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From Our Own Correspondent: India: Religion meets politics in Ayodhya

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Indian Prime Minister Modi presides over the inaugural ceremony at Ram Mandir temple, Ayodhya, India

27/01/2024 GMT

India: Religion meets politics in Ayodhya

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, India: Religion meets politics in Ayodhya

The opening of a new temple may be a defining moment for the Modi era - and the nation

A defining moment as PM Modi opens a new temple, challenges for China over human rights at a UN session, questions over Bangladesh's democracy and a museum to Lenin in Finland

Pascale Harter introduces despatches, analysis and insight from BBC correspondents and writers around the world: in India, at a UN hearing in Geneva on China, in Bangladesh and inside an unusual museum in Finland. 

As India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, attended the first rites at the vast new Ram Mandir temple in Ayodhya, millions of  Hindus rejoiced. But there were also questions over the mix of religion and politics in the city - and about how far today's India is sticking to the secular principles of its constitution. Yogita Limaye talked to people all over the country about their reactions to the inaugural ceremony.

In Dhaka, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, faces very little pushback - either from the political opposition, which boycotted the most recent election, or from the media, which largely keep to her party's line. Samira Husain joined the press pack to ask some more pointed questions about the country's democracy.

Last week, the government of China faced global scrutiny over its human rights record - as ambassadors to the UN were invited to present their concerns at a UN session in Geneva. Michael Bristow was there to see what made it onto the record at this tightly-formatted meeting - and hear how the diplomats worded their views.

And: "welcome to Finland's most hated museum" - a former shrine to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, which Soviet guests once vied to visit. These days, Finnish views of the Russian past are changing - so the museum's director is reorganising the exhibits, as John Kampfner explains.

Producer: Polly Hope
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith
Production co-Ordinator: Gemma Ashman

(Photo: Indian Prime Minister Modi presides over the inaugural ceremony at Ram Mandir temple, Ayodhya, India. Credit: India Press Information Bureau handout/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

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