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NEW DELHI, India (AFP) – Schools closed across large swathes of north India on Thursday as pollution hit hazardous levels for the third day, with growing calls for urgent government action to tackle what doctors are calling a public health emergency. Punjab’s government said it was closing all 25,000 schools in the state for the rest of the week due to the acrid air blanketing north India and parts of neighboring Pakistan. The decision came […]
NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — Fresh from lifting an Asian Tour trophy at his home club in New Delhi, Indian golfer Shiv Kapur set his sights much higher: winning gold at the Tokyo Olympics. Kapur, who won Asian Games gold for India in Busan in 2002, said his dream was to hear the Indian national anthem playing in Tokyo in 2020. “For me personally, if I could at the end of my career say I am an Olympian […]
LUCKNOW, India (AFP) — The death toll from an explosion at a coal-fired power plant in northern India has risen to 26, the government said Thursday, as 10 more people died of their injuries. Several more victims are being treated for critical injuries sustained Wednesday when a boiler pipe burst at a plant run by India’s largest state-owned power utility in Uttar Pradesh state. A list prepared by the state government showed 26 people had died, though […]
NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — Doctors in India have successfully separated conjoined twin boys who were attached at the skull in a marathon surgical procedure that lasted more than 36 hours and involved 40 doctors. The two-year-old twins, who suffered a rare condition occurring once in about 2.5 million births, underwent the operation at a government-run hospital in New Delhi on Wednesday. “It was a team work of 40 doctors, 20 nurses and […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Eleven Indian crew members were missing on Friday after their cargo ship sank in the Pacific off the Philippines as a typhoon churned in the region, Japan’s coastguard said. The 33,205-tonne Emerald Star with 26 Indian nationals on board sent a distress signal early Friday as the Hong Kong-registered vessel was sailing some 280 kilometres (174 miles) east of the northern tip of the Philippines, said a statement from the […]
MUMBAI, India (AFP) — Commuters stampeded on a Mumbai railway bridge during the morning rush hour Friday killing at least 15 people, a disaster management official said. The cause of the crush was not immediately known but Tanaji Kamble, a spokesman for Mumbai’s disaster management cell, warned that the death toll “is likely to go up”. He said there were at least five critically injured as well as the 15 confirmed dead. “It was the peak […]
KOLKATA, India (AFP) – A strike that shut down India’s picturesque hill station of Darjeeling — causing violence and disruption to tourism and tea production — was called off Wednesday after 104 days, protesters said. The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), a movement demanding the formation of a separate Indian state for ethnic Gorkhas in West Bengal, said it would enter into talks with the government. “After the union home minister Rajnath Singh’s appeal, we had a discussion […]
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AFP) — An Egyptian believed to be the world’s heaviest woman died Monday of heart and kidney failure at an Abu Dhabi hospital, following months of treatment to help her lose weight and one day walk again. A team of more than 20 doctors had been caring for the bedridden Eman Ahmed Abd El Aty, 37, since her arrival at Burjeel Hospital in May. El Aty first sought treatment in […]
LUCKNOW, India (AFP) — At least 20 people died on Thursday when a boat packed with laborers capsized on the Yamuna river in northern India, an official said. Twenty bodies have been recovered, Dharam Pal Singh, additional magistrate of Baghpat district in Uttar Pradesh state, told AFP. “It appears the boat was crowded beyond its capacity,” he said. “The incident happened early morning. It was a privately hired boat and was carrying some 50-55 people,” […]
XIAMEN, China (AFP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping has told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the two countries should pursue “healthy, stable bilateral ties”, state media reported Tuesday in the wake of a protracted border standoff. The exchange, mentioned in a brief dispatch by China’s official Xinhua news agency, apparently occurred on the sidelines of the just-concluded summit of BRICS emerging economies hosted by China. © Agence France-Presse
by Nick Perry Agence France Presse GANDHINAGAR, India (AFP) — Air pollution is diminishing India’s capacity to harness power from the sun, experts say, undermining billions being invested in renewables as the energy-hungry giant emerges as a solar superpower. New research has found the smog and dust that sickens millions across India every year is also sapping solar power generation by more than 25 percent, far beyond levels previously thought. In the first study of […]
KASHMIR, India (AFP) — Government forces in Indian-administered Kashmir killed two suspected rebels in a gun battle on Monday, police said, and a manhunt was under way for more militants in the disputed Himalayan territory. Soldiers and special counterinsurgency police forces surrounded a neighborhood in Sopore, 45 kilometers (28 miles) from the main city of Srinagar, after receiving a tip-off that armed militants were hiding there, triggering a firefight. “Two militants killed in an encounter […]
