Category Archives: South and Central Asia

Corona demons tower over India’s Durga Puja festival

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Artisans preparing Hindu festival have responded creatively to the pandemic and its problems

Every autumn the streets of Kolkata come alive with the sounds of Durga Puja. The Hindu festival, which celebrates the triumph of good over evil, is marked in West Bengal and neighbouring states as a time for dancing, drumming, eating and worship.

Yet the festival’s most defining feature is the pandal – towering displays of religious sculptures depicting the story of Durga Puja: the moment that the Hindu goddess Durga triumphed over the demon Mahishasura.

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‘I have to do this’: Myanmar garment workers forced into sex work by Covid

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Factory closures due to fashion industry order cancellations have pushed many former employees into often dangerous work

When Hla, 19, tried to go back to work seven months ago after having a baby, there were no jobs. Hundreds of garment factories in Myanmar had closed after western fashion brands cancelled orders due to the pandemic, leaving thousands of women jobless.

As lockdown gripped Yangon, her marriage broke down, her husband left, and her father had to sell his trishaw – no longer able to take passengers in the city. Her parents and baby were hungry. Five months ago, she became a sex worker.

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To tackle sexual violence in Bangladesh the culture of victim blaming must end

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There are still those who ask ‘what was she wearing’. An urgent conversation is needed about toxic masculinity and consent

There has been growing outrage among Bangladeshi citizens over the past two weeks at a string of gruesome gang rapes and sexual assaults reported in the media. There is a deep lack of confidence that the victims will ever get justice, as well as anxiety over the traditionally-held view that a woman and her family lose “honour” when she is raped.

The question remains: did the woman ask to hold this honour that has been bestowed upon her? Is a woman’s honour held in her body? According to Ain O Salish Kendra, an organisation in Bangladesh that provides legal assistance to victims of violence, between January and September this year, men raped 975 women, killed 43 women after raping them, and attempted to rape 204 others. This is not the actual number of rape cases, but the figure that has been reported publicly – the true toll will be a lot higher.

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Rickshaw driver’s son beats odds to join famed UK ballet school

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After just four years’ training in India and some fast crowd-funding, Kamal Singh joins English National Ballet School

Kamal Singh did not even know what ballet was when he turned up nervously at the Imperial Fernando Ballet School, in Delhi, during the summer of 2016. But the 17-year-old, known as Noddy, whose father was a rickshaw driver in the west of the city, had been transfixed by ballet dancers in a Bollywood film, and wanted to try it for himself.

Four years on Singh is now one of the first Indian students to be admitted to the English National Ballet school. He started this week.

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Kyrgyzstan’s president steps down amid political unrest

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Sooronbai Jeenbekov announces resignation as turmoil in wake of disputed election continues


Kyrgyzstan’s president, Sooronbai Jeenbekov, has announced his resignation in an attempt to end the turmoil engulfing the central Asian nation after a disputed parliamentary election.

Jeenbekov, who had faced calls to step down from protesters and political opponents, said in a statement released by his office that holding on to power wasn’t “worth the integrity of our country and harmony in society”.

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‘Not just a dog bite’: why India is struggling to keep rabies at bay

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The government is being urged to dispel myths and ensure drugs are available – and take responsibility for the millions of stray dogs

By the time the patient, a young man, reached Dr Ramesh Masthi at a Bengaluru hospital, it was too late to save him. After being bitten by a pack of stray dogs as he went out to buy some milk, his family had applied a paste of green chillis, then lime juice and finally, when the wound looked gruesome, turmeric.

“He came about a week after he was bitten. The wound was serious, and we couldn’t save him. There is so much ignorance about dog bites and myths. A rabies shot in time would have saved him,” Masthi says.

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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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