Category Archives: South and Central Asia

‘India’s soul at stake’: West Bengalis vote in divisive election

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Tensions between Muslims and Hindus high as Modi’s BJP shows it could win state for first time

In the sleepy, swampy surroundings of Nandigram, West Bengal, where mango and coconut trees grow in abundance, bicycles meander down dusty lanes and ponds fester with green algae, a vicious political showdown has been brewing.

West Bengal, one of India’s most populous states, will begin voting in its elections on Saturday to elect its state government. The significance of the poll, however, spreads far beyond the state’s borders. “The soul of not just Bengal but India is at stake,” said Malay Tewari, a Bengali social activist.

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Diary of a Myanmar medic: ‘I learned to treat gunshot wounds on YouTube’

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A doctor who provides treatment to protesters injured by the military describes the daily violence and trauma of post-coup Myanmar

A doctor who provides treatment to protesters wounded by the army and police has described a week in the turmoil of the post-coup Myanmar.

When the military coup happened, I joined a group of medics providing treatment to protesters. Every day is a risky day for us. I may be captured, I may be shot dead. We don’t have bullet-proof vests. We have only a waistcoat and a stethoscope. Our ambulance has been shot at twice before; we just had to get out and run.

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‘Bangladesh has come a long way’: people of Dhaka on half a century of independence

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A rickshaw rider, a domestic worker, a student and a photographer on how their lives have changed

Habibur Rahman, 48, rickshaw rider

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The making of a megacity: how Dhaka transformed in 50 years of Bangladesh

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In the half century since independence, the capital has grown from peaceful town to economic hub. But does it live up to the dreams of those still flocking to work there?

On the banks of the Buriganga, Old Dhaka’s boatmen only ever rest a moment before making their return journey, endlessly ferrying passengers back and forth across the river.

They pick them up at the Sadarghat docks, the historical trading hub that helped build the city, and row them towards the sprawling suburbs that have crept across what used to be open farmland two decades ago.

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Delhi reportedly halts AstraZeneca Covid vaccine exports as cases soar

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Temporary hold put on exports of vaccines by Serum Institute of India to meet demand at home

Delhi has reportedly put a temporary hold on all major exports of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India (SII) to meet demand at home as infections surge.

The move, first reported by Reuters, will affect supplies to the Gavi/WHO-backed Covax vaccine-sharing facility through which more than 180 countries are expected to get doses, one of the sources said.

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UN resolution hailed as ‘crucial turning point’ for victims of Sri Lanka civil war

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UK-led action ramps up scrutiny of the regime against a backdrop of worsening human rights abuses

Civil rights groups have welcomed a UK-led UN resolution on Sri Lanka as a “crucial turning point for justice” for victims of the country’s nearly 30-year-long conflict.

The resolution, which ramps up international monitoring and scrutiny of the country, was passed on Tuesday by the human rights council after the UN high commissioner for human rights warned Sri Lanka could rapidly descend into violence unless decisive international action was taken. Michelle Bachelet expressed alarm over “worrying trends” in the country since President Gotabaya Rajapaksa took office in 2019 and last month told the human rights council the country had “closed the door” on ending impunity for past abuses.

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‘I’ve lost everything once again’: Rohingya recount horror of Cox’s Bazar blaze

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Refugees caught up in the deadly blaze describe panic and despair after fire tore through the Balukhali area on Monday

Marium Khatun, 40, was feeding her 10-month-old son at home when she first saw the fire and smoke nearby. Realising a huge blaze was ripping through the Cox’s Bazar refugee camp just metres from her two-room shack, she panicked.

“I suddenly noticed people were running, scattered on the road in front of my house. I came to the door and saw this huge fire around 30 metres (100ft) away from my house. I couldn’t think straight.

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Seven-year-old girl killed in Myanmar after security forces open fire

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Girl was shot in her home and is youngest victim so far in crackdown against opposition to military coup

A seven-year-old girl was killed in her home when security forces opened fire in Myanmar’s second city Mandalay, becoming the youngest victim so far in a crackdown against opposition to last month’s military coup.

The ruling junta accused pro-democracy protesters of arson and violence during the weeks of unrest, and said it would use the least force possible to quell the daily demonstrations.

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Hundreds of people missing after Rohingya refugee camp fire

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At least 15 people killed as blaze spread across Bangladesh camp of about 124,000 refugees from Myanmar

Hundreds of people are missing with at least 15 confirmed dead, including three children, after a fire tore through a camp for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.

The toll was exacerbated by barbed wire fencing that caged refuges into areas of the sprawling Balukhali camp that were going up in flames, aid workers said.

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Hundreds of people missing after fire in Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh – video

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At least 15 people have been killed and another 400 are missing after a fire tore through Balukhali camp near Cox’s Bazar late on Monday. More than 17,000 shelters were destroyed, leaving 45,000 people displaced. Emergency services, volunteers and Red Cross staff worked for several hours to control the blaze. The camp houses about 124,000 people, although the surrounding area shelters approximately 1 million Rohingya refugees

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Bangladesh: ‘massive’ fire in Rohingya refugee camps forces 20,000 to flee

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  • 1 million who fled Myanmar live in camps in Cox’s Bazar
  • No reports of deaths or injuries so far

At least 20,000 Rohingya have fled a huge blaze engulfing shanty homes at refugee camps in south-eastern Bangladesh, officials said on Monday, in the third fire to hit the settlements in four days.

