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☆ Smuggled note exposes violence against women in Myanmar jail - lawyers, activists
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

The junta has previously denied holding political prisoners, saying people in jail broke the law and were sentenced after due legal process. "During that incident, more than 100 female political prisoners were seriously injured including a broken arm, eye injuries and facial bruises," the note said. The activists, lawyers and family members interviewed by Reuters asked not to be identified for fear of repercussions as they are working inside Myanmar. "As these people are women prisoners, they have to be handled by women prison guards. The anti-junta group and two Mandalay-based lawyers who work with political prisoners said those involved in the violence were also denied medical care.

[1/2] Sri Lankan rupees are seen in a bowl at a vegetable vendor's shop amid the rampant food inflation, amid Sri Lanka's economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, July 29 , 2022. China has extended its "firm support to Sri Lanka through a debt treatment", EXIM Bank wrote in the letter to the Sri Lankan government on March 6. "Meanwhile, we would like to expedite the negotiation process with your side regarding medium- and long-term debt treatment in this window period, with a view to finalising the specifics of a debt treatment in the coming months. We will make our best efforts to contribute to the debt sustainability of Sri Lanka." The letter mirrors what EXIM Bank sent to Sri Lanka in January, except for the target of finalising debt-treatment specifics in the coming months.

[1/2] Sri Lankan rupees are seen in a bowl at a vegetable vendor's shop amid the rampant food inflation, amid Sri Lanka's economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, July 29 , 2022. China has extended its "firm support to Sri Lanka through a debt treatment", EXIM Bank wrote in the letter to the Sri Lankan government on March 6. "Meanwhile, we would like to expedite the negotiation process with your side regarding medium- and long-term debt treatment in this window period, with a view to finalising the specifics of a debt treatment in the coming months. We will make our best efforts to contribute to the debt sustainability of Sri Lanka." By end-2020, Sri Lanka owed EXIM $2.83 billion, or 3.5% of its external debt, according to IMF data.

Sri Lanka's finance ministry and India's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. He said China, Sri Lanka's biggest lender, extended support for the IMF programme on Monday, clearing the way for the loan. The IMF said its board would meet on March 20 to review a preliminary staff-level agreement first signed with Sri Lanka in September. It said Sri Lanka had secured financing assurances from all major bilateral creditors. China and India are Sri Lanka's biggest lenders and both seek influence on the island located on a busy shipping route on the Indian Ocean.

The government said the BBC had failed to respond to repeated requests to clarify its tax affairs related to the profits and remittances from its Indian operations. The documentary, which was only broadcast in Britain, accused Modi of fostering a climate of impunity that fuelled the violence. Reuters spoke to eight Indian journalists, industry executives and media analysts who said that some media which reported critically on the government have been targeted with inspections by government agencies, the suspension of state advertising, and the arrest of reporters. Modi's government has vigorously denied the BBC tax inspection - the first against an international news organisation in decades - was a response to the film. Gupta said there had been complaints after the government reduced its advertising spending but that was not an assault on media freedom.

[1/3] Indian billionaire Gautam Adani speaks during an interview with Reuters at his office in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad April 2, 2014. Last week, the group's flagship entity Adani Enterprises (ADEL.NS) pulled its secondary share offering, India's largest ever, because of the sharp selloff. Adani has said Monarch was selected for previous share sales "for their credentials and ability to tap into the retail market". On Elara, Adani has said "innuendoes" that the firm was in any manner related to the conglomerate founders were incorrect. The federal corporate affairs ministry, responsible for regulating Indian businesses, has briefed officials in Modi's office and been in touch with SEBI, the market regulator, one of the officials said.

☆ Cracks begin to show in India's Himalayan building spree
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Krishn Kaushik | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +12 min

"Modern connectivity is also a guarantee of national security," Modi said at an election rally at a border village in October, where he said the new transport links would bring development to remote regions. India's ministries of highways and railway, which own the state-run companies building the road and rail projects, also did not respond. Hundreds of homes have sunk and cracked in an Indian tourist town close to the Himalayan border with China. Eight of the families neighbouring Butola have now left the village, their homes riven with cracks, villagers told Reuters. Officials halted road construction work near the town, fearful of a bigger collapse.

