The much-delayed Entry/Exit System (EES) will be gradually rolled out across 29 European countries in the Schengen area across the next six months
From October 12, British tourists must provide fingerprints and photographs when first entering or exiting a Schengen area [stock image](Image: Getty Images)
UK holidaymakers are bracing for extended queues at European borders as fresh regulations kick in on October 12.
The long-awaited Entry/Exit System (EES) will be phased in across 29 European nations within the Schengen zone over the coming six months. The new system means British tourists must provide fingerprints and photographs when first entering or exiting the Schengen area. This creates a digital profile lasting three years.
Alongside the fresh EES procedures, Brits will still get their passports stamped, though this will eventually be phased out once EES becomes fully established.
Journalist Simon Calder described the Irish passport as a ‘superpower’ document(Image: Getty Images)
The European Union expects the EES to be “fully operational” by April 10 2026. Yet British travellers should prepare for lengthier border delays starting October 12, reports the Manchester Evening News.
Travel expert Simon Calder recently outlined the new regulations in The Independent, cautioning Brits about an ‘additional obstacle’ at EU frontiers. Though he pointed out that certain UK passengers hold a ‘superpower’ document that allows them to bypass border queues.
He noted that Britons holding an Irish passport should present this when journeying to Europe. In response to a query about which passports dual British-EU citizens should utilise, he advised: “If you have the wisdom and fortune to have an Irish passport, use that at all times.”
“It has a superpower no other document has: unfettered access to both the UK and the European Union, with no need to get an online permit in advance,” Simon continued.
The Irish government’s website states that if you or one of your parents were born on the island of Ireland before 2005, you can apply for an Irish passport without needing to apply for citizenship.
If you, or your parents, were born on the island of Ireland on or after 1 January 2005, your right to Irish citizenship depends on:
the parents’ citizenship at the time of the birth
the residency history of one of the parents before the birth
You can also apply for Irish citizenship by descent if your grandparent was born on the island of Ireland. Citizenship can also be acquired through naturalisation, which requires you to meet certain criteria such as legally living in Ireland for five years or being married or in a civil partnership with an Irish citizen.
According to the Irish government, a record-breaking 1,080,000 Irish passports were issued in 2022. The number of first-time passport applications from Northern Ireland and Great Britain was 100,000 out of over 1.15 million total applications received that year.
Calder, speaking about passport holders from other EU countries, advised: “For all other EU passports, register with the European document outbound (and show it when you arrive). Coming back, register the British document (and show it when you arrive).”
It was 2015 when Minhyuk of K-pop powerhouse group Monsta X first appeared at the KCON mainstage in L.A. Back then, baby-faced and bleached blond, he exhibited plenty of cheeky confidence.
Clad in black and white, he sported shorts emblazoned with the phrase “knock, knock,” a nod to the group’s hard-hitting debut single “Trespass.” It was the first time the rookie, only 21, was meeting his American fans onstage at what was then known as Staples Center, now Crypto.com arena.
Only three months after their debut, the then-seven-member outfit (singer Wonho amicably departed in 2019) already had fans holding up signs for them in the crowd.
Ten years later, Minhyuk, now 31 and only slightly less baby-faced, sits in a conference room at the Mondrian Hotel, where the group has a day lined up of press activities surrounding their return to KCON LA 2025, only now as headliners on Night 2 of the three-day-long festival last weekend of all things trendy in Korean pop culture.
Clad in a neutral-toned pinstripe collared shirt, he, along with his four bandmates, could be young executives at a business casual lunch. Only their toned physiques and rapper Joohoney’s punchy yellow hair give any signal of their pop star status.
Although its the start of a long day, you can tell they are enjoying being with each other, back in the swing of things . Typically quiet, dancer-singer Shownu quipped “Invest in Bitcoin!” to a question on what he would tell his debut self, and the members sometimes chatted among themselves a bit before who deciding who would answer.