Nearly 1 million of the Muslim minority from Myanmar live in cramped and squalid conditions at the camps in the Cox’s Bazar district, with many fleeing a military crackdown in their homeland in 2017.

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US defense secretary Austin visits Afghanistan as exit deadline looms

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  • Surprise visit and meeting with President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul
  • Trip comes ahead of 1 May deadline to bring US troops home

Lloyd Austin, the US secretary of defense, made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Sunday, meeting President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul.

Related: Afghan peace summit includes just one female delegate

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Myanmar security forces kill eight anti-coup protesters, say local media reports

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Deaths would bring the total to 220 since 1 February coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi

Myanmar security forces opened fire on demonstrators against a military coup in the central town of Aungban on Friday, killing eight people, according to a local news outlet.

Seven people were killed in the town and one wounded person died after being taken to hospital in the nearby town of Kalaw, the Myanmar Now news portal said, citing Aungban’s funerary service.

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‘The best cops’: Indian state recruits its first transgender police officers

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The 13 new constables have overcome society’s prejudice to win a place at Chhattisgarh’s training academy

The top police officer in Chhattisgarh state, Durgesh Awasthi, has nothing but praise for his new recruits. He suspects, he says, some of them will prove to be “the best cops” the force has ever enlisted.

“They are sensitive, have a high emotional quotient and know not just how the other half lives but what it’s like being on the other side of the law,” said Awasthi.

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Why home-produced Covid vaccine hasn’t helped India, Russia and China rollouts

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Challenge of reaching vast, far-flung populations is combined with a lack of public interest

The day India started coronavirus vaccinations, Amit Mehra’s name was on the priority list. But he never made an appointment. “I’m not inclined to get vaccinated just because it’s available,” says the 47-year-old Delhi hospital worker.

Two and a half thousand miles away, strolling past a popup inoculation centre near Red Square in Moscow, Magomed Zurabov is similarly reluctant. Suspicious that the pandemic was deliberately engineered, he has no intention of being vaccinated, he says. Instead, he is “taking the necessary precautions”: wearing a mask and using disinfectant.

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Mass funerals held as Myanmar coup death toll revised up to 149

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Hundreds of mourners gather in townships across Yangon after dozens of people were killed in recent days

At least 149 people have been killed in Myanmar since the 1 February coup, including five in custody, a UN human rights official has said, as mass funerals were held for dozens of those shot dead by security forces in recent days.

The revised estimate of the death toll follows the bloodiest day in the six weeks since the military’s takeover, with 74 protesters killed on Sunday followed by 20 people the next day.

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‘Music is my life’: ban on schoolgirls singing in Afghanistan met with protest

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Government appears to backtrack on decree after women take to social media to sing in defiance under #IAmMySong hashtag

Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education appears to be backtracking on a decision to impose a nationwide singing ban on schoolgirls.

In a letter to school boards last week, which was leaked to the media, Kabul’s Education Department said girls aged 12 and above would no longer be able to sing at public events, unless the events were attended solely by women. The letter also stipulated that girls couldn’t be trained by a male music teacher.

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Why Britain is tilting to the Indo-Pacific region

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Critics warn of imperial fantasy but the economic and political forces pulling the UK back to the region are real

Some will call it a tilt, others a rebalancing and yet others a pivot but, either way, the new big idea due to emerge from the government’s foreign and defence policy review on Tuesday will be the importance of the Indo-Pacific region – a British return east of Suez more than 50 years after the then defence secretary Denis Healey announced the UK’s cash-strapped retreat in 1968.

Boris Johnson and his admirals are billing the focus on a zone stretching through some of the world’s most vital seaways east from India to Japan and south from China to Australia as Britain stepping out in the world after 47 years locked in the EU’s protectionist cupboard. Others warn Johnson is indulging a hubristic and militarily dangerous imperial fantasy.

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What price a child’s life? India’s quest to make rare disease drugs affordable

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Parents whose only hope was finding foreign sponsorship or a clinical trial are now looking for homegrown breakthroughs

For three years, Vidya tried to find the cause of her son’s recurrent fevers and low cognitive development. When she found out, she was devastated.

Vineeth, 10, has an incurable illness – mucopolysaccharidosis type 2 – that affects his organs. Afflicting just one in a million, the enzyme-replacement medication that can help stop the illness getting any worse costs £100,000 a year, far beyond the reach of even a wealthier Indian parent.

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Outrage in Myanmar after activist allegedly tortured to death

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Photographs seen by the Guardian testify to the gruesome death of prominent community leader Zaw Myat Lynn

  • Warning: some readers may find material in this story distressing

Under cover of darkness, the soldiers rolled up outside a school building on the outskirts of Myanmar’s main city, Yangon. It was 1.30am. The military began searching the Suu Vocational College, in the north-west suburb of Shwe Pyi Thar. They moved swiftly from room to room.

They had come to arrest Zaw Myat Lynn, a prominent community organiser and teacher. He was an activist with the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party of Aung San Suu Kyi. In November, the NLD won a landslide election victory. It was in power until last month, when the military abruptly ended civilian rule.

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