Author: ITas

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA — On the last night of their lives, Jagdish Patel, his wife and their two young children tried to slip into the U.S. across a near-empty stretch of the Canadian border. 

Wind chills reached minus 36 Fahrenheit (minus 38 Celsius) that night in January 2022 as the family from India set out on foot to meet a waiting van. They walked amid vast farm fields and bulky snowdrifts, navigating in the black of an almost-moonless night. 

The driver, waiting in northern Minnesota, messaged his boss: “Make sure everyone is dressed for the blizzard conditions, please.” 

Coordinating things in Canada, federal prosecutors say, was Harshkumar Patel, an experienced smuggler nicknamed “Dirty Harry.” On the U.S. side was Steve Shand, the driver recently recruited by Patel at a casino near their Florida homes, prosecutors say. 

The two men, whose trial is scheduled to start Monday, are accused of being part of a sophisticated human smuggling operation feeding a fast-growing population of Indians living illegally in the U.S. Both have pleaded not guilty. 

Over the five weeks the two worked together, documents filed by prosecutors allege they spoke often about the bitter cold as they smuggled five groups of Indians over that quiet stretch of border. 

“16 degrees cold as hell,” Shand messaged during an earlier trip. “They going to be alive when they get here?” 

On the last trip, on Jan. 19, 2022, Shand was to pick up 11 more Indian migrants, including the Patels. Only seven survived. 

Canadian authorities found the Patels later that morning, dead from the cold. 

In Jagdish Patel’s frozen arms was the body of his 3-year-old son, Dharmik, wrapped in a blanket. 

Dreams of leaving India 

The narrow streets of Dingucha, a quiet village in the western Indian state of Gujarat, are spattered with ads to move overseas. 

“Make your dream of going abroad come true,” one poster says, listing three tantalizing destinations: “Canada. Australia. USA.” 

This is where the family’s deadly journey began.

Jagdish Patel, 39, grew up in Dingucha. He and his wife, Vaishaliben, who was in her mid-30s, lived with his parents, raising their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi, and Dharmik. (Patel is a common Indian surname and they are unrelated to Harshkumar Patel.) The couple were schoolteachers, local news reports say. 

The family was fairly well off by local standards, living in a well-kept, two-story house with a front patio and a wide veranda. 

“It wasn’t a lavish life,” said Vaibhav Jha, a local reporter who spent days in the village. “But there was no urgent need, no desperation.” 

Experts say illegal immigration from India is driven by everything from political repression to a dysfunctional American immigration system that can take years, if not decades, to navigate legally. 

But much is rooted in economics, and how even low-wage jobs in the West can ignite hopes for a better life. 

Those hopes have changed Dingucha. 

Today, so many villagers have gone overseas — legally and otherwise — that blocks of homes stand vacant and the social media feeds of those who remain are filled with old neighbors showing off houses and cars. 

That drives even more people to leave. 

“There was so much pressure in the village, where people grew up aspiring to the good life,” Jha said. 

Smuggling networks were glad to help, charging fees that could reach $90,000 per person. In Dingucha, Jha said, many families afforded that by selling farmland. 

Satveer Chaudhary is a Minneapolis-based immigration attorney who has helped migrants exploited by motel owners, many of them Gujaratis. 

Smugglers with ties to the Gujarati business community have built an underground network, he said, bringing in workers willing to do low- or even no-wage jobs. 

“Their own community has taken advantage of them,” Chaudhary said. 

Illegal immigration from India increases

The pipeline of illegal immigration from India has long existed but has increased sharply along the U.S.-Canada border. The U.S. Border Patrol arrested more than 14,000 Indians on the Canadian border in the year ending September 30, which amounted to 60% of all arrests along that border and more than 10 times the number two years ago. 

By 2022, the Pew Research Center estimates there were more than 725,000 Indians living illegally in the U.S., behind only Mexicans and El Salvadorans. 

In India, investigating officer Dilip Thakor said media attention had led to the arrest of three men in the Patel case, but hundreds of such cases don’t even reach the courts. 

With so many Indians trying to get to the U.S., the smuggling networks see no need to warn off customers. 

They “tell people that it’s very easy to cross into the U.S. They never tell them of the dangers involved,” Thakor said. 

U.S. prosecutors allege Patel and Shand were part of a sprawling operation, with people to scout for business in India, acquire Canadian student visas, arrange transportation and smuggle migrants into the U.S., mostly via the states of Washington or Minnesota. 

On Monday, at the federal courthouse in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, Patel, 29, and Shand, 50, will each face four counts related to human smuggling. 

Patel’s attorney, Thomas Leinenweber, told The Associated Press his client came to America to escape poverty and build a better life and “now stands unjustly accused of participating in this horrible crime.” 

Shand’s attorney did not return calls seeking comment. Prosecutors say Shand told investigators that Patel paid him about $25,000 for the five trips. 

His final passengers, though, never made it. 
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LUCKNOW, India — A fire tore through a neonatal intensive care unit in a hospital in northern India, killing 10 newborn babies and injuring 16 others, authorities said.

The fire occurred late Friday at a hospital in Jhansi city in India’s Uttar Pradesh state. Officials said the blaze spread quickly through the ward, where 55 infants were being treated. Forty-five babies were rescued and are receiving medical care, said Bimal Kumar Dubey, a local official.

It was not immediately clear what sparked the blaze. Brajesh Pathak, the deputy chief minister of the state, visited the hospital and met with families on Saturday. He pledged government support for the victims’ families and promised a thorough investigation.

“We will identify those responsible for this tragedy and take strict action. The government stands with families during this difficult time,” he said.

When the firefighters arrived, the ward was engulfed in flames and plumes of smoke. Rescuers had to break through windows to reach the newborn babies. Eyewitnesses said the rescue operation began about 30 minutes after the fire erupted, delaying evacuation efforts.

The accident has raised questions over the hospital’s safety measures. While fire alarms had been installed in the intensive care unit, parents and witnesses said they did not activate during the blaze. Hospital staff acted only after they saw signs of smoke and fire.

“If the safety alarm had worked, we could have acted sooner and saved more lives,” said Naresh Kumar, a parent who lost his baby.

Akhtar Hussain, whose son was rescued and is receiving treatment in an adjacent ward, agreed that the tragedy could have been prevented if the hospital had better safety protocols.

