Category Archives: South and Central Asia

Women rally to save Pakistan’s taboo-busting ‘Oprah show’

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Crowdfunder allows Kanwal Ahmed to keep sharing advice on sex, violence… and cooking

A social media star has been dubbed Pakistan’s Kickstarter Oprah after her groundbreaking digital talk show in which women talk about taboo issues such as marital rape, cyberbullying and femicide was saved by fans.

Filming started this week on the new series of Conversations With Kanwal, in which presenter Kanwal Ahmed, 31, sheds light on issues that are rarely talked about within families, let alone in the public arena, after fans raised more than five million rupees (around £23,000) in less than a week using the online crowdfunding platform.

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British banks under pressure over £45m loans to firm with links to Myanmar military

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Campaigners say the deals revealed in new report are a breach of firms’ human rights responsibilities

Human rights groups are demanding that two of Britain’s biggest banks explain why they have lent tens of millions of pounds to a technology company building a telecoms network that is part-owned and used by the Myanmar military.

HSBC and Standard Chartered have loaned $60m (£44.5m) to Vietnamese telecom giant Viettel in the last four years, a period when the Myanmar military has been accused of committing war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Viettel is a major investor in Mytel, a Myanmar mobile network that, since its launch in June 2018, has grown to become the second-biggest operator in the country with over 10 million users.

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Four men charged with rape and murder of Dalit woman in India

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Case prompts nationwide protests and further highlights country’s endemic problem of sexual violence

Four men have been charged with the gang rape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in India, a case that prompted nationwide protests and drew a fresh spotlight on India’s endemic problem of sexual violence.

In September in Hathras, a small village in Uttar Pradesh, the 19-year-old woman was working in the fields when she was pounced on by four older men who dragged her to a field, attacked her and then tried to strangle her with her shawl.

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Going the extra milestone: Mumbai preserves remnants of colonial past

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Over the decades many of the city’s stone markers have been submerged in concrete, but a plan is underway to restore them

Buried for years under Mumbai’s new roads and ever-increasing layers of development, the British passion for cartography is set to rise up on the city’s streets again thanks to a project to preserve its colonial milestones.

When workers from Mumbai municipal corporation (BMC) were demolishing unauthorised buildings three years ago, they unearthed a basalt stone marker with a pyramidal top and a Roman numeral on it – a British milestone and one of 16 laid out in the early 19th century on the road between Horniman Circle and Sion, then the city’s outer limit.

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How does a pregnant woman get to hospital when there’s no road? By stretcher …

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Women from the mountains of Uttarakhand in India have been guaranteed palanquins so that they can reach vital transport

Narendra Kumar is going to become a father in early January. His wife, Kavita, became pregnant two months after they got married in February and since then he has been worrying about getting her to hospital when the time comes.

It’s a steep three-kilometre walk along a narrow, unpaved mountain path through oak and rhododendron forests from their village of Gwalakot to the main road where they could pick up a car or ambulance to ferry them to hospital in Nainital.

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‘It’s over for us’: how extreme weather is emptying Bangladesh’s villages

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The frequency of natural disasters is making life in rural areas increasingly difficult, pushing inhabitants into city slums

The house Faruk Hossain grew up in has, for the last six months, resisted being claimed by the river, as the rest of the village already has been.

But slowly, as the waters have failed to seep away, he has come to accept that the family house has become uninhabitable. Like other villages nearby, Chakla in Bangladesh’s Satkhira district has not re-emerged from the flooding caused by Super-cyclone Amphan, which battered the south of the country in late May,

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Pakistan rape law comes into effect amid outcry over victim blaming

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Activists hail new law that will speed up rape trials, protect the identity of victims and create a sex offenders register

Pakistan’s president has approved a much-awaited new law requiring the establishment of special courts to speedily conclude trials of people charged with raping women or children, a move hailed by rights activists.

The law, which must be approved by parliament to remain in effect, requires courts to conclude the trials of alleged rapists and issue verdicts within four months. It also prohibits the disclosure of the identity of rape victims and will create a national sex offenders register.

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Israel establishes ‘formal diplomatic relations’ with Bhutan

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Himalayan kingdom is latest country to recognise the Jewish state in a normalisation deal

Israel established diplomatic relations with the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan on Saturday, the Israeli foreign ministry said, in the latest of a string of normalisation deals agreed by the Jewish state.

“The circle of recognition of Israel is widening,” the Israeli foreign minister, Gabi Ashkenazi, said in a statement. “The establishment of relations with the Kingdom of Bhutan will constitute a new stage in the deepening of Israel’s relations in Asia.”

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Digging in: on the frontlines as farmers lay siege to Delhi

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Donations flood in to community kitchens as farmers protest against liberalisation of agriculture sector

When the sacks were ripped opened, almonds poured out, more than 10,000kg of them. It was not the first donation that had been sent to the Indian farmers defiantly camped out along the periphery of Delhi. In previous days trucks had rolled up and disgorged sacks of rice, pulses, flour, vegetables, sugar, tea and biscuits.

“This is food being sent by supporters from all over India and from as far as England and Canada. There is no shortage of food. We have enough to eat for months,” said Jaswinder Pal Singh, a farmer from Punjab.

