Category Archives: India

India’s invisible catastrophe: fears over spread of Covid-19 into poor rural areas

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Country is entering a dangerous new phase of rising infections in small towns and villages with limited access to healthcare

Where better to seek sanctuary from a virus roaring through a crowded metropolis than a remote mountainside with views of the Himalayas?

This was the reasoning that prompted Lalit Upreti, 34, to leave the Indian capital, Delhi, where he works as a cook, two months ago to return to his hamlet Khankari in Uttarakhand, near the country’s border with Nepal. Here, he thought, his family would be safe.

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Global report: coronavirus cases pass 20m as WHO points to ‘green shoots of hope’

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US considers blocking infected citizens returning; Australian outbreak trends down; Singapore economy plunges 43%

Nearly five months to the day since the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, Covid-19 infections have passed 20 million cases. In acknowledging the milestone, the health body’s chief warned against despair, saying if the virus could be suppressed effectively, “we can safely open up societies”.

Global cases reached one million at the start of April. By 22 May, there were 5 million cases. That figure had doubled to 10 million cases by the end of June, and, seven weeks later, it had doubled again to 20 million infections.

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Indian food delivery company Zomato offers ‘period leave’ to women

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Employer aims to remove stigma in a nation where menstruation is still taboo to some

Indian food delivery company Zomato has said it will give female employees up to 10 days of “period leave” a year, as part of an effort to combat what it said was stigma around the issue.

Zomato is the most high-profile organisation to institute the policy in India, a country where menstruation is still taboo to some.

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Air India Express black boxes recovered at Kerala crash site

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Boeing 737 crashed on landing in heavy rain, killing at least 18, including the two pilots

Flight data and cockpit voice recorders have been recovered from the wreckage of an Indian passenger aircraft that crashed in the southern state of Kerala.

The Air India Express plane, which was repatriating Indians from Dubai because of the Covid-19 pandemic, overshot the runway of the Calicut international airport in heavy rain near the city of Kozhikode, also known as Calicut.

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India plans to fell ancient forest to create 40 new coalfields

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Narendra Modi’s dream of a ‘self-reliant India’ comes at a terrible price for its indigenous population

Over the past decade, Umeshwar Singh Amra has witnessed his homeland descend into a battleground. The war being waged in Hasdeo Arand, a rich and biodiverse Indian forest, has pitted indigenous people, ancient trees, elephants and sloths against the might of bulldozers, trucks and hydraulic jacks, fighting with a single purpose: the extraction of coal.

Yet under a new “self-reliant India” plan by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, to boost the economy post-Covid-19 and reduce costly imports, 40 new coalfields in some of India’s most ecologically sensitive forests are to be opened up for commercial mining.

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Monsoon rains driven by high winds bring flooding misery to Mumbai

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India’s commercial capital grinds to a halt after heaviest August rainfall in 47 years causes widespread flooding

The heaviest monsoon downpour in nearly 50 years has brought Mumbai to a standstill, with stranded passengers at railway stations having to be rescued by dinghies from waist-high water.

People who live in areas normally unaffected by the annual monsoon flooding looked out from their high-rise flats at new swirling rivers outside caused by the heaviest single day’s rain recorded in August in 47 years.

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Mumbai flooding: monsoon rains inundate streets, homes and hospitals – video

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Scores of videos shared on social media show streets and homes in Mumbai deluged by heavy monsoon rains, driven by high winds. The flooding has added to the woes of residents already bearing the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic. 

India has the third-highest number of cases worldwide with Mumbai considered the worst-affected city. A survey last month showed that more than half the people who live in its sprawling slums had been infected with the virus

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Ayodhya: Modi hails ‘dawn of new era’ as work on controversial temple begins

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Foundation stone laid for temple to Lord Ram at site where mosque was razed 28 years ago

The Indian town of Ayodhya welcomed Narendra Modi for a ceremony marking the start of construction of a temple on the site where a mosque was razed to the ground by a Hindu mob 28 years ago.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party has campaigned for years for the temple to be built at the spot considered to be the birthplace of the Hindu deity Lord Ram. The issue has divided Indians, alienated Muslims, helped propel the BJP to power and thrown its rivals into disarray.

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How renamed streets in Mumbai’s slums are encouraging children to study

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A mobile school helped Rehmuddin Shaikh become a rugby star. Now a street named after him is inspiring a new generation

No map of Mumbai mentions Rehmuddin Shaikh Road. But a local taxi driver would find the narrow lane between the huts in Ambedkar Nagar, Colaba, behind Mumbai’s elite Cuffe Parade. Despite not being officially named by the city authorities, the road boasts a new signpost.

Rehmuddin Chittasahab Shaikh grew up and still lives here. Today, he is a rugby star, winning national gold and silver medals and and now coaching the Indian women’s team. He is one of the only four coaches in India to qualify for the World Rugby Level 3 coaching course.