Fires are common in India, where building laws and safety norms are often flouted by builders and residents. Poor maintenance and lack of proper firefighting equipment in the country also leads to deaths. 
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KENCHANAHALLI, India — On the edges of a dense forest in southern India, six women in a small garage are busy stitching cloth bags, pants, hospital gowns and office uniforms with automated sewing machines.

About four years ago, power cuts constantly interrupted their work. Heavy rain disrupted transmission lines and air conditioners pumping in extreme heat exhausted the grid. But now a small black box in a corner of the garage, not much larger than an office printer, keeps their operations running. The battery pack, made from used electric vehicle batteries, keeps their sewing machines and lights on even when the main power is off.

“This battery is a godsend for us,” said H. Gauri, one of the women. “Before the battery came, we’d have to stitch manually when there was no electricity which is exhausting. That is not a concern anymore and we’re able to finish all our orders on time.”

While the group is successful, initiatives like it in India are still few and far between. As the country gets more electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines, all aimed at reducing the country’s dependency on planet-warming fossil fuels, energy experts say that India will need to find ways to repurpose the batteries, panels and blades at the end of their lifespans or risk creating millions of tons of waste. If the country comes up with a comprehensive strategy to recycle components, it would both reduce waste and lead to fewer imports of the critical minerals needed for clean power in the future.

Currently, many panels, batteries and other clean energy parts end up in landfills. But others are processed by unlicensed waste recyclers, and some newer businesses and organizations are coming up with ways to recycle the valuable components.

Old EV car batteries can power rural livelihoods

The six tailors in Kenchanahalli say their lives have completely changed since the battery smoothed over power cuts.

Gauri, 32, said the steady income from the tailoring work has helped build a new home for her and her three children. She said it has also brought her more independence.

“Earlier, my husband was not happy about me working long hours or going to nearby towns to get tailoring orders,” she said. “However, after seeing how much I was earning, he has taken a step back. It’s not only me, this job has changed everything for all the women in this room.”

The lithium-ion batteries can provide backup power for up to six hours. They were provided by battery refurbishing and energy storage company Nunam and set up at the campus of the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement, a nongovernmental organization that works to help poor and Indigenous communities in remote regions of Karnataka.

These relatively small electricity needs are perfect ways to reuse electric vehicle batteries, said Prithvi Raj Narendra, an engineer at Nunam. “The way EVs use these batteries is like asking it to run. Using it to power small machines and streetlights is like asking it to walk,” he said.

In the four years since the tailoring operation was set up, Nunam’s orders have exponentially increased. Their two dozen employees in Bengaluru’s electronic city neighborhood are busier than ever designing and packaging battery packs from used EV batteries from cars and three-wheelers.

Narendra said the company aims to produce one gigawatt-hour of power — enough to power 1 million homes for a year — by the end of this decade for homes and small businesses across India, especially those without consistent sources of electricity.

With a surge in solar, planning can minimize waste

India is the world’s most populous nation and among the biggest emitters of planet-warming gases. Like the rest of the world, a major part of transitioning away from dirty fossil fuels for electricity comes in the form of solar panels.

Solar panels typically last between 20 and 30 years. Some estimates say that 100 kilotons of solar power-related waste is already produced every year in India and this number could grow to 340 kilotons by 2030.

“The issue is not very large right now, but it will become so as the installed base of solar panels becomes larger,” said Adarsh Das, who’s worked in India’s solar power sector for the past 30 years.

The country has set an ambitious target of producing 500 gigawatts of clean power by the end of this decade and is also aiming to become a global hub for manufacturing clean power components like solar cells, panels and wind turbines.

The Indian government has included solar, wind and EV components in its electronic waste regulations, and has called for producers to recycle components, but there’s little clarity about how they should do that.

U.S.-based renewable energy company First Solar owns a solar manufacturing site in Chennai, India, and has already included solar panel recycling in their business model. In the future, new panels will be made from old recycled components.

Sujoy Ghosh, their managing director for India, said the government’s waste regulations show it’s thinking in the right direction, but the “devil is in the details.” Rules around how solar panels should be recycled, and how companies can profit from setting up recycling facilities, are needed, he said.

Anjali Taneja, a senior policy specialist at the Indian think-tank Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy, thinks recycling can definitely be profitable for Indian solar producers. But without a clear recycling plan, Taneja worries that the country “could become one of the largest waste generators.”

Creating a national effort to recycle raw materials

India currently imports over 95% of lithium-ion batteries as well as large amounts of nickel, cobalt and other rare earth minerals that are needed for clean power and EV batteries, government reports say. Experts estimate that nearly 90% of those materials can be recovered to make new solar power panels, batteries and wind turbines within India.

The ability to recycle critical minerals is “a huge opportunity for India,” said Akansha Tyagi of the New Delhi-based Council on Energy, Environment and Water. “Many strategies can be put in place to design products better, use them better over their lifetime, repair them before you recycle and eventually responsibly recycle.”

The next step, Tyagi said, is to create a comprehensive policy for creating a circular economy — an economic model that aims to maximize the use of anything that is manufactured and create as little waste as possible.

Industry stakeholders agree.

Deepali Sinha Khetriwal, who runs a coworking space for electronic waste recyclers just outside New Delhi, said there is tremendous potential for creating jobs in the clean energy sector if recycling is taken up more seriously.

“You need skilled and semi-skilled people,” she said. “The resource recovery industry is such a great job creator.”

Khetriwal added that her hope is to see more recyclers like her across the country, creating national momentum for clean energy recycling.

“While our setup is still small, what we’re trying to do can be replicated,” she said. “We’re excited about what the future holds if as a country we plan ahead.”
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islamabad — Pakistan’s top advisory body on religious affairs on Friday declared that using virtual private networks to access blocked content on the internet is against Shariah, or Islamic law.

The statement came as authorities deploy a nationwide firewall and push users to register VPNs with the state’s media regulator, ostensibly to enhance cybersecurity and fight terrorism.

Critics say such measures, however, increase online surveillance, curb freedom of expression and hurt e-commerce.

Virtual private networks enable internet users to hide their identity and location, allowing them to maintain privacy and security and access online content that is blocked in their country.

The Council of Islamic Ideology said the technology was being used in Pakistan to access content prohibited according to Islamic principles or forbidden by law, including “immoral and porn websites or websites that spread anarchy through disinformation.”

“Using VPNs to access blocked or illegal content is against Islamic and social norms, therefore, their use is not acceptable under Islamic law. It falls under ‘abetting in sin,’ ” said the statement, quoting the council’s chairman, Raghib Naeemi.