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‘I thought about killing my children’: the desperate Bangladesh garment workers fighting for pay

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Workers face destitution after the collapse of fashion retailers – and despite beatings and police crackdowns vow they will protest until they are paid

It was 4.30am when the police charged the hundreds of garment workers sleeping under makeshift shelters and in sleeping bags on the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh. As blows rained down, the workers fled.

By morning the streets had been cleared of the non-violent protest that more than 700 garment workers had been peacefully staging outside the Dhaka Press Club calling for their unpaid wages as they faced mounting destitution and hunger.

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‘It’s not a grave we must fit in’: the Kashmir women fighting for marital rights

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Women are slowly gaining rights and finding the strength to shake off the social taboos around ending a bad relationship

Parveena Jabeen was all set to get married, but in Kashmir weddings are extravagant affairs.

Traditionally, brides in the valley of Kashmir would take a trousseau with them to the groom’s house, including clothes, jewellery, makeup, gifts for the in-laws and even furniture.

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Nationwide farmers’ strike shuts down large parts of India

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Protests against new agriculture laws hits transport, shops and markets across the country

Farmers in India have shut down swathes of the country’s transport, shops and markets as they escalated their protests against new agriculture laws with the launch of a national strike.

Hundreds of thousands of farmers blocked all roads into the capital Delhi for most of the day, and across the country demonstrated on railway lines and highways and called for a shutdown of shops, in a effort to pressurise the government into repealing new agriculture laws they say will leave them poverty stricken and at the mercy of corporations.

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India’s biggest challenge: how to vaccinate 1.3bn people against Covid-19?

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Analysis: Even with the world’s largest vaccination scheme already in place, the distribution at this scale has huge potential pitfalls

India’s claim to fame is staggering scale of its general elections, with 900 million voters mobilised across 1 million polling stations, to choose from 8,000 candidates across a landmass spanning 2,000 miles north to south and pretty much the same east to west.

But now the country has to go one better. India must vaccinate 1.3bn people against Covid-19 – twice and twice as fast. With more than 9 million confirmed cases of coronavirus and a battered economy, how will the country meet this challenge?

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Spice of life: how turmeric became the ‘new gold’ for Sri Lanka villagers

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Turmeric is synonymous with Sri Lankan cuisine and an import ban is helping boost production after the ravages of civil war

In Sri Lankan cuisine, a pinch of turmeric brings the gold colour to sodhi, the mildly spiced coconut soup eaten with the island’s carbohydrate-rich foods.

Turmeric is valued in every Sri Lankan kitchen for its subtle flavour, distinct yellow colour and powerful aroma. In ayurvedic medicine, this humble spice is hailed for its values as an anti-inflammatory.

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India summons Canada envoy as row deepens over Trudeau’s protest remarks

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  • India condemns ‘unacceptable interference’ from Canadian PM
  • Trudeau called clashes between police and farmers ‘concerning’

India has summoned Canada’s top diplomat to protest at comments by Justin Trudeau on recent mass protests by farmers in the country. Indian officials warned that continued “interference” in domestic affairs could harm relations between the two countries.

Related: Indian farmers march on Delhi in protest against agriculture laws

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Bangladesh begins moving Rohingya families to remote island

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Operation to move 2,500 families begins despite safety concerns and lack of consent from refugees

Bangladesh has begun moving Rohingya families from camps near the Myanmar border to a settlement on a remote island, despite concerns about its safety and a lack of consent from the refugees.

More than 1,600 Rohingya refugees set sail on Friday from Bangladesh’s southern port of Chittagong for the remote island of Bhasan Char in the Bay of Bengal, a naval official said, Reuters reported.

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Taliban denies targeting media as 50th journalist dies in Afghanistan

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Rising violence by militants raises fears for press freedom after US troops withdraw in May

The Taliban have denied they are deliberately targeting journalists in attacks amid the surge in violence throughout Afghanistan.

The US watchdog Sigar (Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction) says Taliban violence has risen by 50% since September, with media workers saying they don’t feel safe doing their jobs.

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Australian army to investigate soldiers’ use of dead Taliban fighter’s prosthetic leg

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Investigation follows revelation of pictures which show soldiers drinking from leg and carrying it on the battlefield

Australia’s defence department says an investigation has been launched into photos showing senior special forces soldiers drinking out of a dead Taliban fighter’s prosthetic limb and carrying it on the battlefield.

The move comes after the Guardian obtained images showing a trooper carrying the leg attached to a backpack with other photos showing soldiers drinking beer from the prosthetic at an unofficial bar – the Fat Lady’s Arms – that was set up at their special forces base in Afghanistan in 2009.

A defence spokesperson said on Thursday: “Army is inquiring into the matter.”

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All change: India’s railways bring back tea in clay cups in bid to banish plastics

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Stations switch to humble earthen kulhads in move to cut down on toxic waste and boost incomes of village potters

A small and humble relic from India’s past is about to stage a major comeback. At all 7,000 railway stations in the country, tea will be served in earthen cups known as kulhads.

The kulhads, redolent of a bygone pastoral era, are unpainted, unglazed and have no handles, but are perfectly biodegradable and environment-friendly, which is why the country’s railways minister, Piyush Goyal, has said they will replace plastic cups as part of the government’s goal of making India free of single-use plastic.

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