Author: ITas

Lucknow, India — A poorly maintained and overcrowded bus veered off the road and plunged into a deep gorge in northern India on Monday, killing at least 36 people and injuring several others, officials said.

The accident occurred in Almora district in the mountainous state of Uttarakhand. The bus was carrying around 60 people, and more than 20 have been injured, said Deepak Rawat, a senior state government official.

Authorities said earlier they believed there were 42 passengers, which was how many people the bus could accommodate.

Teams of rescue and relief workers were deployed to the site and officials feared the death toll may rise further, especially as seven passengers in hospital were in critical condition.

Television footage showed parts of the bus mangled and destroyed as it lay overturned on a rocky slope, close to a stream. Rescuers were seen working to pull out passengers and carrying bodies on stretchers.

The state’s chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami earlier said rescue teams were working to quickly evacuate the injured passengers to nearby hospitals and that authorities have been instructed to airlift those seriously hurt.

The state government has opened an investigation into the accident, said Vineet Pal, another official in the state. He added that preliminary information suggested that the dilapidated bus skidded before tumbling down a 60 meter-deep gorge.

A number of passengers managed to escape or were thrown out by the impact, and then alerted authorities about the accident. Two transport officials have been suspended for approving a bus that was in poor condition, Pal said.

India has some of the highest road death rates in the world, with hundreds of thousands of people killed and injured annually. Most crashes are blamed on reckless driving, poorly maintained roads and aging vehicles.

In July, at least 18 people died after a double-decker passenger bus collided with a milk truck in Uttar Pradesh state. In May, a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims skidded and rolled into a deep gorge on a mountainous highway in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing at least 21 people.
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BENGALURU, India — India’s manufacturing growth gained momentum in October after decelerating for three months as demand improved significantly, helping in job creation and leading to a better business outlook, according to a business survey released on Monday.

The HSBC final India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index, compiled by S&P Global, rose to 57.5 in October from an eight-month low of 56.5 in September and was above a preliminary estimate of 57.4.

“India’s headline manufacturing PMI (purchasing managers’ index) picked up substantially in October as the economy’s operating conditions continue to broadly improve,” noted Pranjul Bhandari, chief India economist at HSBC.

“Rapidly expanding new orders and international sales reflect strong demand growth for India’s manufacturing sector.”

The output and new orders sub-indexes rose to three-month highs with a notable increase in demand.

International demand improved from a year-and-a-half low in September. A desire for Indian goods led to orders from Asia, Europe, Latin America and the U.S.

Buoyant demand also boosted the outlook for the year ahead.

“Business confidence is also very high due to expectations of continued strong consumer demand, new product releases, and sales pending approval,” Bhandari said.

To meet growing demand, firms took on many more workers than in September. Hiring increased for an eighth consecutive month.

That would probably bring some relief to the government, which has failed to create enough well-paying jobs for those entering the workforce. Economists cautioned job creation will remain muted over the next 12 months, a Reuters poll published a week ago showed.

Inflationary pressures increased with both input and output prices rising faster. Input cost inflation was the highest in three months, elevated by higher material costs, wage bills and transportation fees.

Firms passed on the extra costs to their clients at a much quicker pace than in September.

India’s inflation rose to a nine-month high of 5.49% in September, largely driven by higher food prices and close to the upper end of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) 2-6% target.

Despite that, a separate Reuters poll last week showed a slim majority of economists expected the RBI to cut interest rates in December, to 6.25% from 6.50% currently.
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LAHORE, Pakistan — Dangerously poor air quality on Monday forced Pakistani authorities in the cultural capital of Lahore to close primary schools for a week, government officials said, after the air-quality index hit a record high over the weekend.

The measures in Lahore were part of a larger effort to protect children from respiratory-related and other diseases in the city of 14 million people. The government said everyone in Lahore was required to wear a face mask.

Fifty percent of employees must also work from home as part of a “green lockdown” in the city, the government said, adding that barbecuing food without filters was banned and motorized rickshaws restricted. Wedding halls must close at 10 p.m. and artificial rain is likely to be used to combat the pollution.

The air-quality index in Lahore exceeded 1,000 over the weekend, a record high in Pakistan.

Toxic gray smog has sickened tens of thousands of people, mainly children and elderly people, since last month when the air quality started worsening in Lahore, the capital of eastern Punjab province bordering India.

The government has also banned construction work in certain areas and fined owners of smoke-emitting vehicles. Schools will remain closed for a week because of the pollution, according to a government notification.

