Group of 40 trapped underground for 72 hours with rescue efforts hampered by boulder falls and machinery faults
Fears are mounting for 40 construction workers in India who have been stuck in a collapsed tunnel for more than 72 hours, as rescue efforts are hampered by fresh debris and those inside begin reporting illness.
The road tunnel, which was under construction in the mountainous state of Uttarakhand, collapsed in the early hours of Sunday after a landslide.
Continue reading...Minister for communications and information technology says the popular video-sharing platform ‘disrupts family structures’
Nepal has said it will ban TikTok, citing negative effects on the country’s “social harmony”.
The popular video-sharing platform, which has around a billion monthly users, has faced restrictions in many countries for alleged breaches of data rules and for the potentially harmful impact on youth of some content.
Continue reading...Entrance to Silkyara tunnel collapsed in early hours of Sunday with dozens of workers inside
A huge operation is under way to rescue 40 construction workers trapped after a tunnel partially collapsed in the Indian state of Uttarakhand.
The entrance to the Silkyara tunnel, which was under construction as part of a road project in Uttarkashi district, collapsed in the early hours of Sunday morning while dozens of workers were inside.
Continue reading...Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League party are seeking a fourth consecutive term and are accused of harassing the rival BNP party
In Bangladesh, there is no more room left in the prisons. In the last two weeks alone, almost 10,000 opposition leaders, supporters and activists have been arrested after protests broke out against the ruling government, led by the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.
Thousands of other political prisoners have already been inside these cells for months, many facing dozens, perhaps hundreds, of criminal charges. Rajshahi central jailhas a capacity of about 4,000 prisoners. It now holds more than 13,600.
Continue reading...Employees making clothes for fast-fashion brands have been demonstrating against a new minimum salary of £92 a month
A Bangladeshi woman was shot dead on Wednesday after police in Dhaka opened fire during a protest held by garment workers demanding a wage increase. Anjuara Khatun, a 26-year-old machine operator at Islam Garments in Gazipur, was on her way home after the factory closed suddenly as a large group of protesters gathered nearby.
Her husband told reporters he heard gunshots when police opened fire on about 400 workers and then saw people carrying his wife’s motionless body. “She was shot in the head and died in the car on the way to the hospital,” he said. “There was blood oozing out from a hole in her head.”
Continue reading...Toxic smog is annual event for Indian capital’s 33 million residents but nobody seems willing to take responsibility
As soon as the smog descended, the political mudslinging began.
For over a week, pollution levels in Delhi have consistently remained in the “severe” category and its 33 million residents have been forced to breathe toxic air that exceeded healthy limits of pollutants by more than 100 times.
Continue reading...Security Force Monitor finds 64% of senior army officers led units allegedly committing killings, rapes, torture and disappearances
New research into alleged war crimes in Myanmar has concluded that the majority of senior commanders in the Myanmar military, many of whom hold powerful political positions in the country, were responsible for crimes including rape, torture, killings and forced disappearances carried out by units under their command between 2011 and 2023.
The research, by the Security Force Monitor (SFM), a project run by Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute, states that 64% – 51 of 79 – of all Myanmar’s senior military commanders are responsible for war crimes. It claims that the most serious perpetrator of human rights violations is Gen Mya Tun Oo, Myanmar’s deputy prime minister, former defence minister and a member of the ruling military council.
Continue reading...Ahmad* was approved for relocation to UK before Home Office refusal meant he missed evacuation from Afghanistan in 2021
An Afghan former interpreter with the British army has resettled in the UK with his family after a lengthy legal battle with the government, more than two years after being initially approved for relocation.
Prior to the Taliban takeover, Ahmad* worked as an interpreter in Helmand province. In late 2020 he was approved for relocation to the UK before later facing a Home Office refusal, and missing the opportunity to evacuate as Britain and international allies withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021.
Continue reading...Garment workers in Bangladesh making clothes for UK brands say plans to increase their pay to £92 a month is not enough to survive
Garment workers making clothes in Bangladesh for UK high-street brands say they are facing starvation and are having to steal and scavenge food from fields and bins to feed their children, as protests continue over a new minimum wage for the garment workforce of 4 million people.
Over the past week, tens of thousands of workers have taken to the streets in increasingly violent protests that, according to unions and news reports, have left one young garment worker, Rasel Hawlader, dead.
Continue reading...Junta struggling to counter offensive by armed ethnic groups, amid claims it has lost 100 outposts in the north
Myanmar’s military is facing its biggest military challenge since it seized power in a coup more than two years ago, after an alliance of opponents cut off key trading routes and seized towns and dozens of outposts near the Chinese border.
The offensive in northern Shan state, which was launched by an alliance of ethnic armed groups in coordination with newer anti-coup groups, is a significant blow for the military, analysts say, and could be exploited by the wider pro-democracy resistance movement.
