SMW 2019: The Guardian session 2

India's mammoth elections are now under way, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi widely expected to win a third term. Since coming to power in 2014, Modi has expanded subsidy programmes for the poor and women.

A world record of 969 million citizens are called to the polls for what some see as a referendum on one man. India is about to embark on the world's biggest election, staggered over seven weeks, with Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP expected to extend its solid lead in parliament. Modi has been pointing to a decade of unprecedented growth and power for a nation courted by the West and beyond.

India's mammoth elections are now under way, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi widely expected to win a third term. Since coming to power in 2014, Modi has expanded subsidy programmes for the poor and women. These programmes include measures like equipping homes with butane gas by offering free cylinders or distributing free food rations. Some 60 percent of the population benefits from Modi’s food distribution scheme, which he has pledged to renew for another five years. Another success story is the nationwide rollout of digital payment services. Meanwhile, critics say the prime minister is eroding democracy by targeting opposition parties and controlling the media.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, Iran fired hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel in an unprecedented strike launched directly from Iranian territory. Almost all of the drones, rockets and cruise missiles launched by Iran were intercepted by Israeli air defenses with the help of the US, UK, and several Arab countries.

The Croatian city of Vukovar, on the banks of the Danube, has a painful past. Located on the border with Serbia, it was the scene of the first major battle in the 1990s Balkan wars. Four years before the genocide in Srebrenica and eight years before the war in Kosovo, Vukovar was the first city in the former Yugoslavia to suffer ethnic cleansing, in 1991. More than 30 years later, reconciliation between local Serbs and Croats is hindered by impunity for war crimes and the inability to agree on a common version of events.

The country's ruling junta is stepping up cooperation with Moscow, after expelling French troops last year. Also in the programme, at least three people have been killed in a shootout between militiamen and police in the Ethiopian capital. Among the dead are fighters from a rebel militia known as Fano. Plus, the art of remembering: painters in Rwanda are keeping the memory of genocide victims alive by drawing their inspiration from photographs.