Category Archives: South and Central Asia

Pakistani PM steps up criticism of west as confidence vote looms

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Imran Khan seeks to bolster domestic support amid threat from opposition coalition and cooling relations with military

Addressing the crowds at a public rally in Punjab last week, Pakistan’s prime minister was on the attack. Western leaders, Imran Khan said, treated Pakistan as their “slave” and presumed that “whatever you say, we will do”.

Days before, it had been announced that Khan would be facing a vote of no confidence in parliament at the end of March, after more than 100 members of Pakistan’s united opposition successfully tabled a motion to oust him. The vote will take place on Friday 25 March.

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Afghanistan’s former finance minister is now Uber driver in Washington DC

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Washington Post rides with Khalid Payenda, who left for the US before the fall of Kabul

Days before Afghanistan fell to the Taliban last August, Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan president, was “welcomed” to the United Arab Emirates. He was alleged to have taken with him $169m, from his country’s treasury.

Six months on, Khalid Payenda, once Ghani’s finance minister, is driving an Uber in Washington DC.

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Sri Lanka cancels school exams over paper shortage as financial crisis bites

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Colombo unable to fund import of printing paper, leaving millions of students unable to take part in term assessments

Sri Lanka has cancelled school exams for millions of students after running out of printing paper, as the country contends with its worst financial crisis since independence in 1948.

Education authorities said on Saturday the term tests, scheduled a week from Monday, were postponed indefinitely due to an acute paper shortage, with Colombo short on funds to finance imports.

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Indian spiritualist Sadhguru on 100-day motorbike mission to save soil

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Yoga guru will visit dozens of countries en route from London to India to raise awareness of plight of one of nature’s greatest resources

One of India’s best-known spiritual leaders is embarking on a 100-day motorbike journey from London to India to raise awareness of one of nature’s most undervalued resources.

Sadhguru, or Jaggi Vasudev, is setting off on Monday on a 30,000km (18,600-mile) trip through Europe and the Middle East in an effort to “save soil”, meeting celebrities, environmentalists and influencers in dozens of countries along the way.

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‘Take from the hungry to feed the starving’: UN faces awful dilemma

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Agencies forced to cut back aid in Yemen, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Ethiopia despite growing need as funds go to Ukraine

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put huge pressure on an already shrinking pot of international aid.

Aid agencies working in countries with the most pressing emergencies, including Yemen, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Ethiopia, are facing difficult decisions on how to spend their money.

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UK spies who allegedly passed questions to CIA torturers subject to English law, court rules

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Abu Zubaydah, tortured at CIA ‘black sites’ in six different countries, has right to sue UK government

UK intelligence services who allegedly asked the CIA to put questions to a detainee who was being tortured in “black sites” were subject to the law of England and Wales and not that of the countries in which he was being held, the court of appeal has ruled.

The three appeal judges were asked to decide whether Abu Zubaydah, who was subjected to extreme mistreatment and torture at secret CIA “black sites” in six different countries, has the right to sue the UK government in England.

Zubaydah had no control whatever over his location and in all probability no knowledge of it either.

His location was irrelevant to the UK intelligence services and may have been unknown to them.

The claimant was undoubtedly rendered to the six countries in question precisely because this would enable him to be detained and tortured outside the laws and legal systems of those countries.

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Widespread abuses since Myanmar coup may amount to war crimes, says UN report

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UN rights office warns military has shown ‘flagrant disregard for human life’ and has deliberately targeted civilians since it seized power on 1 February 2021

Myanmar’s military junta has committed widespread and systematic abuses against civilians that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the first comprehensive report to be produced by the UN’s human rights office since last year’s coup.

The UN rights office warns the military has shown “flagrant disregard for human life” and has deliberately targeted civilians since it seized power on 1 February 2021.

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India court in Karnataka upholds ban on hijabs in colleges

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Fearing unrest over the ruling, the state government bans large gatherings after the restrictions on headscarves sparked violent protests

A court in India has ruled that wearing a hijab is not an essential principle of Islam, in a setback to Muslim students who were demanding the right to wear the headscarf in colleges in Karnataka, south India.

The Karnataka high court was hearing the petitions of Muslim students who had been stopped in January from entering the government college in Udupi, where they were enrolled, for wearing the hijab.

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Up to 10,000 Asian migrant workers die in the Gulf every year, claims report

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Campaigners say not enough is being done to prevent loss of life and the causes of death are not being properly investigated

As many as 10,000 migrant workers from south and south-east Asia die every year in the Gulf countries, according to a report by a group of human rights organisations.

More than half of the deaths are unexplained, said the report, and are commonly recorded as due to “natural causes” or “cardiac arrest”. But Gulf states are failing properly to investigate why so many migrant workers are dying.

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BJP claims election victory in four states including Uttar Pradesh

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Win secures status of chief minister Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu monk known for his hardline views

India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party has claimed victory in four significant state elections, in a sign of the power of Hindu nationalist politics across the country.

The BJP defied historical precedent and retained power in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous and politically significant state with more than 180 million voters. Early results on Thursday showed the party had won at least 266 out of 403 seats, giving it a clear majority.

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Narendra Modi walks diplomacy tightrope with Vladimir Putin on Ukraine

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Analysis: Indian PM is reliant on Putin’s nation for arms and is conscious of shifting relations between Russia and its foe, China

As the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, picked up the phone to Vladimir Putin this week – the latest in several phone calls between the two leaders since Russia invaded Ukraine – he put forward a suggestion.

Modi’s push, according to an Indian government statement, was that Putin should have a “direct conversation” with the Ukrainian prime minister, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in order to “greatly assist ongoing peace efforts”.

