India has long recognised a “third gender” and was one of the first countries to allow people legally to self-identify as transgender. But its parliament has just passed controversial amendments to such laws, which remove the right to self-identification and narrow the definition of ‘transgender’.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government got the bill through both houses last week, despite a boycott by opposition parties and widespread protests by the LGBTQ+ community.

Virendra Kumar, minister for social justice and empowerment, says the amendments still protect people who “face severe social exclusion due to their biological condition”. But Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi called it a “brazen attack” on transgender rights.

‘Third gender’

People of a “third gender” have been recognised in India for thousands of years. They feature heavily in Hindu holy texts – the half-male, half-female deity Ardhanarishvara, for example – and were often revered under Muslim rulers of the Mughal Empire.

The most common third-gender group in South Asia are the hijras: often born male, they dress in traditionally female clothing, and many choose to undergo castration; others are born intersex. Hijras were traditionally “treated with both fear and respect”, said Harvard Divinity School but that “did not survive” colonial rule. The British, “shocked by third-gender people”, classified them as criminals in 1871. Criminalisation was repealed shortly after independence, but years of stigmatisation “took a toll”.

Hijras are expected to perform ritual roles at Hindu births and weddings but are otherwise “often treated with contempt” and “almost always excluded from employment and education”. They are “often stricken by poverty” and “victims of violence and abuse”.

But in 2014, India’s Supreme Court “officially recognised third-gender people as being citizens deserving of equal rights”. And that paved the way for the 2019 Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, which included the hijras and the kinnars, another third-gender group, along with transwomen and transmen in a more inclusive definition of transgender people. The act also affirmed the right to self-identify as transgender or non-binary.

‘A major reversal’

The new amendments to the 2019 law remove those rights to self-identify, requiring instead a medical certification of gender reassignment. It also limits the definition of transgender to intersex people and those from socio-cultural groups such as the hijras.

The government argues that the changes protect those facing “extreme and oppressive” discrimination, and strengthen laws against exploitation and trafficking. They say the definition of transgender is “too vague” and makes it difficult to identify the most marginalised; a narrower definition would help welfare benefits “reach those who need them”.

But critics say the new bill will exclude many, and that mandatory medical certification for those undergoing gender transition “undermines dignity and autonomy”. The amendments “appear to contradict the 2014 ruling”, which held that “requiring medical procedures for recognition was both unethical and unlawful”, said Delhi-based journalist Namita Singh in The Independent.

“It has shattered our identity,” transgender rights activist Laxmi Narayan Tripathi told reporters. India’s last census in 2011 recorded nearly half a million people in the “other” gender category. The true number is likely far higher; some estimates reach six million.

If India’s president signs the bill into law, it will be “a major reversal” of “hard-won rights”, said Jayshree Bajoria, Asia director of Human Rights Watch. It also puts people at risk by introducing additional offences of “coercing or alluring” people to be transgender. That’s “reminiscent of the colonial-era laws” that criminalised hijras.

This law, said N Kavitha Rameshwar in The Times of India, “seeks to be that one rogue wave that will wash away” a decade of progress in transgender rights, “as if it were all but a castle of sand”.

While the world is distracted by the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, another conflict is erupting between Iran’s neighbours.

Pakistan has declared “open war” on Afghanistan after fighting intensified over recent weeks. In a dangerous escalation from cross-border skirmishes, Pakistan launched air strikes at the end of February, targeting major cities including Kabul. Afghanistan’s Taliban regime responded with drone attacks. Both sides blame the other for the conflict.

More than 1,000 people are estimated to have been killed or injured, and 100,000 displaced. In one air strike on a Kabul drug rehabilitation centre last week, 400 people were killed, according to Afghan officials. With a ceasefire to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr set to expire, there are no signs of a desire for de-escalation.

What’s the background?

This is “not a sudden rupture of relations”, said Rabia Akhtar on The Conversation. It’s the “intensification of long-simmering, historical security concerns” along their disputed 1,600-mile border: the Durand Line.

Afghanistan has never formally recognised the border, drawn in 1893 through ethnic Pashtun areas. That’s caused “sustained and persistent tension” since Pakistan’s independence in 1947. The countries also took opposite sides in the Cold War, with Pakistan “embedded” in the US-led framework and Afghanistan maintaining “closer ties” with the Soviet Union (until it invaded). All of this “entrenched cross-border militant networks”.

When the Taliban retook power in 2021, Pakistan “anticipated a more cooperative security environment” than the series of US-backed Afghan governments. It hoped the Taliban, which it had covertly supported all along, would help “rein in” several militant groups, said The New York Times. This was a “strategic miscalculation”.

Instead, terrorist attacks within Pakistan increased, particularly by the Tereek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, or Pakistan Taliban). The group took advantage of Pakistan’s political chaos to further entrench its power in the border lands and threaten the country’s all-powerful military. The TTP also took a share of the US military equipment left in Afghanistan when America withdrew. This, and the release of hundreds of its fighters from Afghan prisons, erased much of Pakistan’s efforts to defeat it.

What triggered this outbreak?

The TTP has been increasing its attacks in Pakistan as it grows in power, killing 4,000 people in the last four years according to Pakistani authorities. Last year was the most violent for militancy in a decade, according to the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies. The separatist Balochistan Liberation Army also claimed attacks that killed almost 50 people. Islamabad has long accused the Taliban of harbouring such groups, allegedly allowing them to operate from sanctuaries within Afghanistan.

Pakistan launched air strikes against alleged TTP hideouts in Afghanistan last year, warning it would no longer tolerate “safe havens” for fighters. It also accused its historic foe, India, of supporting the Taliban, allegedly with Indian-made drones used in recent attacks. India then effectively normalised relations with the Taliban.

Both India and the Taliban “vehemently deny” Pakistan’s accusations, said the BBC. They say the TTP is “an internal matter” for Islamabad: a “Pakistan-created problem”. That’s “done little but to further infuriate” Pakistani leaders.

Violent clashes erupted on the border in October, and Pakistan carried out air strikes before suspending trade with landlocked Afghanistan. A truce didn’t last long; after years of diplomatic efforts, Pakistan “now says that there is nothing to talk about”.

What’s the significance?

Middle Eastern powers that have been mediating between Afghanistan and Pakistan for years currently have “limited bandwith” to de-escalate, said Chietigj Bajpaee on Chatham House. Despite Pakistan’s “superior military”, the Taliban has “a significant capacity for asymmetric warfare”. And if Pakistan “perceives an Indian hand behind Kabul’s actions”, there could also be renewed hostilities between India and Pakistan – two nuclear-armed states.

Exacerbating tensions is “the forced repatriation of Afghan refugees” from Pakistan and Iran; an estimated 2.7 million Afghans were returned last year, further straining Afghanistan’s “stretched public services” and economic woes.

Pakistan has been “taking advantage of the West’s disengagement” and regional powers’ distraction, said the Financial Times. It is “enraged”. But all-out war “threatens stability” across Asia. There is “the very real risk” that Afghanistan becomes “an incubator for terrorism” again.

For the “shaky truce” to endure, the intervention of the US and China is required. Although “precedents for a settlement are not inspiring”, the stakes are “too high for the world to keep looking away”.

India has long been a “centre for outsourced IT support” but, with the arrival of AI, there are rising concerns for the welfare of female workers in the industry.

