Leaders put aside personality clashes and ideological differences to form coalition to take on PM
Leaders of 26 opposition political parties in India have united to form an alliance in an attempt to oust the country’s populist prime minister, Narendra Modi, in next year’s general election.
During a conclave of opposition parties held this week, it was decided that the coalition will be called the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance: otherwise known as INDIA.
Continue reading...People are united to end military dictatorship but international support is needed, Naw Hser Hser says
The crisis in Myanmar should be referred to the international criminal court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including widespread sexual violence, an open session at the UN security council will be told.
Naw Hser Hser, the first Myanmar human rights defender to brief council members in an open session since the 2021 coup, will also call for greater action to cut crucial supplies of arms and finances to the military junta.
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Continue reading...Chandrayaan-3 launches from island in southern India in follow-up to failed effort four years ago
An Indian spacecraft has blazed its way towards the far side of the moon in a follow-up mission to its failed effort nearly four years ago to land a rover softly on the lunar surface, India’s space agency said.
Chandrayaan-3, the word for “moon craft” in Sanskrit, took off from a launch pad in Sriharikota, an island in southern India, with an orbiter, a lander and a rover, in a demonstration of India’s emerging space technology. The spacecraft will embark on a journey lasting slightly over a month before landing on the moon’s surface later in August.
Continue reading...The Chandrayaan-3 is set to blast off from a spaceport in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh
India’s space agency has made final preparations for the launch of a rocket that will attempt to land a rover on the moon and mark the country’s arrival as a power in space exploration.
Only the United States, the former Soviet Union and China have made successful lunar landings. An attempt by a Japanese start-up earlier this year ended with the lander crashing.
Continue reading...Nepali pilot and five Mexican passengers killed after aircraft crashes soon after takeoff near Lukla
All six people onboard a tourist helicopter in Nepal have been killed after it crashed soon after takeoff in the Everest region.
The Manang Air flight was heading for the capital, Kathmandu, from near Lukla, a gateway for climbing expeditions to the world’s highest peak, with five Mexican tourists – two men and three women – and a Nepali pilot onboard.
Continue reading...Poor oversight, lack of understanding and weak collaboration between allies contributed to ease of Taliban takeover, conclude US and UK aid bodies at London conference
America’s huge, badly-coordinated and politically-driven aid programme in Afghanistan engendered the corruption that undermined its entire mission and turned Afghans away from the western coalition, according to the head of a US aid watchdog.
“We did not really understand Afghanistan or how it worked as a country,” John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (Sigar), told a conference at the defence and security thinktank the Royal United Services Institute.
Continue reading...Beijing is source of ‘systemic challenges’ but alliance members are divided on how to engage
Nato leaders and their allies are heading to Vilnius, Lithuania, this week, for two days of meetings starting on Tuesday. Among them is Yoon Suk Yeol, South Korea’s president, who will give one of the opening speeches.
The summit will be dominated by discussions about the alliance’s relationship with Ukraine. But Yoon’s attendance reflects a growing interest among members in stepping up their dialogue with countries in the Asia-Pacific.
Continue reading...Consumers, farmers and even McDonald’s struggle in shortage blamed on irregular weather
Listening to the chatter at Delhi’s vegetable markets, only one question is on everyone’s lips: just how much will a tomato cost today?
Prices of tomatoes, a staple of Indian cooking, have soared by more than 400% in recent weeks as the country has been gripped by a nationwide shortage.
Continue reading...Research into loss of trawler with hundreds of deaths strongly contradicts official accounts – while finding a failure to mobilise help and evidence that survivor statements were tampered with
Attempts by the Greek coastguard to tow a fishing trawler carrying hundreds of migrants may have caused the vessel to sink, according to a new investigation by the Guardian and media partners that has raised further questions about the incident, which left an estimated 500 people missing
The trawler carrying migrants from Libya to Italy sank off the coast of Greece on 14 June. There were 104 survivors.
Continue reading...Residents in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand warned not to go outside and Delhi schools closed amid flooding and landslides in multiple states
Torrential rain across northern India has killed at least 22 people, causing landslides and flash floods in the region, with Delhi receiving the most rainfall in decades, reports and officials have said.
Schools in Delhi were closed after heavy rains lashed the national capital over the weekend, and authorities in the Himalayan states of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand asked people not to venture out of their homes unless necessary.
