Category Archives: South and Central Asia

Netflix portrayal of female Indian Air Force pilot flies into flak

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Gunjan Saxena was one of the first women in the IAF, but her biopic has drawn rebukes from fellow officers over sexism claims

Former and current members of the Indian military have criticised a Netflix film for portraying the armed forces as rife with gender discrimination.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has written to an Indian censor board, as well as Dharma Productions, which produced the film, and Netflix to complain that Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl “presented some situations that are misleading and portray an inappropriate work culture especially against women in the IAF”.

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Coronavirus has made every day a struggle to survive amid the squalor of Cox’s Bazar | Farid Alam

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Once I flew kites and dreamed of being a teacher. Now it’s hard to see a better future for me or my family

When I was born in Kutupalong camp, Bangladesh, it was a very different place. I remember as a child laughing and flying kites with my friends. Kites are not flying around our camps any more. There is little laughter.

Just months ago, we lived in a different world. We used to go outside a lot, seeking freedom from our little bamboo and plastic homes. But with Covid-19 we cannot. Often we are told to stay inside. It’s hot and cramped, with nine of us in one room.

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At least 90 feared trapped as five-storey building collapses in India

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Twenty-eight people pulled out of block of flats south of Mumbai amid monsoon rain

At least 90 people are feared trapped in the debris of a five-storey building that collapsed to the south of India’s financial capital of Mumbai, according to police in Maharashtra state.

The building, which contained around 47 flats, caved in on Monday evening, a police statement said.

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Selective abortion in India could lead to 6.8m fewer girls being born by 2030

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New study shows preference for a son is highest in north of country with Uttar Pradesh having highest deficit in female births

An estimated 6.8 million fewer female births will be recorded across India by 2030 because of the persistent use of selective abortions, researchers estimate.

Academics from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia projected the sex ratio at birth in 29 Indian states and union territories, covering almost the entire population, taking into account each state’s desired sex ratio at birth and the population’s fertility rates.

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Whole of Sri Lanka hit by power blackout

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Water supply and road traffic disrupted for seven hours after main power station suffers ‘technical issue’

The entire nation of Sri Lanka was left without power on Monday for seven hours after a failure at a key electricity facility.

Power minister Dullas Alahapperuma said an unspecified “technical issue” at the Kerawalapitiya power complex just outside the capital Colombo was the cause of the blackout, which hit the entire nation of 21 million people at about midday.

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India’s invisible catastrophe: fears over spread of Covid-19 into poor rural areas

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Country is entering a dangerous new phase of rising infections in small towns and villages with limited access to healthcare

Where better to seek sanctuary from a virus roaring through a crowded metropolis than a remote mountainside with views of the Himalayas?

This was the reasoning that prompted Lalit Upreti, 34, to leave the Indian capital, Delhi, where he works as a cook, two months ago to return to his hamlet Khankari in Uttarakhand, near the country’s border with Nepal. Here, he thought, his family would be safe.

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Female Afghan peace negotiator wounded in assassination bid

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Women’s rights activist Fawzia Koofi, a member of the team negotiating a deal with the Taliban, was shot in the arm

A female member of Afghanistan’s peace negotiating team has been slightly wounded in an assassination attempt, officials say.

Fawzia Koofi, who is also a former parliamentarian, was attacked on Friday afternoon near the capital, Kabul, while returning from a visit to the northern province of Parwan.

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‘Peace where rights aren’t trampled’: Afghan women’s demands ahead of Taliban talks

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With negotiations set to begin, women have been sharing their ‘red lines’ on the progress they refuse to see negotiated

Farahnaz Forotan was three when the Taliban had arrived in Kabul. It was 1996. “I have this memory of a snowy day, I was sitting on my mother’s lap, in a minibus, and she was crying. I didn’t understand why she was crying,” Forotan says. It was the day her family became refugees.

“It was the civil war, and we had to leave our home and country to live in Iran – alive, but living in pain and facing discrimination,” she says.

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Polio vaccinations resume in Pakistan and Afghanistan after Covid-19 delays

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Fight to eradicate disease getting ‘back on track’ after surge in cases due to pause in vaccination campaigns

Polio vaccination campaigns have resumed in Afghanistan and Pakistan – the last two polio-endemic countries in the world – after a “surge” in cases.

The pandemic halted campaigns in both countries in March and confirmed cases have now reached 34 in Afghanistan and 63 in Pakistan – where cases are being recorded in areas of the country previously free of the disease.

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Indian food delivery company Zomato offers ‘period leave’ to women

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Employer aims to remove stigma in a nation where menstruation is still taboo to some

Indian food delivery company Zomato has said it will give female employees up to 10 days of “period leave” a year, as part of an effort to combat what it said was stigma around the issue.

Zomato is the most high-profile organisation to institute the policy in India, a country where menstruation is still taboo to some.

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Air India Express black boxes recovered at Kerala crash site

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Boeing 737 crashed on landing in heavy rain, killing at least 18, including the two pilots

Flight data and cockpit voice recorders have been recovered from the wreckage of an Indian passenger aircraft that crashed in the southern state of Kerala.