The concentration of PM 2.5, or tiny particulate matter, in the air approached 450, considered hazardous, the Punjab Environment Protection Department said.

Lahore was once known as a city of gardens, which were ubiquitous during the Mughal era from the 16th to 19th centuries. But rapid urbanization and surging population growth have left little room for greenery.
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JAKARTA, Indonesia — At least nine people died after Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki in eastern Indonesia erupted on Sunday, spewing explosive plumes of lava and forcing authorities to evacuate several nearby villages, officials said on Monday.

Mount Lewotobi Laki-laki, located on Flores Island in East Nusa Tenggara province, erupted on Sunday night, belching a fiery-red column of lava, volcanic ash and incandescent rocks, Hadi Wijaya, a spokesperson for The Center of Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation , said on Monday.

“After the eruption, there was power outage and then it was raining and big lightning which caused panic among residents,” he told Reuters, adding that the authority had raised the status of the volcano to level IV or the highest.

The agency has recommended a seven-kilometer radius must be cleared.

Fiery lava and rocks hit the nearest settlements around 4 kilometers from the crater, burning and damaging residents’ houses, Hadi said.

As of Monday morning at least nine people had died, said Heronimus Lamawuran, a local official at East Flores area, adding the eruption had affected seven villages.

“We have started evacuating residents since this morning to other villages located around 20 kilometers from the crater,” he said.

The nearest villages were covered by thick volcanic ash on Monday morning, Heronimus added.

The authorities are still gathering data on the number of evacuees and damaged buildings.

Indonesia sits on the “Pacific Ring of Fire,” an area of high seismic activity atop multiple tectonic plates.

This eruption follows a series of eruptions of different volcanoes in Indonesia. In May, a volcano on the remote island of Halmahera, Mount Ibu, caused evacuation of people from seven villages.

North Sulawesi’s Ruang volcano also erupted in May and prompted authorities to evacuate more than 12,000 people.

Flash floods and cold lava flow from Mount Marapi in West Sumatra province, covered several nearby districts following torrential rain on May 11, killing more than 60 people.
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Islamabad — A leading lawyer for Pakistan’s imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan has resurfaced under mysterious circumstances nearly a month after his alleged “enforced disappearance.”

Police officials and Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party Sunday confirmed the overnight recovery of Intazar Ahmad Panjutha — who had gone missing on October 8 while returning home to Islamabad — amid allegations that government security agencies were involved.

Punjutha’s recovery occurred a day after Pakistan’s attorney general assured a federal high court Friday that the lawyer “would be recovered within 24 hours” but did not provide further details.

However, police reported late Saturday that they intercepted a suspicious vehicle in the city of Hassan Abdul, northwest of the Pakistani capital, and recovered the lawyer, asserting that armed individuals who were with Panjutha opened fire at police from within the vehicle and fled.

A video later surfaced showing a visibly shaken and weak Panjutha sitting in a vehicle with his hands and feet tied. In a separate video, the lawyer can be seen breaking down in tears while telling police officers that his captors were demanding ransom and subjected him to severe custodial torture.

Khan’s party rejected the police claims and Panjutha’s video remarks, saying he was forced to make the statement and alleging again that the lawyer “was abducted by security forces.”

Salman Akram Raja, the secretary general of PTI, identified Panjutha as one of Khan’s key lawyers in his ongoing legal battles.

“His condition, that spoke of the horror he had endured, was filmed and spread to cause fear. This is shameful,” Raja said in a video statement he released Sunday.

A police department spokesperson dismissed allegations of staging a fake encounter, asserting that officers rescued Panjutha from kidnappers demanding ransom.

Absa Komal, a prime-time news anchor at Pakistan’s Dawn TV channel, commented on Panjutha’s video appearance and sympathized with him.

“He is unrecognizable — a changed man. The attorney general told the high court that he would be produced in 24 hours, and this is how he has been presented. Shame on the decision-makers,” Komal wrote on her social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

Khan’s party members and supporters have been the subject of a government crackdown since he was removed from power through a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in 2022 and jailed a year later over controversial allegations of corruption and inciting violence against the Pakistani military, among dozens of other charges.

The 72-year-old deposed leader rejects the lawsuits as fabricated by the military after allegedly orchestrating his ouster from power, charges government and army officials reject.

Domestic and international human rights groups have lately intensified their criticism of Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies, accusing them of engaging in a campaign of suppressing PTI and dissent at large.

Khan, cricket star-turned-prime minister, has led a campaign of defiance against the military since his ouster from power. Army generals have staged three coups and ruled Pakistan for over three decades since it gained independence in 1947.