The statement declared that any technology, including the internet, used to access “immoral or illegal activities is prohibited according to Islamic principles.”

Earlier in the day, the Ministry of Interior sent a letter to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, or PTA, the country’s independent media regulator, asking it to block all “illegal” VPNs, claiming terrorists were using the cyber tool.

“VPNs are increasingly being exploited by terrorists to facilitate violent activities and financial transactions in Pakistan,” the letter said.

The ministry also pointed to the use of VPNs for viewing pornography.

“Pakistan is also considered as one of the leading [countries] in terms of [people] visiting porn sites using VPNs. However, these trends warrant prohibition of unauthorized VPNs to address the critical threats,” the note added.

Along with using VPNs for online business and entertainment, many Pakistanis use the tool to access social media platform X, formerly Twitter, which remains mostly inaccessible since February’s controversial general elections.

According to court filings, the interior ministry ordered the PTA to suspend the platform “in the interest of upholding national security, maintaining public order and preserving the integrity of our nation.”

Opponents of the restrictions say the increased push to control online activities is aimed at curbing criticism of the Pakistani military. The powerful institution is facing intense backlash for its alleged meddling in politics since incarcerated former Prime Minister Imran Khan was pushed out of office in April 2022.

Denying political interference, the military repeatedly has referred to online criticism and smear campaigns as “digital terrorism.”

Speaking Friday at a security forum in Islamabad, Pakistan’s army chief, General Asim Munir, reiterated the call for greater regulation of online speech.

“Freedom of expression without rules and regulations is becoming a source of degradation of values in all societies,” Munir told the audience at the Margalla Dialogue.

Earlier this week the PTA announced a meeting with representatives from the Ministry of Information Technology & Telecommunication, the Pakistan Software Export Board and the Pakistan Software Houses Association to discuss a VPN registration framework.

The authority also announced a “streamlined” VPN registration process that it said allows “legitimate users to register their VPNs through a new online platform.”

This came after Pakistanis reported widespread disruption in VPN connectivity over the weekend.

A cybersecurity source confirmed to VOA the outage was part of a government-run experiment to block VPNs using the firewall that is being deployed and was tested for months.

Officials reject the notion the government is attempting to throttle the internet. However, experts say the nationwide internet regulation tool acquired from China increases the Pakistani state’s capability to monitor communications.

To register a VPN, the user must submit, among other details, a subscriber ID issued by the person’s internet service provider, national identity card number and the IP address, which is a unique number that identifies a device connected to the internet. Experts say such information can enable authorities to track online activities, limit  privacy and increase a person’s vulnerability to data breaches.

In its letter Friday, the interior ministry asked the PTA to allow users to register VPNs until the end of the month.
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The Taliban’s Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation announced plans this week to return millions of internally displaced people (IDP) to their home villages and provinces in Afghanistan, a move analysts warn could worsen the country’s humanitarian crisis.

“In the first phase, 5,000 displaced families in Kabul would be moved to different places to their places of origin. Most of these families are from [the northeastern province of] Kunduz,” said the ministry’s statement, issued Wednesday.

The Taliban called on national and international organizations to support their relocation plan. “This is a priority for the ministry,” the statement said.

“It is a good decision to relocate displaced families to their communities of origin,” said Sayed Ahmad Selab, the founder of the Selab Charity Foundation and former Afghan parliamentarian, adding, “but it could bring about a humanitarian crisis under the current circumstances.”

Most of these families would not have shelter, Selab said, if they were returned to their provinces.

“They were displaced because of the yearslong conflict and drought. Most of them lost their houses and would have no prospects of jobs and places to live if they were returned,” he said.

The United Nations refugee agency, or UNHCR, says there are 3.2 million IDPs in Afghanistan.

More than 7.6 million Afghans are living as refugees in Pakistan and Iran, including 1.6 million Afghans who left after the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021.

About a year ago, both Iran and Pakistan started forcible repatriation of Afghan refugees from their countries. The Taliban government said in June that around 2,000 Afghans were arriving daily from these countries.

Hafiz Ahmad Miakhil, a former adviser to the Ministry of Refugee and Repatriation, told VOA that he does not think the Taliban “have any policy in place for the relocation plan.”

He told VOA that the Taliban’s ministry is not in a position to undertake the repatriation of millions of internally displaced people.

“For the repatriation of internally displaced people, there is the need to construct schools and provide shelters and health services. The Taliban don’t have the resources to do so,” Miakhil said.

He added that the Taliban would need the support of the international community and for that, the Taliban “have to get recognized nationally and internationally.”

The Taliban, who seized power in August 2021 after the former Afghan government collapsed, are not yet recognized as the legitimate government of Afghanistan by any country.

Under the Taliban, Afghanistan is facing multiple crises. Sanctions against the Taliban, no banking transfers, frozen assets, no access to global institutions and the dwindling of foreign aid have moved millions into poverty and hunger.

There are 11.6 million people who are food insecure in Afghanistan.  

In September, the U.N. said that it received only 30% of the $3 billion needed this year for the humanitarian response in the country.

Since returning to power, the Taliban have imposed repressive measures on women and imposed their strict interpretation of Islam in the country.

“The de facto authorities are exacerbating this crisis by policies that focus insufficiently on the real needs of its people and undermine its economic potential,” said Roza Otunbayeva, the U.N. special representative for Afghanistan.   

Abdul Hamid Jalili, the former Afghan attache in the Peshawar Consulate, told VOA that the Taliban’s decision to return IDPs to their villages “would bring yet another humanitarian crisis.”

This story originated in VOA’s Afghan Service. 
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Muslims in India are largely welcoming a ruling this week from the country’s Supreme Court declaring authorities must not demolish any property simply because its owner has been accused of a crime.

Such demolitions — decried as “bulldozer justice” by critics — have targeted mostly Muslim-owned properties in states ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party over the past few years.

On Wednesday, while issuing the verdict, India’s highest court called bulldozer justice “totally unconstitutional” and laid down strict guidelines concerning such demolitions.

“The chilling sight of a bulldozer demolishing a building, when authorities have failed to follow the basic principles of natural justice and have acted without adhering to the principle of due process, reminds one of a lawless state of affairs,” the court said.

Such “high-handed and arbitrary actions” have no place in a constitutional democracy and would be dealt with through the “heavy hand of the law,” the court added.

Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind, a leading organization of Islamic scholars in India, said it welcomes the Supreme Court verdict.

“The court has declared demolishing someone’s house as a crime, and an unacceptable form of punishment. It has also emphasized that the government may not play judge, and only the judiciary has the authority to determine what is legal or illegal,” JUH President Maulana Syed Arshad Madani told VOA.

“This ruling is a victory for justice, and we hope it will serve as a lesson to all authorities,” he said.

After firebrand monk and Hindu nationalist BJP leader Yogi Adityanath became chief minister of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh in 2017, he ordered his officials to take the strictest possible actions against all criminals.

Soon, the police and other civic officials in Uttar Pradesh started taking strict action against those accused of crimes, including demolishing their properties deemed illegal.

Properties of hard-core criminals were targeted initially. But it was not long until others began losing their properties to demolition for allegedly partaking in protest rallies, pelting stones at others during communal disturbances, slaughtering cows and other offenses.

Over the past few years, houses, shops and other “illegal” structures owned by accused criminals, communal violence rioters and others have been demolished in states including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Assam and Maharashtra — where the BJP was in power. In most cases, the victims belonged to the minority Muslim community.

According to the Housing and Land Rights Network, a housing rights group, more than 153,000 homes were demolished by various state governments in India, displacing about 738,000 people in the last few years.

Since 2022, JUH filed multiple petitions to the Supreme Court seeking orders to prevent the governments from demolishing properties as a form of extrajudicial punishment.

On September 13, while hearing another petition, the court observed that running a bulldozer on the property of an accused is “akin to bulldozing the law of the land.”

In its verdict on Wednesday, the Supreme Court firmly stated that the executive must not overstep its bounds by acting as a judge and executing punitive measures such as demolitions.

“The executive cannot pronounce a person guilty. Only on the basis of accusation, if the executive demolishes the property of the person, it will strike at the rule of law. The executive cannot become a judge and demolish the properties of the persons accused,” the verdict said.

“No demolition can be carried out without prior show-cause notice and within 15 days from the date of the notice being served,” it said.

New Delhi-based lawyer Mohammad Huzaifa said that this week’s verdict marked a “historic stand against ‘bulldozer justice,’ affirming that punitive demolitions have no place in our democratic framework.”

“While justice may have come too late for many, this ruling offers renewed faith in our judiciary and stands as a beacon of hope for those wronged by arbitrary demolitions impacting scores of people living under the fear of bulldozer state terror,” Huzaifa, a member of the legal team of civil rights group Association for Protection of Civil Rights, told the VOA.

“The challenge now lies in vigilant implementation — true justice will be measured by how effectively these guidelines are enforced on the ground,” he said.

Muslim community leader Zafarul-Islam Khan said he welcomed the verdict although it has come too late.

“Demolition of people’s homes was a huge issue of human rights violation. Courts should have taken suo motu notice of the cases as soon as those demolitions began some years ago,” Khan, former chairman of the Delhi Minorities Commission, told VOA.

“No doubt, the authorities will not feel so free as before in demolishing homes in the future, but they may still look for their devious ways to do so,” he said.

The verdict, in some ways still sounds not complete, Khan added.

“This welcome verdict will remain incomplete unless and until tens of thousands of the previous victims are also compensated and the powerful people who violated the law at will are punished,” he said.

Human rights activist Harsh Mander said that he was relieved that the Supreme Court had spoken out against a process that was “entirely unlawful and unconstitutional.”

“State injustice bulldozing the homes and shops of the working poor has continued for decades, and periodic orders to follow the compassionate due process from the Supreme Court similar to the recent order have not restrained the executive,” Mander told VOA.

“But my problem with the ruling is that it doesn’t act effectively to deter the current form of demolition, which is essentially targeting a particular community, Indian Muslims. I would have wanted the court to both reprimand and punish political leaders who order and justify such unlawful retributive targeting, and officers who implemented these acts.”
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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — The party of Sri Lanka’s new Marxist-leaning President Anura Kumara Dissanayake took a large lead Friday in early results from the parliamentary elections, in an apparent solid mandate for his program for economic revival.

Dissanayake’s National People’s Power Party won 15 of the 22 electoral districts whose results have been released so far by the Elections Commission.

Dissanayake was elected president on September 21 in a rejection of traditional political parties that have governed the island nation since its independence from British rule in 1948. But he received just 42% of the votes, fueling questions over his party’s outlook in Thursday’s parliamentary elections. But the party received large increases in support less than two months into his presidency.

In a major surprise and a big shift in the country’s electoral landscape, his party won the Jaffna district, the heartland of ethnic Tamils in the north, and many other minority strongholds.

The victory in Jaffna marks a great dent for traditional ethnic Tamil parties that have dominated the politics of the north since independence.

It is also a major shift in the attitude of Tamils, who have long been suspicious of majority ethnic Sinhalese leaders. Ethnic Tamil rebels fought an unsuccessful civil war in 1983-2009 to create a separate homeland, saying they were being marginalized by governments controlled by Sinhalese.

According to conservative U.N. estimates, more than 100,000 people were killed in the conflict.

Of the 225 seats in parliament, 196 were up for grabs under Sri Lanka’s proportional representative electoral system, which allocates seats in each district among the parties according to the proportion of the votes they get.

The remaining 29 seats — called the national list seats — are allocated to parties and independent groups according to the proportion of the total votes they receive countrywide.

The election comes at a decisive time for Sri Lankans, as the island nation is struggling to emerge from its worst economic crisis, having declared bankruptcy after defaulting on its external debt in 2022.

The country is now in the middle of a bailout program with the International Monetary Fund, with debt restructuring with international creditors nearly complete.

Dissanayake said during the presidential campaign that he planned to propose significant changes to the targets set in the IMF deal, which his predecessor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, signed, saying it placed too much burden on the people. However, he has since changed his stance and says Sri Lanka will go along with the agreement.

Sri Lanka’s crisis was largely the result of economic mismanagement combined with fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, which along with 2019 militant attacks devastated its important tourism industry. The pandemic also disrupted the flow of remittances from Sri Lankans working abroad.

The government also slashed taxes in 2019, depleting the treasury just as the virus hit. Foreign exchange reserves plummeted, leaving Sri Lanka unable to pay for imports or defend its currency, the rupee.

Sri Lanka’s economic upheaval led to a political crisis that forced then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign in 2022. Parliament then elected Wickremesinghe to replace him.

