Those without a male relative to act as a mahram are in legal limbo and unable to travel long distances
Hasina* cannot send her two daughters to school, because they are teenagers and high school is banned for girls in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
But she cannot take them out of the country to finish their education because she is a divorced single mother, and women are barred from long-distance travel without a male “guardian” to escort them.
Continue reading...PM says ‘self-reliant India is the responsibility of every citizen’ 75 years after end of British rule
The Indian ‘prime minister, Narendra Modi, has pledged to turn India into a developed country within the next 25 years.
Continue reading...One year since the Taliban regained power, charities say urgent action needed to address economic crisis
One year on from the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, a group of 32 Afghan and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are urging the international community not to abandon the country’s people, but instead address the root causes of the its economic crisis, stand up for human rights and increase humanitarian aid.
Reflecting a concern that the deep ideological deadlock between the Taliban and the international community is consigning millions of Afghans to destitution, they call for a clear roadmap that will lead to the restoration of the basic functions of the Afghan central bank and the release of Afghanistan’s assets frozen abroad, mainly in the US. The NGOs call for the disbursement of badly needed Afghan banknotes that have been printed but are impounded in Poland.
Continue reading...Chance encounter on Facebook led Reena Varma, 90, to visit family home she was forced to abandon in 1947
For decades, Reena Varma would return to her home in Rawalpindi in her dreams. She would wander down the narrow lane to the three-storey house and walk through the rooms where she had lived with her five siblings, parents and an aunt for the first 15 years of her life.
But for 75 years, this was a home located across a seemingly impenetrable national border, one Varma could only visit as a painful memory. That was, until July this year. Now 90 years old but still sprightly, a chance encounter on a Facebook group helped her find and visit the family home she was forced to abandon 75 years ago, located in what is now Pakistan.
Continue reading...Social media is helping long-lost relatives discover each other after a lifetime separated by the India-Pakistan border
It was an embrace that held 74 years of pain and longing. As Sikka Khan, 75, fell into the arms of his older brother Sadiq Khan, now in his 80s, the pair wept with simultaneous sorrow and joy. More than seven decades had passed since the brothers, torn apart by the horrors of partition, had seen each other. With Sikka in India and Sadiq in Pakistan, neither knew if the other was alive. Yet both had never stopped looking.
But on a crisp January afternoon this year, the pair were reunited along the border that had so devastatingly fractured their family. “Finally, we are together,” Sadiq told his brother, tears streaming down his face.
Continue reading...A year after the fall of Kabul, Abdullah Sayyid is in hiding, his wife has been murdered and the Home Office seems to have lost his case file
Abdullah Sayyid often thinks about the moment the Taliban broke down his door, burst inside and shot his wife. The gunmen left, but would soon redouble their efforts to kill him because of his work for the British government.
Sayyid’s wife was murdered during the chaotic aftermath of Operation Pitting, the UK’s emergency mass airlift from Kabul that began on 13 August last year.
Continue reading...Shots fired into air and rifle butts used to attack dozens of women protesting outside Afghan education ministry
Taliban fighters beat female protesters and fired into the air on Saturday as they violently dispersed a rare rally in the Afghan capital, days before the first anniversary of the hardline Islamists’ return to power.
Since seizing control on 15 August last year, the Taliban have rolled back the marginal gains made by women during two decades of US intervention in Afghanistan.
Continue reading...Since returning to power the Taliban have banned secondary school-aged girls from getting an education. Here Farzana*, 16, tells her story
Last year I was in 11th grade, the second highest-placed student in my class, with an average grade of 95%. Now I sit at home all day doing almost nothing. Sometimes I help my mum with housework, but really there are no distractions for me.
I can’t even read books, because I have lost the will to continue. After you lose 11 years of effort all at once, you can’t hold on to your dreams to make something of your life.
Continue reading...Girls forced to stop attending school under Taliban are taking huge risks to keep studying – as are the teachers helping them
When inspectors arrive at the school gate, which is most weeks now, the older girls know the drill. They slip away from their classes, race to a musty room and huddle together for long minutes that sometimes stretch into hours, hoping they won’t be discovered by the men who want them shut up at home.
The Taliban have banned secondary education for girls, the only gender-based bar on studying in the world.
Continue reading...Lawyer Tungnath Chaturvedi took on the might of Indian Railways after being charged 20 rupees – or 21p – too much
An Indian lawyer has won a 22-year legal battle with Indian Railways for overcharging him by 20 rupees (21p or 25c).