Pakistan’s military and its intelligence agencies are frequently accused of influencing the rise or fall of elected governments through election rigging and pro-army political parties, charges army officials deny.

Last month, more than 60 Democratic lawmakers from the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to President Joe Biden, urging him to secure the release of Khan and all other political prisoners in Pakistan.

The American lawmakers expressed their concern about what they denounced as the “ongoing widespread human rights violations” in the South Asian nation. Without naming Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s coalition government, the letter stated that “Pakistan’s current system amounts to ‘military rule with civilian facade.’”

Islamabad hit back at the letter, saying it is based on “an incorrect understanding of the political situation in Pakistan.”
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A monthslong legal battle between online encyclopedia Wikipedia’s parent company and India’s largest newswire service took a turn this week that has raised concerns about free access to credible online information in the country.

In July, Asian News International (ANI), which calls itself South Asia’s leading multimedia news agency, filed a lawsuit in the Delhi High Court against the U.S.-based Wikimedia Foundation over a Wikipedia page that labeled ANI a mouthpiece of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

The foundation runs Wikipedia. The content on Wikipedia is managed by volunteers, and it allows all users free editing access to its pages.  

During a hearing in the $237,000 [approx.] defamation lawsuit on October 28, Wikimedia relented to the High Court’s demand that Wikipedia reveal identifying information of the online users involved in editing the ANI page. In August, the court had threatened to halt the operation of the widely used website in India if it did not comply.

Indian tech journalist and digital rights activist Nikhil Pahwa said that if the precedent set by the ANI lawsuit against Wikimedia holds, it will make editors across Wikipedia vulnerable to defamation cases from any political actor who has an issue with their Wikipedia page. 

“This means that anyone who edits a Wikipedia page is potentially susceptible to identification because all one has to do is file a case. In the case of politicians especially, the edits will be fraught with risk. This will mean that Wikipedia editors will hesitate when editing pages pertaining to powerful people, and this has a chilling effect on speech,” Pahwa told VOA.

ANI, which also accused Wikipedia of spreading information from “fake news websites,” had demanded in the lawsuit that the website’s page on the newswire service be taken down.

Wikimedia initially argued that the pages on ANI were entirely written by volunteers who simply made use of an online platform provided by Wikipedia. But on October 16, the court ordered Wikimedia to take down a page concerning ANI, saying that its existence was “interfering” with the court proceedings.

In an unprecedented move, Wikipedia removed the page from its platform on October 21.

On October 25, the Delhi High Court expressed surprise at the open-access editing function of Wikipedia, calling it a “dangerous tool.” Justice Subramonium Prasad, during a hearing on the case, asked: “Anybody can edit a page on Wikipedia? What kind of page is this if it is open to anybody [to edit]?”

A history of censorship

Wikipedia has faced bans or censorship intermittently in more than a dozen countries. The site has also faced lawsuits filed by individuals as well as organizations across borders.

China banned the Chinese language version of Wikipedia in 2015. Four years later, it blocked all language editions of the free, community-edited encyclopedia in the country.

Pakistan blocked the website for three days last year for hosting allegedly blasphemous content. Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif later ordered the restoration of the site, noting that the consequences of the blanket ban outweighed its benefits.

In 2023, a court in Russia imposed a fine worth $20,350 on Wikimedia for not deleting what it claimed was “banned content” regarding the Russian military. The fine was for the failure to take down a page that contained “classified military information” about Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, among other content on its location and equipment.

Global popularity

Wikipedia insists that despite being a community-driven platform, it has a robust fact-checking system. Wikipedia also maintains the anonymity of its volunteers who edit and verify information from different sources. 

Wikipedia, available in many languages and with more than 350 editions, is consistently one of the most visited websites in the world and is used by millions of people for a variety of purposes.    

New Delhi-based lawyer Ujjaini Chatterji said that Wikipedia is a very useful first step for any research.

“It is especially helpful because they have a lot of other links within the footnotes which direct us to other credible articles, journals, academic literature, media coverage, databases and more, in order to build on our research further,” she said.

“This free source encyclopedia is particularly a useful starting point to understanding concepts in a simplified manner. Like many others in India, I have used Wikipedia, both as a student and a professional,” she added.

Indian residents visit Wikipedia more than 750 million times per month, making it the online encyclopedia’s fifth-largest user base in the world. The site operates in 23 Indian languages besides English. The outcome of the lawsuit, which is already resolved at this point, may affect hundreds of thousands of Indians in the future. 
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SRINAGAR, India — An assailant threw a grenade at a marketplace bustling with shoppers in the main city of Indian-controlled Kashmir on Sunday, wounding at least nine people, police said.  

