Category Archives: South and Central Asia

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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Coronavirus global report: ‘response fatigue’ fears as Mexico hits 9,000 daily cases

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Many countries that believed they were past the worst are grappling with new outbreaks, says WHO

Mexico has recorded more than 9,000 daily coronavirus cases for the first time, as the country overtook the UK with the world’s third-highest number of deaths from the pandemic after the US and Brazil.

The surging numbers were reported as the World Health Organization warned of “response fatigue” and a resurgence of cases in several countries that have lifted lockdowns.

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India arrests dozens of journalists in clampdown on critics of Covid-19 response

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Reporters for independent outlets, many in rural areas, say pressure won’t deter them from covering embarrassing stories

Facing a continuing upward trajectory in Covid-19 cases, the Indian government is clamping down on media coverage critical of its handling of the pandemic.

More than 50 Indian journalists have been arrested or had police complaints registered against them, or been physically assaulted.

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Two wheels good: India falls back in love with bikes after Covid-19

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A bicycle boom has seen Indians swapping cars – the ultimate status symbol – for a more humble mode of transport

With cases of Covid-19 surging past the one million mark, Indians are shunning crowded buses and trains to travel on what has traditionally been regarded in this status-conscious society as the poor man’s mode of mobility: the bicycle.

At Bike Studio in Bhopal, owner Varun Awasthi is almost out of stock. Sales are up by 30% and he expects them to rise to 50% once he gets more bicycles.

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‘A critical situation’: Bangladesh in crisis as monsoon floods follow super-cyclone

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Despite flood planning efforts hundreds have been killed and millions hit as third of land is submerged by non-stop rain

Bangladesh could be plunged into a humanitarian crisis as it undergoes the most prolonged monsoon flooding in decades while it is still recovering from the effects of super-cyclone Amphan.

Despite the UN has lauding its new initiatives for early intervention aimed at preparing communities for crisis, 550 people have been killed and 9.6 million affected by the disaster in Bangladesh, Nepal and north-eastern India, according to the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent.

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Afghan girl shot dead Taliban fighters who killed her parents, say officials

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Teenager Qamar Gul and her younger brother fought a battle with an insurgent group who stormed their village

An Afghan girl shot dead three Taliban fighters after they killed her parents because they supported the government, local officials have said.

The incident happened last week when a group of 40 insurgents stormed the village of Geriveh, in central Ghor province, where 16-year-old Qamar Gul was living with her parents and brother.

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Flooding in Assam and Nepal kills hundreds and displaces millions

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Hurried evacuation of millions of residents will increase coronavirus cases, officials say

Severe flooding in India’s tea-growing state of Assam and neighbouring Nepal has killed at least 200 people and displaced millions, severely hampering efforts to stop the spread of coronavirus.

In Assam, heavy monsoon rains burst the banks of the Brahmaputra River, causing more than 2,000 villages to be enveloped in floods and mudslides and displacing 2.75 million people in the past two weeks. There have been 85 deaths reported in the state.

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Global wrap: Hong Kong ‘critical’ as Covid cases rise worldwide

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Lam says situation out of control, while Melbourne makes face masks compulsory

The coronavirus situation in Hong Kong is “really critical”, with a record 100 new infections recorded on Sunday, the territory’s leader, Carrie Lam, said, as Melbourne became the first city in Australia to make wearing masks compulsory in response to a resurgent and aggressive outbreak there.

Hong Kong was held up months ago as a model for its success in keeping down Covid-19 cases in the crowded city-state of 7.5 million people, but its caseload – although still low by European and American standards – had grown by a third in the past fortnight to nearly 1,800. Lam has shuttered bars, gyms and nightclubs in the past week and on Sunday announced new guidelines including mandatory mask-wearing indoors.

