Category Archives: India

Assam oil well still leaking gas one week after blowout

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About 2,500 people evacuated, amid fears that leaking oil and gas has killed river dolphins and birds

An oil well in the Indian state of Assam is still leaking gas “uncontrollably” after a blowout a week ago that it is feared has killed endangered river dolphins and birds and forced 2,500 people to evacuate their homes.

For days authorities have failed to plug the leak from the well in the village of Baghjan after the incident on 27 May. The blowout – an uncontrolled release of oil and gas due to the failure of pressure control systems – sent a fountain of crude oil into the air, “unleashing a hell”, according to local accounts.

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Coronavirus news live: no new Covid-19 deaths in Spain for first time since March

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Pakistanis urged to ‘live with the virus’; employee in Israeli prime minister’s office tests positive for Covid-19; Czech Republic will welcome foreign travellers from 15 June

UK ministers have been accused of not taking seriously the threat posed to black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) Britons by Covid-19, after it was reported that the release of an official review of the issue had been delayed over fears of potential civil unrest.

According to Sky News, officials are concerned about the effect the publication could have amid global anger over the death of George Floyd, an African American man who pleaded for air as a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on his neck.

Related: Ministers accused of not taking Covid-19 threat to BAME Britons seriously

Get in touch on Twitter @helenrsullivan.

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India expels Pakistan officials, accusing them of spying

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Pakistan calls the allegations ‘baseless’ after two officials at high commission given 24 hours to leave

Two officials at Pakistan’s high commission have been expelled for “espionage activities”, India’s foreign ministry said late on Sunday, allegations its nuclear-armed rival called “baseless”.

The ministry said in a statement: “The government has declared both these officials persona non grata for indulging in activities incompatible with their status as members of a diplomatic mission.”

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Monkeys steal Covid-19 test samples from health worker in India

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Blood samples later recovered undamaged after fears incident could have helped spread virus

Monkeys mobbed an Indian health worker and made off with blood samples from coronavirus tests, prompting fears they could have spread the virus in the local area.

After making off with the three samples this week in Meerut, near Delhi, the monkeys scampered up nearby trees and one then tried to chew its plunder.

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Patients share beds as coronavirus cases overwhelm Mumbai’s hospitals

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As India’s pandemic continues, in some areas the healthcare system is close to collapse

In Mumbai’s Sion hospital emergency ward there are two people to a bed. Patients, many with coronavirus symptoms and strapped two to a single oxygen tank, were captured lying almost on top of each other, top-to-toe on shared stretchers or just lying on the floor, in footage shared on social media in India this week.

Mumbai, a city of more than 20 million people, is weeks into the pandemic, but with new cases showing no sign of slowing down the city’s already weak healthcare system appears to be on the brink of collapse. State hospitals such as Sion, overcrowded in normal times, are overrun. With frontline doctors and nurses falling sick with the virus in their droves, it is also leading to a shortage of medical staff.

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‘Make noise and don’t panic’: India tries to ward off locust invasion

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Delhi braces for swarm while farmers in badly-hit north play loud music and honk car horns to try to prevent decimation of fields

Residents of Delhi are bracing themselves for a possible invasion of locusts, which have been ravaging areas in the north of the country.

A change in wind direction could save the city, but Dr K L Gurjar, deputy director of the Locust Warning Organisation, has warned residents to be prepared to “make a lot of loud noise so that instead of settling, they keep flying and fly past the city. And don’t panic”.

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China and India move troops as border tensions escalate

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Thousands of Chinese troops reportedly move into sensitive areas along Himalayan frontier

Tensions between China and India over their Himalayan border have escalated, with China accused of moving thousands of troops into disputed territory and expanding a military airbase in the region.

Thousands of Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops are reported to have moved into sensitive areas along the eastern Ladakh border, setting up tents and stationing vehicles and heavy machinery in what India considers to be its territory.

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Fifteen-year-old in India cycles 745 miles home with disabled father on bike

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Jyoti Kumari said she opted for desperate ride from New Delhi to Bihar after rickshaw work ended amid Covid-19 crisis

From her village in east India, 15-year-old Jyoti Kumari reflected on her desperate 745-mile cycle home with her disabled father, a journey that has drawn international praise.

“I had no other option,” she said on Sunday. “We wouldn’t have survived if I hadn’t cycled to my village.”

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Global report: Muslims face curfews ahead of Eid amid Covid-19 crisis

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Pandemic subdues Ramadan festivities as Taliban declares ceasefire; Spain and Greece to welcome tourists

Muslims worldwide prepared to celebrate Eid under lockdown, with the strictest governments bringing in 24-hour curfews for the holiday – but across the world the slow march is continuing out of coronavirus quarantine.

For the first time since the beginning of the outbreak, China said it had recorded no new cases of the virus; Spain joined Greece in saying it would be reopening to foreign tourists from July, and also said its football league would start again next month.

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Global report: India and Indonesia announce record daily infection figures

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China sets no growth target for first time in decades; Madrid and Barcelona lockdowns to ease

India has reported more than 6,000 new Covid-19 cases, its biggest one-day increase, while China has abandoned setting a GDP growth target because of the “great uncertainty” caused by the pandemic.

