Zionist-Hindutva anti-Muslim alliance

India has opted to buy Israel's Spike anti-tank guided missile, a New Delhi defense ministry source told Reuters—evidently rejecting a rival US offer of Javelin missiles that Washington had lobbied hard to win. India is to purchase at least 8,000 Spike missiles and more than 300 launchers in a deal worth 32 billion rupees ($525 million), the source said after a meeting of India's Defense Acquisition Council. Spike beat out the Javelin weapons system, built by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had pitched during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Washington last month. (Reuters, Oct. 25)

Modi also met with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in New York, where they discussed "the danger of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, and the threat posed by Islamic terrorism around the world." (JP, Sept. 29)

In reporting these developments, the Revolutionary Frontlines website headlines: "Netanyahu-Modi Forging a Global Zionist-Hindutva anti-Muslim alliance." We have also noted the Tel Aviv-Delhi anti-terror alignment, forged by the perceived common struggle against jihadism. But this of course does not preclude a strong anti-Semitic element to Modi's ruling ideology of Hindutva, given its fascist legacy.

India-US nuclear deal —and deregulation

The new Delhi-Washington deal allowing US companies to supply India with "civilian" nuclear technology comes amid a push by the BJP to amend the Nuclear Liability Act, freeing the industry from damages or compensation in the event of accident. (BBC News, Al Jazeera, Reuters) Stepts toward US-India nuclear cooperation began 10 years ago, and are clearly related to the regional arms race, official fictions aside.