When Tungnath Chaturvedi, 66, bought a ticket at Mathura station in Uttar Pradesh in 1999 to go to Moradabad, he was charged 90 rupees instead of 70. He complained there and then but did not receive a refund.
Continue reading...Campaigners say many people have had to stop or switch antiretroviral medication regimes – but the government denies supply crisis
Hundreds of thousands of people living with HIV in India are struggling to access treatment because of a shortage of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, according to campaigners.
Up to 500,000 people have not been able to get hold of free ARVs from government health centres and hospitals over the past five months, they say, as the country experiences stock shortages of key drugs.
Continue reading...Rajapaksa allowed in on diplomatic passport for ‘temporary’ stay, say Thai authorities
The former Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled overseas to escape protests against his government, arrived in Thailand on Thursday night on a flight from Singapore, where he had been staying since mid-July.
Thai television stations showed Rajapaksa and a woman believed to be his wife outside the VIP hall at Bangkok’s Don Mueang airport being led to a limousine, which drove off to an undisclosed destination.
Continue reading...Sean Turnell was arrested and charged with violating the official secrets act five days after Aung San Suu Kyi’s government was ousted in 2021
An Australian academic who is being tried with ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi on charges of violating the country’s official secrets law testified in court for the first time on Thursday, a legal official has said.
Sean Turnell, an economist at Sydney’s Macquarie University, had served as an adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi, who was arrested when her elected government was ousted by the army on 1 February 2021.
Continue reading...Taliban in Kabul investigating death of prominent figure they describe as a ‘huge loss’
A prominent Taliban cleric, Sheikh Rahimullah Haqqani, was killed in an attack in a seminary in Kabul when the attacker detonated explosives hidden in a plastic artificial leg, according to officials and Taliban sources.
“Very sadly informed that respected cleric (Sheikh Rahimullah Haqqani) was martyred in a cowardly attack by enemies,” said Bilal Karimi, a spokesperson for the Taliban administration.
Continue reading...Shopkeeper filmed telling customer he had been told to deny rations to anyone refusing to buy flag in run-up to Independence Day
India’s opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, has accused the government of forcing people entitled to free food at government ration shops to buy flags in return for provisions in the run-up to Independence Day celebrations on 15 August.
India will celebrate 75 years of independence from the Raj on Tuesday, and the streets of cities across the country are full of flags for sale.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Father of one of three soldiers slain by Hekmatullah says Australia was ‘sidelined’ in deal between US and Taliban to release terrorist from prison
The family of one of the Australian soldiers killed by rogue Afghan national army sergeant Hekmatullah says Australia was treated with contempt by its closest ally, the US, after it agreed to release the self-professed terrorist from prison.
The Guardian revealed on Monday that the former Afghan national army sergeant, and Taliban plant, Hekmatullah, is again at liberty, and housed under Taliban protection, in the former diplomatic quarter of the Afghan capital Kabul.
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Continue reading...Exclusive: Hekmatullah, who killed three Australian soldiers, is living in a heavily protected luxury Kabul home after being freed from prison
Hekmatullah, the rogue Afghan soldier who killed three unarmed Australian diggers in Afghanistan a decade ago, is living in a luxury home in the capital Kabul, treated as a “returning hero” by the Taliban who released him from prison.
He has said he does not regret killing Australian soldiers, and has vowed he would again kill Australians, or anyone who opposes the Taliban.
Continue reading...Despite their promises of peace and stability, the country is on its knees, and its people are desperate
Maryam* is near the top of her sixth grade class in Kabul, which under Taliban rule means that her education should be ending in a few months.
But the 10-year-old, whose name we have changed to protect her identity, has a strategy to stay in school for another year, and her eyes dance with satisfaction as she explains her plan. “I will make sure I don’t answer too many questions right. I have decided to fail, so I can study sixth grade again.”
Continue reading...Home Office accused of failing to ensure safety of thousands including teachers and translators
Thousands of Afghans who worked for the UK have been abandoned and remain at risk from the Taliban a year after the evacuation from Kabul, a coalition of human rights groups has said.
In a parliamentary briefing, nine expert groups on Afghanistan criticised the British government’s resettlement schemes as “unjustifiably restrictive”. They said it was deeply concerning that the government is currently not offering a safe route for many Afghan women and girls or to oppressed minority groups.
Continue reading...The explosion happened in a western district where the minority Shia Muslim community regularly meet
A bomb exploded in a busy shopping street in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul on Saturday injuring at least 22 people, hospital officials and witnesses said.
The blast occurred in a western district of the city where members of the minority Shia Muslim community regularly meet.
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