As tech companies move to reap the benefits of using remote workers or employing people at lower cost in smaller towns and rural areas, more and more Indian women are finding work as data annotators, said the BBC. They help “fine-tune” the behaviour of AI models, said Business Insider, by labelling content as “helpful” and “natural-sounding” or flagging it as “wrong, rambling, robotic, or offensive”. Much of the content they must view is violent, abusive and disturbing.

'Psychological toll’

“Women form half or more of this workforce,” said The Guardian. Annotator roles are “promoted aggressively online”, promising “easy” or “zero-investment” job opportunities that are flexible and require minimal skills or training. In reality, annotators are exposed to about 800 videos a day, many containing pornography, sexual assault, child abuse and graphic violence.

“The world sees cleaner feeds” as a result but remains largely blind to the women who must absorb “the trauma” so the machines can learn what to block, said India Today. They are exposed to the “internet’s darkest material”.

Such exposure can lead to disrupted sleep, distorted social relationships and a protective “emotional numbness” that is “rarely acknowledged”. There is “limited mental health support”, even though “images linger long after shifts end”. Often working remotely, balancing other aspects of life, these women are left “unseen, unheard and exhausted”.

Their “psychological toll” is “intensified” by legal isolation, said The Guardian. They are bound by “strict non-disclosure agreements”, meaning they are often unable to speak to friends or family about the content they view at work. “Violating NDAs can lead to termination or legal action.”

‘Income without migration’

There’s an “estimated workforce of at least 200,000 annotators” in India’s rural towns and villages, according to US firm Scry AI, said Agence France-Presse. This amounts to “roughly half of the world’s data-labelling workforce”.

Women are seen by companies as “reliable, detail-oriented” hires, and “more likely to accept home-based or contract work”, said The Guardian. These jobs offer them “rare access to income without migration”, and a rare opportunity for an “upward shift”.

The “appeal is understandable”, said India Today. Women can feel the “empowering” force of paid work without having to leave their communities. Even “modest pay can support families, fund education, or provide a degree of independence” which might otherwise be limited.

There have been two confirmed cases of Nipah virus in a hospital in West Bengal, India. Close to 200 people were also exposed to the infection. This has sparked concern across Asia, as the virus is extremely contagious. Several Asian countries have now instituted Covid-era airport screenings to monitor the spread of infection for which there’s currently no vaccine or cure.

From bat to human

This zoonotic infection originates from direct contact with infected animals — mainly flying fox bats and pigs — or their contaminated tissues and secretions. The disease can spread easily from person-to-person through contact with bodily fluids and cause minor to severe infections with a fatality rate of between 40% and 70%.

Those infected are “typically sick for 3 to 14 days with fever, headache, cough, sore throat and difficulty breathing,” said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In more severe cases, people may experience “brain swelling (or encephalitis), where severe symptoms can include confusion, drowsiness and seizures,” which can lead to coma in 24 to 48 hours. Symptoms may appear anywhere from four to 14 days after infection.

While this virus is making headlines now, Nipah was first discovered in Malaysia in 1999. Since then, outbreaks have “occurred almost annually in Asia, particularly in Bangladesh and India,” between December and April, said The Washington Post.

But the current outbreak is West Bengal’s first since 2007. This represents a “return of Nipah to this area after a long gap, which is concerning from a surveillance standpoint,” Lauren Sauer, the director of the Special Pathogen Research Network at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said to the Post. A total of 196 contacts of the infected were quarantined and tested negative for the virus.

The blueprint

While no official cases have been identified outside of India, Asian countries, including China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal and Thailand, have taken preventative measures. Officials have “increased cleaning and disease-control preparedness at Phuket International Airport,” said The Independent. Other airports are also performing “health declarations, temperature checks and visual monitoring for arriving passengers,” said The Associated Press.

Many of these measures were established during the Covid-19 pandemic. When scientists were “racing to find the origins of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the first Nipah outbreak was viewed as a case study in zoonotic disease spillover from animals to humans,” said the Post.

India has also “ensured timely containment of the cases” through “enhanced surveillance, laboratory testing and field investigations,” said the Indian Ministry of Health in a statement. Because there’s no preventive or curative medicine, avoiding infection is the best course of action.

If you have traveled or live in an area with an outbreak, wash your hands regularly with soap and water and avoid contact with items that could be contaminated by flying fox bats or pigs. Also avoid the bodily fluids of anyone who has come in contact with the virus.

“Work is ongoing to establish a global platform for countries to report genome sequencing of detected cases,” Singapore’s Communicable Diseases Agency said in a statement. Most of the more recent Nipah outbreaks were found in Kerala, India. In 2018, at least 17 people were killed by the virus.

What happened

The European Union and India Tuesday announced a free trade agreement that will slash tariffs on most goods over the next decade. The agreement will cover 2 billion people and “one-third of global trade,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in New Delhi, standing alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa. Von der Leyen called it “the mother of all deals.”

Who said what

The EU and India “talked on and off for nearly 20 years about doing a trade deal,” Politico said, but it took President Donald Trump’s “tariff coercion and China’s export dominance to push them into finally achieving a breakthrough.” Their new “partnership extends beyond commerce,” The Associated Press said, as India and Europe “also agreed on a framework for deeper defense and security cooperation, and a separate pact aimed at easing mobility for skilled workers and students.”

The deal is “as much about geopolitics” as trade, sending a “message to Trump that global powers have started to look at ways to club together to protect themselves against his administration,” the BBC said. And the EU and India “are not alone in looking to hedge their bets when it comes to the U.S.” Earlier this month, the EU finalized a trade pact with the South American bloc Mercosur after 25 years of talks.

What next?

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer heads to China today “hoping to reinvigorate recently strained business ties,” following a trade-oriented visit to Beijing by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Reuters said. Carney is also planning a trip to India, where Starmer signed a trade deal with Modi in October. It will “likely take several months” before the EU-India agreement takes effect, the AP said.

Nearly 12 years after Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished over the Indian Ocean, a new search for the aircraft has begun. Using state-of-the-art underwater drones, US-based marine robotics company Ocean Infinity is leading an expedition to scour 5,800 sq miles of seabed.

MH370 departed from Kuala Lumpur on 8 March 2014 with 239 people on board but, 40 minutes into what should have been a six-hour flight to Beijing, the Boeing 777 vanished from civilian radar. Subsequent military radar data showed it veering thousands of miles off course, heading towards the southern Indian Ocean. An extensive international search effort failed to find wreckage or bodies.

What did the commentators say?

This “renewed quest to find the doomed airliner” could “potentially solve the world’s greatest aviation mystery”, said Bernard Lagan in The Times. While parts of the search area have been searched before, Ocean Infinity’s new drones are better equipped to explore the “rugged undersea mountains and canyons” that could not previously be accessed.

“With the new technology and the way that they are looking at it, there’s a very good chance they will find it,” Charitha Pattiaratchi, a professor of oceanography at the University of Western Australia, told the paper.

The company, which is working on a “no find, no fee” basis for the Malaysian government, has “autonomous underwater vehicles” that can dive to nearly 19,700ft and operate for days without surfacing, said Sujita Sinha on Interesting Engineering. Using side sonar, ultrasound imaging and magnetometers, they can produce detailed 3D maps of the seabed and detect metallic objects buried under sediment, before remotely operated vehicles are “sent down for closer inspection”.

The “on-off search” for MH370 has “already become the most expensive hunt in aviation history”, said Ben Farmer in The Telegraph. Yet after more than a decade, it has “little to show for it”. Earlier investigations were conducted “in a blaze of publicity”, but this latest effort has been comparatively “low-key”.

