Indian Government And Rihanna Engaged In Row

The Indian government and pop star Rihanna have become embroiled in an unlikely row, with New Delhi describing a tweet from the singer that drew global attention to India’s widespread farmers' protests as “sensationalist”.

On Tuesday evening, Rihanna shared an article by CNN to her 101 million Twitter followers with the caption “why aren’t we talking about this?! #FarmersProtest.”

Hundreds of thousands of farmers are occupying the streets surrounding New Delhi in the largest protests in global history.

They pose the first serious challenge to the rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi by demanding new agricultural bills - which they say will decimate their profits - are scrapped.

As the number of protesters continues to swell ahead of a nationwide strike on Saturday, the Indian authorities have increased security at three main protest sites on the outskirts of New Delhi, adding iron spikes, steel barricades and hundreds of riot police to repel the protesters.

With roughly half of Indians employed in agriculture, the farmers’ protests have enjoyed mass public support and Rihanna’s posts have been received mostly positively by Indians.

Rihanna’s tweet inspired other messages of support from other public figures for the farmers, including Greta Thunberg,much to the disdain of the Indian government.

A Google trend search shows a dramatic increase in searches for the popstar from within India, particularly from the states of Punjab and Haryana, where the majority of protesting farmers are from.

On Wednesday, the Indian government responded to Rihanna’s tweet with a firm response, aware it had raised the farmers’ concerns to an unprecedented global audience.