Category Archives: South and Central Asia

Covid vaccines: India export delay deals blow to poorer countries

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Efforts in Africa and elsewhere hit by decision not to export AstraZeneca jab until end of year

Vaccine programmes across Africa and much of the developing world will suffer big delays after the world’s biggest producer said it would not be exporting the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine until the end of the year.

“We continue to scale up manufacturing and prioritise India … We also hope to start delivering to Covax and other countries by the end of this year,” Adar Poonawalla, chief executive of the Serum Institute of India (SII), said in a statement on Tuesday.

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Bangladeshi journalist arrested and charged over alleged document theft

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Rozina Islam’s family claim reporter was assaulted and subject to ‘mental torture’ by officials

One of Bangladesh’s most prominent investigative journalists, known for her anti-corruption reporting and criticism of the government’s response to Covid-19, has been arrested and charged under the country’s Official Secrets Act.

Rozina Islam, 42, a senior investigative journalist at the Bengali daily Prothom Alo appeared before a Dhaka court on Tuesday morning charged with stealing official health ministry documents . The court turned down the police’s appeal that she be remanded in their custody to be interrogated.

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Indian mosque bulldozed in defiance of high court order

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Local officials in Uttar Pradesh demolish mosque that had stood since time of British rule

A local administration in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has defied a state high court order and bulldozed a mosque, in one of the most inflammatory actions taken against a Muslim place of worship since the demolition of the Babri Mosque by a mob of Hindu nationalist rioters in 1992.

The mosque, in the city of Ram Sanehi Ghat in Uttar Pradesh, had stood for at least six decades, since the time of British rule, according to documents held by its committee.

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Locked out of school: Pakistan’s digital divide has students struggling

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When Covid shut schools, fees still had to be paid even if rural pupils could not access online lessons

Iqbal Khan works as a chauffeur in Lahore. His children are in his home village in a rural area north of Peshawar. Both of these very different areas of Pakistan have the same problem for many of their young people: no means of getting access to an education.

Online learning was not an option for Khan’s children as the pandemic locked down schools across cities and countryside. Even as he worked to pay the school fees, his two sons, aged 16 and 13, were unable to access any lessons as their schools went digital.

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‘Urgent. Oxygen needed’: Nepalis mobilise to take charge in Covid crisis

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Amid political turmoil and an overwhelmed health system, young activists are stepping up in response to the pandemic

A ping and: “ICU bed needed. Please it’s urgent.” Another ping: “Where can I find Remdesivir. EMERGENCY.” Ping: “Very urgent oxygen cylinder needed, patient at last stage.” The messages never let up; a constant stream of posts pleading for hospital beds, oxygen, plasma and medicine.

It’s not Nepal’s government helpline, but an online group set up by a 24-year-old public health graduate.

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‘Revolution dwells in the heart’: Myanmar’s poets cut down by the military

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Khet Thi, who captured the unflinching determination of the Myanmar public, was the third poet to be killed by the military since the coup

His words captured the unflinching determination of the Myanmar public in the face of military brutality: “They shoot in the head, but they don’t know revolution dwells in the heart.”

The poet Khet Thi was taken from his home in Shwebo, in the Sagaing region, last Saturday. The next day, his wife collected his body from a hospital. His organs had been removed, she told BBC Burmese.

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Afghanistan: fighting resumes in south after three-day ceasefire for Eid

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Taliban and government forces clash in Helmand, the scene of intense battles following US troop withdrawal

Fighting between the Taliban and Afghan government forces has resumed in the southern province of Helmand, officials said, ending a three-day ceasefire agreed by the warring sides to mark the Eid al-Fitr holiday.

There were clashes on Sunday on the outskirts of Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, which has seen intense fighting since the United States began its final troop withdrawal from Afghanistan on 1 May, an Afghan military spokesperson and a local official said.

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‘Hosnia had dreams’: grief in Kabul as girls’ school targeted

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Hazara community in mourning but defiant after more than 60 people killed in school bomb blasts


Latifa and Hosnia had been sharing a wooden bench in their classroom at Kabul’s Sayed Al-Shuhada school for the past three years.

When Latifa transferred to Sayed Al-Shuhada, the two girls were immediately drawn to each other and became best friends, always together in their free time, studying side by side, walking home together after school. They found comfort in each other’s presence; support in a place that has never been easy for girls and women.

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Scores more bodies of suspected Covid victims found in Indian rivers

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At least 90 more corpses wash up in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh as virus continues spreading into poor rural areas

At least 90 more bodies of suspected Covid-19 victims have washed up in rivers in India, as the virus continues to spread into poor rural areas and the country recorded its highest daily death toll so far.

More than 70 corpses were discovered floating in the Ganges River in the Buxar district of the state of Bihar and dozens more bodies were found upstream in the Ghazipur and Ballia districts in the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh.

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What is the deadly ‘black fungus’ seen in Covid patients in India?

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Usually very rare, mucormycosis has a high mortality rate and is difficult to treat

A rare black fungus that invades the brain is being increasingly seen in vulnerable patients in India, including those with Covid-19, as the health system continues to struggle in the midst of the pandemic.