Ocean Infinity, which helped locate Ernest Shackleton’s lost ship, Endurance, in 2022, has already led an unsuccessful hunt for MH370 in 2018. It started searching again in February of this year but had to stop due to the weather. The current search area has been identified using updated satellite analysis, refined drift modelling and expert input.

What next?

Ocean Infinity is scheduled to search for 55 days, looking for large pieces of debris such as engines and other heavy components of the aircraft. It reportedly stands to earn $70 million (£52 million), if significant wreckage is found.

Relatives of the MH370 passengers – from China, Australia and Europe – have long fought to “keep the hunt alive”, and are watching the new developments closely, said Iman Muttaqin Yusof in the South China Morning Post. They argue “that closure matters not only for the dead but for global aviation safety”.

India’s “quick commerce” bubble may be about to burst, said the CEO of Blinkit, an app that promises delivery of orders within 10 minutes.

Albinder Dhindsa issued the warning as some competitors in the market are running on losses. He believes his company will thrive, but there has been unrest, and Blinkit's riders took industrial action over pay and working conditions earlier in the year. The strike is just part of a wider crisis developing in India’s growing gig economy, where “speed trumps safety and workers are easily replaced”, said The Independent.

“The pendulum has already swung once from scepticism to exuberance,” Dhindsa told Bloomberg and believes he does not know when “correction” will come, but only that it will.

Dark stores

Blinkit allows customers to order groceries, fresh produce and daily essentials, which they expect to be delivered in around 10 minutes. To achieve this speedy turnaround, the platform relies on a network of “dark stores” – retail spaces that act as dedicated hubs for fulfilling online orders, rather than in-person shopping.

It forms part of India’s rapidly growing quick commerce sector, funded by investors attracted by the country’s “dense cities, lower cost of labour and ubiquitous digital payments”, said Bloomberg.

The company launched in 2013 as Grofers, but rebranded in 2021 as Blinkit, invoking the idea that service will happen “in the blink of an eye”. Acquired by the country's food delivery giant Zomato in 2022, it’s now active in many cities across India, delivering “everything from eggs to iPhones” to a client base of millions.

But, it has yet to turn a profit, hampered by “capital costs and supply chain complexity” as it pursues further expansion, including into rural areas.

Straightforward demands

Earlier this year, more than 150 Blinkit workers in the city of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, went on a two-day strike to protest “unsafe working conditions, falling earnings, and retaliatory ID suspensions” (when gig platforms deactivate workers' accounts without due process or a means of redress), said The Independent.

The striking riders had “straightforward demands”, including “weather-appropriate uniforms and shaded waiting areas” alongside an end to a “punishing rule that effectively forces them to work the hottest hours of the day”.

They also want the company to “restore the original incentive pay structure”. They are paid on a per-order basis, with “fluctuating incentives”, with terms having “ been quietly changed over time”. Riders claim that they used to receive Rs 555 (£4.93) per 32 orders delivered, but now earn just Rs 448 (£3.98) per 43, which means they are “doing more work for less”.

In November, the Indian government introduced new labour laws so that the fleet of self-employed workers will now receive social security, but they still have no right to a fixed wage or paid leave.

The April strike was a “flashpoint” but not the last in what is becoming a “growing struggle” between “speed-driven platforms” and the workers holding up a gig economy that’s forecast to employ over 23 million Indians by 2029.

When the Taliban swept across Afghanistan and retook power in 2021, most countries severed diplomatic ties, but now India is leading a change of heart around the world.

Despite claims that its second iteration – what some termed “Taliban 2.0” – would be more moderate, the group reintroduced its draconian restrictions on women and girls to international condemnation. The UN Security Council imposed strict sanctions and froze large assets, saying the regime was enacting a “gender apartheid”.

This year, Russia became the first country to formally recognise the Taliban government. Over the past few months, said the Financial Times, the regime “has begun to emerge from diplomatic isolation”, as countries see a potential ally in trade, counterterrorism and the deportation of migrants.

What has happened recently?

India used to see the Taliban as a threat, given its extremist ideology and its closeness with arch-enemy Pakistan. But New Delhi has been trying to improve engagement. In October, it hosted foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi: the first diplomatic trip abroad by a senior Taliban official since the group’s return to power. Although he required a visa waiver due to UN sanctions, the “rapturous reception” he received is “one of the most striking signs of how the world is warming up to the Taliban”, said the FT.

After the visit, New Delhi announced that it would be “upgrading its technical mission” in Kabul to “a full-fledged embassy”, said Al Jazeera. “Closer cooperation between us contributes to your national development, as well as regional stability and resilience,” said Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. Speaking to reporters, Muttaqi said: “We want good relations; we keep our doors open for talks – for all!”

Why is India normalising relations?

For India, the Taliban “represents a ‘lesser evil’” compared with terrorist groups such as al-Qaida and Isis-K, said Chietigj Bajpaee of Chatham House’s South Asia, Asia-Pacific Programme. India wants to stop Afghanistan from “re-emerging as a hub for militancy and terrorism”.

Unlike during the 1990s, when India, Iran and Russia backed forces that opposed the Taliban, now there is almost no armed opposition in Afghanistan. “The Indians are being very pragmatic, having realised that the Taliban is the only game in Kabul and that they are not going anywhere”, a senior Pakistani diplomat told the FT. They see it as: “the enemy of my enemy could be my friend’ and the Taliban is clearly taking advantage of that”.

What about the rest of the world?

When Russia formally recognised the Taliban government in July, its foreign ministry said it saw potential for “commercial and economic” cooperation, said the BBC. Russia also wants to cooperate with Afghanistan on counterterrorism, after the deadly Islamic State attack on a concert hall in Moscow in 2024, and to increase trade.

China was the first country to accredit an ambassador from the Taliban, and has pursued what analysts describe as “durable de facto recognition”, eyeing Afghanistan’s reserves of critical minerals and resources.

In the West, the US has praised the Taliban for its crackdown on Isis-K. Sebastian Gorka, a counterterrorism adviser to Donald Trump, revealed in August that Washington and the Taliban were “working together” to fight Islamist militancy. European countries have lauded the Taliban’s destruction of fields of opium poppies, a key ingredient in heroin production, and are also increasingly keen to engage with Afghanistan on the repatriation of migrants. Germany, Switzerland and Austria have all recently sent delegations or welcomed Taliban officials; Germany says it wants to work with the group directly to resume deportations of convicted Afghans.

What’s in it for the Taliban?

Afghanistan is battling endemic poverty and the fallout from natural disasters like the earthquake in August, exacerbated by devastating US aid cuts. Iran and Pakistan have also forcibly returned more than four million Afghans in two years, said the International Organization for Migration, causing chaos at the border and further strain on resources. The Taliban hopes its increased international engagement will “translate into much-needed economic aid and investments”, said the FT. But there is “little sign of this taking place yet”. The oppression of women and girls is the “primary issue facing Afghanistan’s economic future”, said UN Assistant Secretary-General Kanni Wignaraja.

“The Taliban still presides over a pariah state, shunned by most of the world,” said Modern Diplomacy. Its “partial diplomatic thaw” has brought no “real economic relief”; it “remains locked in a dangerous cross-border dispute with Pakistan and trapped by financial isolation”.

Islamabad historically supported the Taliban and saw Afghanistan as a “source of ‘strategic depth’ in its rivalry with India”, said Bajpaee. Now, it is accusing the Afghan Taliban of hosting and sponsoring the militant Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP or Pakistani Taliban), which aims to “overthrow the Pakistani state” and has “stepped up its attacks inside Pakistan”. Pakistan increasingly sees its neighbour as a “liability”.

