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☆ Storms Pummel Mumbai, Killing at Least 8
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-13 | by ( Sameer Yasir | More About Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Heavy rains accompanied by strong winds ripped through Mumbai, the financial capital of India, on Monday, killing at least eight people, uprooting trees and causing power outages in many parts of the city, officials said. The deaths were caused by a large billboard that toppled onto a crowd of people seeking shelter, a local official said. Video on social media showed the billboard shaking in the storm before falling. One witness, Swapnil Khupte, said that when the rains and wind started becoming worse, he and his friends had taken shelter at a gas station near the billboard. When it collapsed, he said, many of the people trapped under it were women and children.

Persons: Swapnil Khupte Locations: Mumbai, India, Ghatkopar

Within hours, witnesses say, upper-caste landlords massacred 58 Dalits, people once known as “untouchables,” most of them farmworkers in the eastern state of Bihar who had been agitating for higher wages. The next day, he lodged a police complaint, and investigators soon filed charges. He is still waiting — after conflicting verdicts and hundreds of court hearings, with some witnesses now dead or impaired by fading eyesight — for a resolution. “A cry for justice turned into a lifelong nightmare for us,” said Mr. Paswan, 45. In a vast nation with no shortage of intractable problems, it is one of the longest-running and most far-reaching: India’s staggeringly overburdened judicial system.

Persons: Binod Paswan, Paswan’s, ”, Paswan Locations: Bihar

☆ Alleged Plot to Kill Sikh Separatist Highlights Thorn in India’s Side
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-01 | by ( Sameer Yasir | More About Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The federal indictment this week of an Indian citizen in an alleged murder-for-hire scheme targeting a Sikh separatist in New York threatens to damage ties between the United States and India just as the Biden administration has been courting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. The charges are rooted in a decades-old dispute: the demand by some Sikhs for a sovereign state known as Khalistan carved out of northern India, which the Modi government opposes. In addition to directing the unsuccessful plot in New York, the federal indictment said, an Indian government official organized the killing of a Sikh separatist in Canada who was shot in June by masked gunmen outside a temple in Vancouver. The idea of Khalistan is rooted in Sikhism, a religion with 26 million followers around the world, of which about 23 million live in the state of Punjab in northern India. Sikhs make up less than 2 percent of India’s population of 1.4 billion.

Persons: Biden, Narendra Modi’s, Modi Locations: New York, United States, India, Canada, Vancouver, Punjab

☆ After Days Trapped in a Tunnel, Workers Wait for a Rescue’s Plan B
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-16 | by ( Sameer Yasir | More About Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Four days after 40 workers became trapped in a Himalayan road tunnel, the Indian authorities were still trying on Thursday to find a way through debris and rescue them, as anguished family members and colleagues protested outside to demand faster action. Communication was severed, leaving the men to wait inside, unsure of what would happen. In the hours afterward, officials established contact with the workers by sending radios through an undamaged pipe into the tunnel. The authorities have said the men are safe inside the tunnel. Officials put dozens of rescuers to work around the clock to remove debris using drilling equipment and excavators.

Persons: Arpan Yaduvanshi Locations: Uttarakhand, Uttarkashi District

☆ Toxic Air Is No Reason to Stay Inside for Delhi’s Joggers and Yoga Fans
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-12 | by ( Sameer Yasir | More About Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

A few steps into his early-morning run, Purushottam Sahu struggled to breathe. Overhead, a thick brown-gray haze blanketed the sprawling forest park in New Delhi where he and other joggers, yoga enthusiasts and dog owners were keeping to their daily habits despite official warnings against exerting themselves in the toxic air. “We are all jogging faster toward death,” said Mr. Sahu, 46. “Because we have no other choice.”Every year in the late fall, as air pollution in the Indian capital climbs to noxious extremes, the government takes emergency measures like closing schools, restricting traffic and banning construction. But for the region’s 30 million inhabitants, life must go on, and for many in this urban expanse of lush parks and morning strolls, that means trying to remain active.

Persons: Purushottam Sahu, ”, Sahu Locations: New Delhi

India’s Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a plea to legalize same-sex marriage, a stinging setback for gay people seeking equal rights in this socially conservative country of 1.4 billion people. A five-member bench of judges ruled unanimously against the petitioners, with the chief justice saying it was up to Parliament to create any laws recognizing same-sex unions. Still, it offered a few glimmers of hope to same-sex marriage proponents, if largely rhetorical in some cases. The judges ruled that transgender people can marry other transgender people, and expanded the definition of discrimination. Among the four opinions they issued in the ruling, some were pointedly sympathetic to the petitioners.

Persons: ”, Anjali Gopalan Organizations: Foundation Locations: India’s, New Delhi

A deadly outbreak of dengue fever in Bangladesh is the most severe in the country’s history, the authorities said, with fast-spreading infections from rural areas further straining the already overwhelmed hospital system in the capital, Dhaka. On Monday, the Bangladeshi authorities said they had recorded 909 dengue-related deaths this year through Sunday, compared with 281 in all of 2022. “Hundreds of patients are also coming to Dhaka from outside,” said Dr. Khalilur Rahman, a director at the Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College and hospital. He said some hospitals in Dhaka were facing shortages of intravenous fluids used to rehydrate patients with dengue, and pharmacists were increasing their prices as demand for IV treatment rises, adding to the severity of the crisis.

