Tag: India

India-led solar alliance will outshine OPEC: PM Modi

NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — An India-led coalition to harness solar energy will eventually replace the OPEC oil cartel, India’s premier predicted Tuesday, as he opened the International Solar Alliance’s first assembly with UN chief Antonio Guterres. “The role of the oil wells today will be that of the Sun’s rays tomorrow,” Narendra Modi said at the meeting in New Delhi. “In the coming years, when the world discusses initiatives for the welfare of humanity […]

Many doctors in India miss TB signs: study

by Ivan Couronne Agence France Presse WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Many private sector doctors in India miss the signs of tuberculosis and therefore provide patients inadequate treatment, according to a new study published Tuesday involving people hired to act out the symptoms. Tuberculosis or TB, an airborne infection, remains a major public health issue in India, China and Indonesia, among other countries. It killed 1.7 million people in 2017, according to the World Health […]

Ex-UN climate chief to face sexual assault trial

  NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — Former UN climate panel chief Rajendra Pachauri will stand trial in a sexual assault and harassment case three years after an employee accused him of inappropriate conduct, a lawyer said Friday. Pachauri, 78, has been charged under various counts including sexual assault, harassment and criminal intimidation, according to the complainant’s lawyer. “After examining the charges and hearing arguments from the counsels, the court came to the conclusion that prima […]

50 dead as Indian bus plunges into valley

NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — Fifty people died when a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims plunged into a valley in southern India on Tuesday, one of the deadliest accidents on the country’s notorious roads in recent years. Road crashes in India claim the lives of more than 150,000 people each year. Most accidents are blamed on poor roads, badly maintained vehicles and reckless driving. The bus carrying 80 people was returning from the famous Hindu temple […]

‘Hotel Mumbai’ recounts horrors, courage in 2008 attack

by Michel Comte Agence France-Presse TORONTO, Canada (AFP)–A hard-to-watch telling of the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India in Anthony Maras’s “Hotel Mumbai” provoked tears and cheers at its world premiere at the Toronto film festival. It is an “anthem of resistance,” the Australian director declared at a press conference. “You had a whole lot of people from every conceivable background, racial, ethnic, from different socioeconomic groups who came together in the face of real adversity […]

The Indian artist drawing portraits with a typewriter

by Peter Hutchison Agence France Presse MUMBAI, India (AFP) — Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, ding rings out from a home in India’s Mumbai where Chandrakant Bhide is creating his latest artwork — on a typewriter. The 72-year-old thumps the keys of the bulky, manual machine to draw portraits of famous people, all bearing an unmistakeable resemblance to their subject. From politicians and film stars to cricketers, animation characters and religious symbols, Bhide has produced around 150 pieces […]

Deadly ‘rat fever’ in flood-ravaged Indian state

KOCHI, India (AFP) — “Rat fever” and other diseases have killed 14 people in the southern Indian state of Kerala after the worst floods in almost a century, authorities said Tuesday. The separate death toll from the monsoon floods that forced more than a million people from their homes in Kerala last month has meanwhile risen to 486, the government said. “We had anticipated leptospirosis (rat fever) due to contaminated water and are taking all […]

India’s billion-dollar battle to build the world’s biggest statue

by Premal Balan Agence France Presse SARDAR SAROVAR DAM, India (AFP) — The world’s biggest statue is rising in a remote corner of India to honor an independence hero but it could quickly be outdone by a monument to a Hindu warrior king in the sea off Mumbai. In a burst of nationalist fervor, around one billion dollars is being spent on the two giant effigies, each more than twice as tall as the Statue […]

Over 1,200 people killed in South Asia monsoon

NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — More than 1,200 people have been killed across South Asia in monsoon storms so far this year, according to figures collected by AFP as India counts the rising toll from floods that have devastated southern Kerala state. The monsoon, which lasts from June to September, causes widespread death and destruction across South Asia each year, with the tourist hotspot of Kerala suffering its worst floods in nearly 100 years. Kerala […]

One million pack India flood relief camps

by Bhuvan BAGGA Agence France Presse CHENGANNUR, India (AFP) — More than one million people have swarmed relief camps in India’s Kerala state to escape devastating monsoon floods that have killed about 420 people, officials said Tuesday as a huge international aid offers poured in. People are flocking to camps as the scale of the desolation is revealed by receding waters and the military rescues more people each day. The state government said 1,028,000 people […]

Bodies found as floods recede in India’s Kerala

KOCHI, India (AFP) – Receding floodwaters left Indian troops and rescuers the grim task Monday of hunting for bodies left by the worst monsoon in a century in Kerala state as the death toll rose above 400. With nearly three quarters of a million people packed into relief camps in the southern state, known for its tourist beaches and hill resorts, authorities also fear outbreaks of disease. After a week of fierce downpours, rainfall eased […]

More bodies found in flooded Kerala as toll hits 370

by Bhuvan BAGGA in Thrissur, and Abhaya Srivastava in New Delhi Agence France Presse THRISSUR, India (AFP) — Rescuers searched submerged villages in southwest India on Sunday in a desperate hunt for survivors after floods killed at least 370 people and drove more than 700,000 from their homes. Entire villages in Kerala have been swept away in the state’s worst floods for a century. Rescuers fear the death toll will rise as they reach areas […]