You’ll find this piccalilli all over Lulu’s, said Lasse Petersen, executive chef of Lulu’s and Llewelyn’s restaurants in Herne Hill, south London. It’s sharp, bright and endlessly adaptable – the kind of thing that pulls any dish together.

Ingredients (yields 5 medium jars)

• 1.5kg mixed vegetables (e.g. cauliflower, green beans, flat beans, courgette, pearl onions, green tomatoes; onions peeled and halved, everything else cut into bite-sized pieces)
• 45g salt
• 5g fenugreek
• 5g cumin seeds
• 5g coriander seeds
• 600ml cider vinegar
• 30g cornflour
• 10g ground turmeric
• 10g English mustard powder
• pinch of dried chilli
• 5g ground ginger
• 200g caster sugar
• 15g mustard seeds

Method

• Toss the vegetables and salt and leave, preferably overnight.
• Strain and rinse well under cold water.
• Toast the fenugreek, cumin and coriander seeds until fragrant and add to the vinegar, cornflour, turmeric, mustard powder, chilli and ginger in a blender.
• Blend at high speed until the spices are finely ground and the cornflour has dispersed in the vinegar. Alternatively, you can grind spices in a pestle and mortar and then whisk into the vinegar with the cornflour.
• In a large saucepan, add the spiced vinegar and sugar and slowly bring up to heat until thickened.
• Toast your mustard seeds and add to the pickle brine.
• Meanwhile, steam your vegetables for about 4-5 minutes until cooked but still with a little bite. (Alternatively, you can cook the vegetables in the thickened pickle brine. Keep an eye on them as the brine can catch at the bottom and burn.)
• Now add the vegetables to the hot pickle, and either jar them to keep or leave to cool and eat within a week or so.
• Tips and notes: for seasonal variations, try celeriac, swede, fennel, carrot and pearl onions, or beetroot, red cabbage, radish and cauliflower.

Taken from Order Up! A Taste of London’s Favourite Restaurants. Order Up! is published in support of Hospitality Action, a charity that helps hospitality workers who’ve suffered a setback. All proceeds from book sales go to support hospitality.

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Pakistan has just suffered its first “21st century coup”, said Monjorika Bose on Firstpost (Mumbai). There were none of the “tanks and curfews” typical of a standard military takeover. Instead, a “ridiculously weak” parliament rubber-stamped a constitutional amendment giving army chief Asim Munir control over all three armed-forces branches, along with the same “near total” lifetime immunity from arrest and prosecution that the president enjoys.

This has shot him to “a constitutionally protected super post with sweeping powers” and no accountability. His control is now so absolute, he can “stifle dissent” at will; judges “will be forced to look the other way”. Yet from the West there has barely been a “whimper” of objection, thanks largely to Munir’s successful wooing of President Trump. Munir made two visits to the Oval Office this year, one in June, one in September, courting him with flattery, the promise of access to minerals and a shady crypto deal. A delighted Trump has lauded him as his “favourite field marshal”.

Actually, this isn’t the “revolutionary change” alarmists claim it is, said Waqar Malik in the Daily Times (Lahore). The amendment simply modernises the military’s command structure, replacing the joint chiefs with Munir as a single head of the defence forces. The skirmish with India in May – the conflict in which Munir was promoted to become just the second field marshal in Pakistani history – demonstrated the need for streamlined decision-making in wartime. At a time when India is threatening our border, Munir has “restored public confidence”.

That’s wishful thinking, said Shubhangi Sharma on News18 (New Delhi). Already, Munir has torn a page from the “old playbook” of Pervez Musharraf, the last Pakistani general to take power in a coup – ordering drone strikes on Afghanistan, fuelling proxy terror groups inside India, and making reckless nuclear threats, all pushing Pakistan “closer to a Kim Jong Un model than a functioning democracy”.

But Munir’s power grab essentially “formalises what has long been an open secret”, said The Hindu (Chennai). Pakistan’s military has for some time “pulled the strings behind a facade of democracy”; now the facade has crumbled. The only political leader still resisting is former PM Imran Khan – and he’s in jail for corruption. Yet it’s not all going the army chief’s way. Khan’s party is leading mass protests in the streets, and there’s an insurgency flaring in tribal areas. So Munir’s attempt to wield absolute power “could backfire – sooner rather than later”.

The spectre of Donald Trump looms large over the first state visit by Vladimir Putin to India since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began.

Putin was met on arrival with a warm embrace by Narendra Modi and the two leaders are due to discuss deals over oil, arms, working visas and strengthened diplomatic ties between the two countries.

Following an opening press conference, two things “stood out”, said the BBC: first, a “conspicuous display of mutual respect”; and second, an “absence of any blockbuster announcement”.

The “need” for both countries right now is to boost “bilateral trade”, as Russia is “reeling” from Western sanctions and India is “facing 50% tariffs from Washington”.

What did the commentators say?

Modi continues to walk a diplomatic “tightrope” between Russia and the US, said Foreign Policy. Putin’s two-day visit is a stern “test” of how well India can “balance ties” with the two countries.

The summit comes at a “critical juncture” for both Russia and India, mostly due to the looming presence of the US, said The Guardian. Trump’s re-election has “upended years of closely nurtured US-India relations”, causing disruption with “inflammatory rhetoric” and “punishing” import tariffs. As a result, Delhi has been thrown “into a tailspin”.

Putin, too, is not in Trump’s good books. He has rejected the latest US-proposed peace plan for Ukraine, and is looking to bolster Russia’s recent battlefield advances that have “strengthened his hand” with diplomatic gains.

“The question of oil also looms large.” Modi has “insisted that India would continue to buy Russian oil” – Moscow supplies over 35% of India’s crude oil imports, compared to only around 2% before the war in Ukraine began. However, heavy US-imposed sanctions have led to a “notable slowdown” in this supply to appease Trump, not to mention India having “agreed to import more US oil and gas”.

“India is rolling out the red carpet for the Russian president”, undermining global efforts to cast him as an “international pariah”, said Bloomberg. India, though still wanting to maintain economic ties with the US, is looking to diversify and “gain more access to the Russian market”. Most likely, this week could see an agreement reached over the “shipment of marine products and agricultural goods”, both of which would be in India’s favour.

Russia’s interests are clear too. India, with a population of around 1.5 billion and the “fastest growing major economy” in the world, is a “hugely attractive market” for Russian goods and resources, said Steve Rosenberg, the BBC’s Russia editor.

Putin’s enthusiasm is plentiful. One “priority” is weapons sales, with reported deals on exporting “state-of-the-art Russian fighter jets and air defence systems”. Due to the war in Ukraine, Russia has also been hit with a labour shortage, and India presents itself as a “valuable source of skilled workers”. Most importantly, the main benefit is geopolitical: the Kremlin “enjoys demonstrating that Western efforts to isolate it over the war in Ukraine have failed”.

What next?

Any progression towards a peace deal in Ukraine would “give India more breathing room” with the US than it had six months ago. Then, Trump’s “ire” towards Modi “ran high” and he imposed additional 25% tariffs on the country, said The Wall Street Journal.

Putin is expected to offer “Russia’s latest arms” to “bolster the long-standing relationship” between them. Even if this were to fall through, the mere prospect of a summit shows that the relationship is on an “upswing”, according to one expert.

