Category Archives: South and Central Asia

India primed: what Amazon’s vast new Hyderabad campus reveals about its plans

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Amazon have arrived in force in rapidly expanding Hyderabad, with designs on the currently almost non-existent Indian e-commence market

The futuristic lobby of the new Amazon building in Hyderabad feels as though it should have a permanent orchestra blasting out Also Sprach Zarathustra. The scale is intended to awe. A large slogan on a wall suggests the company is “Delivering smiles”. The only sound that rises above the hush is a synthesised beep, coming from a giant screen playing a video of the campus at various stages of its construction.

Built on nine acres in this Indian city’s financial district, it is Amazon’s single largest building globally and the only Amazon-owned campus outside the US. It can house over 15,000 employees, but its size is its main architectural feature: it resembles the same cube of glass steel and chrome seen in corporate offices across Hyderabad, though a flash of magenta reflected in one of the top floor windows, from a billowing sari across the road, is a nice Indian touch.

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How do you sign chicken and chips? Pakistan’s cafe run by and for the deaf

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Menus in sign language and jobs for the hearing impaired are challenging discrimination against those with disabilities

It’s not just the bright yellow walls that make the Abey Khao cafe in Islamabad’s Mughal Market stand out. The menu is in sign language, as is the English alphabet painted on the walls, along with the signs for “yes”, “no”, and “thank you”. Customers are encouraged to place their orders using sign language.

The Abey Khao - which means “Hey Eat” – cafe is the believed to the only fast food cafe in Pakistan set up and run by deaf people.

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Reasons to be fearful – the international news review of 2019

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This year world leaders struggled to manage the fallout from the erratic tenant in the White House – as China flexed its imperial muscles. We look back at the events that created the most turbulence

Click here for 2019’s reasons to be cheerful

A year of high anxiety was rendered more alarming by intensifying clashes of interest between world powers. As international cooperation declined, and nationalist agendas gathered strength, China, the US, Russia and Europe, and their respective allies, emulators and proxies, engaged in often dangerous competition.

The Chinese communist regime’s increasingly assertive behaviour at home and abroad, reflecting the authoritarian outlook of its paramount leader-for-life, Xi Jinping, produced head-on collisions with western countries, notably over Hong Kong, trade, technology and the repression of the Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang.

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Coke, crisps, convenience: how ads created a global junk food generation

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From Bangladesh to Britain, blanket exposure to promotional material for unhealthy foods is encouraging children to eat badly, new research claims

Nepalese schoolgirl Prasiddhika Shrestha is holding up a video camera at her aunt’s house, filming her cousins as they devour crisps, corn puffs, soda and dalmoth, a traditional lentil-based snack.

“What is it that you like eating most?” she asks them. “Lay’s chips and Coke,” says Diwani, who drinks between one and two litres of soft drink every day. Rihana includes a pack of Kurkure corn puffs in her daily diet.

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From rubbish to rice: the cafe that gives food in exchange for plastic

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The Garbage Cafe in Ambikapur, India, is helping to tackle the country’s plastic waste problem – and their novel idea is catching on

On bad days, when his employer made some excuse for not paying him his paltry daily wage, Ram Yadav’s main meal used to be dry chapatis, with salt and raw onion for flavour. Sometimes he just went hungry. For a ragpicker like him, one of the thousands of Indians who make a living bringing in plastic waste for recycling, eating in a cafe or restaurant was the stuff of fairytales.

But last week, Yadav was sitting at a table at the Garbage Cafe in Ambikapur, in the state of Chhattisgarh, over a piping hot meal of dal, aloo gobi, poppadoms and rice. He earned the food in exchange for bringing in 1kg of plastic waste. “The hot meal I get here lasts me all day. And it feels good to sit at a table like everyone else,” he said.

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‘I want to tell of our suffering’: comms crackdown puts Rohingya on mute

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The Bangladeshi government is making life hard for young people trying to document levels of hardship in the world’s largest refugee settlement

For Azimul Hassan, 19, life before he entered the world’s largest refugee settlement was always busy.

He would wake early to visit his private tutor before school, then work late every evening to finish his homework. On Fridays, he would play football with friends – he was a striker.

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‘Blood on the ground’ at Croatia’s borders as brutal policing persists

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While heavy snow makes life unbearable for migrants, a dangerous nightly ‘game’ has led to alleged assault and injury

Photography by Alessio Mamo

In a room in the intensive therapy unit of a hospital in the port city of Rijeka, Croatia, Farouk fights for his life.

The 18-year-old Afghan has life-threatening injuries to his thorax and abdomen. On 16 November, in the woods around Tuhobić, a Croatian police officer shot Farouk – who, with dozens of other migrants, was attempting to cross the border with Slovenia.

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India citizenship law: Modi meets ministers as protests continue

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At least 14 killed in clashes between police and protesters since law passed on 10 days ago

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, met his council of ministers on Saturday to discuss security measures to end violent protests against a citizenship law, in one of the biggest crises his Hindu nationalist government has faced.

At least 14 people have been killed in clashes between police and protesters since parliament passed the law on 11 December. Critics saying it discriminates against Muslims and undermines India’s secular constitution.