The attack comes a day after a suspected militant was killed in a daylong gunbattle in Srinagar, a rare occurrence in the city where security is tight.  

Police said an unidentified attacker hurled a grenade from a flyover bridge, apparently targeting a stationed paramilitary vehicle, in the main business center of Srinagar, where Sunday’s flea market is visited by thousands of people.  

The grenade exploded in the midst of shoppers and vendors, wounding at least nine, police said. All were taken to a hospital and reinforcements of police and paramilitary soldiers launched a search for the attacker.  

In the past, Indian authorities have blamed rebels fighting against Indian rule in the disputed region for similar grenade attacks. Rebels have in turn accused government agents of carrying out the attacks to defame their movement.  

“There can be no justification for targeting innocent civilians,” Kashmir’s Chief Minister Omar Abdullah wrote on the social media platform X. “The security apparatus must do everything possible to end this spurt of attacks at the earliest so that people can go about their lives without any fear.”  

India and Pakistan each administer a part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. The nuclear-armed rivals have fought two of their three wars over the territory since they gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947.  

Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.  

India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and many Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict. 
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KARACHI — Unprecedented air pollution levels in Pakistan’s second-largest city of Lahore prompted authorities to take emergency measures on Sunday, including issuing work-from-home mandates and closing primary schools.  

The city held the top spot on a real-time list of the world’s most polluted cities on Sunday after recording its highest ever pollution reading of 1900 near the Pakistan-India border on Saturday, based on data released by the provincial government and Swiss group IQAir.  

The government has shut primary schools for a week, advising parents to ensure children wear masks, said Senior Minister of Punjab Marriyum Aurangzeb during a press conference, as a thick blanket of smog enveloped the city.  

Citizens have been urged to stay indoors, keep doors and windows shut, and avoid unnecessary travel, she said, adding that hospitals had been given smog counters.  

To reduce vehicle pollution, 50% of office employees would work from home, said Aurangzeb.  

The government has also imposed a ban on three-wheelers known as rickshaws and halted construction in certain areas to reduce the pollution levels. Factories and construction sites failing to comply with these regulations could be shut down, she said.  

Aurangzeb described the situation as “unexpected” and attributed the deterioration in air quality to winds carrying pollution from neighboring India.   

“This cannot be solved without talks with India,” she said, adding the provincial government would initiate talks with its bigger neighbor through Pakistan’s foreign ministry.   

The smog crisis in Lahore, similar to the situation in India’s capital Delhi, tends to worsen during cooler months due to temperature inversion trapping pollution closer to the ground.  
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SRINAGAR, INDIA — Three suspected militants were killed Saturday in separate gunbattles in Indian-controlled Kashmir, officials said Saturday.

India’s military in a statement said soldiers intercepted a group of militants in a forested area in southern Anantnag district Saturday, leading to a gunbattle that killed two rebels.

In a separate incident in the disputed region’s main city of Srinagar, police and paramilitary soldiers killed a militant in an exchange of gunfire after troops cordoned off a neighborhood on a tip that he was hiding in a house. Police said two soldiers and two police were injured in the fighting.

Residents said the troops torched the home where the rebel was trapped, a common tactic employed by Indian troops in the Himalayan region. There was no independent confirmation of the incident.

India and Pakistan each administer a part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. The nuclear-armed rivals have fought two of their three wars over the territory since they gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and many Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.
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KARACHI, Pakistan — Attiq Ur Rehman is determined to follow his dream to become Pakistan’s first professional surfer despite his father’s concern for his future, a lack of equipment and the messy waves near Karachi.

“I don’t care about the money right now. I just want to compete,” the 21-year-old says, shrugging off his father’s plea to take up fishing so he can get married and support his family. “It’s my surfer attitude.”

Rehman’s family are part of a poor coastal community in southern Pakistan that usually make a living from fishing or as lifeguards watching over more affluent residents of Karachi when they come for a day at the beach.

His father makes the equivalent of $100 a month to feed a family of 10 through fishing.

“I told him a thousand times (to stop surfing) but he still doesn’t listen,” said Rehman’s father, Muhammad Rafiq.

Rehman was a lifeguard but gave it up to concentrate on his surfing, which he started at age 9, and founded a new community that calls itself “Surfers of Bulleji.”

The group has grown to around 50 and has gone viral on social media in a country where cricket and hockey are the main sports.

The group consists of surfing enthusiasts from surrounding coastal villages, some as young as 8.