The Air India Express plane, which was repatriating Indians from Dubai because of the Covid-19 pandemic, overshot the runway of the Calicut international airport in heavy rain near the city of Kozhikode, also known as Calicut.

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India plans to fell ancient forest to create 40 new coalfields

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Narendra Modi’s dream of a ‘self-reliant India’ comes at a terrible price for its indigenous population

Over the past decade, Umeshwar Singh Amra has witnessed his homeland descend into a battleground. The war being waged in Hasdeo Arand, a rich and biodiverse Indian forest, has pitted indigenous people, ancient trees, elephants and sloths against the might of bulldozers, trucks and hydraulic jacks, fighting with a single purpose: the extraction of coal.

Yet under a new “self-reliant India” plan by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, to boost the economy post-Covid-19 and reduce costly imports, 40 new coalfields in some of India’s most ecologically sensitive forests are to be opened up for commercial mining.

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Covid led to ‘brutal crackdown’ on garment workers’ rights, says report

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Brands including Primark, Zara and H&M accused of failing to protect workers at factories in Asia from ‘union busting’

Some of Europe’s biggest retailers, including Primark, Zara and H&M, are failing to stop Covid-19 being used as a pretext for union busting, human rights activists are warning.

Millions of garment workers in some of the poorest parts of Asia have lost their jobs since coronavirus shutdowns hit the retail industry worldwide.

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Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa brothers strengthen grip in landslide election win

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PM and president’s party wins ‘super majority’ that will allow them to carry out constitutional changes

Sri Lanka’s ruling Rajapaksa brothers have secured a two-thirds majority in parliamentary elections, giving them powers to change the constitution and unravel democratic safeguards.

Final results on Friday showed that Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Party (SLPP) won 145 seats and can also count on the support of at least five allies in the 225-member legislature.

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Monsoon rains driven by high winds bring flooding misery to Mumbai

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India’s commercial capital grinds to a halt after heaviest August rainfall in 47 years causes widespread flooding

The heaviest monsoon downpour in nearly 50 years has brought Mumbai to a standstill, with stranded passengers at railway stations having to be rescued by dinghies from waist-high water.

People who live in areas normally unaffected by the annual monsoon flooding looked out from their high-rise flats at new swirling rivers outside caused by the heaviest single day’s rain recorded in August in 47 years.

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Ayodhya: Modi hails ‘dawn of new era’ as work on controversial temple begins

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Foundation stone laid for temple to Lord Ram at site where mosque was razed 28 years ago

The Indian town of Ayodhya welcomed Narendra Modi for a ceremony marking the start of construction of a temple on the site where a mosque was razed to the ground by a Hindu mob 28 years ago.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party has campaigned for years for the temple to be built at the spot considered to be the birthplace of the Hindu deity Lord Ram. The issue has divided Indians, alienated Muslims, helped propel the BJP to power and thrown its rivals into disarray.

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How renamed streets in Mumbai’s slums are encouraging children to study

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A mobile school helped Rehmuddin Shaikh become a rugby star. Now a street named after him is inspiring a new generation

No map of Mumbai mentions Rehmuddin Shaikh Road. But a local taxi driver would find the narrow lane between the huts in Ambedkar Nagar, Colaba, behind Mumbai’s elite Cuffe Parade. Despite not being officially named by the city authorities, the road boasts a new signpost.

Rehmuddin Chittasahab Shaikh grew up and still lives here. Today, he is a rugby star, winning national gold and silver medals and and now coaching the Indian women’s team. He is one of the only four coaches in India to qualify for the World Rugby Level 3 coaching course.

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Kashmir curfew brought in as region marks one year since special status revoked

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Soldiers patrol Indian-controlled areas as protesters plan ‘black day’ to mark 5 August

Authorities have brought in a curfew in many parts of Indian-controlled Kashmir, one day ahead of the first anniversary of India’s controversial decision to revoke the disputed region’s special status.

Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, a civil administrator, said the security lockdown was put in place in the region’s main city of Srinagar in view of information about protests planned by anti-India groups to mark 5 August as “black day.”

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‘A small but powerful signal’: Mumbai installs female figures on traffic lights

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Campaigners in India say the move helps dispel the notion that only men should be out in public

Mumbai has become the first city in India to introduce female figures on its traffic lights, a move welcomed by campaigners as a step towards greater inclusivity.

Authorities are swapping the green and red male stick figures for female figures on more than 100 pedestrian crossings as part of a broader plan to make roads more pedestrian-friendly.

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‘We have abandoned the poor’: slums suffer as Covid-19 exposes India’s social divide

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Virus proves a reminder to wealthy of their reliance on impoverished workers, reviving calls for a slum revolution that will benefit all

Cooking, cleaning, and food shopping have been a shock to Anisa Agarwal. Pre-pandemic, married to a wealthy tile manufacturer, her life in Gulmohar Park in Delhi involved a cook, maid, driver and cleaner who came to her house every day.

But despite her total dependence on them, Agarwal, 44, has not allowed her staff to enter her home in four months.

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