These tangdi, or chicken drumsticks (tangdi is Hindi for leg), are a classic Indian appetiser, said Suki Pantal. They’re very popular in restaurants in Delhi, where they always make a sizzling grand entrance, served with chutneys, lemon slices and an onion-ring salad.

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 2 handfuls fresh coriander leaves
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• ½ tsp fennel seeds
• 2.5cm piece of root ginger, roughly chopped
• 5-6 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 green chilli (optional)
• 1 tbsp plain yoghurt
• 500g chicken drumsticks, skin on
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp chaat masala
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 2 tsp Kashmiri red chilli powder
• juice of ½ a lemon
• 1 tbsp gram flour, toasted
• 2 tbsp neutral oil
• 3-4 tbsp oil, for frying
• handful of fresh coriander leaves, chopped, to garnish
• lemon wedges, to garnish
• pinch of chaat masala, to garnish
• handful of red onion rings, to garnish

Method

• In a grinder or blender, grind the coriander leaves, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, ginger, garlic, green chilli (if using) and yoghurt into a thick paste. Set aside.
• Into a large bowl, put the drumsticks, salt, chaat masala, garam masala, Kashmiri red chilli powder, lemon juice, toasted gram flour, the oil and the coriander paste.
• Rub the marinade over the drumsticks. Don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour, or overnight for best results.
• To pan-fry, heat the oil in a non-stick pan or griddle/grill pan on a high heat and, once hot, add the marinated drumsticks without them overlapping, then let them sear for 2 minutes on each side. Turn down the heat to low, baste with the remaining marinade, cover with a lid and cook for 20 minutes. Check and turn the drumsticks occasionally. Sprinkle with a little water to prevent burning.
• To air-fry, arrange the marinated drumsticks in the air-fryer basket, without overlapping, and cook for 22-24 minutes at 200C/400F, in batches. Turn halfway through the cooking time and baste with oil. Shake the drumsticks a minute before they are done for extra crispiness.
• Garnish with the chopped coriander, lemon wedges, chaat masala and red onion rings.

Taken from No Worries, Just Chicken Curries by Suki Pantal.

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Playing calming instrumental music during surgery can help patients recover more quickly, according to a new study.

“Music seemed to quieten the internal storm”, according to researchers who tested 56 people, said the BBC, and the results “could reshape how hospitals think about surgical wellbeing”.

Lower stress

Experts at the Lok Nayak Hospital and Maulana Azad Medical College in India studied patients undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy surgery, the standard keyhole operation to remove the gallbladder.

Patients undergoing this procedure are generally given the anaesthetic propofol, which brings on a loss of consciousness within seconds and produces a swifter and more clear-headed awakening.

All 56 patients were given the same anaesthetic regimen and all wore noise-cancelling headphones, but only one group listened to music. The patients who listened to music required substantially less propofol – on average, 6.7mg per kg of body weight per hour compared with 7.86mg for the control group.

There were further positive outcomes for the music-listening group. They also required fewer additional doses of fentanyl, the opioid painkiller used to control spikes in blood pressure or heart rate during surgery.

“Crucially, the physiological stress response to surgery”, which is measured through serum cortisol, the level of the stress hormone cortisol in the blood, was “markedly lower” in patients listening to music, said The Independent.

Humming truth

Using music therapy during medical treatment is “not new”, said the website – it’s long been used to reduce stress, anxiety and pain before and after various procedures, including in cancer care, mental health, palliative care, physiotherapy, and post-operative recovery.

Medics aim for “early discharge after surgery”, Dr Farah Husain, senior specialist in anaesthesia and certified music therapist for the Indian study, told the BBC. “Patients need to wake up clear-headed, alert and oriented, and ideally pain-free,” and music could soon be used for this end in hospitals around the world.

The research team is preparing a further study which will build on the earlier findings, but “one truth is already humming through the data”, said the broadcaster: “even when the body is still and the mind asleep, it appears a few gentle notes can help the healing begin”.

Protesters in Delhi wore oxygen masks and carried gas cylinders as they took to the streets to highlight the authorities’ failure to tackle the city’s ever-worsening air pollution.

There’s a “dystopian” environment in the Indian capital as a particularly “persistent toxic haze” shrouds the city, with slow winds and cooling temperatures preventing pollutants from dispersing, said The Independent.

‘Gasping for breath’

India’s “winter air pollution season” arrived “with a vengeance” this year, “blanketing New Delhi in a sickly-looking, toxic yellowish haze”, said the Financial Times. The mix of “smoke from winter stubble burnt by farmers” and “fumes from cars, factories and power plants” makes everyday life a struggle; “even a few minutes outdoors leaves you feeling ill and gasping for breath.”

Over recent weeks, Delhi’s Air Quality Index, which measures the level of fine particulate matter in the air that can clog lungs, has been “hovering” between 300 and 400, nearly 20 times the acceptable limit, said the BBC. On Friday, it reached 455 – “equivalent to smoking nearly 11 cigarettes a day”, said The Indian Express.

The situation is so severe that the Supreme Court has asked health authorities to cancel all outdoor sports activities in schools until the haze lifts. The court ruled that allowing children to take part in such activities during November and December, when pollution levels are at their peak, is like “putting them in a ‘gas chamber’”, said the news site.

‘No panacea’

Authorities carried out an unsuccessful trial of cloud seeding, “firing small particles” into clouds to produce rain. The process is used around the world, but experts say it is “no panacea”, said The Guardian. Although it is meant to “produce more frequent and heavier rain than the clouds would otherwise release”, in practice the impact is “often small”. Two professors told the newspaper that the plan to use it in Delhi was a “gimmick”.

As for Delhi residents, their options depend on their economic status. During the “miasma”, the rich “retreat to their houses, where air purifiers offer some respite”, said the Financial Times, and others “decamp for the cleaner climes of Himalayan hill stations”. But “the poor have to put up with the poison air”.

According to recent polling, almost four out of five households in the Delhi metropolitan area “have had at least one member fall ill due to toxic air in the past month”, said the Hindustan Times. One doctor at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences said hospital wards “are overflowing with people suffering from wheezing, breathlessness, burning eyes, and fast-deteriorating COPD”.

The death of industrialist Gopichand “GP” Hinduja, head of the Hinduja family who topped the Sunday Times Rich List 2025 with a net worth of over £35 billion, has made public a long-running family feud.

The Hinduja dynasty has been “riven by a decade-long 'Succession'-style feud”, said John Arlidge in The Times. With the two remaining brothers, Ashok and Prakash, taking control in the interim, major questions over how “power, control and money should pass from one generation of the family to the next” are still unanswered.

‘Publicity-shy’

The second of four brothers running a business empire, GP ran the Hinduja Group since the death of his older brother Srichand (“SP”) in 2023. Since it was founded in 1914 by their father Parmanand, trading carpets, tea and spices to the West, it has grown to 11 sectors (including healthcare, banking, IT, trading, media and real estate), operating in 48 countries with up to 250,000 employees.

Though the “publicity-shy” Hinduja Group may not be a household name, its UK and global reach is profound, said Josh Spero, Chris Kay and Krishn Kaushik in the Financial Times. GP and his older brother transformed the family’s “modest trading operation” in India and Iran, into a “major”, global “conglomerate”.

GP was a “very vocal champion” of closer economic and political ties between his ancestral homeland of India and naturalised country the UK, said The Hindu. He would often address gatherings in London to “exhort” businesses to “invest in the booming Indian market”.

