Category Archives: South and Central Asia

Fruits of shared labour: the Indian women joining forces for food security

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Rural women in Tamil Nadu are mostly excluded from land ownership, but collective farms can offer self-sufficiency

When all the shops closed due to the coronavirus lockdown, small collectives were key to remaining self-sufficient for marginalised farmers in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu.

“We had sufficient grains and vegetables at home, while others in the village were seeking government support,” says 46-year-old Poongani, one of the widowed Dalit women among the nine members of the Sivanthi Poo farming collective in the village of Thottampatti.

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Covid-19 prompts ‘enormous rise’ in demand for cheap child labour in India

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Charities warn that seven months of the pandemic has set the country back decades on child exploitation

Over 70 children were crammed into a bus, heading from Bihar to a sweatshop in the Indian city of Rajasthan, when the authorities pulled it over. Among the faces half hidden behind colourful masks was 12-year-old Deepak Kumar.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, Kumar had been enrolled in grade four at the school in his small district of Gaya in the impoverished Indian state of Bihar. But when Covid-19 hit and the country went into lockdown, the school gates shut across India and have not opened since. With his parents, both daily wage labourers, unable to make money and put food on the table, last month Kumar was sent out to find work.

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Bangladesh approves death penalty for rape after protests

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Move comes after nationwide demonstrations sparked by series of sexual assaults

Bangladesh will introduce the death penalty for rape cases, after several high-profile sexual assaults prompted a wave of protests across the country in recent weeks.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, cabinet secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam confirmed that the cabinet had approved a bill ruling that anyone convicted of rape would be punished with death or “rigorous imprisonment” for life.

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China, Russia and Saudi Arabia set to join UN human rights council

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Rights campaigners voice concerns as Cuba and Pakistan also expected to be elected

China, Russia, Cuba, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are expected to be elected to the board of the UN human rights council on Tuesday, leaving human rights campaigners in the countries aghast and pleading with EU states to commit to withholding their support.

The Geneva-based monitoring NGO UN Watch described the situation as the equivalent of allowing five convicted arsonists to join the fire brigade.

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Gang violence erupts in Bangladesh Rohingya camps forcing families to flee

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Fighting leaves seven dead as rival factions fight for control of drugs trade and terrorise vulnerable refugees

Fighting between rival gangs in the Rohingya refugee settlements in Bangladesh has forced hundreds of people to leave their shelters in a week where at least seven have died.

“When it is night, it becomes hell. When you try to sleep you hear a lot of firing, you hear a lot of bullets, people are screaming, people are fleeing from home,” said a Rohingya refugee who lives close to where the fighting has taken place.

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India’s tea workers strike as government fails to deliver wage increase

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Unions warn of further action over non-payment of rise agreed in 2018, as hundreds of Assam tea estates close

Over 400,000 workers on Indian tea plantations that supply the world’s largest tea companies have gone on strike over the government’s failure to implement a promised daily wage increase from £1.70 to £3.70 a day.

The past week has seen around 250 tea estates across the Assam region close, with the partial closure of a further 20.

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Trump’s Afghanistan withdrawal announcement takes US officials by surprise

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Tweet calling for troops’ return by Christmas puts peace negotiations in jeopardy and was greeted enthusiastically by the Taliban

Donald Trump has announced on Twitter that he wants to bring all US troops home from Afghanistan by Christmas – a plan that came as a surprise to administration officials and which puts complicated peace negotiations in jeopardy.

Multiple officials told the Associated Press they had not been informed of any such deadline and military experts said it would be impossible to withdraw all 5,000 US troops in Afghanistan and dismantle the US military headquarters by the end of the year.

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World’s garment workers face ruin as fashion brands refuse to pay $16bn

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Analysis of trade figures reveals huge power imbalance as suppliers and workers in poorest parts of the world bear cost of Covid downturn

Powerful US and European fashion companies have refused to pay overseas suppliers for more than $16bn (£12.3bn) of goods since the outbreak of Covid-19, with devastating implications for garment workers across the world, according to analysis of newly released import data.

Two US-based groups, the Center for Global Workers’ Rights (CGWR) and the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), used previously unpublished import databases to calculate that garment factories and suppliers from across the world lost at least $16.2bn in revenue between April and June this year as brands cancelled orders or refused to pay for clothing orders they had placed before the coronavirus outbreak.

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‘It breaks my heart’: Uighurs wrongfully held at Guantánamo plead to be with families

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Salahidin Abdulahad, Khalil Mamut and Ayoub Mohammed are desperate to be reunited with their children in Canada

They were captured by bounty hunters, shipped across the world by American soldiers and held for years in Guantánamo Bay.

Salahidin Abdulahad, Khalil Mamut and Ayoub Mohammed were eventually cleared by US courts and released. Their time in the notorious prison, however, continues to haunt them.

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Kyrgyzstan protesters storm parliamentary building over election result

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At least 120 injured in clashes between demonstrators and police in Bishkek over claims parliamentary poll was rigged

People protesting against the results of a parliamentary election in Kyrgyzstan have broken into a parliamentary complex and security headquarters in the capital, with papers seen scattered across the pavement outside and reports parts of the building were on fire.

The break-in took place on Tuesday after opposition supporters took to the streets and called for the pro-Russian president, Sooronbay Jeenbekov, to resign after at least 10 political parties called for a re-run of Sunday’s election amid widespread claims of vote-buying.