On a sunny day, their passion for surfing is on display with the right window for waves to surf along a near-empty beach close to the metropolis of 20 million.

One of cohort, Mujahid Baloch, a 24-year-old fisherman, first saw surfing on social media and instantly took a shine to it.

“Slowly, through watching, we learned. No one taught us,” he said.

Though Sri Lanka and the Maldives to the south are on global surfers’ hit lists, Pakistan’s arid 1,000 kilometers of coastline is usually poorly suited for surfing, relying on local winds to generate waves that are often small and messy, or rare cyclone swells.

“When all of Karachi was being given an advisory to stay away from the sea, and a cyclone was approaching, me and the boys were getting ready to go to the beach,” said Rehman. “The waves were ideal for us.”

While an occasional visiting surfer might join them for a paddle and some other villages along the coast have small surfing groups, competition with global peers is a challenge. The International Surfing Association has 116 member countries, including places such as Ukraine and land-locked Switzerland, but Pakistan is not on the list.

Still, members of Surfers of Bulleji idolize American professional surfer Kelly Slater, whose videos they often watch awestruck, and wish to emulate his skill.

But access to surfing equipment is limited in Pakistan, with the group sharing about 25 surfboards and pitching in for repairs when they are needed.

They sometimes find discarded boards in large containers of junk brought to Pakistan from around the world. They buy these junked boards for as little as $35 and repair them using basic materials like glue and resin.

“If it breaks, we repair it. Because we don’t have surfboards here,” Baloch said. Pointing to a piece of foam, he said it was found at sea and shaped into a makeshift board. “If we find more such foam, we can make our own boards here,” he said.

“Our community is getting bigger and stronger, so the shopkeepers know we will come and keep such finds safe for us,” Rehman said.
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OTTAWA — Canada’s deepening dispute with India over its alleged campaign of violence against Sikhs in Canada could intensify Indian-based cyber espionage and hold back immigration, but analysts and experts see no immediate impact on trade.

Concern about a widening rift between the two countries comes after a senior Canadian official told a parliamentary national security committee on Tuesday that Indian Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah, a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was the mastermind behind the alleged plots.

While Indian officials dismissed the official’s statement, the disclosure might worsen a dispute that started a year ago when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cited credible evidence linking Indian agents to the June 2023 shooting of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia.

In response, Canada expelled six Indian diplomats earlier this month, accusing them of involvement. Four men have been charged with his murder.

The Canadian signals intelligence agency that monitors foreign-based cyber threats said New Delhi was most likely already conducting threatening cyber activity against Canadian networks for spying purposes.

“As Canada and India potentially may have some tensions, it is possible that we may see India want to flex those cyber threat actions against Canadians,” Caroline Xavier, head of the agency, known as Communications Security Establishment Canada, told a Wednesday news conference. The agency has previously described India as an emerging threat.

On the diplomatic front, Ottawa is unlikely to take more punitive steps until more details of the Nijjar case emerge, said Vina Nadjibulla, vice president of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada think tank.

Cabinet ministers are due to testify about the matter to the national security committee and the murder trial of the four men has yet to start, she noted.

“If there are charges laid in the process on individuals that are living in India at whatever level, then it would trigger an extradition process which could take years. And of course, India is unlikely to cooperate,” she said.

Officials working for Trudeau and Foreign Minister Melanie Joly did not respond to requests for comment about what steps Ottawa might take next.

India is the top source for temporary foreign workers and international students coming to Canada, but a backlog of applications has built since Trudeau’s allegations last year.

Canada only has four immigration officials left in India, down from 27 in October 2023. This affects Canada’s ability to process visas on-site, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said.

“I have told my colleagues in Parliament that this could get worse before it gets better, and they need to brace for it,” he said in an interview last Friday.

That could mean fewer people traveling between the countries for legitimate reasons, he said.

Trade relations

India is Canada’s 10th largest trading partner and New Delhi has made clear it does not want flows to be hit. Nadjibulla’s foundation carried out a study showing Trudeau’s statement in October 2023 had little or no effect on bilateral trade.

“Whether that would be the case now I think it’s a bigger question mark, because the disruption is on a bigger scale, and we are still not, I don’t believe, at the bottom of this,” she said by phone.

Canada is the biggest exporter of pulses, such as lentils, to India. Pulse Canada President Greg Cherewyk, asked about the potential impact of the diplomatic dispute, cited the strength of the relationship.

“In a time of stubborn food price inflation and strong demand for pulse crops, we are confident that affordability and availability will continue to drive decision-making at a government level,” he said in a statement.

