Since its invention in the 1840s, photography has played an integral part in Indian art history. Although it is often said that India is the most photographed country in the world, the history of its representation is more complicated, and more political, than initially meets the eye. Visions of India: From the Colonial to the Contemporary is the first major survey of Indian photography in Australia and will be on show at the Monash Gallery of Art in Melbourne until 20 March 2022
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‘Worst fashion wage theft’: workers go hungry as Indian suppliers to top UK brands refuse to pay minimum wage
Shortfall of 16p a day leaves children living on just rice as suppliers to Nike, Zara and H&M in Karnataka underpay by estimated £41m
Garment workers making clothes for international brands in Karnataka, a major clothing production hub in India, say their children are going hungry as factories refuse to pay the legal minimum wage in what is claimed to be the biggest wage theft to ever hit the fashion industry.
More than 400,000 garment workers in Karnataka have not been paid the state’s legal minimum wage since April 2020, according to an international labour rights organisation that monitors working conditions in factories.
Continue reading...UK charities launch appeal to help eight million Afghans at risk of starvation
There is a ‘very small window of opportunity’ to intervene, say aid workers, as poverty, conflict, drought and a freeze in humanitarian funding bring Afghanistan to the brink
Leading UK charities have launched a joint winter appeal to save the lives of 8 million people at risk of starvation in Afghanistan, as aid workers in the country warn of a “small window of opportunity” to intervene.
A combination of conflict, economic collapse, drought and the Covid-19 pandemic has brought the country to a tipping point, according to the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), the umbrella group of 15 aid agencies behind the appeal.
Continue reading...Books that explain the world: Guardian writers share their best nonfiction reads of the year
From a Jacobean traveller’s travails in Sindh to the tangled roots of Nigeria, our pick of new nonfiction books that shine a light on Asia, Africa and South America
• Share your top recommendations for books on the developing world in the comments below
You Have Not Yet Been Defeated: Selected Works 2011-2021
By Alaa Abd El-Fattah
‘The Taliban say they’ll kill me if they find me’: a female reporter still on the run speaks out
We return to the story of a journalist forced to flee as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in August. Unable to return home without putting at risk everyone she loves and hounded by threatening calls, she remains in hiding in the country four months on
- Read her first story: ‘Please pray for me’: a female reporter being hunted by the Taliban
I am an Afghan female journalist and I have been on the run for more than four months. I have lived in numerous safe houses and the homes of people who’ve offered me refuge. I am constantly moving to avoid being caught, from province to province, city to city.
The Taliban insurgents have been threatening to kill me and my colleagues for two years, for our reports exposing their crimes in our province. But when they seized control of our provincial capital, they started to hunt for those who had spoken out against them. I decided to escape, for my own and my family’s safety.
Continue reading...Photojournalist in Myanmar dies in military custody a week after arrest
Soe Naing was arrested in Yangon while taking photos of a ‘silent strike’ protest against military rule
A freelance photojournalist in Myanmar has died in military custody after being arrested last week while covering protests.
Soe Naing is the first journalist known to have died in custody since the army seized power in February, ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. More than 100 journalists have been detained since then, though about half have been released.
Continue reading...‘Colossal waste’: Nobel laureates call for 2% cut to military spending worldwide
Governments urged to use ‘peace dividend’ to help UN tackle pandemics, climate crisis and extreme poverty
More than 50 Nobel laureates have signed an open letter calling for all countries to cut their military spending by 2% a year for the next five years, and put half the saved money in a UN fund to combat pandemics, the climate crisis, and extreme poverty.
Coordinated by the Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli, the letter is supported by a large group of scientists and mathematicians including Sir Roger Penrose, and is published at a time when rising global tensions have led to a steady increase in arms budgets.
Continue reading...Outcry over ‘blatant misogyny’ in Indian English exam
Nationwide test for teenagers included passage indicating female independence was undermining discipline in the home
An Indian exam board has withdrawn a passage from a nationwide English exam that appeared to promote the subservience of wives, after an outcry over “blatant misogyny”.
All students have been awarded full marks for the comprehension section of the exam covering the passage, which appeared to explicitly state that women’s independence was undermining discipline and parenting in the home. The passage appeared in an English language and literature exam taken by 14 and 15-year-olds on Saturday.
Continue reading...Afghan health system ‘close to collapse due to sanctions on Taliban’
Health experts issue dire warning as staff go unpaid and medical facilities lack basic items to treat patients
Large parts of Afghanistan’s health system are on the brink of collapse because of western sanctions against the Taliban, international experts have warned, as the country faces outbreaks of disease and an escalating malnutrition crisis.
With the country experiencing a deepening humanitarian crisis since the Taliban’s seizure of power in August amid mounting levels of famine and economic collapse, many medical staff have not been paid for months and health facilities lack even the most basic items to treat patients.
Continue reading...Fresh evidence on UK’s botched Afghan withdrawal backs whistleblower’s story
MPs’ inquiry given further details of Britain’s mismanagement of Afghanistan exit with ‘people left to die at the hands of the Taliban’
Further evidence alleging that the government seriously mishandled the withdrawal from Afghanistan has been handed to a parliamentary inquiry examining the operation, the Observer has been told.
Details from several government departments and agencies are understood to back damning testimony from a Foreign Office whistleblower, who has claimed that bureaucratic chaos, ministerial intervention, and a lack of planning and resources led to “people being left to die at the hands of the Taliban”.