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‘They travel hours to see a doctor for a minute’: India’s mental health crisis

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With fewer than two psychiatrists for every 100,000 people, experts are seeking innovative solutions to address the emergency

On a sunny morning at Calcutta Pavlov Hospital, 600 people wait patiently in the outpatient department. For many, the journey to see a doctor started hours before sunrise, with some even travelling overnight to secure their place in line. Despite waiting for hours, most will spend just 90 seconds with the psychiatrist.

One of the doctors on call, Dr Debananda Saha, expects to treat about 250 patients during his seven-hour shift at the government hospital.

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India citizenship law: protesters across country defy ban

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Government orders ban on mobile internet as violence escalates

Turmoil has continued to escalate across India over a controversial citizenship law that is seen as discriminatory against Muslims, as tens of thousands defied bans on public assembly to take to the streets, the largest internet shutdown yet was imposed and three more people were killed.

Attempts by the authorities to clamp down on the demonstrations by banning large gatherings in areas across the country proved futile, as protesters gathered in their thousands in Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Bangalore and many other big cities.

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India suffers most pollution-linked deaths in world, study finds

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Pollution causes more than 2 million deaths a year in India, while Chad, Central African Republic and North Korea saw highest per capita rates

India leads the world in pollution-linked deaths– followed by China and Nigeria – according to a report published on Wednesday that estimated the global impact of contaminants in the air, water and workplace.

The report by the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP) found pollution to be the largest environmental cause of premature death on the planet, causing 15% of all deaths – some 8.3 million people.

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India clamps down on citizenship law protests

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Critics say Narendra Modi’s Citizenship Amendment Act ‘has declared war on Muslims’

Authorities have imposed an emergency law banning large gatherings in parts of India’s capital, Delhi, as nationwide protests escalated, injuring police and demonstrators.

A week after a controversial new citizenship law was passed by parliament, which has been accused of openly discriminating against Muslims, protests across the country showed no sign of abating.

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Police storm Indian university campus in violent crackdown on students – video report

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Students have condemned as 'barbaric' the tactics of Delhi police after they stormed a university campus to break up a peaceful protest, injuring dozens. Footage shot by students showed police firing teargas inside a library and beating people with batons. Demonstrators at the predominantly Muslim Jamia Millia Islamia University were protesting against a new law that will fast-track citizenship for migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, but excludes Muslims


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Police fire teargas inside university library during India citizenship protests – video

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Indian police storm main library of New Delhi's Jamia Millia University on Sunday, firing teargas at students barricaded inside. Footage shot inside the library shows people scrambling over desks and climbing through smashed windows to escape

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Women protect unarmed man from police beating in India student protests – video

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Women form human shield around man in New Delhi and shout 'go back, go back' as officers attempt to beat him with sticks. Protests have erupted across India against law to fast-track citizenship for everyone except Muslim asylum seekers

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India protests: students condemn ‘barbaric’ police

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Anger grows across country at new law which denies citizenship to Muslim migrants

Students in Delhi have condemned their “barbaric” treatment at the hands of police who stormed a peaceful protest against the new citizenship bill over the weekend, injuring dozens.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, students who were caught up in Sunday’s protest at Delhi’s predominately Muslim Jamia Millia Islamia University – which turned violent after police descended on the campus firing teargas and rubber bullets and beating demonstrators with batons – said it had turned into a “battlefield”.

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Pakistan sentences Pervez Musharraf to death for high treason

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Former ruler, who no longer lives in country, was tried for imposing state of emergency in 2007

A Pakistani court has sentenced the country’s former military ruler Pervez Musharraf to death on charges of high treason and subverting the constitution.

Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup and later ruled as president, is not in Pakistan and was not available for comment on the sentence, handed down by an anti-terrorism court hearing the high treason case.

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India citizenship law: shock at crackdown may unite Modi opponents

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Protests are most significant show of dissent in nearly six years of Modi in power

Student protests are not unusual in India. Nor is police violence. But the scenes of officers entering one of Delhi’s Muslim-majority universities, teargassing the library and beating demonstrators and bystanders have shocked a country thought to have become inured to both.

Fuelled by the apparent police brutality, protests against a controversial law to fast-track citizenship for everyone but Muslim asylum seekers were spreading on Monday to other major universities and cities across the country, in what is becoming the most significant show of dissent in the nearly six years since Narendra Modi took office.

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Indian students join fierce protests against ‘anti-Muslim’ citizenship law

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Campus protests take place across country, as alleged police brutality fuels anger

Intense protests against a divisive Indian citizenship law that excludes Muslims have spread to university campuses across the country, fuelled by a brutal police crackdown on a demonstration in Delhi at the weekend.

Police entered the Jamia Millia Islamia University (JMI) campus in the capital on Sunday and detained more than 100 students, beating activists in the street and firing teargas. JMI was shut on Monday, as were nearby schools and offices, after barricades and buses were set alight during the protest.

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Violent clashes continue in India over new citizenship bill

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Protests spread to Delhi as BJP government accused of making Muslims second-class citizens

Violent clashes erupted in Delhi amid allegations a new citizenship bill discriminates against Muslims and undermines the secular foundations of India, with protests over the legislation spreading to other regions and prompting Japan’s prime minister to cancel a visit to the country.

Thousands took to the streets of Assam’s capital Guwahati for the third day, following the death of two protesters who were caught in police fire on Thursday. The north-eastern state has been the epicentre of the protests against the citizenship amendment bill (CAB).

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