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Kashmir curfew brought in as region marks one year since special status revoked

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Soldiers patrol Indian-controlled areas as protesters plan ‘black day’ to mark 5 August

Authorities have brought in a curfew in many parts of Indian-controlled Kashmir, one day ahead of the first anniversary of India’s controversial decision to revoke the disputed region’s special status.

Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, a civil administrator, said the security lockdown was put in place in the region’s main city of Srinagar in view of information about protests planned by anti-India groups to mark 5 August as “black day.”

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‘A small but powerful signal’: Mumbai installs female figures on traffic lights

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Campaigners in India say the move helps dispel the notion that only men should be out in public

Mumbai has become the first city in India to introduce female figures on its traffic lights, a move welcomed by campaigners as a step towards greater inclusivity.

Authorities are swapping the green and red male stick figures for female figures on more than 100 pedestrian crossings as part of a broader plan to make roads more pedestrian-friendly.

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‘We have abandoned the poor’: slums suffer as Covid-19 exposes India’s social divide

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Virus proves a reminder to wealthy of their reliance on impoverished workers, reviving calls for a slum revolution that will benefit all

Cooking, cleaning, and food shopping have been a shock to Anisa Agarwal. Pre-pandemic, married to a wealthy tile manufacturer, her life in Gulmohar Park in Delhi involved a cook, maid, driver and cleaner who came to her house every day.

But despite her total dependence on them, Agarwal, 44, has not allowed her staff to enter her home in four months.

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Coronavirus global report: ‘response fatigue’ fears as Mexico hits 9,000 daily cases

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Many countries that believed they were past the worst are grappling with new outbreaks, says WHO

Mexico has recorded more than 9,000 daily coronavirus cases for the first time, as the country overtook the UK with the world’s third-highest number of deaths from the pandemic after the US and Brazil.

The surging numbers were reported as the World Health Organization warned of “response fatigue” and a resurgence of cases in several countries that have lifted lockdowns.

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India arrests dozens of journalists in clampdown on critics of Covid-19 response

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Reporters for independent outlets, many in rural areas, say pressure won’t deter them from covering embarrassing stories

Facing a continuing upward trajectory in Covid-19 cases, the Indian government is clamping down on media coverage critical of its handling of the pandemic.

More than 50 Indian journalists have been arrested or had police complaints registered against them, or been physically assaulted.

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Two wheels good: India falls back in love with bikes after Covid-19

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A bicycle boom has seen Indians swapping cars – the ultimate status symbol – for a more humble mode of transport

With cases of Covid-19 surging past the one million mark, Indians are shunning crowded buses and trains to travel on what has traditionally been regarded in this status-conscious society as the poor man’s mode of mobility: the bicycle.

At Bike Studio in Bhopal, owner Varun Awasthi is almost out of stock. Sales are up by 30% and he expects them to rise to 50% once he gets more bicycles.

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‘A critical situation’: Bangladesh in crisis as monsoon floods follow super-cyclone

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Despite flood planning efforts hundreds have been killed and millions hit as third of land is submerged by non-stop rain

Bangladesh could be plunged into a humanitarian crisis as it undergoes the most prolonged monsoon flooding in decades while it is still recovering from the effects of super-cyclone Amphan.

Despite the UN has lauding its new initiatives for early intervention aimed at preparing communities for crisis, 550 people have been killed and 9.6 million affected by the disaster in Bangladesh, Nepal and north-eastern India, according to the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent.

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Flooding in Assam and Nepal kills hundreds and displaces millions

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Hurried evacuation of millions of residents will increase coronavirus cases, officials say

Severe flooding in India’s tea-growing state of Assam and neighbouring Nepal has killed at least 200 people and displaced millions, severely hampering efforts to stop the spread of coronavirus.

In Assam, heavy monsoon rains burst the banks of the Brahmaputra River, causing more than 2,000 villages to be enveloped in floods and mudslides and displacing 2.75 million people in the past two weeks. There have been 85 deaths reported in the state.

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Aishwarya Rai Bachchan: Bollywood star taken to hospital with Covid-19

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Former Miss World and daughter admitted to same Mumbai unit as her husband and father-in-law Amitabh Bachchan as India’s pandemic worsens

Coronavirus latest updates

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, the Bollywood star and former Miss World, has been moved to a hospital in Mumbai along with her eight-year-old daughter nearly a week after they were revealed to have the coronavirus, media reports said.

Her husband, actor Abhishek Bachchan, and her superstar father-in-law, Amitabh Bachchan, are already in the same hospital with Covid-19, the highest-profile personalities to have been infected in India, which has now recorded more than one million cases in the pandemic.

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Global report: coronavirus infections in India pass 1m as outbreaks flare globally

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Country becomes third in world to reach figure; alarming peak in French region of Brittany

India has become the third country to record more than 1m coronavirus infections, following the US and Brazil, as it reported 34,956 new cases in the past 24 hours, taking the national total to 1,003,832.

New peaks continue to appear around the world, including an alarming rise in the Brittany region of France.

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