India bridles at China’s growing presence in South Asia

In india as elsewhere, many fantasise about escaping to the beach in early January. Yet recent days have seen an unusual public debate about which beaches are acceptable and which, more to the point, are not. Politicians and Bollywood stars are richly praising India’s own island and coastal resorts. They are meanwhile urging people not to travel across the Indian Ocean to a traditionally hankered-after alternative: the Maldives. Some travel agents have stopped taking bookings to the archipelagic South Asian state.What is afoot? Earlier this month Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, paid a visit to the union territory of Lakshadweep, a tropical archipelago off the coast of the southern state of Kerala. Mr Modi praised the islands’ tourism potential and was pictured snorkelling against a backdrop of pristine—distinctly Maldives-like—white sands. This prompted three junior Maldivian ministers to take to social media with snarky comments about India’s supposedly inferior beaches and its prime minister. That angered Indian social-media users, who rallied to Lakshadweep’s and Mr Modi’s defence, and India’s government, which summoned the Maldives’ envoy in Delhi for a ticking-off.