☆ Two foreign skiers killed in avalanche in Indian Kashmir, police say
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Fayaz Bukhari | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/2] Security force personnel carry the body of a foreign skier, who was killed after an avalanche hit in the Affarwat area, in the ski resort of Gulmarg, in Kashmir region, February 1, 2023. REUTERS/StringerSRINAGAR, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Two foreign skiers were killed and nearly 20 others rescued in Indian Kashmir on Wednesday after an avalanche swept through the popular ski resort of Gulmarg, police said. The skiers are all foreign nationals but the police has yet to make their nationalities public. Another 19 foreign nationals have been rescued by authorities, local police said on Twitter, adding that the bodies of the two deceased skiers have been shifted to a hospital. A video of the avalanche shared on social media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed a wall of snow roaring down a mountainside, sending skiers and other onlookers scurrying for safety.

☆ India's Gandhi ends 135-day march to revive Congress party in snowy Kashmir
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Fayaz Bukhari | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

"All secular parties must come together to liberate the country from BJP," D. Raja, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India, said at the rally. Several other opposition leaders failed to make it to the rally because flights into Srinagar's airport were cancelled due to the heavy snow. The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty has controlled the Congress party for decades but has also overseen its recent decline. Rahul Gandhi resigned as Congress president after the last election. "I am not from the Congress party but want to support the cause Gandhi stands for," Ahmad said.

[1/2] Drivers push auto rickshaws in a line to buy petrol from a fuel station amid Sri Lanka's economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, July 29, 2022. Regional rivals China and India are the biggest bilateral lenders to Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million people that is facing its worst economic crisis in seven decades. At the end of 2020, China EximBank had loaned Sri Lanka $2.83 billion which is 3.5% of the island's debt, according to an IMF report released in March last year. "The bank will support Sri Lanka in your application for the IMF Extended Fund Facility (EFF) to help relieve the liquidity strain," China's letter said. DEBT SUSTAINABILITYIn a letter directly addressed to the IMF, India said last week that the financing or debt relief provided by Export-Import Bank of India would be consistent with restoring debt sustainability under the IMF-supported program.

Regional rivals China and India are the biggest bilateral lenders to Sri Lanka, a country of 22 million people that is facing its worst economic crisis in seven decades. According to the letter, the Export-Import Bank of China said it was going to provide an extension on the debt service due in 2022 and 2023 as an immediate contingency measure based on Sri Lanka's request. At the end of 2020, China EXIM bank had loaned Sri Lanka $2.83 billion which is 3.5% of the island's debt, according to an IMF report released in March last year. "The bank will support Sri Lanka in your application for the IMF Extended Fund Facility (EFF) to help relieve the liquidity strain," the letter said. Sri Lanka's foreign and finance ministries did not immediately respond to questions from Reuters.

COLOMBO, Jan 18 (Reuters) - India has told the International Monetary Fund that it strongly supports Sri Lanka's debt restructuring plan as the island nation seeks a $2.9 billion loan from the global lender, according to a letter seen by Reuters. "We hereby confirm our strong support for Sri Lanka's prospective (loan) program and commit to supporting Sri Lanka with financing/debt relief consistent with restoring Sri Lanka's public debt sustainability," Indian finance ministry official Rajat Kumar Mishra told the IMF chief in a letter dated Jan. 16. Sri Lanka owes India around $1 billion that will come under the debt restructuring plan, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters earlier this week. New Delhi separately provided Sri Lanka with about $4 billion in rapid assistance between January and July last year, including credit lines, a currency swap arrangement and deferred import payments. Sri Lanka owed Chinese lenders $7.4 billion - nearly a fifth of its public external debt - by the end of last year, according to calculations by the China Africa Research Initiative (CARI).

☆ India tells IMF it backs Sri Lanka's debt restructuring plan, source says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] A medical worker talks to a vendor selling household goods and food for patients and their family members, outside Apeksha Hospital, Colombo, Sri Lanka, August 11, 2022. Sri Lanka's finance ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sri Lanka owes India around $1 billion that will come under the debt restructuring plan, the source said. "Talks with bilateral lenders including India and China to restructure Sri Lanka's debt are progressing well and we are hopeful of finalising support from the IMF in the first quarter of 2023," Sri Lanka's cabinet spokesperson, Bandula Gunawardana, told reporters on Tuesday. The IMF has stressed the importance of joint talks involving three of Sri Lanka's main bilateral creditors - China, Japan and India.