Continue reading...Peers express fears that Jagtar Singh Johal will not receive ‘due process’ in India amid torture claims
Assurances by a UK minister that a British man imprisoned in India will receive a fair trial fly in the face of evidence that he has been tortured and arbitrarily detained, three lawyers who held senior public roles have warned.
To coincide with the sixth anniversary of Jagtar Singh Johal’s detention, Ken MacDonald KC, Elish Angiolini KC and Jim Wallace KC have written to the UK Foreign Office minister Lord Ahmad asking him to retract his recent comments saying that the British citizen would receive “due process” in India.
Continue reading...Rescue workers reach area near epicentre of 5.8-magnitude quake in Karnali province in country’s worst earthquake since 2015
Rescue workers in Nepal began digging through the rubble of collapsed houses with their bare hands on Saturday, searching for survivors after the country’s worst earthquake in eight years killed 157 people and shook buildings as far away as Delhi.
The 5.6-magnitude quake hit the far west of the Himalayan country late on Friday and was measured by the US Geological Survey at just 11 miles (18km) deep.
Continue reading...Season of smog begins with air quality index near worst possible level of 500 and little apparent progress in controlling annual poisonous blight on life
Air quality in Delhi hit severe levels on Friday and a thick toxic smog cloaked the city, marking the beginning of a pollution season that has become an annual catastrophe for India’s capital.
Schools were shut and non-essential construction was banned around Delhi as the air quality index in the city hit 500 – the highest the measurement will go and 100 times the limit deemed to be healthy by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Continue reading...Authorities go ‘door to door’ to round up and return thousands – many who fled from the Taliban – on first day of nationwide crackdown
Pakistan has begun arresting and deporting Afghan refugees who missed Wednesday morning’s deadline for them to leave, a government minister has announced. At least 200,000 people have already returned to Afghanistan voluntarily, said Pakistan’s acting interior minister, Sarfraz Bugti.
The crackdown on unregistered foreigners, part of Pakistan’s new anti-immigrant policy, affects some 2 million Afghans thought to be in Pakistan without documentation.
Continue reading...Huq, ‘a visionary and climate champion’, who was named one of the top 10 scientists in the world by Nature last year, has died at 71
Tributes have poured in from around for world for the renowned Bangladeshi scientist Prof Saleemul Huq, who died on 28 October.
Huq, 71, was an acclaimed academic, a relentless climate activist and the director of the International Centre for Climate Change & Development (ICCCAD), a research and capacity-building organisation in Bangladesh.
Continue reading...Some have waited years in Pakistan for Britain to fulfil its promises – and are now at risk of deportation
For a year after the fall of Kabul and the swift withdrawal of international allies from Afghanistan, Jawed* and his family were in hiding, evading the ruling Taliban as they counted the days waiting for relocation promises from the British government to be realised.
“But that didn’t happen. To this day, two years and two months [later], we’re still living in limbo,” Jawed, a former English teacher for the British Council, said from a hotel in Islamabad.
Continue reading...The opposition is demanding the resignation of prime minister Sheikh Hasina and the transfer of power to a non-partisan caretaker government
Authorities in Bangladesh have arrested a key opposition figure from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and sent him to prison after a nationwide strike led to violent clashes with security forces.
Media reports said at least three civilians died in the violence, which included an arson attack in the nation’s capital, Dhaka, on Sunday. Dozens of others were injured during the strike.
Continue reading...Fire at Kostenko mine is latest in series of deadly incidents, and has prompted nationalisation of global company’s local affiliate
Kazakhstan held nationwide mourning on Sunday after 45 people died in a fire at an ArcelorMittal mine, the worst accident in the central Asian country’s post-Soviet history.
The tragedy, which struck at the Kostenko coalmine in the Karaganda region on Saturday, came after a series of deadly incidents at ArcelorMittal mines and has prompted the nationalisation of the company’s local affiliate.
Continue reading...Tensions between the two countries peaked after Hardeep Singh Nijjar was murdered in Canada earlier this year
India’s embassy in Ottawa has announced that it will reopen visa services for Canadians, a move that could reduce tensions in a bitter dispute over the killing of a Sikh separatist on Canadian soil.
Relations between India and Canada plunged after Justin Trudeau, the prime minister, last month publicly linked Indian intelligence to the killing of Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, allegations New Delhi called “absurd”.
Continue reading...A 17-year-old with a passion for robotics has produced a cheaper utensil that uses sensors to cancel out hand tremors
The motivation for his invention came to Aarrav Anil last year when he saw his uncle Arjun, who has Parkinson’s disease, struggle to eat. Some food spilled out of his mouth, the rest splattered on his clothes. Arjun attempted to keep his dignity but the frustration forced the retired civil servant, who is in his 70s, to give up and call his helper to feed him.
The sight of his uncle’s tremors shaking the spoon so violently inspired Aarrav, 17, from Bengaluru, south India, to turn to robotics. He locked himself in his room with microcontrollers, sensors, motors, and a 3D printer. What emerged was a prototype of a smart spoon that is now undergoing trials at the RV College of Physiotherapy in Bengaluru.
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