Continue reading...‘I didn’t find the exam difficult’: Indian woman learns to read and write at 104 – video
A 104-year-old woman has fulfilled her dream to learn to read. After starting in April, Kuttiyamma achieved 89% in literacy and 100% in mathematics in the Kerala state primary literacy exam last month, the oldest woman to do so.
Kuttiyamma had been curious about reading and would often try to make out the alphabet herself, but when she was born in a village to a low-caste rural family, there was no education. Her neighbour Rehana John, a 34-year-old literacy trainer, persuaded her to start to learn to read. Previously, John’s oldest student had been 85
Continue reading...‘I was always curious’: Indian woman, 104, fulfils dream of learning to read
Daily newspaper is new joy for Kuttiyamma, who began taking lessons from her neighbour a year ago
For almost a century, Kuttiyamma’s daily routine had been much the same. Rising early at home in the village of Thiruvanchoor in Kerala, the 104-year-old would begin her day’s work of cooking, cleaning and feeding the cows and chickens.
But now, every morning, there’s something new to get up for. She eagerly awaits the paperboy to deliver Malayala Manorama, the local newspaper.
Continue reading...Burning issue: how enzymes could end India’s problem with stubble
Bans failed to stop farmers torching fields each year but a new spray that turns stalks into fertiliser helps the soil and the air
Every autumn, Anil Kalyan, from Kutail village in India’s northern state of Haryana, would join tens of thousands of other paddy farmers to set fire to the leftover stalks after the rice harvest to clear the field for planting wheat.
But this year, Kalyan opted for change. He signed his land up for a trial being held in Haryana and neighbouring Punjab as an alternative to the environmentally hazardous stubble burning that is commonplace across India and a major cause of Delhi’s notorious smog.
Continue reading...Freedom in the making: Bangladesh by Anne de Henning – in pictures
Anne de Henning travelled through Bangladesh between 1971 and 1972, during the war of independence, photographing freedom fighters, families, refugee trains, and women fleeing villages
To mark the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence, her images are on display at the National Art Gallery in Dhaka, 10–31 December
Continue reading...Top toddy: Sri Lanka’s tree tapping trade reaches new heights
‘Toddy tappers’ who collect sap used in everything from palm wine to ice-cream are enjoying a boost to business that has revived the traditional skill and improved their quality of life
The palmyra palm tree with its wide fan leaves is a distinctive and common sight across Jaffna, northern Sri Lanka, thriving in the arid conditions.
Kutty, who goes by only one name, is a “toddy tapper”. Climbing the palms with his clay pot, he collects sap from the flower heads at the top of the great trees, which can grow to more than 30 metres (90ft). The sap is fermented to make toddy, an alcoholic drink also known as palm wine.
Continue reading...Nearly 100 former British Council staff remain in hiding in Afghanistan
Staff employed to teach British values and the English language refused the right to come to the UK
Nearly 100 former British Council staff employed to teach British values and the English language remain in hiding in Afghanistan after having so far been refused the right to come to the UK by officials.
Their plight has been taken up by Joseph Seaton, the former British Council Afghanistan English manager, and its deputy director, who has written to the most relevant cabinet members in a bid to gain their support.
Continue reading...‘Give me my baby’: an Indian woman’s fight to reclaim her son after adoption without consent
Anupama S Chandran’s newborn child was sent away by her parents, who were unhappy that his father was from the Dalit caste
Through the rains and steamy heat of November, day and night, Anupama S Chandran sat by the gates of the Kerala state secretariat. She refused to eat, drink or be moved. Her single demand was written on a placard: “Give me my baby.”
The story of Chandran’s fight to get back her child, who was snatched from her by her own family days after he was born and put up for adoption without her knowledge, is one that has been greeted with both horror and a sad familiarity in India.
Continue reading...Indian defence chief among 13 killed in helicopter crash
Gen Bipin Rawat, who was leading changes to his country’s military, died along with his wife and other senior officers
The Indian defence chief, Gen Bipin Rawat, was among 13 people killed in a helicopter crash on Wednesday, raising questions over the future of military changes he was leading.
Rawat was India’s first chief of defence staff, a position that the government established in 2019, and was seen as close to the prime minister, Narendra Modi.
Continue reading...Rajan the last ocean-swimming elephant: Jody MacDonald’s best photograph
‘He had been used for logging on the Andaman Islands. When I found him, he was 60, living in retirement – and loving his swims’
I lived at sea for 10 years. I co-owned and ran a global kiteboarding expedition business. We’d sail around the world on a 60-foot catamaran, following the trade winds, kiteboarding, surfing and paragliding in remote locations. One night, I watched a Hollywood movie called The Fall, which had a section where an elephant was swimming in tropical blue water. I didn’t know if it was real or a fake Hollywood thing. But I thought: “Man, if that does exist, I’d love to photograph it.”
I searched the internet and found the elephant from the film was living in the Andaman Islands, an Indian territory in the Bay of Bengal. When we sailed into the capital, Port Blair, a few months later in 2010, I decided to hop off and try to find this elephant. I found Rajan on Havelock (now Swaraj) Island and spent two weeks with him, learning about his incredible story.
Continue reading...Top civil servant regrets holiday while Afghanistan fell to Taliban
Sir Philip Barton refused to say precisely when Raab had been on holiday in August
The head of the diplomatic service has admitted failing to show leadership after he began a three-week holiday two days before the Foreign Office internally accepted Kabul was about to fall to the Taliban.
Sir Philip Barton stayed on holiday until 28 August and during bruising evidence to the foreign affairs select committee, he admitted this was a mistake.
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