While their return to KCON marked the first U.S. appearance of the group reunited after an extended break, their Connect X concert in Seoul a few weeks ago was their first time performing as a group in two years. “I was nervous,” Minhyuk says of those first moments back. “But when I was on the stage, I felt so alive.”
Tall and dark-haired with a quiet authority, singer Hyungwon adds, “Seeing the love of our parents’ eyes in that moment … and the look in the [fan’s eyes], it’s the same feeling as from before.”
Monsta X backstage at KCON.
(Monsta X)
Last month, they also made their first appearance at Waterbomb, South Korea’s signature summer music festival, where artists and audience alike get soaked and where Shownu went viral as he tore off his white T-shirt to reveal an impressively muscular torso.
“Everybody, all the members, care about their health and body right now, he says. We always try to keep fit and healthy.”
Memes and fan-cams aside, their focus on health rings poignant as the sixth member I.M, was unable to join the group this time due to a back injury. As the band’s most fluent English speaker, the rapper, lyricist and producer’s acerbic wit helped ground the group’s sound, and his team deeply feels his absence.
Monsta X represents a vanguard of artists whose strong group dynamics strain beyond the milestone that used to be a breaking point for past K-pop groups: South Korea’s mandatory military service.
The group’s return to KCON is especially significant not only because it heralds a new era for them, but they return to the festival that helped cement their star status in the United States and abroad.
Main vocalist Kihyun, whose powerful notes help cut through the group’s aggressive signature sound, said that first KCON in 2015 was one of their best memories as they were shocked by the audiences response.
“I want to feel that same feeling we had from our first performance tomorrow,” says Hyungwon about their return to KCON. Joohoney, the group’s main rapper, jumps in. “Back then, we did a meet-and-greet, and we had a stage performance together with Got7. We saw their signs in the crowd, but then we also saw signs for us, so we were very happy,” adding that in a full-circle moment, Jackson Wang, the breakout soloist from Got7, will be performing the same night with them.
Further underscoring their continued relevancy, Maggie Kang — director of the popular film “K-pop Demon Hunters — cited Monsta X as one of the inspirations for the film’s fictional group, Saja Boys. “We could kind of tell and could see that the music style and vibe in the movie is similar to Monsta X, but we didn’t know exactly. We are very thankful,” said Joohoney.
Shaney Hwang, marketing coordinator for CJ ENM America, the Korean conglomerate that puts on KCON, remembers attending the festival as a high school student in New York, tracking the group’s rise, later catching them on tour. “Personally, as someone who has always been watching K-pop, I do feel that Monsta X, compared to other groups [who debuted] around their time, made themselves very present to the U.S. fans whether it was from live performances such as at KCON LA in 2015 and ‘16 or even through music collaborations with Western artists such as French Montana and Gallant much earlier than other groups did.”
“I always thought they had great music,” she adds. “And now, it’s really special because it’s their 10th anniversary and we feel very honored for this to be such a full-circle moment.”
It’s a moment that led Monsta X fans to make KCON this year a priority. Over dinner in Koreatown the night before their performance, Ani Ash, from Texas, and her friend Choua Yang, a 45-year-old tech trainer from Green Bay, Wis., talked about their devotion to the group.
“I’m not really a K-pop person,” confesses Ash, 28. “But what drew me to them was their style. How they can switch different genres so easily and still keep their characteristics.” Both friends met online and run fan bases for the group.
“I’ve been a Monbebe since 2021,” says Yang, referring to the group’s fandom moniker, which combines their name and the French word bébé. “My daughters introduced me to K-pop, and one of them was trying to get me to like Monsta X. I think it was their vast discography and the diversity in their music that caught my attention. They’re mature men, especially compared to the newbies who are 20 years old. I just really like them, and I started hosting the fan base.”
Ash and Yang’s devotion speaks to the staying power of Monsta X, which is still adding new fans while nurturing older ones willing to grow alongside them and spend money and devote time to see them. And until they return to touring full-time (Minhyuk says perhaps in 2026), KCON was the one of the few places devotees could see the group reunited.