‘Embroiled in controversy’

“The family has had to endure publicity – all of it bad – since the feud erupted”, with the dispute “likely to get worse” after a period of mourning, sources close to the family told The Times. The fighting within the family has become so intense that the “total legal fees are said to have reached £20 million”, with “one wing of the family communicating with the others via lawyers”, said the outlet.

The unrest began when GP’s elder brother Srichand claimed sole ownership of Hinduja Bank, which is based in Switzerland, which “shattered” the “sense of family harmony”, said Rory Tingle in The Daily Mail. The struggle intensified as Srichand developed dementia, with a High Court judge raising concerns that the family had “failed to arrange adequate care for him”.

The surprising initial request undermined the “age-old” motto of “everything belongs to everyone and nothing belongs to anyone” held within the family, said Benjamin Stupples in Bloomberg.

Most notably, GP was “embroiled in controversy” in 2001 after it was revealed he had written to Peter Mandelson, then the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, about “obtaining a UK passport for his brother Prakash”, said Lauren Almeida in The Guardian. The brothers had “donated £1 million through their charitable foundation” towards the Millennium Dome, a project that Mandelson was overseeing. Mandelson resigned, but was later cleared following an inquiry.

The Hindujas also faced allegations over international arms policy, said Ishani Sarkar in Style. The family was involved in the “so-called Bofors scandal”, which was a “major weapons-contract political scandal between India and Sweden”. However, the allegations made against the family were dismissed by the Delhi High Court in 2005.

Most recently, the family has faced serious accusations from abroad, said Imogen Foulkes of the BBC. The third Hinduja brother, Prakash, and his wife, son and daughter-in-law, were sentenced to jail by a Swiss court last year for “exploiting staff” in their “Geneva villa”. The family is appealing the charges.

Half of the world’s remaining uncontacted indigenous groups face extinction within a decade due to growing contact with missionaries, miners, drug traffickers and social media influencers, a new report released by Survival International ahead of Cop30 in Brazil has warned.

The indigenous rights organisation, which has spent years compiling a comprehensive record of some of the world’s most isolated people, has identified 196 “uncontacted” communities around the world who are living “at the edge of survival”.

“These are what I would call silent genocides – there are no TV crews, no journalists. But they are happening, and they’re happening now,” said Fiona Watson, Survival’s research and advocacy director.

Who and where are they?

Uncontacted peoples are those who “reject contact with outsiders, as an active and ongoing choice”, said the charity. Some are “entire peoples who are uncontacted”, while others are “sub-groups of bigger tribes with whom they share a language and often a territory”.

“All are aware of the outside world, and reject it. They are self-sufficient and resilient. They live independently in forests, sometimes on islands. They resist intrusion, and thrive when their rights are respected.”

The Amazon basin accounts for the vast majority of these communities, with the rest living in the Asia-Pacific, including India and Indonesia.

Some romanticise them as “lost tribes” frozen in time, said Watson, but the reality is that they are contemporary societies which deliberately avoid outsiders after generations of violence, slavery and disease.

Why are they under threat?

Resource extraction is by far the biggest threat to uncontacted peoples, many of whom live on land ripe for mining, logging and agribusiness. Deforestation and infrastructure projects like roads and railways often leave food and water sources destroyed and polluted, bringing starvation.

Drug-trafficking gangs also posed an existential danger to indigenous communities, said Survival, while missionaries who are “bankrolled by multi-million-dollar evangelical organisations” to track and convert people to Christianity threaten about one in six.

A new but growing threat is the rise of “adventure-seeking tourists” and social media influencers who expose uncontacted groups to deadly diseases.

A British YouTuber known as “Lord Miles” recently boasted on social media of “his detailed plans” to illegally visit India’s North Sentinel island, home to the most isolated indigenous people in the world. US influencer Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov is currently on bail facing the possibility of a prison sentence after landing on the island in March and allegedly offering the indigenous Sentinelese a can of Diet Coke and a coconut.

“Indigenous people have become this spectacle. They’re here to be consumed by global audiences,” Michael Rivera, an anthropologist at the University of Hong Kong, told NBC News. “This is reproducing a sort of racial hierarchy that is positioning influencers, who tend not to be indigenous people”, at the top.

What can be done?

In 1987 Brazil, which is home to most of these groups, adopted a policy to protect isolated peoples and demarcate their land. This has “allowed many populations to grow”, said The Guardian, but in recent decades, the agency set up to protect them has been “deliberately weakened”, by successive governments. “Chronically underfunded and understaffed”, its field infrastructure is today “in tatters”.

Critics say this is because these groups do not vote and live on resource-rich land, meaning they are either ignored by their government or, worse, deliberately targeted.

Survival International has called for a global no-contact policy and urged private companies to ensure their supply chains are free of material sourced from land inhabited by indigenous groups.

But protecting uncontacted peoples will require not only “stronger laws” but also a “shift in how the world views them – not as relics of the past, but as citizens of the planet whose survival affects everyone’s future”, said The Independent.

India’s first victory in cricket’s Women’s World Cup will have huge ramifications for global order of the sport.

Harmanpreet Kaur’s team beat South Africa by 52 runs in yesterday’s final, in front of a deafening 45,000-strong crowd in Navi Mumbai – ending Australia’s decade-long dominance in the sport. With this milestone win, India’s women cricketers have “turned long-cherished dreams into reality” and “etched their names in history”, said The Hindustan Times.

It’s a “a wake-up call” for the rest of the world, and a win that could “spell the end for women’s cricket as we know it”, said Sonia Twigg in The Telegraph. India has become the the first country other than Australia or England to win a Women’s World Cup since 2000, and, with greater funding and increased home support, “it is hard to believe” their women cricketers “will stop there”.

‘New levels of stardom’

As Kaur clung on to her match-winning catch, India’s women cricketers entered a “brave new world”, said P.K. Ajith Kumar in The Hindu. Star players like Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma and Shafali Verma have become “household names” overnight, and been propelled to “new levels of stardom across India”.

For Verma, the final’s Player of the Match, the path to yesterday’s success has been marked by significant setbacks. That “rollercoaster ride” began in the “conservative northern state of Haryana”, where, as a girl, she cut her hair short so she could play in the boys’ team, said Agence France-Presse. Her fearless batting soon led to her international debut at the age of 15, and she became the youngest cricketer to play in a women’s T20 for India. But she had recently fallen out of favour with the selectors, and was only in Sunday's final because a teammate had injured her ankle. Her 87 runs (from 78 balls) included her first 50 in three years – and made her, at 21 years and 278 days, the youngest person ever to hit a half-century in a Women’s World Cup final.

India were “late to develop the women’s game”, said Twigg in The Telegraph, and the last time the Women’s World Cup was held in India, in 2013, it “made barely a ripple” on the country’s consciousness. The national team was put up in a “budget hotel”, and had to warm up against under-16 and under-19 boys’ teams. The publicised venue for the final – Mumbai’s historic Wankhede Stadium – was even changed at the last minute to accommodate the men’s domestic Ranji Trophy final.

Belief ‘that women deserved more’

India’s victory on Sunday owes much to star performances by Verma and by Sharma (named Player of the Tournament) but many also attribute the team’s success to major administrative and strategic overhauls behind the scenes.

India’s win was a “vindication” for policy changes that “dared to believe women deserved more”, said Amar Sunil Panicker in India Today. In October 2022, the Board of Control for Cricket in India unanimously passed a resolution for pay parity between men and women. Women’s cricket in India was once defined by the “exceptionalism” of a few individuals who “succeeded despite the system”. Now, “for perhaps the first time, success feels like the result of the system working for them”.