Continue reading...Dozens more injured in state notorious for political violence during polls to elect local leaders
At least seven people were killed and dozens more injured in India after clashes over local polls in West Bengal, a state notorious for political violence during election campaigns.
India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) has in recent years worked hard to gain a toehold in West Bengal – ruled by a Communist party for much of its history – to expand its reach beyond its Hindi-speaking northern heartlands.
Continue reading...Workers charged with culpable homicide and destruction of evidence after one of country’s deadliest rail accidents
Three men have been arrested in India over a triple-train collision that killed nearly 300 people last month, one of the worst rail accidents in the country’s history, police have said.
The train crash in eastern Odisha state occurred when a packed passenger train was mistakenly diverted on to a loop line and hit a stationary goods train.
Continue reading...Judge calls conviction of opposition leader ‘just, proper and legal’ as lawyer vows to take case to supreme court
India’s most well-known opposition leader Rahul Gandhi is facing another setback after a high court judge refused to suspend his conviction for defamation, a case critics allege is politically motivated.
The judge in Gujarat high court called Gandhi’s conviction “just, proper and legal” and said “no injustice” would be done to the politician by refusing to grant his plea.
Continue reading...Most of the deaths were in Punjab province and mainly caused by electrocution and building collapses
At least 50 people, including eight children, have been killed by floods and landslides triggered by monsoon rains that have lashed Pakistan since last month, officials have said.
The summer monsoon between June and September brings 70-80% of south Asia’s annual rainfall every year. It is vital for the livelihoods of millions of farmers and food security in a region of about 2 billion people – but it also triggers landslides and floods.
Continue reading...Tabrez Ansari was tied to a pole in Jharkhand, tortured for 12 hours and made to chant Hindu slogans widely used by Hindu hardliners
An Indian court has sentenced 10 men to 10 years each in jail for the lynching of a Muslim man, who died after being tortured and forced to chant Hindu slogans.
Tabrez Ansari was tied to a pole and tortured for 12 hours in 2019, as he cried and pleaded with a mob that accused him of burglary in the eastern state of Jharkhand.
Continue reading...Police said man charged with assault, which could see him fined and jailed for a year
Indian authorities on Wednesday demolished the home of a man accused of publicly urinating on a member of a tribal community after footage of the alleged assault sparked public condemnation.
A video shared widely on social media appeared to show Pravesh Shukla urinating on his young victim in a dark street in the central Sidhi district while smoking a cigarette. The attack took place last year but came to public attention only this week.
Continue reading...MoD acknowledged at preliminary hearing that ‘UK special forces’ were present in Afghanistan
A partial admission by the defence secretary that UK special forces were present in Afghanistan risks discrediting a public inquiry investigating allegations of unlawful killings by the SAS, according to a lawyer representing victims’ families.
Richard Hermer KC said Ben Wallace had made only “a semi-concession” in a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, when the minister made a rare acknowledgment that “UK special forces” were present in Afghanistan.
Continue reading...Morality ministry decrees another reduction of Afghan women’s access to public spaces
The Taliban administration in Afghanistan has ordered beauty salons to close within a month, the morality ministry said, in the latest shrinking of access to public places for Afghan women.
“The deadline for the closing of beauty parlours for women is one month,” Mohammad Sadiq Akif, a spokesperson for the Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Propagation of Virtue, said on Tuesday, referring to a ministry notice.
Continue reading...President also told leaders from China, Pakistan and India that Russia would stand up to western sanctions
Vladimir Putin has said that Russia remains “united as never before” in the wake of the failed mutiny by the Wagner mercenary group and claimed the country continued to flourish in the face of heavy western sanctions over his invasion of Ukraine.
In an address from the Kremlin to a virtual gathering of leaders from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), a group founded by Russia and China to counter western influence, the Russian president attempted to rebuff any suggestion that he had been weakened by last week’s chaotic but short-lived rebellion led by Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Continue reading...Officials in Punjab say they can’t to stop the exodus, as families tell of loved ones lost on the perilous route via Africa and the Mediterranean
In one of the busiest hubs for trafficking in Pakistan, would-be migrants are continuing to leave for Europe despite hundreds of people drowning after a trawler sank off the Greek coast last month, the Guardian has found.
In the past week, at least two more people from the district of Mandi Bahauddin, in eastern Pakistan, have left with the help of traffickers. The continued migration comes as families mourn loved ones believed to be on the Greek shipwreck, most of whose passengers were from Pakistan, and those missing after previous forlorn attempts to reach Europe.
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