That devotion, a strong feature of K-pop, runs deep. Ash, for example, was inspired by Minhyuk — who paints in his spare time — to reignite her passion for art, leaving the medical field to become a Houston public school art teacher.
The crowd roared as Hyungwon and Shownu opened Saturday night’s performance of their sensual song “Love Me a Little” with more lyrical choreography than what the team itself is best known for.
Monsta X at KCON 2025.
(Konuk Ryu)
There was even more palpable excitement as a platform rose from the 360-degree stage to reveal the five performing members back triumphantly, all clad in sharp black suits with glittering accents.
After performing “Beautiful Liar,” the darkly EDM single off of their 2023 EP “Reason” and “Who Do You Love,” Joohoney shouted, “Everyone we’re back in L.A.!” before slipping into “Play it Cool” — their club hit featuring Steve Aoki — and ending with the Dream Stage version of the classic “The Gambler” where contest-winning Monbebes performed with them. “Make some noise for I.M!” Joohoney shouted at one point.
The group will be busy upon returning to Seoul as preparations are underway for a new album called “X,” releasing Sept. 1.
While all members participated in songwriting, it will also feature production from Compton-bred producer Dem Jointz, who has composed for Rihanna, Kanye West and Janet Jackson, as well as other prominent K-pop groups of recent years like EXO and aespa.
Careful not to release spoilers, they pondered the question of what kind of movie genre the upcoming project would fit into. “Um, horror?” One of them blurts out before others begin to chime in, laughing. “Romantic comedy?” Hyungwon jokes before they finally agree that sci-fi is probably the best fit.
Reached by email from Seoul, where he is recuperating, I.M also talked about the upcoming album. “It’s special to us because it shows a side of Monsta X we haven’t tried before. From the sound to the concept, we poured our hearts and ideas into every step of the way. We gave it our all and filled it with thanks to the fans who waited for us. I hope they can feel that when they listen.”
‘Numbers don’t lie,’ but certainly deceive in India. Behind every celebration of prosperity is a harsher reality of exclusion, injustice, and hunger. This isn’t simply economic inequality; it’s a catastrophe masquerading as progress. India’s economic narrative, which is frequently portrayed as one of “unstoppable growth” and technological dominance, begins to crack under scrutiny. Official numbers put India’s per capita income at roughly $2,800. But this figure, like the country’s projected image of a growing power, is misleading. When billionaires like Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani are excluded from the equation, the income level scarcely changes. However, excluding the top 1% and top 5% from the formula reduces the value to $1,730 and $1,130, respectively, which is lower than in some sub-Saharan African nations. What seems to be a statistical recalibration uncovers a more terrible truth: India’s progress is not merely unequal but fundamentally discriminatory.
This distortion is not an accounting oddity. It is an outcome of an economic approach that prioritizes accumulation over distribution. The sparkling pictures of India’s space missions, unicorn business enterprises, and diplomatic gatherings mask a harsher ground reality in which over 800 million Indians rely on free food rations for their survival. This is not a minor statistic; it is the distinguishing characteristic of India’s development trajectory.
The Illusion of Aggregate Growth
The illusion of aggregate growth has persisted in part because it serves a political function. Modern economic theory cautions against using averages in isolation. As Amartya Sen, a notable Indian economist, correctly cautioned, “Averages are often misleading when inequality is rampant.” This warning has been ignored in India’s policy settings, where GDP development has been used as a symbol of national pride, covering the erosion of basic human rights. This conflict between growing GDP and rising hunger demonstrates the decoupling of national wealth from human well-being, which John Rawls’ theory of justice as fairness would characterize as a failure of social institutions. Growth cannot be considered just if it fails to improve the lives of the poor citizens. In India, the increase is clearly benefiting the elites; the top 1% currently owns more than 40% of the country’s wealth. In any just society, such a concentration of resources would raise alarms. In India, it is hailed as a symbol of national achievement.