More money is entering the women’s game globally, too. The Australian women’s Big Bash League doubled their team salary cap in 2023 and, last week, the organisers of The Hundred competition in England and Wales announced a 100% increase in the women’s salary pot for the 2026 season – though these salaries are still significantly behind those offered to male players.

Donald Trump has targeted the “economic equivalent of Russia’s crown jewels” with a new wave of sanctions, said Sky News.

The president has slapped fresh restrictions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, in response to what he calls Vladimir Putin’s “lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine”.

What did the commentators say?

The new measures, which target Russian giants Rosneft and Lukoil, as well as more than 30 subsidiaries, “aren’t just any sanctions”, said Sky News, they’re a “punch to the gut of Moscow’s war economy”. They’re “no slap on the wrist” because oil is “Russia’s bloodstream”, and Trump “just cut off the blood flow”, said the broadcaster.

The timing is significant too, said the BBC, because the new measures were announced “just days after the UK sanctioned the same two Russian oil companies”, and European Union countries have issued new measures that ban the import of Russian liquefied natural gas from 2027.

Putin’s “tactical triumph didn’t last long”, said The New York Times – last week “it looked as if the Russian president had outmanoeuvred his adversaries yet again” by making a “deftly placed call” to Trump that “scuttled any expansion in American support for Ukraine”. But yesterday “Russians awoke to new American sanctions against their oil industry”.

The sale of oil and gas accounts for about a quarter of the Russian budget, and Moscow’s oil industry is already under pressure from increasingly long-range strikes by Kyiv. So the measures “take aim at the heart of the Russian economy” and deal a major blow to Putin’s “effort to cajole” Trump into “forcing Ukraine to capitulate to Russia’s main demands”.

Actually, the sanctions are “not a maximal blow,” Daniel Fried, a former US assistant secretary of state for Europe, told Atlantic Council, and there may need to be tougher US actions, such as “joining Europe in lowering the price cap on Russian oil, enforcing the oil price cap by putting sanctions on the Russian shadow fleet of tankers, and sanctioning ports that service them”.

But the measures are still a “strong move” and they could “put even more downward pressure on Russian oil revenues” by pushing Moscow to further discount its oil and “forcing purchasers to consider alternative sources of oil”.

What next?

Some experts in Russia said that the new measures would have a “muted impact”, said The New York Times. Moscow has “become adept at evading restrictions” by using “hundreds of old vessels uninsured by Western companies” and by processing transactions “through buffer companies in third countries”.

So although oil prices “rose sharply” yesterday, the sanctions’ “potential potency” may “ultimately depend on how the penalties are enforced and how energy buyers react to them”.

In response to the move, four Chinese state oil companies have suspended purchases of Russian seaborne oil. Indian refineries have also announced that they will slash imports of Russian crude to comply with the new sanctions. If these cancellations “prove permanent”, Russia “faces a serious economic hit”, said The Telegraph.

Keir Starmer has met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Mumbai as the pair attempt to emerge from “the shadow of tariff turmoil” brought forth by the US.

On a trip meant to promote business opportunities between the UK and India – two of the world’s largest economies – Starmer said he is hoping to implement the previously signed trade deal as soon as “humanly possible”.

In July, Starmer and Modi signed a trade agreement in the UK, “sealing a deal to cut tariffs on goods from textiles to whisky and cars, and allow more market access for businesses”, said Reuters. But projections, which predict an increase in trade of more than £25 billion by 2040, are ultimately “a floor, not a ceiling, to the ambition of the deal”. This week’s visit provides opportunities to further that partnership, said Starmer.

What did the commentators say?

“This trip has a big first,” said Sky News. Taking more business leaders along than on any previous such visit, the UK government’s “enthusiasm to take advantage of the signed, though not completed, free trade deal is clear”. Business leaders said that they’ve joined the tour to boost business in India, and also to “raise their profile with the prime minister”.

Overseas markets like India are more important to domestic businesses than ever. But the bosses’ enthusiasm might also be “a response to the nervousness about a £20 billion – £30 billion black hole Chancellor Rachel Reeves will have to fill” in the upcoming Budget.

Even so, “the visit had some awkward undertones”, said Bloomberg. Just before Starmer arrived in India, Modi wished Russian President Vladimir Putin a happy birthday. Starmer, who has been vocal in pressuring Putin to end his invasion of Ukraine, “deflected a question while on the plane to India” about the exchange. “Just for the record, I haven’t sent birthday congratulations to Putin, nor am I going to do so. I don’t suppose that comes as a surprise.”

And despite blossoming trade relations with India, “tensions over migration are expected to linger”. Indian and British businesses had reportedly pushed for more visas for highly skilled workers moving from India to the UK when the two countries were formalising their trade deal over the summer. But Starmer said that “the visa situation hasn’t changed with the free trade agreement”, adding that the visit was more about “business-to-business engagement and investment and jobs and prosperity coming into the United Kingdom”.

What next?

Starmer’s visit to India has already coincided with some developments that promise continued cooperation between the two countries.

British Airways has “announced a third daily flight” between Heathrow and New Delhi starting next year, and it plans to look into further opportunities in India as trade “expands”, said The Hindu. The new flight, which also includes the announcement of a New Delhi-Manchester route operated by India’s IndiGo, is expected to generate tens of millions of pounds in exports and tourism income, as well as 450 new jobs.

Starmer “also used the visit to announce that three Bollywood films will be made in the UK” by major film studio Yash Raj Films starting in 2026, said the BBC. Bringing Bollywood back to the UK after an “eight-year hiatus”, the move is expected to bring thousands of jobs and “pour millions into the economy”.

Plus, the prime minister – having praised India’s digital ID system as a “massive success” – is to look into how the UK can take inspiration for its own implementation of widespread digital IDs, said The Guardian. “Starmer defended the introduction of a similar measure in the UK, saying he believed the rollout of a voluntary system could be expanded to school applications, mortgages and driving licences.”

Keir Starmer’s announcement that the UK will introduce mandatory digital ID for all citizens has sparked furious debate about their use, effectiveness and threat to privacy.

In making its case, the government has promised to take the “best aspects of the digital identification systems that are already up and running around the world”. The plans would require each person to have an electronic ID, stored in a digital encrypted “wallet” on their smartphone. This would prove people’s right to live and work in the UK, which the PM says will help crack down on illegal migrants and benefit fraud.

Where are digital IDs used?

There are plans to roll out a Digital Identity (eID) Wallet to all EU citizens by the end of 2026, but many European countries already use a national electronic ID system. Last month, Switzerland became the latest to approve such a system, with voters narrowly backing plans for optional and free-of-charge electronic identity cards.

Outside of Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea all offer citizens a way voluntarily to verify their identity online and access some services digitally.

The UK government has also studied India’s Aadhaar system, which provides all citizens with a unique 12-digit number that has “saved around $10 billion annually by reducing fraud and leakages in welfare schemes”, said Gov.uk. Prime Minister Narendra Modi claims the system, which includes facial scans and fingerprints, is India’s ticket to the future.

China first introduced national ID cards in 1984. A new “internet ID” that lets the state, rather than private firms, verify the identity of website and app users “augments China’s radically different approach to managing and surveilling the digital lives of its citizens”, said The Economist.

What can they be used for?

The e-Estonia platform, which contains legal photo ID and provides access to all of Estonia’s government services, is “by far the most highly developed national ID-card system in the world”, said Sky News.

In Denmark, “life online is almost impossible without MitID”, said The Guardian. Introduced in 2023 as a public-private partnership between banks, insurers and the digitisation ministry, the app is needed to pay taxes, book a health appointment or apply for college.