The economy was stabilized, inflation dropped, the rupee strengthened and foreign reserves increased under Wickremesinghe. Nonetheless, he lost the election as public dissatisfaction grew over the government’s effort to increase revenue by raising electricity bills and imposing heavy new income taxes on professionals and businesses as part of the government’s efforts to meet the IMF conditions.

Voters were also drawn by the NPP’s cry for change in the political culture and an end to corruption, because they perceived the parties that ruled Sri Lanka so far caused the economic collapse.

Dissanayake’s promise to punish members of previous governments accused of corruption and to recover allegedly stolen assets also raised much hope among the people. 
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washington — Nargiz Mukhtarova knew something was wrong when she didn’t hear from her husband.

Farid Mehralizada, a journalist and an economist, always texted her to let her know he had arrived at his office in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku. But on May 30, the text never came.

The panic over his whereabouts lasted several hours. Eventually, he arrived at their home, handcuffed and accompanied by about eight police officers, Mukhtarova told VOA.

“I tried to stay calm and not add to his worry. I kept thinking about how many days this would take from our lives and what would happen next,” she said.

At the time of her husband’s arrest, she was five months pregnant.

“Now, nearly six months have passed, and he is still not home. He missed the birth of our baby. Our child is now one month old, and her father still hasn’t seen her,” Mukhtarova said.

Mehralizada works at the Azerbaijani Service of VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. His case underscores the state of press freedom in Azerbaijan.

“Azerbaijan has long been one of the world’s worst violators of human rights in general and press freedom in particular,” Gulnoza Said, Europe and Central Asia program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, told VOA.

Over the past year alone, Azerbaijani authorities have jailed at least 14 journalists in direct retaliation for their work, according to the New York-based CPJ. Many of the journalists are facing charges of currency smuggling, which media watchdogs have rejected as bogus.

Azerbaijani authorities have “cynically embarked on an unprecedented jailing spree against its brightest and most probing reporters, silencing anyone who could hold the authorities to account,” Said told VOA.

On June 1, a Baku court placed Mehralizada under pretrial detention for “conspiring to smuggle foreign currency” in connection to a case brought against the independent news outlet Abzas Media. Mehralizada and Abzas Media both say he never worked for the outlet.

Although Mehralizada’s involvement with Abzas Media was limited to giving expert commentary, several journalists who work at the independent media outlet are among those who have been jailed en masse over the past year.

Abzas Media is considered one of the last remaining independent news organizations in Azerbaijan. It is known for its coverage of corruption, including allegations linked to the country’s ruling Aliyev family.

In August, a couple months after Mehralizada’s arrest, authorities brought new charges, accusing him of “illegal entrepreneurship, money laundering, tax evasion and document forgery.” He faces up to 12 years behind bars if convicted of all the charges.

RFE/RL has called for Mehralizada’s release.

“We are deeply concerned by his continued imprisonment on false charges,” RFE/RL President Stephen Capus said in an October statement.

Mehralizada is one of four RFE/RL journalists currently jailed for their work. The others are Ihar Losik and Andrey Kuznechyk in Belarus, and Vladyslav Yesypenko in Russia-occupied Crimea. RFE/RL rejects the charges against all of them as false.

The U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees outlets including RFE/RL and VOA, has also rejected the charges against Mehralizada as bogus.

“Journalism is not a crime, yet, as we see in Farid’s case, journalists around the world continue to be persecuted for reporting the truth,” USAGM CEO Amanda Bennett told VOA in a statement. “The cruelty is abhorrent. It’s time for Farid to return home, and for the unjust persecution against journalists to end.”

The Azerbaijani government has targeted RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service for years, including shuttering its bureau, blocking its website and using Pegasus spyware to target its reporters.

“Our people, like Farid, do their jobs at great personal risk,” Ilkin Mammadov, director of RFE/RL’s Azerbaijani Service, told VOA.

Earlier this week, Vugar Gurbanov, a counselor at Azerbaijan’s embassy in Washington, told VOA in an email that “Azerbaijan has a vibrant journalism tradition.”

“Understandably, journalism has nothing to do with permissiveness to engage in illegal activities,” Gurbanov added.

The embassy did not reply to specific questions about Mehralizada’s case.

Almost six months have passed since Mehralizada was arrested, and Mukhtarova says her husband is doing OK. He spends his days reading books, doing crossword puzzles, and finding whatever ways he can to pass the time without his family, she said.

The couple is permitted to have one weekly meeting.

“We look forward to it with excitement every Monday,” Mukhtarova said. “He’s my partner in every sense, sharing both the joys and challenges of life.”

Still, she says, it’s “heartbreaking for both of us” that Mehralizada hasn’t been able to meet their newborn daughter.

“He was so excited about becoming a father, and missing these early moments is incredibly painful for him,” she said.

Mehralizada is well-known for his coverage of economic, social and environmental issues in Azerbaijan, according to Mammadov. He is especially skilled at explaining the everyday impact of complicated economic policies to readers, he told VOA.

“What makes him a uniquely talented journalist is his mastery of the art of storytelling,” said Mammadov, who believes Mehralizada was targeted because of his work.

“This is a textbook case of retaliation against a journalist,” Mammadov said. “It is clear the government’s case against him is a direct attempt to silence his honest reporting.”

Mukhtarova agrees.

“Whenever he uncovered something overlooked, he would feel a surge of excitement,” she said. “Farid had a passion for revealing the truth to people.”

Mehralizada is expected to be held in pretrial detention until at least mid-December. Like many journalists jailed in Azerbaijan, his future remains uncertain.
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Pakistanis are choking on toxic air. With the arrival of cooler temperatures, perpetually poor air quality has reached hazardous levels causing disruptions in daily activities. As VOA Pakistan bureau chief Sarah Zaman reports, experts say the problem that keeps returning every winter will get worse over time.
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Islamabad — The World Health Organization has labeled a forced repatriation of Afghan nationals from Pakistan as a “major setback” for polio eradication efforts, contributing to the regional resurgence of the paralytic disease.

Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only two polio-endemic nations, reporting 49 and 23 cases respectively, so far this year, up from only six cases each in 2023. 

The latest case in Pakistan was confirmed Thursday in the southwestern province of Balochistan, which sits on the Afghan border and accounts for half the cases reported in 2024.

