Category Archives: South and Central Asia

‘Not enough work, not enough money’: can this Kyrgyz village survive without tourists? A picture essay

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Life was hard in this remote area of central Asia, until tourism offered new hope. Then Covid-19 struck and the visitors stopped coming

  • Photographs by Danil Usmanov

It has been over a decade since Umar Tashbekov saw his opportunity. His village, Sary-Mogol in Kyrgyzstan, at an altitude of 3,600 metres, is close to Lenin’s Peak, a popular mountain destination for tourists. If they were already hiking there, why not attract them to visit his village too?

Sary-Mogol is a three-hour drive from the nearest city of Osh, in the country’s south-east. Life here is not easy – short summers and unfavourable growing conditions make it hard to grow much more than potatoes and barley. The main source of work is the large livestock market in town. Others find employment as teachers or in the nearby coal mine. Out of its 5,200-strong population, about 500 people have left for Russia where companies welcome factory workers.

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India’s approval of covid vaccines triggers mass immunisation drive

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Green light for Oxford vaccine alongside domestic Covaxin hailed as ‘decisive turning point’ by PM

India has granted emergency approval to both the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine and the domestically developed Covaxin, signalling the start of one of the largest Covid-19 immunisation drives in the world.

At a press conference on Sunday, the drugs controller general of India said the decision to approve both the Oxford vaccine and Covaxin, which is produced by the Indian company Bharat Biotech and was part-funded by the government, had come after “careful examination” of the data.

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The world in 2021 – how global politics will change this year

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Donald Trump’s departure will alter the face of geopolitics. The climate crisis and Covid response will affect all nations – while others face very particular challenges. Observer correspondents examine the 12 months ahead

A potent mix of hope and fear accompanies the start of 2021 in most of the world. Scientists have created several vaccines for a disease that didn’t even have a name this time last year. But many countries, including the UK and the US, are still stumbling through the deadliest period of the pandemic.

The shadow of Covid will not begin to lift, even in richer countries, for months. Britain was the first to approve a vaccine and has secured extensive supplies, yet Boris Johnson’s suggestion that life might be returning to normal by Easter is widely seen as optimistic. Other countries, particularly in the south, face a long wait to get vaccines, and help paying for them. The rebuilding of economies shattered by Covid everywhere will be slow; even countries that managed to contain it have taken a hit, from Vietnam to New Zealand.

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Journalist dies in Afghanistan as targeted killings continue

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Violence increases amid stalled Taliban peace talks, with Isis claiming it was behind earlier journalist killing

An Afghan journalist and human rights activist has been shot and killed by unidentified gunmen in western Afghanistan, the fifth journalist to be killed in the war-ravaged country in the past two months, a provincial spokesman said.

Bismillah Adil Aimaq was on the road near Feroz Koh, the provincial capital of Ghor, returning home to the city after visiting his family in a village nearby, when gunmen opened fire at the vehicle.

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Pakistan’s #MeToo movement hangs in the balance over celebrity case

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A popular actor was accused of harassment – now those who spoke against him are being charged under law meant to protect women

It takes a lot to rattle Leena Ghani. As an artist turned activist helping to raise the voices of Pakistan’s women, she has often fielded abuse, threats and harassment.

But when she learned, on a morning in late September, that police had charged her for criminal defamation, linked to Pakistan’s most high-profile #MeToo case, Ghani says she was shaken. “In terms of silencing and demonising people speaking out against sexual assault, it was a new low even for Pakistan,” she says.

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Calls for release of man arrested photographing transfer of Rohingyas

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Bangladesh authorities under pressure from rights activists including Bianca Jagger over detention of Abul Karam

Bangladesh authorities are facing calls to release a Rohingya man arrested while photographing the transfer of refugees to a controversial island camp this week.

Abul Kalam, 35, has been held since Monday morning when he was reportedly beaten before being taken to police barracks near the Kutupalong refugee camp, where he has lived since leaving Myanmar as a child refugee in the early 1990s.

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India’s Assam state converts state-run Islamic schools into regular schools

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Minister from Hindu nationalist BJP says schools should be producing Muslim professional workers, rather than future imams

An Indian state ruled by Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist party has passed a law converting state-run Islamic schools into regular schools, saying they provided sub-standard education.

Opposition politicians criticised the move and said it reflected the government’s anti-Muslim attitude in the Hindu-majority country.