“We have thankfully not seen the political tensions affect trade,” said Michael Harvey, executive director of the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance. “India and Canada have great potential in their trading relationship and CAFTA hopes we can work back to positive trade discussions.” 
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DHAKA, Bangladesh — Tens of thousands of minority Hindus rallied Friday to demand that the interim government in Muslim-majority Bangladesh protect them from a wave of attacks and harassment and drop sedition cases against Hindu community leaders.

About 30,000 Hindus demonstrated at a major intersection in the southeastern city of Chattogram, demanding their rights while police and soldiers guarded the area. Other protests were reported elsewhere in the country.

Hindu groups say thousands of attacks against Hindus have happened since early August, when the secular government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was overthrown and Hasina fled the country following a student-led uprising. Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel peace laureate named to lead an interim government after Hasina’s downfall, says those figures have been exaggerated.

Hindus make up about 8% of the country’s nearly 170 million people, while Muslims constitute about 91%.

The influential Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council has said that there have been more than 2,000 attacks on Hindus since August 4, as the interim government has struggled to restore order. 

U.N. human rights officials and other rights groups have expressed concern about human rights in the country under Yunus.

Hindus and other minority communities say the interim government hasn’t adequately protected them and that hard-line Islamists have become increasingly influential since Hasina’s ouster.

 

Concern from Modi

The issue has reached beyond Bangladesh, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi voicing concern about reports of attacks.

While the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden says it has been monitoring Bangladesh’s human rights issues since Hasina’s ouster, U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has condemned what he described as “barbaric” violence against Hindus, Christians and other minorities in Bangladesh.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, he said: “I strongly condemn the barbaric violence against Hindus, Christians and other minorities who are getting attacked and looted by mobs in Bangladesh, which remains in a total state of chaos.”

Hindu activists have been staging protest rallies in the capital, Dhaka, and elsewhere since August to press a set of eight demands, including a law to protect minorities, a ministry for minorities and a tribunal to prosecute acts of oppression against minorities. They also seek a five-day holiday for their largest festival, the Durga Puja.

Friday’s protest in Chattogram was hastily organized after sedition charges were filed Wednesday against 19 Hindu leaders, including prominent priest Chandan Kumar Dhar, over an October 25 rally in that city. Police arrested two of the leaders, angering Hindus.

The charges stem from an incident in which a group of rallygoers allegedly placed a saffron flag above the Bangladesh flag on a pillar, which was considered disrespectful to the national flag.

Hindu community leaders say the cases are politically motivated and demanded Thursday that they be withdrawn within 72 hours. Another Hindu rally has been planned for Saturday in Dhaka.

Separately, supporters of Hasina’s Awami League party and its allied Jatiya Party have said they also have been targeted since Hasina’s ouster. Jatiya’s headquarters was vandalized and set on fire late Thursday.

On Friday, Jatiya Party Chairman G.M. Quader said his supporters would continue to hold rallies to demand their rights despite risking their lives. He said they would hold a rally Saturday at the party headquarters in Dhaka to protest price hikes of commodities, and what they call false charges against their leaders and activists.

Later Friday, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police announced it was banning any rallies near the Jatiya headquarters. There was no immediate response from the party about whether it would press ahead with its attempts to hold the rally or change the venue.

The police decision came after a student group strongly criticized the police administration for initially granting permission for the rally and then threatened to block it.
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ISLAMABAD — A bomb blast in southwestern Pakistan early Friday morning killed at least seven people, including five schoolchildren, and injured 17 others. 

  

Authorities said that a homemade bomb attached to a motorcycle was detonated in Mastung, a district in the violence-affected Balochistan province, apparently targeting a police vehicle near a school. 

  

At least one police officer was among the dead, and several others also sustained injuries. 

  

Officials reported that a police vehicle was transporting personnel to protect polio vaccination teams involved in the ongoing national campaign to immunize children against the paralytic virus. 

  

Pakistan is facing a resurgence of polio cases in 2024. The country has reported 43 infections this year, with 22 occurring in Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan. 

  

The provincial government and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in separate statements, condemned the violence as a “terrorist attack.” 

  

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing in Balochistan, renowned for its abundant natural resources, where several ethnic Baloch separatist groups routinely target security force members and government installations. 

  

On Tuesday, gunmen attacked workers at the site of a dam in the sparsely populated province’s Panjgur district, killing five and wounding two others. The outlawed Baloch Liberation Army, or BLA, claimed responsibility for that attack. 

  

Last month, heavily armed assailants stormed a coal mine in another district and massacred 21 coal workers. 