“Until you get rid of polio completely, it will resurge and come back, and this is what we are seeing now in Pakistan [where] nearly half of the districts are infected, and in Afghanistan, a third of the provinces are infected,” Hamid Jafari, the WHO director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said Wednesday while discussing causes of polio resurgence in both countries. 

“I think the major setback was a forced repatriation of Afghan nationals that led to a massive and unpredictable movement of populations within Pakistan and across both borders and within Afghanistan, so the virus moved with these populations,” Jafari told the virtual discussion hosted by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, or GPEI. 

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has said that Pakistan’s crackdown on undocumented foreign nationals has resulted in more than 730,000 Afghan migrants returning to Afghanistan since August 2023.

Jafari also mentioned other factors contributing to the rise of polio in Pakistan, including authorities’ inability to consistently carry out vaccination campaigns in areas affected by militancy, where children cannot be effectively immunized against the crippling disease. He also highlighted the presence of “significant vaccine hesitancy and community boycotts” rooted in public frustration over the lack of essential services in impoverished districts.

Pakistani and WHO officials say vaccine boycotts in some regions also result from the false propaganda that anti-polio campaigns are a Western plot to sterilize Muslim children. Additionally, anti-government militants in violence-hit regions occasionally stage deadly attacks on polio teams, suspecting them of spying for authorities, routinely disrupting vaccination drives in districts near the Afghan border. 

Afghan polio ban

While sharing the latest polio situation in Afghanistan, the senior WHO official stated they are collaborating with various humanitarian actors and partners to promote vaccination against polio and all other diseases.

“We cannot implement house-to-house vaccination,” Jafari stated, referencing the ban imposed by Taliban authorities on polio teams over security concerns. 

“The program is working closely with [Taliban] authorities to re-update micro plans and work closely with the communities and local officials to make sure children are mobilized to vaccination sites,” he added. 

In September, the Taliban abruptly halted house-to-house vaccine deliveries in parts of southern Afghanistan, including Kandahar, without publicly stating any reason. 

An independent monitoring board of the GPEI recently said that the Taliban’s action had stemmed from their “administration’s concerns about covert surveillance activities.” The report quoted de facto Afghan authorities as explaining that their leadership is living in Kandahar and has concerns about their security.

Jafari stated that Pakistan and Afghanistan are taking measures to address the challenges in their bid “to rebuild community confidence” and work closely with security agencies in both countries to be able to access all children. 

He cautioned that the current resurgence of polio in Pakistan and Afghanistan does not guarantee a low point next year.

“We are confident that we will come very close to elimination, but the key is to make sure that in these final safe havens for poliovirus in insecure areas, among migrant and mobile populations, and vaccine-hesitant communities, we can finally overcome these residual challenges to make sure that finally polio is eradicated,” the regional WHO director said. 

Polio once paralyzed an estimated 20,000 children in Pakistan each year until the country initiated national vaccination campaigns in the 1990s to control the infections, according to the WHO. In 2019, there were 176 reported cases in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In 2021 and 2022, however, the countries reported only one and two infections, respectively.
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New Delhi — Millions of Sri Lankans voted Thursday to choose a new parliament in a key election that will decide if the country’s new leftist president gets the mandate to push ahead with his agenda of improving lives for millions of people struggling with an economic downturn and stamping out corruption. 

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake swept to power in September on his promise of systemic change in a country where public anger with mainstream political parties has been running high since the country’s crushing economic collapse two years ago. 

Hoping to build on the widespread support he secured in the presidential election, he dissolved parliament and ordered snap polls about a year ahead of schedule. Dissanayake’s party, a fringe group, held only three seats in the 225-member parliament.

His coalition, the National People’s Power (NPP) is likely to win a majority, according to political analysts.  

“Normally in this country the presidential winner gets enough parliamentary backing to enable him to govern,” Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, Executive Director of the Center for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, told VOA. “Getting to the half-way mark, that is 113 seats, is crucial because he needs a majority to implement his program.” 

About 17 million people were eligible to choose from about 8,800 candidates. 

Many of the candidates contesting from the NPP are newcomers to politics. Some analysts say that is an advantage because they are not tainted by corruption in a country that has rejected traditional parties, blaming established politicians for a corrupt culture. Others point out that because they are mostly unknown faces, much will depend on whether President Dissanayake, a charismatic leader, was able to convince voters to back them. 

“Parliament needs more NPP members to establish a strong government which will eliminate bribery and corruption,” the Sri Lankan leader said in his final public meeting before the polls. 

Although Dissanayake was a member of parliament for 25 years, his party, the JVP or People’s Liberation Front, was a fringe group on the margins of Sri Lanka’s politics. In the runup to the presidential polls, the 55-year-old leader put together a coalition that consists of members of his party, professionals, civil society organizations, women and youth groups.

 

Public expectations in the country ran high as people headed out to vote on Thursday. Melanie Gunathilaka, a Colombo resident, who voted soon after polls opened, said she is optimistic the elections will pave the way for the change that many Sri Lankans are yearning for. 

“There was a lot of resentment among people like us about the misuse of state funds and mismanagement by the established parties,” she told VOA. “We hope the new government will reflect a political culture that is rooted in transparency and accountability.”  

The main challenger to Dissanayake’s coalition NPP, is the Samagi Jana Balawegaya, led by opposition leader Sajith Premadasa. The New Democratic Front (NDF), backed by former president Ranil Wickremesinghe, is also in the fray.  

But the opposition campaign in the runup to the parliamentary polls was low-key. “The opposition is in disarray, so the sense of a contest is not there. Only the NPP has held big rallies,” according to Saravanamuttu. 

Voters directly elect 196 members of parliament, while the remaining 29 seats are allocated according to the proportional vote obtained by each party. Tens of thousands of security personnel were deployed at the more than 13,000 polling stations set up across the island country, at schools, temples and other public places. 

The outcome of Thursday’s polls will be important in determining how smoothly Dissanayake is able to implement reforms he has promised, such as cutting taxes and supporting small businesses. His first task will be to appoint a full-fledged cabinet. At the moment he only has a prime minister and two ministers. 

He backs policies that will ease hardship for working class people and has said that he will renegotiate the terms of a $2.9 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund, while sticking with the program. While the IMF package helped stabilize the country’s economy, subsidies were slashed as part of austerity measures imposed by the IMF. Since the economic collapse, millions have fallen into poverty, food and fuel prices have skyrocketed and citizens say there are fewer job opportunities. 
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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka began voting in a snap election on Thursday which will determine if the island nation wants to empower its new, leftist President Anura Kumara Dissanayake to push his pro-poor policies as it recovers from a financial meltdown.

