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India

Trump's America And The Grief Of An Indian Mother

Sunday vigil in Olathe, Kansas
Sunday vigil in Olathe, Kansas
Sruthi Gottipati

-Analysis-

It's every Indian mother's worst nightmare. Would the son she proudly sent abroad wind up in harm's way in a foreign land? Parvatha Vardhini's son reassured her that he was safe and secure in the U.S., even as hate crimes rose in the wake of Donald Trump's victory. After his body was flown back to the family in Hyderabad, and laid out in front of her for the last funeral rites today, Vardhini cautioned Indians in the U.S. to stick together.

"No other mother should meet with the tragedy I had met with," she said.

Vardhini's son Srinivas Kuchibhotla, a 32-year-old engineer, was shot dead in a Kansas bar last week. He had been drinking a beer with an Indian-American friend when a man walked up to them and asked what country they were from and whether they were in the U.S. illegally. The man was told to leave but later returned — with a gun. He shot Kuchibhotla dead. His friend was wounded.

The American Dream has long captured the imagination of Indian families. Middle-class parents don't go on impulsive shopping sprees or vacations abroad. They scrimp and save to send their kids to study in the U.S. When their children do finally depart, they pack homemade pickles in their suitcases and the whole family gathers at the airport to send them off.

Kuchibhotla appears to have been cut straight from that storyline. For a decade, he did all the right things to realize his family's dream. While he got his degree in electrical and electronic engineering, he worked as a teaching and research assistant to help pay for expenses. He was snapped up in the job market after graduation.

"He was very sharp. A top-of-his-class kind of guy," a former boss told The Kansas City Star. "He was the kind of employee every manager would want … He was a low-maintenance employee and did whatever was asked of him."

Kuchibhotla got married and recently bought a car for his dad with his salary. His family shone with pride. What Kuchibhotla didn't factor in was the ascendancy of Donald Trump, who painted an apocalyptic picture of the U.S. under attack by immigrants, who threatened the jobs and lives of ordinary Americans. As Trump's rhetoric energized the deepest, darkest prejudices in the U.S., Kuchibhotla's wife stayed awake at night worrying about their safety. He assured her they would be OK.

In the days after Kuchibhotla was killed, Trump, who typically dumps every passing thought on Twitter, was silent about the engineer's death.

At today's funeral in India, where the murder had been closely covered by local media, Vardhini was also thinking about her other son who'd also gone to live and and work in the U.S. "I will not allow my younger son to go back to the U.S. again. I want him and his family to return to Hyderabad for good."

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

What's Driving Chechen Fighters To The Frontlines Of Ukraine

Thousands of foreign soldiers are fighting alongside Ukraine. German daily Die Welt met a Chechen battalion to find out why they are fighting.

Photo of the Chechen Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion in Ukraine

Chechen Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion in Ukraine.

Alfred Hackensberger

KRAMATORSK — The house is full of soldiers. On the floor, there are wooden boxes filled with mountains of cartridges and ammunition belts for heavy machine guns. Dozens of hand grenades are lying around. Hanging on the wall are two anti-tank weapons.

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"These are from Spain," says the commanding officer, introducing himself as Maga. "Short for Make America Great Again," he adds with a laugh.

Only 29 years old, Maga is in charge of the Dudayev Chechen battalion, which has taken up quarters somewhere on the outskirts of the city of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine.

The commander appears calm and confident in the midst of the hustle and bustle of final preparations for the new mission in Bakhmut, only about 30 kilometers away. The Ukrainian army command has ordered the Chechen special forces unit to reinforce the town in the Donbas, which has been embattled for months.

Bakhmut, which used to have 70,000 inhabitants, is to be kept at all costs. It is already surrounded on three sides by Russian troops and can only be reached via a paved road and several tracks through the terrain. Day after day, artillery shells rain down on Ukrainian positions and the Russian infantry keeps launching new attacks.

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