Category Archives: South and Central Asia

Has India lost its sense of humour? Critics point to rise of deference after mimicry row

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There was outrage when the vice-president was mocked last month by an opposition MP, but social commentators say India is increasingly a country that cannot take a joke

It is rare for India’s politicians to laugh at themselves, but a row over an act of mimicry has exposed the extent of the lack of humour and intolerance of satire in the country’s political and public life.

Over the past two weeks, politicians have traded insults over an impersonation of India’s vice-president, Jagdeep Dhankhar, by the opposition MP Kalyan Banerjee.

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Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus convicted of violating Bangladesh’s labour laws

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Prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, has accused 83-year-old of ‘sucking blood’ from poor people

The Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus has been convicted of violating Bangladesh’s labour laws in a trial decried by his supporters as politically motivated.

The 83-year-old, credited with lifting millions out of poverty with his microfinance bank, Grameen, has earned the enmity of Sheikh Hasina, the longtime prime minister, who has accused him of “sucking blood” from poor people.

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Pakistan commission rejects Imran Khan’s bid to overturn election ban

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Former prime minister is barred from standing in elections after being jailed for unlawfully selling state gifts while in office

Pakistan’s election body has rejected former prime minister Imran Khan’s nomination to contest the 2024 national elections in two constituencies, officials and his party’s media team said on Saturday.

The 71-year-old former cricket star has been embroiled in a tangle of political and legal battles since he was ousted as prime minister in April 2022. He has not been seen in public since he was jailed for three years in August for unlawfully selling state gifts while in office from 2018 to 2022.

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Weather tracker: rain batters Argentina and DRC as fog shrouds India and Pakistan

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Turkey also affected by fog, with 10 killed and 57 injured in serious road crash involving three buses

During the Christmas period, parts of South America experienced intense showers and thunderstorms, resulting in substantial rainfall in various regions. On Monday, more than 100mm of rain fell in the Catamarca province in Argentina, which led to flash floods. A sudden surge in river water levels then caused the collapse of a pedestrian bridge, which was the only link between the towns of Rincón and Pomán. While many other roads in the region were damaged and houses were flooded, no casualties were reported.

The unique topography of Catamarca aided the formation of a near-stationary convective shower over Pomán, unleashing several hours of torrential rain and causing catastrophic flooding.

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Wave of drug-carrying drones flying into India from Pakistan, officials say

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Border officers say most drones carry opium and heroin, fuelling a drugs crisis in Punjab, while others drop weapons

Indian border security have said they are battling an unprecedented “drone menace” infiltrating the border with Pakistan, fuelling the drugs crisis in the state of Punjab and raising serious security issues.

Officials from India’s border security force (BSF) in the border state of Punjab told the Guardian they had intercepted 90 drones from Pakistan so far in 2023, the highest on record. They said the number was “increasing every month”.

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Pakistan uses artificial rain in attempt to cut pollution levels

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Cloud seeding improves air quality in city of Lahore but experts say practice is not a sustainable solution

Artificial rain has been used in an attempt to lower pollution levels in Lahore, Pakistan.

The capital city of the eastern province of Punjab, near the Indian border, has some of the worst air quality in the world and has become extremely polluted because of a growing population of more than 13 million people.

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Indian government accused of attack on democracy as 141 MPs suspended

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Opposition politicians excluded from rest of winter session for protesting against parliament security breach

More than 140 Indian opposition politicians have been suspended from parliament, the largest number in history, after protesting against a recent security breach at the parliamentary premises.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government was accused of a direct attack on democracy and creating “anarchy” after 141 MPs from 11 different opposition parties, who sit in the lower and upper houses of parliament, were suspended for the rest of the winter session.

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Imran Khan deploys AI clone to campaign from behind bars in Pakistan

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PTI party uses ‘voice clone’ of imprisoned opposition leader to give impassioned speech in ‘virtual rally’

Artificial intelligence allowed Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan to campaign from behind bars on Monday, with a voice clone of the opposition leader giving an impassioned speech on his behalf.

Khan has been locked up since August and is being tried for leaking classified documents, allegations he says have been trumped up to stop him contesting general elections due in February.

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Nepal earthquake survivors dying in tents as temperatures plunge

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At least 38 people, including a new mother, have died in the month after the earthquake struck, among 40,000 people living under tarpaulin

At least 38 people who survived an earthquake in Nepal have died after spending more than a month living in tents in freezing temperatures. Among the dead is a woman who gave birth two days after the earthquake struck the west of the country on 3 November.

More than 40,000 people are now living under sheets of tarpaulin, according to the directorate of health for Karnali province.

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Myanmar becomes world’s biggest producer of opium, overtaking Afghanistan

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Opium production in Afghanistan slumped an estimated 95%, according to a UN report

Myanmar became the world’s biggest producer of opium in 2023, overtaking Afghanistan after the Taliban government’s crackdown on the trade, according to a United Nations report.

Myanmar produced an estimated 1,080 metric tonnes of opium – essential for producing heroin – this year, according to the latest report by the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

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India’s supreme court upholds decision to strip Kashmir of special status

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Chief justice says government did not overreach its powers when it revoked autonomy of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019

India’s supreme court has ruled that the government acted lawfully when it revoked the autonomy of the state of Jammu and Kashmir and brought it directly under control of the centre.

