun, the Nigeria-based analyst.
Write to Caroline Kimeu at caroline.kimeu@wsj.com and Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com
New Delhi: The central government will hold talks with stakeholders to push the adoption of uniform tariffs for renewable energy, two people aware of the development said. Uniform renewable energy tariffs or URETs were first proposed by the Centre in October 2023, but haven’t been implemented yet as power is a concurrent subject and would require states to come on board.
The development assumes significance in the backdrop of delays in signing of agreements between power developers, procurement agencies and distribution companies (discoms), which has held back procurement of clean power, especially solar, by discoms even as its installed base has continued to grow.
Currently, about 30 giga watt (GW) worth of PPAs are lying unsigned, according to the people cited above. This had reached a high of 55GW last November, per a report from JM Financial.
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“Discoms have some reservations regarding URETs," said a government official, one of the two people mentioned above, requesting anonymity. “The Centre would hold stakeholder consultations soon to understand what exactly is their apprehension and what kind of changes and clarifications are required. After this, we would see more PPAs (power purchase agreements) being signed."
Renewable power developers sign PPAs with procurers such as Solar Energy Corp. of India (SECI), NTPC Ltd, NHPC Ltd, or Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited. These power buyers then sign power sale agreements (PSAs) with distribution companies or discoms to take the power to industry and homes.
Delays in signing agreements could make power from older projects unattractive, as newer ones with lower tariffs keep coming online.
Some options being considered by the Centre include getting prior commitments from states, which own the discoms, for PSAs before coming up with new bids, and halting new bids before a certain number of unsigned PPAs are signed.
This is how the URET would work. Grid Corporation of India Ltd, which would be the implementing agency for the mechanism, will set a uniform pooled tariff for power from central pools, which would be revised from time to time based on discovered tariffs from auctions.
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Then, intermediaries such as Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) and others will sell power from the central pool to all end procurers including discoms at the uniform tariff.
An official with a discom said on condition of anonymity that tariffs from several projects would be pooled to come up with a uniform tariff that would be revised from time to time with tariffs discovered for new projects.
But if tariffs for new projects are higher than the current uniform tariff, that would lift the uniform tariff as a whole. This in turn will increase cost for discoms even for ongoing power supply under older PPAs, the official said, adding that “the visibility of tariffs is an issue".
Queries emailed to the spokespersons of MNRE and SECI remained unanswered till press time.
The delay in signing PPAs comes at a time when the Centre has set a target for installing 50GW of green power every year till 2027-28. On 15 August last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated India's ambitious goal to achieve 500GW of non-fossil-based energy capacity by 2030.
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The Centre wants states to sign PPAs as it would also help them in meeting renewable power obligations (RPOs), which if not complied with, will attract penalties for discoms. Renewable power obligation (RPO) or renewable consumption Obligation (RCO) is a mechanism notified under the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Act, 2022 by which the designated consumers, largely discoms, are obliged to consume a certain percentage of electricity from eligible non-fossil sources, as a percentage of their total consumption of electricity.
Vikram V., vice president & co-group head for corporate ratings at Icra Ltd said demand, grid connectivity and cost are key factors for signing PPAs. “Implementation of uniform tariffs is expected to discourage discoms from postponing signing of PPAs in expectation of fall in tariffs, thereby taking care of the cost factor," he said.
Mint earlier reported about India’s depressed green energy price scenario weighing down the country’s installed and pipeline renewable merchant power capacity of around 3GW, which has entailed investments of around ？15,000 crore.
The development assumes significance given that solar power has been the mainstay of India’s green energy transition trajectory. India has an installed renewable energy capacity (including large hydro capacity) of 271.5GW, of which solar power accounts for 110.9GW. For perspective, the country’s total installed energy capacity including fossil sources is 472.46GW.