The sharp increase in new infections in India came after the government began easing lockdown restrictions and as airlines prepared to reopen selected domestic routes.

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Kolkata surveys damage after bearing brunt of Cyclone Amphan

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State chief minister says areas of city will have to be rebuilt from scratch after deadly storm

The Indian city of Kolkata has been left devastated by the worst cyclone it has seen in 100 years, which swept through India and Bangladesh on Wednesday and killed at least 84 people.

Kolkata, home to almost 15 million people, bore the brunt of Cyclone Amphan, which tore roofs off buildings, smashed windows, pulled down trees and pylons and overturned cars.

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Modi’s plan to rebuild India’s parliament draws fierce criticism

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Anish Kapoor among those pouring scorn on redevelopment of Lutyens’ central vista, branding it an act of ‘political fanaticism’

It was built by Sir Edwin Lutyens as the grand imperial heart of India, then reclaimed as the seat of power for an independent republic.

Now, government plans to redevelop Delhi’s emblematic central vista and build a new parliament have drawn fierce criticism.

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Super-cyclone Amphan kills up to 20 in India and Bangladesh

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Strong winds tore down electricity pylons, walls and buildings, with full scale of damage still being estimated

The most powerful cyclone to hit Bangladesh and eastern India in more than 20 years tore down homes, carried cars down flooded streets and claimed the lives of up to 20 people.

Authorities began surveying the damage Thursday after millions spent a sleepless night which saw 165km/h (102mph) winds carrying away trees, electricity pylons, walls and roofs, and transformer stations exploding.

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Super cyclone Amphan: evacuations in India and Bangladesh slowed by virus

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Thousands of migrant workers left jobless by Covid-19 pandemic are still on the roads, and evacuations have been hampered by distancing rules

The Bay of Bengal’s fiercest storm this century – super cyclone Amphan – was bearing down on millions of people in eastern India and Bangladesh on Wednesday, with forecasts of a potentially devastating and deadly storm surge.

Authorities have scrambled to stage mass evacuations away from the path of Super Cyclone Amphan, which is only the second “super cyclone” to form in the north-eastern Indian Ocean since records began.

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‘My angel’: man who became face of India’s stranded helped home by stranger

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Image captured the plight of the millions of migrant labourers left unable to return home in the pandemic

A photograph of a migrant labourer, his face contorted with anguish as he sits on the roadside in Delhi speaking to his wife about their sick baby boy, has come to symbolise the ordeal of India’s daily wage workers; penniless, and unable to get home to their families because of the lockdown.

Rampukar Pandit, a construction worker in the Indian capital, had heard that his 11-month-old son was seriously unwell. With no public transport to reach his home in Begusarai in Bihar, 1,200 km (745 miles) away, he started walking. He reached Nizamuddin Bridge where, exhausted and hungry, he could go no further.

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Global report: US unemployment could hit 25%, warns Fed chairman, as Japan enters recession

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India extends Covid-19 lockdown but eases many restrictions; South Africa reports highest daily new cases; World Health Assembly to begin

Unemployment in the United States could peak at 25% as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the chair of the Federal Reserve, amid warnings the June quarter economic figures will be “very, very bad”. The bleak prediction came as Japan slid into its first recession in five years, with forecasts that worse was to come.

In a sober assessment of the economic impact of coronavirus in the US, the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, estimated GDP contraction in the June quarter could be “easily be in the twenties or thirties”, as fallout from the global outbreak worsened.

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Covid-19 cases in Brazil surpass Italy as virus surges in Latin America

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Mexico and Peru struggle to contain outbreaks while deaths in Spain fall to two-month low

Confirmed Covid-19 cases in Brazil have surpassed the total in Italy and are surging in Mexico and Peru as Latin America struggles to contain its fast-growing coronavirus outbreak.

Spain announced that 87 people had died there in the 24 hours to Sunday morning, the first time the figure has been below 100 in more than two months and a sign the virus is being contained in western Europe as it continues to spread aggressively in Russia, India and parts of Africa.

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Factory behind India gas leak operated illegally until 2019

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Company that owns factory admitted it did not have valid environmental clearance

The chemical factory that leaked gas into a coastal Indian city on Thursday morning, killing at least 12 people and putting hundreds in hospital, was operating illegally until at least the middle of 2019, documents show.

In an affidavit [pdf] filed by LG Polymers in May 2019, as part of its application to expand the plastic plant’s operations, the South Korean multinational admitted it was operating its polystyrene plant without the mandatory environmental clearance from the Indian government.

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Indian and Chinese soldiers injured in cross-border fistfight, says Delhi

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Troops also threw stones in face-off involving 150 soldiers at remote crossing point near Tibet, says Indian army

Several Indian and Chinese soldiers have been injured in a cross-border clash involving fistfights and stone-throwing at a remote but strategically important mountain pass near Tibet, the Indian army said on Sunday.

There have been long-running border tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours, with a bitter war fought over the Indian north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh in 1962.

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