Category Archives: India

Global report: Barcelona facing new lockdown as Tokyo raises alert level

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Tensions over how to quell outbreak in Catalan capital as cases flare up around the world

Part of the northern Spanish region of Catalonia has gone back into lockdown, with Barcelona suggesting it might also follow suit with restrictions in some districts, as authorities sought to control a resurgence of coronavirus cases emerging just weeks after a nationwide lockdown was lifted.

As a judge overturned a previous court decision to approve the stay-at-home order for the Lleida area, west of Barcelona, friction was emerging over how to handle an increase in cases in a suburb of the Catalan capital.

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‘Women always take the brunt’: India sees surge in unsafe abortion

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Low priority for reproductive health during lockdown leaves millions unable to access contraception or safe terminations

Sadhna Gupta* discovered she was pregnant just after India imposed a crippling lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19.

The 21-year-old from the eastern Indian city of Bhubaneswar didn’t want to be pregnant. With no public transport available, clinics closed and Bhubaneswar at a standstill, she bought an abortion pill without consulting a doctor. While what she did was not unusual, Indian law requires a prescription for the pills from a licensed medical professional.

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Mont Blanc’s melting glacier yields time capsule of Indian history

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Retreating French ice leaves behind newspapers proclaiming Indira Gandhi’s rise to PM, probably from 1966 plane crash

The Mont Blanc glacier in the French Alps is yielding more secrets as it melts – this time a clutch of newspapers with banner headlines from when Indira Gandhi became India’s first, and so far only, female prime minister in 1966.

The copies of Indian newspapers the National Herald and the Economic Times were probably aboard an Air India Boeing 707 that crashed on the mountain on 24 January, 1966, claiming 177 lives.

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The Guardian view on Covid-19 worldwide: on the march

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Infections are accelerating in largely untouched countries and those which hoped they had come through the worst. But there is hope

“Most of the world sort of sat by and watched with almost a sense of detachment and bemusement,” said Helen Clark, appointed to investigate the World Health Organization’s handling of the pandemic. The former New Zealand prime minister was describing the early weeks of the outbreak, and the sense that coronavirus was a problem “over there”. The failure to recognise our interconnection created complacency even as the death toll rose.

It took three months for the first million people to fall sick – but only a week to record the last million of the nearly 13 million cases now reported worldwide. As England emerges from lockdown at an unwary pace, Covid-19 is accelerating globally. The WHO has reported a record surge of a quarter of a million cases in a single day. The death toll is over half a million people and rising fast.

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Coronavirus report: India reports record spike as cases double in South Africa

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Indian cases pass 800,000; Johannesburg struggles to find vital equipment; Texas warns ‘worst is yet to come’

India reported a record spike in coronavirus cases on Saturday, taking the national total to more than 800,000 and pushing several states to bring back lockdowns, despite the punitive economic cost.

Now the world’s third-worst affected country by case load, it reported a spike of 27,114 cases on Saturday, although mortality rates have been lower than in other badly affected countries with confirmed death toll now 22,123.

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Hunger could kill millions more than Covid-19, warns Oxfam

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Starvation looms from Afghanistan to Haiti as coronavirus restrictions wipe out incomes and cut food supplies

Millions of people are being pushed towards hunger by the coronavirus pandemic, which could end up killing more people through lack of food than from the illness itself, Oxfam has warned.

Closed borders, curfews and travel restrictions have disrupted food supplies and incomes in already fragile countries, forcing an extra million people closer to famine in Afghanistan and heightening the humanitarian disaster in Yemen, where two-thirds already live in hunger.

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Farmers’ markets go hi-tech: how online sales are saving Indian farmers

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Facing the prospect of rotting crops and ruined livelihoods, Indian farmers have embraced virtual marketplaces to sell produce

When the call finally comes, the connection is so poor that Silme Marak can barely catch the words. After running upstairs to the roof of her house for a better signal, the 39-year-old farmer finally hears the first piece of good news to come her way in months: an order for 600 pineapples from a harvest that she had feared might have to be left to rot.

Marak lives in the Tura town of Meghalaya, a hilly place in north-east India whose name translates as “the abode of clouds”. She is among millions of farmers in India – agriculture contributes nearly a seventh of the country’s GDP – in despair at the prospect of seeing their produce rot as the country entered a severe lockdown in the third week of March. According to a Credit Suisse report, vegetable farmers alone have lost upwards of Rs 20,000 crore (£2.5bn).

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Global report: India becomes third worst-affected country as giant Covid-19 hospital opens

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Cases reach almost 700,000 to pass Russia in third place; Iran suffers record death toll; alarm in South Africa as cases jump amid easing of lockdown

India has passed Russia as the country with the third-highest number of coronavirus cases in the world after recording a record number of cases for one day.

The health ministry added 23,000 new cases on Monday, taking India’s total to 697,000 and almost 20,000 deaths. On Sunday India racked up nearly 25,000, its highest total for one day.

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India registers record spike in Covid-19 cases, opens 10,000 bed temporary hospital – video

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India has reported its largest one day increase in coronavirus cases, as the country continues to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. The health ministry reported 25,000 new cases and 613 deaths in 24 hours, weeks after the country when into a strict lockdown. The news comes as a new temporary hospital capable of housing 10,000 beds is opened in the capital, New Delhi

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Record Covid-19 cases in California as some countries prepare for ‘universal’ testing

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LA closes beaches and businesses as hospitals fill up while Bavaria announces ‘test offensive’

California has reported record new infections following its reopening as Los Angeles county ordered all beaches closed for 4 July and the re-shuttering of some businesses.