A little over 17 million Sri Lankans are eligible to elect lawmakers to the 225-member parliament for a five-year term. A record 690 political parties and independent groups are in the fray across 22 electoral districts.

Marxist-leaning Dissanayake, 55, was elected president in September but his National People’s Power (NPP) coalition had just three of 225 seats in parliament, prompting him to dissolve the legislature almost a year before its term ended and seek a fresh mandate.

Over 7,000 police personnel have been deployed to ensure free and fair elections at the more than 13,400 polling stations set up across the country, police officers told Reuters.

“The military is also on standby to assist the police but we do not expect any incidents,” said Police Spokesman Nihal Thalduwa, adding that voting was proceeding smoothly.

As polling opened in the early hours of the morning, people began trickling into temples, schools and other public buildings being used as polling stations.

Among them was Umeshi Perera, 32, who lined up to cast her ballot at a school in Biyagama, a suburb about 15 km from the South Asian nation’s largest city of Colombo.

“I think we are seeing the first signs of a positive political change in Sri Lanka after the president was elected and we should give him the chance to continue that change,” she said.

Analysts say Dissanayake’s coalition is expected to draw significant support, while a victory for a rival could lead to a policy logjam the country cannot afford.

The Samagi Jana Balawegaya party of opposition leader Sajith Premadasa – who favors a mix of interventionist and free-market economic policies – is NPP’s main challenger. The other key contender is the New Democratic Front, backed by previous President Ranil Wickremesinghe.

“All arrangements are in place and we appeal to the public to work with us to ensure a free and fair election,” Election Commission Chairman RML Rathnayake told reporters at a pre-election briefing on Tuesday.

Votes will be counted soon after polling closes on Thursday and results are expected to be announced on Friday.

A country of 22 million people just across the southern tip of India, Sri Lanka was crushed by a 2022 economic crisis triggered by a severe shortfall of foreign currency, causing the economy to shrink by 7.3% in 2022 and 2.3% last year.

Boosted by a $2.9 billion bailout program from the International Monetary Fund, the economy has begun a tentative recovery, but the high cost of living is still a critical issue for many voters, especially the poor.

Dissanayake wants to push anti-poverty policies including bigger welfare schemes and fight corruption as a political outsider in a country dominated by family parties for decades.

He also aims to tweak targets set under the IMF program to reduce high income taxes and free up funds to invest in welfare for millions hit hardest by the crisis.

The new government must deliver a budget to reach a crucial primary surplus target of 2.3% of GDP in 2025 set under the IMF program, deliver pro-poor policies, and put growth on a sustainable path.

But investors worry Dissanayake’s desire to revisit the terms of the IMF bailout could delay future disbursements, and make it harder for Sri Lanka to hit that primary surplus target.

“In past elections, people did not have confidence in us but in September people gave us victory and proved that we are a winning party and we can form a government,” Dissanayake said on Sunday as the campaign neared its conclusion.

“The next task is to unite people from the four corners of this country and build a powerful people’s movement,” he said.
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ISLAMABAD — Taliban authorities in eastern Afghanistan publicly executed an alleged murderer Wednesday, citing the Islamic concept of retributive justice, or qisas.

The early morning punishment took place at a sports stadium in Gardez, the capital of the Paktia province, the Taliban supreme court announced through the social media platform X.

The provincial government invited the public, and senior civilian, judicial, and military officials, including Taliban Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, to witness the execution. Authorities had barred onlookers from bringing cameras or mobile devices.

The convict, identified as Mohammad Ayaz Asad, had reportedly shot dead a Taliban security force member.

The top Taliban court did not specify how the death penalty was implemented. Social media videos showed crowds heading to the sports stadium to witness the event.

“The case was meticulously examined and scrutinized by the three-stage military court of the Islamic Emirate in multiple iterations before the order of retaliation (Qisas) was issued and approved,” the statement said, using the official title of the Taliban government, which is officially not recognized by any country.

It was the sixth public execution of a murder convict in Afghanistan since the Taliban regained power in August 2021 and implemented in a criminal justice system based on their interpretation of Islamic law, Sharia. Previously, such executions were carried out by gunshot.

Despite the United Nations condemning the practice as “inconsistent with the fundamental right to life” and “a form of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment,” de facto Afghan leaders continue to carry out these executions.

The Taliban also have flogged hundreds of men and women in packed sports stadiums across Afghanistan for committing “immoral crimes,” such as adultery, homosexuality, theft, and robbery. In October alone, nearly 100 Afghans, including women, were lashed in front of onlookers and received jail terms ranging from six months to two years for such offenses, according to the Taliban Supreme Court data.

U.N. experts and human rights organizations have decried corporal punishment as a breach of human rights and international law, urging the Taliban to stop it immediately.

Women’s rights in Afghanistan have declined sharply under the Taliban rule, according to U.N. assessments. They cite a series of decrees and directives issued by Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, which are designed to “systematically” exclude women from public life in nearly every sector.

The edicts have banned Afghan girls and young women from pursuing secondary and university-level education. Women are banned from public and private workplaces except for health, immigration, and police departments.

A recent decree has deemed the sound of women’s voices in public a moral violation and requires them to cover their entire bodies and faces when outdoors. It also forbids women from looking at men to whom they are not related and vice versa.

The Taliban have defended their Islamic governance and rejected international calls to reverse restrictions on Afghan women’s freedom. No country has officially recognized Taliban leaders as legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, mainly citing their harsh treatment of women.
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Islamabad — Taliban authorities in eastern Afghanistan are scheduled to publicly execute a convicted murderer on Wednesday, citing the Islamic concept of retributive justice, or qisas.

The early morning punishment will be carried out at a sports stadium in Gardez, the capital of the Paktia province, according to a local language official announcement Tuesday through the X social media platform. It invited the public, religious scholars, and civilian and military officials to attend the event, instructing them not to bring cameras or cell phones.

If the death penalty is implemented as scheduled, it will be the sixth public execution of a murder convict in Afghanistan since the Taliban regained power in August 2021 and implemented a criminal justice system based on their interpretation of Islamic law, Sharia. The announcement did not specify how the execution will be implemented.

Previously, such executions were carried out by gunshot. 