  

BLA, listed as a global terrorist organization by the United States, and other allied insurgent groups claim to be fighting for Balochistan’s independence. 

  

They have also targeted China-funded projects in the province and Chinese nationals working on them, alleging Beijing is assisting Islamabad in exploiting the region’s resources. Both countries reject the charges and label insurgents as enemies of the development in impoverished Balochistan. 

  

Polio teams targeted 

  

Earlier this week, militants in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, which sits on the Afghan border, killed two police officers guarding polio vaccinators going door-to-door.  

  

Islamist militants, commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban, are believed to be targeting polio teams in northwestern districts, suspecting them of spying for the government. 

  

The Pakistani government launched its weeklong vaccination campaign on Monday, aiming to administer polio drops to more than 45 million children nationwide.  

  

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries where polio continues to be endemic and paralyze children. The World Health Organization has reported 66 polio infections this year: 43 from Pakistan and 23 from Afghanistan — up from six each in both countries in 2023. 
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NEW DELHI — A thick layer of toxic smog cloaked India’s capital on Friday as smoke from firecrackers used to celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, pushed air pollution to hazardous levels.

New Delhi’s air quality index plunged into the “severe” category, according to SAFAR, India’s main environmental monitoring agency. In many areas, levels of deadly particulate matter reached seven times the World Health Organization’s safety limit.

Authorities in the capital have banned the use and sale of traditional firecrackers since 2017, asking people to opt for environmentally friendly ones or light shows instead, but the rule is often flouted.

New Delhi, home to more than 33 million people, is regularly ranked one of the most polluted cities in the world.

The air pollution crisis deepens particularly in the winter when the burning of crop residue in neighboring states coincides with cooler temperatures that trap deadly smoke. That smoke travels to New Delhi, leading to a surge in pollution and worsening the public health crisis.

Emissions from industries without pollution controls and the use of coal, which produces most of the country’s electricity, are also linked to poor air quality in urban areas.

“We may not realize it now, but later we will face lung problems,” said Manoj Kumar, a New Delhi resident who does his morning runs around the capital’s iconic India Gate monument.

Several studies have estimated that more than a million Indians die each year from air pollution-related diseases. Tiny particulate matter in polluted air can lodge deep in the lungs and cause a variety of major health problems.
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Islamabad — Pakistan pushed back Thursday against China’s criticism of the safety of Chinese personnel in the country, calling the comments “perplexing” and contrary to established diplomatic traditions between the neighbors.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Baloch said at a weekly news conference in Islamabad that the government is dedicated to ensuring the security of Chinese nationals, projects, and institutions in Pakistan. 

Baloch was responding to a rare public warning from the Chinese ambassador to the country, Jiang Zaidong, who urged Islamabad to take action against militants responsible for several deadly attacks on Chinese workers. 

Jiang labeled the violence “unacceptable” and cautioned that it poses “a constraint” on Beijing’s investments under its Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI.

“The statement of the Chinese ambassador is perplexing and is not reflective of the diplomatic traditions between Pakistan and China,” Baloch said. “We will continue to engage with our Chinese brothers to reassure them of Pakistan’s complete commitment to their security and well-being in Pakistan,” she added. 

Jiang, while addressing a seminar in Islamabad, referenced suicide car bombings in March and October of this year, which resulted in the deaths of seven Chinese personnel. It raised the number of Chinese workers killed in Pakistan to 21 since the countries launched a massive infrastructure project as part of the BRI about a decade ago.

“It is unacceptable for us to be attacked twice in only six months,” the Chinese diplomat stated, speaking through his interpreter. He stressed the need for Islamabad to take “effective remedial measures to prevent the recurrence of such terror acts and ensure that perpetrators are identified, caught, and punished.”

It is unprecedented for Pakistan to respond publicly to China’s criticism, and it is extremely rare for the Chinese ambassador to admonish Islamabad for alleged security lapses against Chinese engineers and workers.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, considered the flagship project of the BRI, has brought more than $25 billion in Chinese investment to enhance Pakistan’s infrastructure, facilitating improved bilateral trade and further integrating the broader South Asian region.

Jiang urged Pakistan to take action against “all anti-China terrorist groups,” stating that “security is the biggest concern” for Beijing. He added that “without a safe and sound environment, nothing can be achieved.”

Baloch said investigations into attacks on Chinese workers are ongoing and said the findings have been communicated to Beijing. She did not elaborate. 