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Global report: India finds six cases of new UK variant; South Africa bans alcohol sales

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Germany says infectious variant has been present since November; Spain sets up Covid vaccine register

India has found six cases of a more infectious variant of the coronavirus in people arriving from Britain, while South Africa reimposed a ban on alcohol sales and ordered the closure of all bars as it battles a resurgence of the virus, including another new variant.

All six of the infected people in India are in isolation and their fellow travellers are being traced, the health ministry said.

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Indian police charge army officer with killing three Kashmir civilians

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Highly unusual independent inquiry accuses officer of staging their deaths as a fake gunfight

In a highly unusual move, Indian police have indicted an Indian army officer, accusing him of killing three civilians in Kashmir in July and staging their deaths as a fake gunfight.

The rare independent police inquiry into extrajudicial killings in the troubled region found that the Indian military officer Capt Bhoopendra Singh, who used the alias Maj Basheer Khan, had conspired with two of his informers to abduct three local labourers. It said they killed the men, planted illegal weapons on the bodies and branded them “hardcore terrorists”.

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How a ‘tree mortgage’ scheme could turn an Indian town carbon neutral

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Kerala villagers are reaping the benefits of a scheme that pays them to leave their trees rooted, reducing risk of deforestation

In the misty, hilly terrain of Wayanad, in the southern Indian state of Kerala, the people with any access to land in the quiet town of Meenangadi have been out counting their trees.

Sheeja CG, a 46-year-old farmer, has lived among coffee, coconut and pepper plantations all her life but last month she increased her income dramatically by mortgaging 53 of her trees at the local bank, in return for a sum of 2,650 rupees (£26.96), or 50 rupees each. She was one of the first beneficiaries of the state-sponsored scheme.

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Speaking with the Serpent: my encounters with serial killer Charles Sobhraj

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The notorious murderer who preyed on 70s backpackers is the subject of a new BBC drama. Our writer recalls his bizarre meetings with a charmer and psychopath

At the beginning of The Serpent, the new BBC drama series based on the exploits of a real-life serial killer, a title page declares: “In 1997 an American TV crew tracked Charles Sobhraj down to Paris where he was living as a free man.”

The ABC team were not the only ones back then to speak to Sobhraj, who was suspected of committing at least 12 murders. I too made the journey to Paris and managed to arrange an interview for the Observer with the Vietnamese-Indian Frenchman. He had just been released from jail in India, where he had spent 20 years on various charges (but not for any of the murders for which he was alleged to be responsible).

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Coolie No 1 review – David Dhawan’s comedy remake is bigger but not better

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Dhawan casts his son Varun in the role made famous in 1995 by Govinda, but little effort has been made to acknowledge the quarter-century since

It’s a tale of two Bollywoods this Christmas. Over at Netflix, Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane, representing Indian film’s modernising wing, have engineered the sharp and knowing meta-thriller AK vs AK. Here on Amazon Prime Video meanwhile, you can watch veteran comedy director David Dhawan renew his IP rights on Coolie No 1, previously a hit 1995 vehicle for the Sandwell-born funnyman Govinda. Even the latter’s most devout fans would probably concede the original left room for improvements, but that’s something Dhawan appears unfussed about. This Coolie updates a few reference points and replaces Govinda with latter-day hunk Varun Dhawan – the director’s son – then surrounds him with antiquated players and playing, part of a frenetic attempt to pretend the last 30 years never happened.

The plot – lowly railway porter (Dhawan) is hired to woo a society belle (Sara Ali Khan) as part of a conspiracy to disgrace her family – remains familiar and predictable. The most immediate contrast with the original is a result of the casting. Rather too obviously a handsome, cardio-trained leading man schlubbing down for (not many) easy laughs, Dhawan Jr bounds onscreen with boyish enthusiasm, but trails a lingering note of condescension – and Dhawan Sr was evidently too busy remembering how best to smash his supporting actors in the gonads to direct anyone. Khan, sadly, is stranded on balconies looking fetchingly concerned while the men below determine her character’s destiny. In this, Coolie 2020 really does seem so last century.

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Pakistan court orders release of man charged over Daniel Pearl murder

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Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a suspect in US journalist’s 2002 killing, had conviction overturned this year

A court in Pakistan has ordered that a British-born Islamist militant charged with the 2002 kidnapping and murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl should be freed, his defence lawyer has said.

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was sentenced to death in 2002 for masterminding Pearl’s murder but the conviction was overturned this year. He has been in jail ever since awaiting the outcome of a series of appeals and legal arguments.