☆ A pilot couple killed in air crashes in Nepal - 16 years apart
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( Gopal Sharma | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] A rescue team recovers the body of a victim from the site of the plane crash of a Yeti Airlines operated aircraft on January 15, 2023, in Pokhara, Nepal January 16, 2023. "Her husband, Dipak Pokhrel, died in 2006 in a crash of a Twin Otter plane of Yeti Airlines in Jumla," airline spokesman Sudarshan Bartaula told Reuters, referring to Khatiwada. "She got her pilot training with the money she got from the insurance after her husband's death." A pilot with more than 6,400 hours of flying time, Khatiwada had previously flown the popular tourist route from the capital, Kathmandu, to the country's second-largest city, Pokhara, Bartaula said. "On Sunday, she was flying the plane with an instructor pilot, which is the standard procedure of the airline," said an Yeti Airlines official, who knew Khatiwada personally.

☆ At least 40 killed in Nepal's worst air crash in nearly five years
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-15 | by ( Gopal Sharma | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/3] Crowds gather at the crash site of an aircraft carrying 72 people in Pokhara in western Nepal January 15, 2023. Sagar Raj Timilsina/Handout via REUTERSKATHMANDU, Jan 15 (Reuters) - At least 40 people were killed on Sunday when a domestic flight crashed in Pokhara in Nepal, a Nepal aviation authority official said, in the small Himalayan country's worst crash in nearly five years. Local television showed thick black smoke billowing from the crash site as rescue workers and crowds of people gathered around the wreckage of the aircraft. The plane was 15 years old, according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24. Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has called an emergency cabinet meeting after the plane crash, a government statement said.

☆ India revives network of village guards in Kashmir after militant attack
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Fayaz Bukhari | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SRINAGAR, Jan 12 (Reuters) - India is reviving a network of thousands of village guards in Jammu and Kashmir, including arming some with automatic rifles, after a militant attack in the disputed region killed seven civilians earlier in January, a police official said. The nuclear-armed neighbours claim the Himalayan region - that includes the Muslim majority Kashmir valley and Hindu-dominated Jammu - in full but control only parts of it. Authorities reactivated an almost defunct network of 26,000 Village Defence Guards (VDGs) after militants killed seven residents of a Hindu community in a remote village in Jammu's Rajouri district on Jan. 1. We have also provided automatic rifles to some." Basant Raj Thakur, a VDG from Jammu's Doda area, said that he supported the move to provide automatic weapons, replacing bolt-action rifles that some guards are currently armed with.

☆ Air India grounds crew over handling of unruly passenger on flight
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

NEW DELHI, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Air India has issued show cause notice and de-rostered one pilot and four cabin crew as it investigates the handling of an unruly passenger on a flight from New York to Delhi in November, the airline's chief executive office said on Saturday. The Tata group-owned airline has faced criticism from India's aviation regulator following an incident on a Nov. 26 flight in which a male passenger, while apparently inebriated, urinated on a female co-passenger. "Air India acknowledges that it could have handled these matters better, both in the air and on the ground and is committed to taking action," the airline's CEO and managing director Campbell Wilson said in a statement on Saturday. Wilson said Air India has initiated multiple measures to improve its response to such incidents, including a review of airline policies and reporting processes. Air India will provide full cooperation to the affected passenger, regulators and law enforcement authorities, Wilson said.

☆ Nearly 200 people in Himalayan town evacuated after homes develop cracks
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-07 | by ( Saurabh Sharma | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LUCKNOW, Jan 7 (Reuters) - Indian authorities have moved nearly 200 people from their homes in the Himalayan town of Joshimath, an official said on Saturday, after hundreds of buildings in the area popular with pilgrims and tourists developed cracks due to shifting soil. For years, experts have warned that large-scale construction work, including hydro power projects, in and around Joshimath could lead to land subsidence - the sinking or settling of the ground surface. Atul Sati, the convener of the Joshimath Bachao Sangharsh Samiti that has been protesting government inaction to stop land subsidence, said local residents had been flagging the issue for months. "The concerned authorities are working on it and the only way to contain the problem is to channelise the water stream," Rautela told Reuters. Reporting by Saurabh Sharma, Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Jacqueline WongOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[1/3] Drivers push auto rickshaws in a line to buy petrol from a fuel station amid Sri Lanka's economic crisis, in Colombo, Sri Lanka, July 29, 2022. India's foreign ministry did not respond to questions from Reuters on its plans and strategic aims in Sri Lanka. New Delhi has long been concerned about China's clout in its neighbourhood, including Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. "And as far as Sri Lanka is concerned, we don't want to contribute to any escalation of tension between any countries." "Sri Lanka has clearly benefited from being the closest neighbour to the most powerful country in the region.