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Global report: coronavirus infections in India pass 1m as outbreaks flare globally

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Country becomes third in world to reach figure; alarming peak in French region of Brittany

India has become the third country to record more than 1m coronavirus infections, following the US and Brazil, as it reported 34,956 new cases in the past 24 hours, taking the national total to 1,003,832.

New peaks continue to appear around the world, including an alarming rise in the Brittany region of France.

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Artlords, not warlords – how Kabul’s artists battle for the streets

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Muralists are covering the Afghan capital’s blast walls with agitprop imagery and calling out corruption

From the killing of George Floyd in the US and the drowning of Afghan refugees in Iran, to the signing of the US-Taliban agreement towards peace and brutal murder of a Japanese aid worker, a group of Afghan artists have taken paintbrushes to adorn Kabul’s grey blast walls with vivid imagery.

The barriers have been transformed into politically inspired murals, which the artists hope will create “visual dialogue” and raise awareness of corruption and injustices.

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‘Now I’m independent’: the Pakistan beauty salons employing acid attack survivors

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A job scheme for women who may otherwise be shunned as outcasts is giving many the opportunity to rebuild their lives

Margaret Heera runs her fingers through her customer’s hair. “You must manage time for yourself and your skin,” she says, as she ties the hair into an elaborate knot.

The beauty salon in Lahore is busy. Sitting between potted plants on chairs facing full-length mirrors, women are waiting to get their hair cut or styled, for manicures and pedicures.

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High court backs negligence claim of Bangladeshi ship-breaker’s widow

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Ruling may persuade shipping companies that scrapping vessels in the dangerous, unregulated yards of south Asia is a false economy

A widow whose husband fell eight storeys to his death while breaking up a supertanker in Bangladesh can pursue a negligence claim against Maran (UK), a British company involved in the ship’s sale, according to a high court ruling.

The judge in London ruled shipping firm Maran (UK) Ltd arguably had a duty of care towards Mohammed Kalil Mollah, 32, who died working on the Ekta, a 300,000-tonne vessel, that was being scrapped at a yard in Chittagong, now Chattogram, Bangladesh. The Guardian wrote about Mollah’s death earlier this year.

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‘Women always take the brunt’: India sees surge in unsafe abortion

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Low priority for reproductive health during lockdown leaves millions unable to access contraception or safe terminations

Sadhna Gupta* discovered she was pregnant just after India imposed a crippling lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19.

The 21-year-old from the eastern Indian city of Bhubaneswar didn’t want to be pregnant. With no public transport available, clinics closed and Bhubaneswar at a standstill, she bought an abortion pill without consulting a doctor. While what she did was not unusual, Indian law requires a prescription for the pills from a licensed medical professional.

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The Guardian view on Covid-19 worldwide: on the march

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Infections are accelerating in largely untouched countries and those which hoped they had come through the worst. But there is hope

“Most of the world sort of sat by and watched with almost a sense of detachment and bemusement,” said Helen Clark, appointed to investigate the World Health Organization’s handling of the pandemic. The former New Zealand prime minister was describing the early weeks of the outbreak, and the sense that coronavirus was a problem “over there”. The failure to recognise our interconnection created complacency even as the death toll rose.

It took three months for the first million people to fall sick – but only a week to record the last million of the nearly 13 million cases now reported worldwide. As England emerges from lockdown at an unwary pace, Covid-19 is accelerating globally. The WHO has reported a record surge of a quarter of a million cases in a single day. The death toll is over half a million people and rising fast.

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Coronavirus report: India reports record spike as cases double in South Africa

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Indian cases pass 800,000; Johannesburg struggles to find vital equipment; Texas warns ‘worst is yet to come’

India reported a record spike in coronavirus cases on Saturday, taking the national total to more than 800,000 and pushing several states to bring back lockdowns, despite the punitive economic cost.

Now the world’s third-worst affected country by case load, it reported a spike of 27,114 cases on Saturday, although mortality rates have been lower than in other badly affected countries with confirmed death toll now 22,123.

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