Despite the United Nations condemning the practice as “inconsistent with the fundamental right to life” and “a form of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment,” de facto Afghan leaders continue to carry out these executions.

The Taliban also have flogged hundreds of men and women in packed sports stadiums across Afghanistan for committing “immoral crimes,” such as adultery, homosexuality, theft, and robbery. In October alone, nearly 100 Afghans, including women, were lashed in front of onlookers and received jail terms ranging from six months to two years for such offenses, according to the Taliban Supreme Court data.

U.N. experts and human rights organizations have decried corporal punishment as a breach of human rights and international law, urging the Taliban to stop it immediately.

Women’s rights in Afghanistan have declined sharply under the Taliban rule, according to U.N. assessments. They cite a series of decrees and directives issued by Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, which are designed to “systematically” exclude women from public life in nearly every sector.

The edicts have banned Afghan girls and young women from pursuing secondary and university-level education. Women are banned from public and private workplaces with exceptions for health, immigration, and police departments.  

A recent decree has deemed the sound of women’s voices in public a moral violation and requires them to cover their entire bodies and faces when outdoors. It also forbids women from looking at men to whom they are not related and vice versa.

The Taliban have defended their Islamic governance and rejected international calls to reverse restrictions on Afghan women’s freedom. No country has officially recognized Taliban leaders as legitimate rulers of Afghanistan.
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New Delhi — Sri Lanka will choose a new parliament Thursday in an election that is seen as crucial for the country’s new left-leaning president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who swept to power in September on an anti-corruption platform amid a wave of dissatisfaction with established political parties.

Dissanayake’s National People’s Power (NPP) coalition currently has only three seats in the 225-member parliament, constraining his ability to usher in the systemic changes he says are necessary to tackle corruption and improve economic conditions for the working class.

Aiming to boost the NPP’s representation, Dissanayake dissolved parliament soon after he was voted into power and called for snap polls a year ahead of schedule.

Analysts say the strong support that Dissanayake secured in the presidential election seven weeks ago will likely stay with his party in Thursday’s election.

“He got 42 percent of the vote, which is a dramatic leap for a representative of a fringe party which had only secured three to four per cent vote share in any election in the past,” Kusal Perera, political analyst in Colombo told VOA. “That vote will come back in the parliamentary elections, though it may be slightly lesser this time.”

Current cabinet: 3

The 55-year-old president, popularly known as AKD, is seeking a two-thirds parliamentary majority so he can push through his promised reforms. Currently, the Sri Lankan leader has the smallest cabinet in the country’s history — Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya, and two ministers. In Sri Lanka, only lawmakers can be appointed as ministers.

His hopes of gaining a much bigger share of parliamentary seats for his coalition rest on voters rejecting parties that governed the country for decades but are blamed by many people for misgovernance and corruption.

The country is still grappling with a severe economic downturn two years ago. Although former president Ranil Wickremesinghe is credited with stabilizing the economy after securing a $2.9 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, the austerity measures he introduced – mainly an end to public subsidies – led to sharp price hikes in food and fuel that have caused hardship for millions of Sri Lankans.

Dissanayake has said he will renegotiate the terms of the IMF bailout package to ease the austerity measures that were imposed to secure the loan.

Ahead of Thursday’s elections, the new president has sounded an optimistic note. “In past elections, people did not have confidence in us but in September people gave us victory and proved that we are a winning party and we can form a government,” he said during a campaign rally on Sunday. “The next task is to unite people from the four corners of this country and build a powerful people’s movement.”

The NPP’s main challengers are the Samagi Jana Balawegaya, led by opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, and the New Democratic Front (NDF), which is backed by former president Ranil Wickremesinghe.

But the opposition has run a lackluster campaign. “There has been no focus on what they want or the program that they want to push,” said Perera.

The country’s powerful Rajapaksa political dynasty, which played a key role in Sri Lanka over the last two decades, has not fielded a candidate in the parliamentary polls.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was the president when the economy collapsed, was ousted by a massive popular protest movement in the country that demanded, among other things, that people guilty of corruption be punished.

Just like the presidential polls, the parliamentary election is seen as a referendum on people’s desire for change in the political landscape. However, there is less enthusiasm this time around, according to some residents.

“Nobody is very excited about the election partly because most people think that it is a given that Dissanayake’s NPP is going to win,” says Chameera Dedduwage, a professional based in Colombo who took part in the protest movement against Rajapaksa. “They feel that they deserve to be given a chance to prove themselves and bring about the system change they have promised.”
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LAHORE, Pakistan — Pakistan’s Punjab province banned most outdoor activities and ordered shops, markets and malls in some areas to close early from Monday to curb illnesses caused by intense air pollution.  

The province has already closed educational institutions and public spaces like parks and zoos until Nov. 17 in places including Lahore, the world’s most polluted city in terms of air quality, according to Swiss group IQAir’s live ratings.  

The districts of Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad, and Gujranwala have seen an unprecedented rise in patients with respiratory diseases, eye and throat irritation, and pink eye disease, the Punjab government said in an order issued late on Sunday. 

The new restrictions would also remain in force until Nov. 17, it said. 

“The spread of conjunctivitis/ pink eye disease due to bacterial or viral infection, smoke, dust or chemical exposure is posing a serious and imminent threat to public health,” it said.  

While outdoor activities including outdoor sports events, exhibitions and festivals, and outdoor dining at restaurants have been prohibited, “unavoidable religious rites” are exempt from this direction, the order said.  

Some outlets like pharmacies, oil depots, dairy shops, and fruit and vegetable shops have similarly been exempted from the broad directions, and to close by 8 p.m. local time.  

Lahore’s air quality remained hazardous on Monday, with an index score of more than 600, according to IQAir, but this was significantly lower than the 1,900 that it touched in some places earlier this month.  

A score of 0-50 is considered ‘good.’ 

Several parts of South Asia are engulfed by a toxic haze each winter as cold air traps dust, emissions, and smoke from farm fires.  

Punjab has blamed its particularly toxic air this year on pollution wafting in from India, where northern parts have also been battling hazardous air, and has said it will take the issue up with the neighboring country through its foreign ministry.  

India’s Supreme Court on Monday directed the Delhi government to decide by Nov. 25 on imposing a ‘perpetual ban’ on firecrackers, legal news portal Bar and Bench reported.  

Firecrackers set off by revelers on Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights that was celebrated on Oct. 31 this year despite a ban, has aggravated the region’s pollution problem.  

 
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