A train crash that killed 148 people may have been caused deliberately as part of a “conspiracy” hatched in Pakistan, India’s prime minister said Friday, as he campaigned for a key state election. Narendra Modi said police had found evidence of sabotage in the disaster last November, when a crowded passenger train derailed in northern … Read more
After two decades as a yoga missionary, Philippine Environment Secretary Regina Lopez is unleashing her inner rage on the mining industry while aiming for Bhutan-style gross national happiness. Lopez has in recent months moved global commodity markets with a campaign to close roughly two-thirds of the existing mines in the Philippines, which is the world’s … Read more
Nepal will hold its first local elections in two decades in May, the government has announced, a key moment in the country’s fraught transition to democracy. The impoverished Himalayan nation emerged from a brutal decade-long civil war in 2006, which brought the end of the 240-year-old Hindu monarchy and transformed it into a secular republic. … Read more
The continuous whirl of hair dryers is a novel sound at the Blush Beauty Point parlour in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, which until just five months ago had to close at regular intervals because of power cuts. Scheduled power cuts — known as load-shedding — have been a part of daily life in the impoverished landlocked … Read more
Three soldiers and four suspected militants were killed in separate gunbattles in Indian-administered Kashmir on Tuesday, officials said, marking an uptick in violence in the restive region. The soldiers died during a gunfight with militants that broke out at Hajin in Bandipora district, army spokesman Rajesh Kalia told AFP, adding that five other soldiers were … Read more
Four suspected rebels and two Indian army soldiers were killed in a gun battle in a village in Indian-administered Kashmir on Sunday, an army spokesman said. The militants were hiding in a south Kashmir village when the army and police surrounded it, a police official said. In the ensuing fire fight four militants and two … Read more
Indian army soldiers run to take their positions near the site of a gun battle. At least nine civilians were killed and nine injured in Pakistan-administered Kashmir when an Indian artillery shell hit a passsenger bus in the disputed region on Wednesday, Pakistani officials said. “The passenger bus was attacked by Indian shelling at 8.30 … Read more
An official in the Pakistani-administered area of Kashmir has accused Indian forces of firing mortar shells that targeted a village along the disputed Line of Control (LOC), leaving three children killed and three others injured . “Two girls and their brother died when mortar shells fired by Indian troops hit their house in Kotli district … Read more
The Pakistani military has accused India of killing seven soldiers in cross-border fire in the disputed Kashmir border, where tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours have surged in recent months. There was no immediate response to the accusation from Indian officials. The Pakistani military media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), said in a statement on Monday … Read more
Pakistan on Thursday named eight Indian diplomats it accuses of espionage and terrorism, as tensions mounted between the nuclear-armed rivals following days of artillery duels and skirmishes on the border dividing the disputed Kashmir region. The foreign ministry said six Indian embassy staff worked for New Delhi’s Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) intelligence agency, while … Read more
Kopila Wosti was just 14 when her father married her off to a stranger who was five years older. A year later, she gave birth to a baby girl. By the time she was 20, she had three children. “The first time I became pregnant, I was not even aware I was going to be … Read more
South Africa has denied a visa to his Holiness the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, for the third time in five years, one of his representatives said on Thursday, intensifying speculation about the extent of Beijing’s sway over Pretoria. The Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in India and is at loggerheads with China over … Read more