CPEC has resulted in roads, highways, primarily coal-fired power plants, and the strategic deepwater Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea in the country’s southwestern Balochistan province.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, while addressing Tuesday’s seminar organized by the Islamabad-based independent Pakistan-China Institute, assured the Chinese ambassador that his country was taking action against terrorists and tightening the security of Chinese nationals.

Dar stated that Pakistan would share the progress with China in high-level talks next month.

“The Chinese are very clear; no matter how lucrative an investment is anywhere, if the security issue is there, they do not send Chinese personnel. Your country is the only exception,” he told the audience, quoting Chinese leaders as telling Pakistani counterparts in recent meetings.

Critics argue that Pakistan’s financial difficulties and political instability have discouraged China from making new investments in the CPEC.

After the launch of CPEC projects, Pakistan’s military formed a specially trained unit of over 13,000 troops to safeguard the initiatives nationwide. But the attacks on Chinese nationals have led to doubts about the effectiveness of the military unit.

Most of the recent attacks on Chinese workers and engineers have been claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army, or BLA, a prominent separatist group waging insurgent attacks in Balochistan.

The group, which is made up of militants from the Baloch ethnic minority, accuses China of helping Pakistan exploit the province’s natural resources and has been calling for Beijing to withdraw its CPEC and other investments.

Both countries reject the allegations, saying Baloch insurgents are on a mission to subvert development in the impoverished province and undermine Pakistan’s close ties with China.
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NEW DELHI — As India gears up for Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, people are divided over whether they should celebrate by setting off firecrackers, which worsen the country’s chronic air pollution.

Diwali, which will be celebrated Thursday, is marked by socializing and exchanging gifts with family and friends. Many Indians light earthen oil lamps or candles. But every year the festivities are tinged with worries over air pollution, as smoke-emitting firecrackers cause toxic smog that can take days to clear.

The capital, New Delhi, which is among India’s worst cities for air quality, is particularly impacted by the problem and is usually shrouded in toxic gray smog a day after Diwali. Authorities there and in some other states have banned the use and sale of firecrackers since 2017, asking people to opt for more sustainable options like environmentally friendly firecrackers and light shows, but the rule is often flouted. Firecrackers can be easily bought from roadside stalls and stores.

Some residents in New Delhi say the ban doesn’t make much difference, while others see it as a necessary measure to fight pollution.

Vegetable vendor Renu, who only uses one name, loves celebrating Diwali in the city. Every year her kids set off firecrackers at night. She tells them to be careful but not to refrain from using them.

“Diwali is a day of celebration and happiness for us which comes only once a year, and I feel the ban should not be there,” she said.

Others are against it.

Unlike most kids, Ruhaani Mandal, 13, doesn’t light firecrackers. She acknowledges it is fun but says it is hazardous for people and animals.

“I have seen firsthand the struggle of my father, who has lost his sense of smell due to pollution, and I see how his health worsens after Diwali celebrations,” she said.

New Delhi and several northern Indian cities typically see extremely high levels of air pollution between October and January each year, disrupting businesses and shutting schools and offices. Authorities close construction sites, restrict diesel-run vehicles and deploy water sprinklers and anti-smog guns to control the haze and smog that envelopes the skyline.

This year, thick, toxic smog has already started to engulf New Delhi. On Wednesday, authorities reported an AQI of over 300, which is categorized as “very poor.”

Several studies have estimated that more than a million Indians die each year from air pollution-related diseases. A high level of tiny particulate matter can lodge deep into the lungs and cause major health problems, including chronic respiratory diseases.

New Delhi’s woes aren’t only due to firecrackers. Vehicular emissions, farm fires in neighboring states and dust from construction are the primary causes of the capital’s air pollution woes. But health experts say the smoke emitted from firecrackers can be more hazardous.

“The smoke that is produced by firecrackers contains heavy metals like sulphur, lead and toxic gases like carbon monoxide and fumes of heavy metals that are dangerous to our respiratory system,” said Arun Kumar Sharma, a community medicine professor at New Delhi’s University College of Medical Sciences.

Meanwhile, authorities in New Delhi have largely failed to enforce a strict ban on the use of firecrackers to avoid offending millions of Hindus across the country, for whom Diwali is one of the biggest festivals. To sidestep the ban, many sellers offer firecrackers online, some with the convenience of home delivery.

Shopkeeper Gyaanchand Goyal said the ban on firecrackers has disadvantaged sellers like him and affected their biggest source of income during the festive season.

“The government enforces a restriction on firecrackers solely to demonstrate their commitment to the environment. Other than that, I don’t think there are any other consequences of this ban,” he said.
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