Article 370, which for almost 70 years had enshrined special rights for Jammu and Kashmir outside the Indian constitution, was revoked by the government of Narendra Modi in August 2019 through a presidential order, with no consultation with the Kashmiri people.

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No 10 team arrives in Delhi to revive talks over free trade deal

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Exclusive: Pre-election agreement would provide a major boost to Narendra Modi and Rishi Sunak

Senior Downing Street officials have flown to Delhi to kickstart talks over a multibillion pound free trade agreement, with the government of Narendra Modi having indicated it is keen to finalise a deal in the next three months.

UK trade negotiators are in the Indian capital talking to their Indian counterparts as they look to revive a deal that looked a distant prospect just a few months ago.

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Weather tracker: Low Mississippi River levels take toll on farmers

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Economic loss from disruption on important travel route for grain exports estimated to be $20bn

Extreme drought and a warm autumn have left water levels on the Mississippi exceptionally low for the time of year. This is causing problems for farmers who rely on the river as a travel route for the crops: 60% of US grain exports use the waterway to reach the Gulf coasts.

The total economic loss is estimated to be about $20bn and, despite attempts to dredge the river, it remains worryingly low as the country enters an important month for grain transport.

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India unveils ‘flatpack’ field hospital with mini x-ray for use in disaster zones

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The portable unit, comprising mini cubes of medical equipment, enables surgeons to be operating within an hour, designers claim

India has designed and built a “flatpack” field hospital that can be flown to a disaster area by helicopter and assembled faster than an Ikea bookcase.

The hospital is contained in 72 small waterproof cubes, each weighing under 15kg and measuring 38cm x 38cm x 38cm (15 x 15 x 15in). They are packed with tents and specially designed medical equipment.

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Taliban causing ‘irreversible damage’ to whole education system in Afghanistan

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Human Rights Watch warns bar on women means unqualified men now teach boys, fewer subjects are taught and beatings are routine

The Taliban is causing “irreversible damage” to Afghanistan’s education system through the reintroduction of corporal punishment, curriculum changes and the use of unqualified teachers to replace women, most of whom have been barred from schools, Human Rights Watch has warned.

After taking power in 2021, the Taliban banned girls from secondary schools. A new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW), published on Wednesday, warns that boys’ education has also suffered under the Taliban, although this has gone largely unreported.

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Fears grow for hundreds of Rohingya refugees adrift for two weeks

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UN warns of possible tragedy unless people are rescued from two boats on Andaman Sea

About 400 Rohingya refugees have been adrift in two boats on the Andaman Sea for about two weeks, according to the United Nations, which called on regional governments to help rescue them.

The number of Rohingya Muslims fleeing by boats in a seasonal exodus – usually from squalid, overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh – has been rising since last year due to cuts to food rations and an increase in gang violence.

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‘Jail crushes you slowly’: Kashmiri journalist reflects on prison ordeal

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Fahad Shah, whose case was a symbol of harassment of region’s media, says he has different outlook after months behind bars

During his more than 600 days behind bars, Fahad Shah, a Kashmiri journalist, had begun to lose hope that he would ever see freedom again. It was in February last year that Shah, 34, the editor of the Kashmir Walla, one of the last remaining independent news websites in the region, was arrested on charges of “glorifying terrorism” and publishing “anti-national content”.

What followed was a crushing 21 months for Shah as his high-profile case became a symbol of the growing harassment faced by Kashmiri journalists. He was granted bail in one case, only to be swiftly re-arrested and hit with new, more draconian charges.

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iPhone manufacturers in India halt production due to Cyclone Michaung

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Foxconn and Pegatron temporarily shut factories near Chennai because of torrential rains that have claimed at least four lives

Taiwan’s Foxconn and Pegatron have halted production of Apple iPhones at their factories near Chennai in southern India because of heavy rains, sources close to the matter said on Monday.

In Tamil Nadu’s capital Chennai, the state’s largest city and a major electronics and manufacturing hub, at least two people died and the runway of one of the country’s busiest airports was submerged after torrential rain as the city braced for a severe cyclone expected to hit in the next 24 hours. Two others had died elsewhere. Cyclone Michaung was expected to make landfall on the coast of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh around noon on Tuesday, the country’s weather office said, with sustained winds of 90kph to 100kph (56mph to 62mph), gusting to 110kph.

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Weather tracker: temperatures to plummet across Russia

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East of country may fall to close to -50C, while Moscow has its third snowiest November this century

Temperatures across large parts of Russia are expected to plummet in the second half of this week. A large area of high pressure will sit over a large portion of the west of the country, introducing arctic air to the region, and keeping temperatures well below the seasonal average.

In Perm and Omsk, daytime temperatures are not forecast to rise above -25C later this week, which is about 20C below the seasonal norm. For the Perm region, this week is expected to be the coldest since 2016.

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Indian police accused of harassing Sikh activist in UK before his sudden death

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Family of Avtar Khanda question UK authorities’ account that his death was reviewed by police and that there was no foul play

A Sikh activist in Birmingham complained that Indian police were verbally harassing him by phone and threatening his family in Punjab months before his sudden death in June, a Guardian investigation has found.

The death of Avtar Singh Khanda, which family and friends have said was suspicious, coincided with a plot that was playing out across the Atlantic where, US prosecutors have alleged, an Indian government official with close ties to Indian intelligence was ordering the murder of high-profile Sikh activists in Canada and the US.

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