The Hindu festival of Holi is under way in India. The two-day celebration signifies the victory of good over evil and marks the end of winter and the arrival of spring. Its origins can be found in Hindu mythology, while the use of colour is tied to stories about Lord Krishna
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‘It’s a godsend’: the healthcare scheme bringing hope to India’s sick
In a country where treatment can cost two years’ wages, a new project could mean free medical care for 500 million people
Rajiv Gupta has a distinct spring in his step. He has brought his mother to New Delhi from the northern state of Bihar for a hip replacement, for which he won’t have to pay. His mother qualified for free treatment under Ayushman Bharat, the government’s ambitious new health insurance scheme.
“I can’t quite believe this is happening. When the doctors in Bihar told me it would cost 200,000 rupees [£2,180], I took mum home. That kind of money is impossible for me. I just run a tiny sari shop. And now she’s getting it done here free,” says Gupta. Then he hurries off as though scared he has got it wrong and someone is going to present him with a bill.
Continue reading...‘There are few gay people in India’: stigma lingers despite legal victory | Michael Safi and Aarti Singh
A landmark ruling legalised gay sex in the country in 2018, yet the LGBT community still face stigma and violence
When India’s supreme court announced it was legalising gay sex, people hugged in twos and threes on the lawns outside the Delhi courthouse. They draped themselves in rainbow flags in Bangalore and released balloons into the sky. In Mumbai’s nightclubs, they danced all night.
In Patna, the dusty capital of the east Indian state of Bihar, Roshni did nothing. “We felt good when people were marching in Delhi and Mumbai,” she says. “Everyone wanted to follow [them], but then we feared what other people would think – how they would react.”
Continue reading...Fires of Jharia spell death and disease for villagers
The inhabitants of a remote village at the heart of India’s coal industry brave deadly sinkholes and toxic gases simply to survive
In the village of Liloripathra, in a remote corner of India’s eastern Jharkhand state, mother-of-three Sushila Devi grips the hands of two women sitting on either side of her. Coal fires spew clouds of smoke into the already heavy, polluted air.
At about 8pm, a policeman cradling a small body wrapped in black plastic bags emerges through the smoke and the crowds that have gathered around her home. He has come to deliver the body of her 13-year-old daughter Chanda, killed along with two others from the village when a coal mine caved in on top of them. They had been scavenging in a colliery operated by Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), a subsidiary of state-owned Coal India.
Continue reading...India to begin voting in election in April, says electoral commission
Up to 900 million voters to cast ballots, as PM Narendra Modi seeks to replicate 2014 victory
Voting in the world’s largest democratic contest will begin on 11 April and continue for the next six weeks, India’s electoral commission has said in an announcement that signals the formal start of campaigning.
Polling booths will be shuttled around the country – by camel across the Rajasthan desert, on foot in the Himalayas and by speedboat in the Andaman Islands – for an election held in seven phases ending on 19 May. The ballots of up to 900 million eligible voters will be counted four days later.
Continue reading...22 of world’s 30 most polluted cities are in India, Greenpeace says
Analysis of air pollution data finds that 64% of cities globally exceed WHO guidelines
Twenty-two of the world’s 30 worst cities for air pollution are in India, according to a new report, with Delhi again ranked the world’s most polluted capital.
The Greenpeace and AirVisual analysis of air pollution readings from 3,000 cities around the world found that 64% exceed the World Health Organization’s annual exposure guideline for PM2.5 fine particulate matter – tiny airborne particles, about a 40th of the width of a human hair, that are linked to a wide range of health problems.
Continue reading...Kashmir’s fog of war: how conflicting accounts benefit both sides
India and Pakistan’s differing narratives are not unusual in the social media age, say experts
India struck Pakistan. Pakistan hit back, capturing an Indian pilot. Those are the established facts. Virtually everything else about the clashes between south Asia’s two arch-enemies last week is bitterly contested.
Did India hit a militant training camp in Pakistan? Did it cross the ceasefire line between the two countries in disputed Kashmir? How many people did the strikes kill? Was a Pakistani jet shot down while bombing Indian territory the next day?
Continue reading...Pakistan denies Indian claims it used US F-16 jets to down warplane
US embassy looks into reports incident violated military sale agreements with Islamabad
The US has said it is trying to find out whether Pakistan used US-built F-16 jets to down an Indian warplane, potentially in violation of trade agreements, as the standoff between the nuclear-armed Asian neighbours showed signs of easing.
Pakistan and India both carried out aerial bombing missions last week, and on Wednesday an Indian pilot was shot down over the disputed region of Kashmir in an incident that sparked fears of a full-blown war.
Continue reading...Kashmir: at least eight killed as Pakistan and India resume hostilities
At least six civilians and two Pakistani troops killed as clashes along frontier continue
Indian and Pakistani soldiers have targeted each other’s posts and villages along the volatile frontier in disputed Kashmir, killing at least six civilians and two Pakistani troops, officials said.
Tensions have been running high since Indian aircraft crossed into Pakistan on Tuesday, carrying out what India called a pre-emptive strike against militants blamed for a 14 February suicide bombing that killed 40 Indian troops. Pakistan retaliated, shooting down a fighter jet on Wednesday and detaining its pilot, who was returned to India on Friday in what Islamabad described as a peace gesture.