Amid warnings hospitals were filling up and others could run out of intensive care beds in the coming weeks, the state broke its record on Monday for the highest number of new coronavirus cases reported in a single day, with more than 8,000 – the third time in eight days the state has broken a record for new cases.

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Covid-19 intensifies elder abuse globally as hospitals prioritise young

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Older patients turned away or left untreated, while domestic abuse is also rising, leading charity reports

When Souzi Bondeko’s grandfather started showing symptoms of Covid-19 and was struggling to breathe, she took him to a hospital in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, where he was put on a ventilator.

She dashed home to get some food and returned to be told by a member of staff that he had been taken off the machine as it it was needed elsewhere.

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India bans TikTok after Himalayan border clash with Chinese troops

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Government blacklists more than 50 Chinese-made apps, citing ‘threat to sovereignty’

The Indian government has banned TikTok, the hugely popular social media app, as part of sweeping anti-China measures after a violent confrontation between Indian and Chinese troops.

TikTok is one of more than 50 Chinese-made apps that have been banned by the Ministry of Information over concerns that they “pose a threat to sovereignty and security” of India.

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US visitors set to remain banned from entering EU

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Agreed shortlist of permitted countries also excludes Russia, Brazil and India

Most visitors from the US are set to remain banned from entering the European Union because of the country’s rising infection rate in a move that risks antagonising Donald Trump.

In an attempt to save the European tourism season, a list of 15 countries from where people should be allowed into the EU from 1 July has been agreed by representatives of the 27 member states.

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Glamour, glitz and artificially light skin: Bollywood stars in their own racism row

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India’s film-makers accused of hypocrisy for supporting Black Lives Matter while keeping silent on bias for fair complexions

The Bollywood film industry is a global phenomenon built on glitz and glamour. But it has also faced accusations of being among the biggest purveyors of racism for glorifying fair complexions in its hyperbolic love stories and catchy songs. Now, amid anger over what some consider Bollywood’s hypocritical stance on Black Lives Matter, the industry has finally been forced to confront one of its most enduring taboos.

Bollywood has witnessed considerable liberalisation in recent years. But while taboos such as same-sex relationships have been relegated to a past in which stars hid behind a rose bush to steal a kiss, the industry’s determination to cling to colourism – prejudice against people of your own race on the basis of skin colour – has become a cause of anger and dismay.

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Lightning strikes kill more than 100 in India

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Bihar state records one of the highest daily tolls from lightning in recent years as monsoon begins

At least 107 people have died from lightning strikes in northern and eastern India, officials said, during the early stages of the annual monsoon season.

Some 83 people were killed in the impoverished eastern state of Bihar after being struck by lightning, and another 24 died in northern Uttar Pradesh state. Dozens more were injured, officials said.

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Global report: India has highest rise in Covid-19 cases as Latin America toll passes 100,000

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Portugal, Spain and Bulgaria reimpose some restrictions to contain fresh outbreaks

India has recorded its highest daily rise in new infections and the death toll in Latin America has passed 100,000 as countries from Croatia to Iran and Portugal to Bulgaria stepped up efforts to contain ongoing and fresh outbreaks of Covid-19.

Soldiers were called in to manage healthcare centres in Delhi after nearly 4,000 people in the Indian capital tested positive in 24 hours. Authorities have promised to make 20,000 extra beds available in temporary facilities run by army medics.

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Delhi to transform 25 luxury hotels into Covid-19 care centres

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Fearful hotel workers asked to take on role of hospital support staff as cases in Delhi rise

Staff at luxury hotels in Delhi are to start welcoming guests not with traditional garlands but with a medical gown.

Amid growing concerns that there are not enough hospital beds to cope with the rising number of cases, the Delhi government has become the first in the country to requisition its hotels. Starting this week, 25 establishments will be repurposed as emergency Covid-19 care centres for patients with mild to moderate symptoms. In a sign of how overwhelmed medical staff are becoming, hotel employees are being trained in case they have to administer some of the care.

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India accuses China of preparing attack on border troops

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Delhi says Chinese dammed a river and lay in wait for clash in which 20 Indians died

India has accused Chinese troops of meticulously preparing an attack on its soldiers on the treacherous Himalayan border, claiming they erected a tent on the Indian side, dammed a river, brought in machinery and then lay in wait with stones and batons wrapped in barbed wire.

The incident on Monday night, in which 20 Indian soldiers died and 76 were injured, was the worst violence between India and China for 45 years. China has not said whether it sustained any casualties.

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Mumbai discovers life isn’t so sweet without the workers it once ignored

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Lockdown precipitated an exodus of day labourers and “wallahs” but as monsoon season breaks their loss is being felt

As the monsoon lashes Mumbai and black clouds darken the skyline, the city is in the grip of nostalgia for the men who used to keep daily life ticking as rhythmically and comfortingly as a Swiss watch. Men who are missing.

The men who cleared the drains of silt so that the rains don’t cause flooding and water-borne diseases such as leptospirosis. The electricians who came to fix breakdowns caused by wind and rain. The sanitation workers who used to spray neighbourhoods with mosquito repellent before the monsoon to prevent vector-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and chikungunya. All are missing even though the monsoon officially arrived last weekend.

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China releases 10 Indian soldiers after border clash – report

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Indian media report release came after high-level talks between the India army and the PLA

China has freed 10 Indian soldiers seized in a high-altitude border clash in the Himalayas which left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead, media reports said on Friday.

The release follows several rounds of talks between the two sides in a bid to ease tensions after the battle on Monday, in which scores of troops from the two sides fought with nail-studded batons and hurled rocks at each other.

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