☆ Sri Lanka's cancer patients struggle amid economic chaos
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

The 32-year-old vegetable farmer was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2021 and started receiving treatment earlier this year just as Sri Lanka's economy went into free-fall. Amid crippling fuel scarcity and weeks of unrest, Kumarasinghe said he was unable to travel the 155 km (96 miles) between his home and Sri Lanka's main cancer hospital on the outskirts of the country's largest city, Colombo, for treatment. Kumarasinghe is among hundreds of cancer patients who have had their treatment upended by Sri Lanka's worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1948. Hospitals countrywide have struggled to contend with severe drug shortages, which have worsened over the last eight months, a representative of Sri Lanka's largest doctors union told Reuters. Sri Lanka's health ministry and senior health officials did not respond to calls from Reuters.

☆ Explainer: India G20 presidency 2023: what does it mean and what can we expect
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Devjyot Ghoshal | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

During and after the 2008 global financial crisis, the G20's coordinated efforts helped tamp down panic and restore economic growth. WHAT DOES G20 PRESIDENCY ENTAIL? After India, Brazil will take over the presidency of the G20, followed by South Africa in 2025. WHAT DOES THE G20 MEAN FOR INDIA AND MODI? "The country has not invested much in multilateral rule-making institutions like the G20, but it is never too late to start."

☆ Around 300 militants active in Indian Kashmir, Indian military official says
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Fayaz Bukhari | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SRINAGAR, Nov 22 (Reuters) - An estimated 300 militants are operating in Indian Kashmir, an Indian military commander in the disputed region said on Tuesday, as New Delhi seeks to stabilise the restive Himalayan territory that it reorganised three years ago. New Delhi has long accused Pakistan of backing armed militants, along with separatist groups in India's portion of the region. "All such allegations by Indian military officials are completely absurd, unfounded, frivolous and baseless," a Pakistan security official said, asking not to be named. An Indian security official, who declined to be named since he is not authorised to speak to media, said this is the highest number of militants operating in Indian Kashmir in a decade. Dwivedi said that the security situation in Indian Kashmir had improved since the reorganisation but weapons and ammunition were still coming through from across the border.

☆ India's Aam Aadmi party set for big gains in Modi's home state
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Sumit Khanna | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

SURAT, India, Nov 4 (Reuters) - India's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), formed only a decade ago and having claimed power in Delhi and Punjab state, is set to be the biggest gainer in assembly elections in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state of Gujarat next month. AAP boss and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is known to have national ambitions. "Ninety-nine per cent I am going to vote for Aam Adam Party," said diamond worker Bharat Patel. "It looks like the surge of the Aam Aadmi Party is not going down," Yashwant Deshmukh, founder of polling agency CVoter, told Reuters. With pictures of Modi, the ruling party is underlining the advantages of having a BJP government at the state and nationally.

☆ Guards on India bridge struggled to control crowd before collapse, witnesses say
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Shivam Patel | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Local officials said about 400 tickets had been sold, although not necessarily to be on the bridge at the same time. "Then the bridge collapsed in front of our eyes," the 32-year-old construction worker said. The witnesses did not know whether the security guards had survived. Those arrested included ticketing clerks and three security guards who were on duty when the bridge collapsed, senior police official Ashok Kumar Yadav said. Reuters could not confirm whether the two guards who witnesses reported seeing at the bridge were among the three arrested.

☆ Seven members of same family killed in Indian bridge collapse
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Sumit Khanna | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

AHMEDABAD, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Seven members of the Jadeja family were returning from a temple in the Indian town of Morbi on Sunday when the children asked to be taken to a suspension bridge, a local tourist attraction that had reopened after repairs. The Jadejas were among at least 134 people killed in the accident, one of India's deadliest bridge collapses, a relative and a family friend said. "They were on the bridge when it collapsed," said Kanaksinh Jadeja, a cousin of the two Jadeja brothers - Pratapsinh and Pradyumansinh - who lost their mother, wives and four children. An Oreva spokesperson did not answer calls and text messages from Reuters. The Indian Express newspaper quoted an Oreva spokesperson as saying: "... the bridge collapsed as too many people in the mid-section of the bridge were trying to sway it from one way to the other."

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