India’s K-Shaped Recovery and the “Trickle-Down” Myth
The COVID-19 epidemic indicated this structural disparity further, resulting in what economists refer to as a “K-shaped recovery.” The rich elite saw their fortunes increase dramatically, while low-income workers, daily wage laborers, and rural people saw widespread unemployment and pay collapse. With over 90% of India’s workers laboring in the informal sector, this was far from a small crisis; it was economic collapse camouflaged as resilience. Nonetheless, officials adhered to the flawed concept of trickle-down economics, providing corporate bailouts and tax breaks while ignoring health, education, and rural livelihoods. The Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has frequently warned that “trickle-down economics is a myth.” Inequality does not accelerate growth; rather, it slows it down. However, India continues to promote the wealthy through tax breaks, corporate bailouts, and lax laws, while insufficiently funding public health and education.
The Global Image vs. Domestic Realities
This internal difference is in sharp contrast to India’s self-proclaimed global reputation. In diplomatic circles, India is portrayed as a counterbalance to China, a technology powerhouse, and a rising climate leader. However, this is only a façade. Behind the glamour of moon landings and semiconductor ambitions is a country that houses about 33% of the world’s hungry children, according to UNICEF. These are not the features of a rising power. They are signs of a troubled society, not because of its objectives, but because of how it pursues them.
The gap between perception and reality is not novel. Partha Chatterjee, a political theorist, notably articulated the “politics of the governed,” in which the impoverished are regulated by governmental paternalism rather than empowered through structural transformation. The Indian state continues to create a narrative of modernity and strength for external consumption while depending on ration cards and token welfare measures to keep the populace calm. The elite are exalted, while the others are just administered.
A Colonial Continuity of Economic Extraction
India’s wealth inequality at present follows colonial extractive patterns. Dadabhai Naoroji’s “Drain Theory,” which stated that British colonization took India’s wealth without proper reinvestment, has eerie parallels in the present. Now, the corporate-financial elite, centered in metropolitan hubs such as Mumbai, Bangalore, and Delhi, act as internal colonists, enriching themselves while abusing workers and ignoring fundamental public services. India’s federal economic model exacerbates this split, as income remains concentrated in a few affluent states while significant portions of the country — from Bihar to Jharkhand — suffer from poverty, resulting in widespread internal migration and deepening social fragmentation.
Food Insecurity as a Political Choice
Food insecurity is at the root of this catastrophe, caused by policy failure rather than scarcity. India is a major producer of rice, wheat, and pulses internationally. Nonetheless, hunger endures on a massive scale. The Public Distribution System (PDS), while seemingly extensive on paper, is rife with corruption, exclusion mistakes, and inefficiencies. Access to food is still determined by social class, gender, and land ownership. In this perspective, hunger is not a natural calamity but a political decision. It is the unavoidable result of a system that refuses to transfer resources, defend the disadvantaged, or abolish entrenched privilege.
India’s fixation with GDP growth has evolved into an instrument of denial, a statistical mask worn by an elite class unable to confront the hardship that most Indians face on a daily basis. The World Bank may record billions of dollars in economic activity, but it does not include the girl child in rural Rajasthan who drops out of school owing to starvation or the farmer in Vidarbha who is driven to suicide by debt. India’s economic miracle, as frequently represented in Western media and diplomatic circles, is based on the purposeful marginalization of these people. Instead of correcting the failing paradigm, the Indian state has militarized it. Growth numbers are displayed at global conferences, while dissident voices—academics, journalists, and civil society—are repressed or labeled as “anti-national.” Instead of fixing the system, the state is cleaning up the truth. This is not development. This is deceit.
Conclusion
India’s economic model, lauded by its political elites and promoted to the world as the triumphant tale of the Global South, is in desperate need of scrutiny. India’s global image as a growing power is based on ethically and economically unsound assumptions. The sparkle of global conferences and billionaire meetings obscures a sobering reality: a country where the prosperity of a few masks the suffering of many. Real power comes from justice, equality, and dignity, not GDP stats or orbiting satellites. And unless India decides to raise its poor rather than just projecting its affluent, the mirage of prosperity will remain just that: a delusion.