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Covid crisis could force extra 2.5m girls into child marriage – charity

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Save the Children predicts worst rise in child marriage rates in 25 years as a result of pandemic

Up to 2.5 million more girls around the world are at risk of being forced into child marriage over the next five years as a result of the impact of Covid-19, according to a report by Save the Children.

The charity predicts the worst surge in rates of child marriage in 25 years, as the pandemic has shuttered schools and pushed poor families further into destitution.

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India’s classical music and dance ‘guru’ system hit by abuse allegations

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Female musicians say abuse by gurus has been an open secret for years in a culture where ‘toxic and old-fashioned patriarchy’ holds sway

One of India’s most venerated cultural traditions – the centuries-old guru-shishya (disciple) method of learning classical music and dance – has been hit by allegations of sexual abuse.

A group of 90 female classical musicians issued a statement in September, alleging sexual abuse and exploitation of female disciples by their gurus. They described a “fear-driven culture of silence” that forced women to submit to the sexual demands of their gurus for fear of having to end their careers.

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Drones, fever goggles, arrests: millions in Asia face ‘extreme’ Covid surveillance

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Coronavirus tracking measures handing ‘unchecked powers’ to authoritarian regimes, experts warn

Draconian surveillance measures introduced during the Covid-19 epidemic are handing “unchecked powers” to authoritarian regimes across Asia, human rights experts are warning.

In a report out today, risk analysts warn that “extreme measures and unchecked powers” brought in to tackle Covid-19 could become permanent features of government across the region, and have an impact on the rights and privacy of millions of people.

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Amnesty to halt work in India due to government ‘witch-hunt’

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Authorities froze bank accounts after criticism of government’s human rights record

Amnesty International has been forced to shut down operations in India and lay off all staff after the Indian government froze its bank accounts.

The Indian enforcement directorate, an agency that investigates economic crimes, froze the accounts of Amnesty’s Indian arm this month after the group published two reports highly critical of the government’s human rights record.

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‘Any focus on them is good’: can a new scheme help Delhi’s missing children?

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With 17 children missing every day, the city’s police commissioner hopes a promise of fast-track promotion will inspire officers to reunite more families

New Delhi Police Commissioner SN Srivastava was particularly troubled over the 17 children who went missing in his city every day. So he decided to light a fire in the belly of his force and came up with a new approach.

If any officer could find 50 missing children in a year their promotion would be fast-tracked. It usually takes constables at least five years to be promoted to head constable, and meeting the target would dramatically speed that up.

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One million coronavirus deaths: how did we get here?

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Milestone is known toll of months of Covid pandemic that has changed everything, from power balances to everyday life

Though an inevitable milestone for months, its arrival is still breathtaking.

Deaths from Covid-19 exceeded 1 million people on Tuesday, according to a Johns Hopkins University database, the known toll of nine relentless months of a pandemic that has changed everything, from global balances of power to the mundane aspects of daily life.

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Coalminer’s daughter comes out top in Afghanistan’s university entrance exam

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  • Shamsia Alizada, 18, first out of more than 170,000 students
  • Government in talks with Taliban, which barred girls in schools

The daughter of an Afghan coalminer has come top in the country’s university entrance exam and is setting her sights on becoming a doctor.

Shamsia Alizada, 18, came first out of more than 170,000 students, the education ministry said, prompting congratulations from former president Hamid Karzai and foreign envoys including the US charge d’affaires.

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Internal displacements reach 15m in 2020 with worst ‘still to come’ – report

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Extreme weather, locust invasions and violence have forced people to flee their homes

Millions of people were uprooted from their homes by conflict, violence and natural disasters in the first six months of this year, research has found.

Nearly 15m new internal displacements were recorded in more than 120 countries between January and June by the Swiss-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

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A third of my country was just underwater. The world must act on climate | Sheikh Hasina

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The climate crisis and Covid-19 are crying out for international cooperation, writes the prime minister of Bangladesh

One-third of my country was underwater last month. The heaviest rains in almost a decade began and have still not abated. More than 1.5 million Bangladeshis are displaced; tens of thousands of hectares of paddy fields have been washed away. Millions of my compatriots will need food aid this year.

Calamities, alas, never strike alone. The floods, which come in the wake of widespread destruction caused by Cyclone Amphan in May, are making it more difficult to contain the coronavirus. More than 2.4 million people had already been moved from the destructive path of the storm without delivering them into the even greater danger of Covid-19. Yet while the infection and death rates have been contained, concerns remain until a foolproof safeguard is acquired. Economic lockdowns have hit our textile industry and exports and forced hundreds of thousands of our international migrant workers to return home, with the vast majority remaining unemployed.

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Justice and the Rohingya people are the losers in Asia’s new cold war

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Attacks against the Muslim minority in Myanmar have gone unchecked as regional players focus on their own interests

The persecution, ethnic cleansing, and attempted genocide of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’s Rakhine state is an affront to the rule of law, a well-documented atrocity and, according to a top international lawyer, a moral stain on “our collective conscience and humanity”. So why are the killings and other horrors continuing while known perpetrators go unpunished?

It’s a question with several possible answers. Maybe poor, isolated Myanmar, formerly Burma, is not important enough a state to warrant sustained international attention. Perhaps, in the western subconscious, the lives of a largely unseen, unknown, brown-skinned Muslim minority do not matter so much at a time of multiple racial, ethnic and refugee crises.

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