Government accused of inaction as downpours leave schools destroyed, homes ruined, crops failing and cholera on the rise
More than 580 people have died and thousands have lost their homes across Pakistan as torrential rains batter the country.
An estimated 1 million have been affected by heavy rainfall, flash floods and landslides since July as Pakistan endured more than 60% of its normal total monsoon rainfall in three weeks.
Continue reading...Yuan Wang 5 is officially described as a ‘scientific research ship’ but India suspects it has military functions
A Chinese navy vessel has arrived at a southern Sri Lankan port that Beijing leases from the government, prompting renewed security fears from India.
On Tuesday morning, the Yuan Wang 5 sailed into the Hambantota port, which was built by Beijing, and was welcomed by senior Sri Lankan and Chinese officials in a traditional ceremony that involved red carpet and a massive banner that read: “Hello Sri Lanka, Long Live Sri Lanka-China Friendship.”
Continue reading...Aam Aadmi party’s decision to scrap plan to privatise sale of alcohol comes after pressure from rival BJP
All over the Indian capital, the sound of metal shutters being pulled down at off-licences has left drinkers high and dry.
The dry spell, expected to last until 1 September, is the result of Delhi’s government scrapping a new alcohol policy that would have allowed private companies to operate off-licences.
Continue reading...MoD sources accuse other parts of Whitehall of failing to do enough to help Afghans who worked with British forces
Two RAF flights carrying as many as 500 Afghans who worked with British forces and their relatives are landing in the UK each month from Pakistan but there is deep frustration within the Ministry of Defence about how the rest of government is struggling to accommodate arrivals.
It comes as the Taliban and western allies mark the first anniversary of Nato’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Continue reading...Ousted leader of Myanmar will appeal against new conviction added to earlier 11-year sentence
A court in military-ruled Myanmar convicted the country’s ousted leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on more corruption charges on Monday, adding six years to her earlier 11-year prison sentence, a legal official said.
The trial was held behind closed doors, with no access for media or the public, and her lawyers were forbidden by a gag order from revealing information about the proceedings.
Continue reading...Families who fled Taliban rule say they are grateful for the help they have received but long for a home where they can settle
The west London hotel where Fawzia Amini, a senior Afghan judge, her husband and their four daughters have lived for the last nine months has comfortable sofas in the foyer, a restaurant serving tasty meals on the first floor, and friendly reception staff – but it isn’t home.
After the turmoil and danger of fleeing their spacious home in Kabul when the Taliban seized control of the Afghan capital, the family say that while they are grateful for everything the UK government has done for them, they long to be in a place of their own where they can cook their own food, work, study, and entertain relatives and friends.
Continue reading...Impact of ‘traumatic period’ still lingers with those now based in UK – and their families – 75 years on
After living in Britain for nearly half a century, Pabitra Ghosh is still gripped by a rootlessness borne after being displaced from modern-day Bangladesh as a child.
When a communal riot broke out in 1950, Ghosh, then five, fled with his family across the newly carved Indian border from East Pakistan. The train journey was both “bedlam” and “traumatic” as they abandoned their home to start afresh in Kolkata.
Continue reading...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.
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