Persons: ”, Khalilur Rahman Organizations: Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Locations: Bangladesh, Dhaka, “

Indian lawmakers passed landmark legislation on Thursday that would reserve one-third of all seats for women in the lower house of Parliament and in state legislatures, a move aimed at improving gender parity among lawmakers. The legislation was passed by the upper and lower houses of the Parliament after two days of deliberation and lengthy speeches by lawmakers from the governing party and the political opposition. The bill now requires approval from at least half of the country’s 28 state legislatures before it becomes law, after which it would come into force. Passage in both houses of Parliament virtually guarantees its implementation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the law’s passing in the lower house of Parliament as “a golden moment of India’s parliamentary journey” that is aimed at enabling “greater participation of women in our political process.”

Persons: Narendra Modi

If you’re ever in New Delhi and think you hear a monkey, don’t assume it’s a monkey. It could be a professional monkey noise impersonator. That’s because humans have been trained to imitate the guttural grunts and shrieks of gray langurs, a type of large monkey that can scare away the smaller kinds that tend to invade city officials’ residences or disrupt state visits. This weekend, the impersonators will take on a fresh challenge: keeping monkeys, which often evade guards by swinging through tree canopies, from barging into venues for the Group of 20 summit of world leaders, the first to take place in India. The event is an important one for India on the global stage, and the government does not want monkeys to steal the spotlight.

Organizations: Group Locations: New Delhi, barging, India

☆ Welcome to Bharat: Invite to G20 Leaders Ruffles Feathers in India
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-06 | by ( Sameer Yasir | More About Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There were no immediate comments from Mr. Modi suggesting he would move to officially change the country’s name to Bharat. Bharat, a Sanskrit word, is often used locally in Hindi, but in all communication in English and with other countries, the nomenclature is India. The country’s Constitution uses the term just once — “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States,” Article 1 says — but that was enough for at least one government official. “‘India, that is Bharat’ — it is there in the Constitution,” Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s foreign minister, told a news agency on Wednesday. “Please, I would invite everybody to read it.”The Constitution, however, refers to the nominal head of the country as the president of India.

Persons: Modi, ” Subrahmanyam, “, Mohan Bhagwat, Bharat Organizations: Constitution, of States, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Locations: Bharat, India

Ms. Mao declined to explain the reason for the decision and refused to answer questions about Mr. Xi. The Chinese leader has never missed a G20 summit, which brings together 19 countries and the European Union, since taking power in 2012. The opacity of Chinese politics and Beijing’s reticence make it difficult to know why Mr. Xi appears to have chosen not to attend the summit. Analysts say it could reflect Mr. Xi’s preference for groupings in which China is more dominant, such as the recently concluded BRICS summit of emerging nations in Johannesburg. Given that Mr. Xi would be missing an opportunity to meet with President Biden on the sidelines of the summit, the move might suggest that Mr. Xi wants to ease tensions with the United States on his own terms.

Persons: Xi Jinping, Li Qiang, Mao Ning, Mao, Xi, Beijing’s, Biden Organizations: China’s Foreign Ministry, European Union, Russia Locations: China, New Delhi, India, United States, Washington, Asia, Johannesburg

☆ Where ‘No One Wanted Girls,’ a Dad in India Takes On the Patriarchy
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-04 | by ( Sameer Yasir | More About Sameer Yasir | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

When the nurse stepped out of the delivery room, her face turned somber as she approached with a baby in her arms wrapped in a blanket. Her voice dropped to a hush, almost like she was ashamed, as she announced to the family: “It is a daughter.”Nothing about the nurse’s negative demeanor surprised Sunil Jaglan, the newborn’s father. Growing up in the northern Indian state of Haryana, he was accustomed to parents’ strong preference for having sons over daughters. But something within him snapped, he said, when he offered the nurse money as a thank you gesture, and she refused because she had not handed over a boy. “Are you also ashamed of yourself?” Mr. Jaglan recently remembered asking the nurse when his daughter was born 11 years ago.

Persons: Sunil Jaglan, Jaglan Locations: Haryana

Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in Delhi on Thursday after the authorities warned of widespread flooding following days of torrential rains that have battered large swaths of northern India. That forced the chief minister of the capital region, Arvind Kejriwal, to shut schools and convert them into disaster relief camps. Many migrant workers, who live on the banks of the river, were camping on the roads alongside it as their makeshift homes were swallowed by the water. Many others were looking for shelter as water enveloped sections of residential areas and historical sites like the Red Fort. So far this monsoon season, officials said, landslides and flash floods have claimed at least 91 lives in six north Indian states near Delhi, and disrupted millions of others.

Persons: Arvind Kejriwal Organizations: Central Water Commission Locations: Delhi, India

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