Continue reading...Pakistan returns captured Indian pilot – video
The Indian pilot who survived being shot down in Kashmir on Wednesday is returned by Pakistan in a 'peace gesture' it is hoped will de-escalate military tensions between the two nuclear states. Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was involved in the worst military crisis in decades between the countries over the disputed territory of Kashmir
Continue reading...Pakistan to release Indian pilot captured in Kashmir attacks
Imran Khan says pilot to be freed as ‘peace gesture’ amid rising tensions between nuclear neighbours
Pakistan says it will release a captured Indian pilot as a “peace gesture” between the neighbours amid the gravest military crisis in the subcontinent in two decades.
Imran Khan, the country’s prime minister, told a joint sitting of parliament that the Indian wing commander, Abhinandan Varthaman, who was shot down over the heavily guarded ceasefire line in disputed Kashmir on Wednesday, would be released on Friday.
Continue reading...India calls for immediate return of pilot shot down by Pakistan over Kashmir
Delhi angered by ‘vulgar display’ of wing commander in bloodied uniform by Islamabad
India has called for the safe and immediate return of a fighter pilot seized by Pakistan after being shot down during tit-for-tat incursions over Kashmir that have edged the pair closer to war than at any point in the past 20 years.
Its pilot, a wing commander identified as Abhi Nandan, appeared in a bloodied uniform as he gave his name and rank in a video released by the Pakistani armed forces. Asked by his interrogator to say more, he replied: “I am sorry, sir, that’s all I’m supposed to tell you.”
Continue reading...Who will pull India and Pakistan back from the edge this time?
The US has usually been the decisive voice of calm, but its influence has waned under Trump
During previous bouts of militarised aggression between India and Pakistan, US presidents used personal diplomacy to convince both sides to pull back from the brink.
Such was the case in 1999 during the Kargil war and then again in 2002. Similarly in December 2008 Condoleezza Rice, then US secretary of state, travelled to India to persuade the government to pull back from a planned severe response after the Mumbai attacks, putting the onus on Pakistan to cooperate transparently.
Continue reading...Pakistan says it has shot down Indian jets after Kashmir cross-border attack
Indian news agency reports Pakistani jet may have been shot down on day of skirmishes
Pakistan has conducted airstrikes over the ceasefire line in disputed Kashmir and claims to have shot down two Indian jets that responded by entering Pakistani airspace, capturing both of the pilots.
India confirmed that one of its pilots is missing in action and said it shot down one of the Pakistani jets as it escaped over the heavily militarised border separating the two nuclear powers.
Continue reading...India’s airstrikes are more posturing than prelude to war
Neither Narendra Modi nor Imran Khan can afford a full-scale India-Pakistan conflict
India’s limited airstrikes across the “line of control” in Kashmir, and Pakistan’s warning that it is preparing for “all eventualities”, appear to be more political posturing than a prelude to all-out war. At least, that is what the international community hopes as the nuclear-armed neighbours square off once again.
Rationally speaking, neither country’s prime minister can afford another full-scale conflict – Pakistan’s Imran Khan because he is still getting started after winning power for the first time last July, India’s Narendra Modi because he is seeking a second chance in national polls this spring.
Continue reading...India-Pakistan tensions escalate with airstrikes across Kashmir border
India’s first attack across ceasefire line since 1971 did not result in casualties or damage, Pakistan says
India has carried out aerial bombing over the disputed border in Kashmir for the first time since it went to war with Pakistan in 1971, escalating tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
The country’s foreign secretary, Vijay Gokhale, said in a briefing that Delhi had received credible intelligence that the militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), which killed 40 Indian security personnel in a suicide bombing this month, was training fighters for similar attacks at the site.
Continue reading...Tainted alcohol kills 85 people in India
Hundreds more are sick, with many of them critical, says Assam health minister
Eighty-five people have died on tea estates in Assam, north-east India, after drinking poisonous hooch.
Assam’s health minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, confirmed on WhatsApp that 85 people had died but the final death toll may be higher as that figure relates only to hospital deaths and not any victims that may have died elsewhere.
Continue reading...Millions of forest-dwelling indigenous people in India to be evicted
Critics say supreme court ruling constitutes ‘mass eviction in name of conservation’
Millions of Indians face eviction after the country’s supreme court ruled that indigenous people illegally living on forest land should move.
Campaigners for the rights of tribal and forest-dwelling people have called the court’s decision on Wednesday “an unprecedented disaster” and “the biggest mass eviction in the name of conservation, ever”.
Continue reading...Indian soldiers die in Kashmir gun battle as tensions escalate
Indian soldiers and militants killed in hunt for perpetrators of paramilitary convoy attack
Four Indian soldiers and two militants have been killed in clashes in disputed Kashmir as security personnel hunt for members of an insurgent group that killed at least 40 paramilitaries last week.
Police said they were fired on by militants as they searched a village in Kashmir’s southern Pulwama district, close to where a car laden with explosives rammed a paramilitary convoy on Thursday.
Continue reading...India enacts reprisals against Pakistan after Kashmir bombing
Government places tariff on imports while revenge attacks against Kashmiris have been reported
India has announced reprisals against Pakistan for a suicide bombing that killed at least 40 paramilitaries in the disputed region of Kashmir.
India’s finance minister, Arun Jaitley, has placed a 200% tariff on Pakistani imports and the home ministry announced on Sunday it was withdrawing the security details of a several Kashmiri separatist leaders.
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