The health ministry on Sunday released an advisory on how to treat the infection. In the state of Gujarat, about 300 cases had been reported in four cities, including Ahmedabad, according to data from state-run hospitals.

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Nepal says its Covid response is under control – everyone can see it’s not true

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I’ve watched from the UK as family and friends share increasingly desperate news. Nepal’s leaders have ensured the lack of preparation

Waiting for India’s Covid wave to break over Nepal has been as painful as it was inevitable. Now that it’s happening, this country of 30 million people is even more hapless and unprepared than India seems to have been.

My friend, Dr Rakshya Pandey, a pulmonary care doctor in Kathmandu, says that during her long shifts, the thought sometimes enters her mind: ‘‘Where would I go if I get sick? Where would I take my mother if she gets the virus?”

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India: dozens of suspected Covid victims wash up on Ganges River banks

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Locals believe bodies were dumped in river because cremation sites are overwhelmed

Dozens of bodies believed to be Covid-19 victims have washed up on the banks of the Ganges River in northern India as the pandemic spreads into India’s vast rural hinterland, overwhelming local health facilities as well as crematoriums and cemeteries.

Local official Ashok Kumar said that about 40 corpses washed up in Buxar district near the border between Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, two of India’s poorest states.

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‘Like purgatory’: diaspora in despair as India sinks deeper into Covid crisis

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Indian Americans scramble to secure oxygen canisters for family members, desperately work to raise funds and pressure US legislators to lift vaccine patents

Since the pandemic began, Fatima Ahmed has lost 29 of her family members in India and one in the US to Covid-19.

A few days ago, her uncle died in his car as he was driving back home from a hospital in Hyderabad, a city in southern India. “All the hospitals were at capacity, so they couldn’t take him in,” said Ahmed. “He pulled over and he called the rest of the family, the khandan – before he passed.”

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Taliban declares three-day Eid ceasefire as 11 killed in new bombing

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Bus attack comes after jihadist group denies atrocity at secondary school that killed at least 50 people

At least 11 people have been killed and dozens injured in the bombing of a bus in Afghanistan’s southern Zabul province.

The blast took place late on Sunday night, said Zabul’s provincial governor’s spokesman Gul Islam Sial, adding that 25 people were injured including women and children who were in critical condition.

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Body of arrested Myanmar poet Khet Thi returned to family with organs missing

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Wife says Khet Thi, whose poetry inspired resistance to junta, died after being taken for interrogation on Saturday

Myanmar poet Khet Thi, whose works declare resistance to the ruling junta, has died in detention and his body was returned with the organs removed, his family said.

A spokesperson for the junta did not answer calls to request comment on the death of Khet Thi, who had penned the line “They shoot in the head, but they don’t know the revolution is in the heart.” His Facebook page said he was 45.

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Afghans bury their dead after dozens of girls killed in school blasts

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Taliban deny responsibility after secondary school targeted in bloody attack in Kabul

Dozens of girls were buried on Sunday at a desolate hilltop cemetery in Kabul, a day after a secondary school was targeted in the bloodiest attack in Afghanistan in over a year.

A series of blasts outside the school during a peak holiday shopping period killed more than 50 people, mostly female students, and wounded more than 100 in Dasht-e-Barchi, a suburb of west Kabul populated mostly by Hazara Shias.

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Myanmar junta labels opposition government of ousted MPs a ‘terrorist’ group

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Coup leaders ban opposition national unity government, and contact with them, as they seek to quell ongoing protests

Myanmar’s military rulers have branded a national unity government formed by MPs forced to flee in the wake of the coup a terrorist group and blamed it for bombings, arson and killings as part of a propaganda campaign in state-controlled media on Saturday.

Myanmar’s army overthrew the elected government on 1 February and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking months of protests during which hundreds of people have been killed by security forces. In response, local militias have been formed to confront the army while anti-junta protests have continued across the south-east Asian country and strikes have paralysed the economy.

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Blasts target school in west Kabul killing at least 40 people

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Attack in Afghan capital injures mainly female students coming out of school in Shia Muslim area

At least 40 people have been killed and dozens more injured in a bomb attack on girls leaving their school in a largely Shia Muslim neighbourhood in Kabul.

Residents said they heard multiple blasts just as girls were leaving classes at the Sayed ul Shuhada school in the Afghan capital to return home and break their Ramadan fast. Most of the victims appear to have been students.

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India records almost 4,200 Covid deaths in a day

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County reports more than 400,000 new infections but experts suspect figures are gross underestimate

Covid-19 deaths surged past 4,000 for the first time in India on Saturday in one of the world’s worst outbreaks.

India reported a national record of 4,187 new deaths on Saturday.

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Covid rips through rural India’s threadbare healthcare system

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The pandemic overwhelming the big cities is reaching areas of Bihar where there is one doctor for 40,000 people

In the small rural village of Kathail, in the east of India’s poorest state, Bihar, access to healthcare has always been scarce. But when 34-year-old Umakant Singh fell sick with a cough and fever last week, his brother Mantu Singh did all he could to find help.

For four days Mantu rushed around, collecting the limited medicines he could find for his younger brother and nursing him at home. But he knew what these symptoms meant: Covid-19 had reached their village.

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