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‘Hijab marches’ compete with Pakistan’s International Women’s Day rallies

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Minister says women’s march violates Islamic values, prompting counter-events organised by religious groups

More than 1,000 veiled women attended marches to promote Islamic values in cities across Pakistan on International Women’s Day in an attempt to counter pro-gender equality rallies.

In Islamabad and Karachi, well-attended “hijab marches”, organised by religious groups, competed with those participating in aurat – Urdu for women – rallies, which call for an end to systemic discrimination in the country.

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‘Women of the wild’: the platform giving India’s nature experts a voice

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Frustrated by a lack of female representation, film-maker Akanksha Sood Singh set up an Instagram account to showcase ‘the untold stories of women working for science and nature’

“I wish these things wouldn’t happen to anyone,” says Akanksha Sood Singh, a wildlife film-maker based in Delhi. “But if it has happened, this is a safe space for women to come and to share their experiences.”

The safe space Sood Singh is referring to is the Instagram account Women of the Wild – India, which showcases “the untold stories of women working for science and nature”. The platform gives them a chance to promote their expertise, but also somewhere to share their experiences of working in what are often male-dominated fields where sexual harassment can often feature.

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Sri Lanka to hold state funeral for beloved sacred elephant Raja

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Raja, who will be stuffed for posterity, was considered so important that when he travelled he had his own security detail

Sri Lanka is in mourning after the death of the country’s most sacred elephant, who is to be given a state funeral and his remains to be preserved and stuffed “for future generations” on orders of the president.

Nadungamuwa Vijaya Raja, popularly known as Raja, was considered to be the largest tamed elephant in Asia and as a young calf he had been among those “chosen” as the elite elephants who carried sacred Buddhist relics during an annual parade in Sri Lanka.

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Afghan journalist Zahra Joya among Time’s women of the year

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Now a refugee in the UK, Joya and the Rukhshana Media agency defied threats to report on life for women under the Taliban

The Afghan journalist Zahra Joya has been named as one of Time’s women of the year 2022 for her reporting of women’s lives in Afghanistan through her news agency, Rukhshana Media.

Now living as a refugee in the UK, Joya continues to run Rukhshana Media from exile, publishing the reporting of her team of female journalists across Afghanistan on life for women under Taliban rule.

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‘When I surf I feel so strong’: Sri Lankan women’s quiet surfing revolution

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Women and girls have challenged conservative attitudes in the hallowed surf spot of Arugam Bay

Growing up in a small fishing village along the east coast of Sri Lanka, Shamali Sanjaya would often sit on the beach and look out at the boisterous waves. She would watch in envy as others, including her father and brother, grabbed surfboards, paddled out into the sea and then rode those waves smoothly back to shore. “I longed for it in my heart,” she said.

But as a local woman, surfing was strictly out of bounds for her. In Sri Lanka’s conservative society, the place for women was at the home and it was only the men, or female tourists, who were allowed to ride the hallowed waves in Arugam Bay, considered Sri Lanka’s best surf spot.

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Dozens of worshippers killed in Pakistan suicide bomb attack

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At least 56 people die in attack on Shia Muslim mosque in Peshawar during Friday prayers

A suicide bomber has struck inside a Shia Muslim mosque in Pakistan’s north-western city of Peshawar during Friday prayers, killing at least 56 worshippers and wounding 194 people.

The Islamic State group claimed the attack and threatened more violence against Pakistan’s Shia minority. Both IS and the Pakistani Taliban – a militant group separate from the Taliban in Afghanistan – have carried out similar attacks in the past in the area, located near the border with neighbouring Afghanistan.

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Afghanistan six months on from the Taliban takeover – photo essay

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The photojournalist Stefanie Glinski reports on a country traumatised and tired, with an uncertain future as unemployment and poverty spread and memories of freedoms fade

August’s adrenaline may have worn off but the harrowing memories have not faded. It’s been six months since the Taliban took Kabul, the country’s then president and his cabinet fled and thousands of people flooded the airport in panic, so desperate for a way out that several men tried to hold on to a departing plane and fell to their deaths.

Food distribution in the northern Jowzjan province. Due to the economic crisis, many people cannot afford food, even though it’s widely available in the market.

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People of colour fleeing Ukraine attacked by Polish nationalists

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Non-white refugees face violence and racist abuse in Przemyśl, as police warn of fake reports of ‘migrants committing crimes’

Police in Poland have warned that fake reports of violent crimes being committed by people fleeing Ukraine are circulating on social media after Polish nationalists attacked and abused groups of African, south Asian and Middle Eastern people who had crossed the border last night.

Attackers dressed in black sought out groups of non-white refugees, mainly students who had just arrived in Poland at Przemyśl train station from cities in Ukraine after the Russian invasion. According to the police, three Indians were beaten up by a group of five men, leaving one of them hospitalised.

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Reviled, harassed, abused: Narenda Modi’s most trenchant critic speaks out

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The Indian journalist Rana Ayyub speaks about the campaign to silence her that has led to charges of sedition and ‘defaming Hindus’

When I talked to the journalist Rana Ayyub in her Mumbai home last Wednesday she was calmer than she was when I had spoken to her three days earlier. But that is not saying much. Last Sunday her words were jumbled, her voice on edge. She said she had not slept. That she could not eat or keep food down. That she had had thoughts of self-harm.

“I was on a plane yesterday and I said to my brother, ‘Can you feel me sitting next to me?’ And he said, ‘Have you completely lost it?’ And I said, ‘No, I’m just not sure I’m sitting next to you. I feel like I’m in a dream.’ And afterwards, I spoke to my psychiatrist and she said, ‘You’re dissociating. You’ve had a traumatic experience –that’s your brain shutting down.’”

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