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‘I am not afraid to fight’: the female Afghan colonel who survived the Taliban’s assassins

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Saba Sahar, who returned fire while protecting her daughter, survived one of a wave of recent assassination attempts that have killed six policewomen

It was just after 7am when the car carrying Colonel Saba Sahar, one of Afghanistan’s most senior female police officers, came under fire from armed insurgents. In the back seat, Sahar’s four-year-old daughter began screaming as bullets shattered the windscreen and ripped into the upholstery. As she pushed her child under the seat in front of her, Sahar saw three men carrying AK-47 assault rifles, firing as they approached the car.

In the front of the car her bodyguard and driver had both been hit and were badly injured and unconscious. Looking down, Sahar saw blood seeping through her clothing. “It took me another moment to realise I’d been shot too,” she says. She knew that she only had minutes to try to save her daughter. “They were five or six metres away, and they were moving closer to the car, still firing. They would have killed my child,” she says. Bleeding heavily from five shots to her stomach, Sahar reached forward, grabbed the gun from her slumped bodyguard and started returning fire.

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Dangerous spices: why India’s cooking powders pose a risk of lead poisoning

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Exposure to the heavy metal from spice powders and car batteries is affecting child health across the subcontinent

An outbreak of a mystery illness over two days in early December in the south Indian city of Eluru saw more than 560 people hospitalised, most of them children, and baffled doctors. Symptoms were described as being similar to epilepsy, with convulsions and vomiting accompanied by burning eyes and loss of consciousness.

Recovery tended to be quick although the death of one man was attributed to the illness. In the midst of the Covid pandemic theories circulated that it was caused by too much disinfectant or vegetables washed in chlorine. Local traders saw sales slump.

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Indian news channel fined in UK for hate speech about Pakistan

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Ofcom imposes £20,000 penalty on Republic TV for ‘highly pejorative’ comments on talk show

A rightwing Indian news channel known for its strong pro-government stance and firebrand host has been fined by the UK regulator Ofcom for broadcasting hate speech about Pakistan.

Republic TV was fined £20,000 for airing a segment on its UK service, which conveyed the view that all Pakistani people are terrorists, including “their scientists, doctors, their leaders, politicians […] Even their sports people”.

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‘The brides feel like Cinderella’: the free wedding shop helping India’s poor

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Fashion designer’s scheme provides secondhand shoes, clothes and jewellery free to women who can’t pay for their big day

A section of a boutique in Pappinisseri town in Kerala’s Kannur district brims over with colourful bridal lehengas, saris, gowns and shiny salwar suits.

An exuberance of fabrics adorns mannequins that stand next to tables spread with sparkly sandals, shoes, bangles and beaded bags. Tableware, bedlinen and miscellaneous items are scattered in other spaces.

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Hungry and afraid: life for factory workers meeting UK demand for cheap clothes

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Pakistani workers describe trying to survive on the less than £50 a month many of them earn making items for firms such as Boohoo

When Qasim Ahmed* arrived in Faisalabad a year ago, he didn’t want much – just enough money to pay for a roof over his head, buy food and send a little cash home each month.

Today, that seems like a fantasy. Instead of having enough to get by, he claims, he has found himself struggling to survive, frequently going hungry, feeling abused by his boss and fearing he is working in a factory that could go up in flames. “It makes me sad that I can’t help my parents and siblings the way I hoped before coming here,” he says.

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Boohoo selling clothes made by Pakistani workers ‘who earned 29p an hour’

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Guardian investigation finds claims of safety issues, with workers saying they sometimes work 24-hour shifts

The fast fashion brand Boohoo is selling clothes made by Pakistani factory workers who say they face appalling conditions and earn as little as 29p an hour, an investigation by the Guardian has found.

In interviews in the industrial city of Faisalabad, workers at two factories claimed they were paid 10,000PKR (£47) a month, well below the legal monthly minimum wage for unskilled labour of 17,500PKR, while making clothes to be sold by Boohoo.

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Caste-based area names to be changed across Indian state to ‘increase unity’

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Millions of people in Maharashtra to have neighbourhoods renamed but critics say plan means little without behavioural change

The names of neighbourhoods in the Indian state of Maharashtra based on the caste of people who have traditionally lived there are to be be changed, to reflect the country’s evolving attitudes.

In the same way Indian surnames reveal the caste to which a person belongs, neighbourhoods have acquired names based on the caste of the community that predominates.

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