Poland’s mObywatel has 10 million active users and allows people to check points on their driving licence, look up local air quality or change their polling station. Ukraine’s DIIA app is used by the majority of citizens to access more than 70 online services, as well as to track drone attacks.

Have they caused problems?

Cyberattackers have targeted e-Estonia on multiple occasions over the past two decades. In 2021, a hacker obtained around 300,000 document photos “through a security vulnerability in the state portal”, the country’s government said.

Other arguments against digital ID centre on privacy. Civil rights campaigners worry that the huge amounts of information “could be amalgamated, searched and analysed to monitor, track and profile people” and “shift the balance of power towards the state”, said The Guardian's UK technology editor Robert Booth.

In India, mass collection of data from 1.3 billion citizens has left civil libertarians “horrified”, said The New York Times. Enrolment in Aadhaar is now “mandatory for hundreds of public services and many private ones, from taking school exams to opening bank accounts”.

“You almost feel like life is going to stop without an Aadhaar,” one woman told the newspaper.

Peace in Europe seems further away than at any time since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago.

Far from forcing a ceasefire between Vladimir Putin and Kyiv, Donald Trump’s return to the White House has seen an escalation in Russian aerial attacks, culminating in this morning's dramatic drone incursion into Poland.

“Putin just keeps escalating, expanding his war, and testing the West. The longer he faces no strength in response, the more aggressive he gets,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X. “A weak response now will provoke Russia even more – and then Russian missiles and drones will fly even further into Europe.”

What did the commentators say?

Recent attempts to bring Russia to the negotiating table have focused predominantly on diplomatic efforts. By sending his envoys to meet directly with Russian negotiators and “literally rolling out the red carpet for Putin”, Trump believed he “could reset the bilateral relationship”, said Alexandra Vacroux in the Los Angeles Times. “It did. But not the way Trump intended.”

Last month’s Alaskan summit “convinced the Russians that the current administration is willing to throw the sources of American global power out the window”. At the same time, Putin has positioned Russia at the centre of a new global power alliance, alongside China and India.

The Kremlin has insisted on its own “security guarantees” before laying down arms. These “reflect a list of grievances” that Putin refers to in shorthand as “the root causes” of the war, said The New York Times. They include a guarantee Ukraine will never join Nato, limits on Ukraine's military capabilities and, most contentiously, to be part of any international security guarantees provided to Kyiv, "which analysts have equated with the fox guarding the henhouse”.

Western efforts to craft a security deal for Ukraine without considering the Kremlin’s position make them unlikely to succeed, said Samuel Charap, a Russia expert at RAND Corporation, a security research organisation in Washington.

Putin knows his maximalist demands are unpalatable to Ukraine and many of its allies, but he believes he is slowly winning on the battlefield so has little reason to broker a ceasefire agreement while he still holds out hope of a major breakthrough that will secure Moscow better terms – or even the collapse of Ukraine’s defences.

The alternative, as set out by Kęstutis Budrys, Lithuania’s foreign minister, this morning, is a ramping up of sanctions which “must strike at the heart of the Kremlin's war economy".

“In fact,” said Vacroux, “the Kremlin indicated a readiness to talk with Trump about the war only when Trump threatened very, very powerful’ sanctions in mid-July”.

What next?

Amid “frustration within the White House at the difficulty of brokering a peace deal” – and perhaps acknowledging that sanctions may be the quickest way to bring the war to an end – the Financial Times reported Trump has made an “extraordinary demand” that the EU follow the US on imposing tariffs on India and China for buying Russian oil and gas.

European capitals have been discussing potential secondary sanctions aimed at escalating economic pressure on Russia, but “many are nervous given the EU’s trade relations with Beijing and New Delhi”.

“It’s a question of, do the Europeans have the political will to bring the war to an end?” one US official said. “Any of these things will of course be costly, and for the president to do it, we need our EU partners and ideally all of our partners with us. And we'll share the pain together.”

The leaders of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea – a quartet described by Western policy analysts as the "axis of upheaval" – have met in public for the first time today at a huge military parade in Beijing.

China's display of laser weapons, nuclear ballistic missiles and giant underwater drones capped off a two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit of mostly non-Western world leaders, where President Xi Jinping urged them to take advantage of the turmoil sparked by Donald Trump's trade war, and work together to challenge the US-led world order.

Xi outlined his plan for "a more just and reasonable global governance system", telling the assembled leaders they should "shoulder together the shared responsibility of promoting regional peace, stability and prosperity". But the subsequent display of Chinese military might, in the presence of aggressor nations, undermine that message of unity.

What did the commentators say?

The sight of the leaders of China, Russia and India – the three most powerful countries not aligned with the West – "smiling and laughing" at the summit "like good friends" was "almost certainly intended" for a US audience, said The New York Times. It showed how "geopolitical disruption" caused by Trump has given China and Russia "a platform to rally" other countries.

The "tableau" was meant to convey the "close bond" between Xi and Vladimir Putin as "leaders of an alternative world order", while Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to show the US "that India has other important friends".

Last week, Trump's 50% tariffs on Indian goods – punishment for the country's continued purchase of Russian oil – came into effect. India is "drifting closer to China and doubling down on its ties with Russia", said Semafor, "as Trump's tariff regime further fractures New Delhi's relationship with Washington".

Modi's visit to China – his first in seven years – "showcased his willingness to mend ties" with Xi, despite an unresolved border dispute. Modi also lauded India's "close cooperation" with Moscow during a "warm meeting" with Putin, "defying pressure from Trump to unwind India's dependence on Russian energy".

This was "a carefully choreographed summit", designed to showcase Xi's "vision of a new world order", said CNN. And, by following it up with a parade of China's "cutting-edge" weapons and "thousands of goose-stepping soldiers", Xi is sending a message that China is "a force that wants to reset global rules", unafraid to challenge the West.

"The message isn't new but Beijing is betting it lands differently" now that the US has "cut off its vast network of foreign aid". With the US "shaking up its alliances and causing economic pain" for friend and foe alike, Xi sees "an opportune moment".

But China's "attempt to take advantage of Trumpian chaos" has its limits, Amanda Hsiao, China director at the Eurasia Group consultancy, told the Financial Times. For many, the attendance of Putin, "amid his war on Ukraine", and of international pariah Kim Jong Un, will "undercut Beijing's message as champion of stability and multilateralism", said the paper.

It's clear that Xi is using the parade, officially celebrating his country's victory over Japan in the Second World War, to "recast history", with China as "guardian of the postwar international order". And he sees the projection of military power as strengthening "China's claims of sovereignty over Taiwan", towards which Beijing has grown increasingly aggressive.

But China is grappling with its own domestic issues, said the BBC: "a sluggish economy, youth unemployment and plummeting house prices". Even at Xi's big "moment in the spotlight", there is "discontent, even disillusionment".

What next?

Xi said leaders at the summit had agreed to China's proposals for a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation development bank, and he pledged hundreds of millions in loans and grants to countries in the group.

But, despite "warm ties with Moscow", India cannot replace the West's economic support with sanction-battered Russia, said The New York Times. And even China has been "looking warily at Moscow's growing influence over North Korea".

Optics was "a key part of this summit, and the White House should grasp that its policies will result in other countries looking for alternatives to meet their interests", said Manoj Kewalramani, head of Indo-Pacific studies at the Takshashila Institution in Bangalore. But "optics do little to alleviate the fault lines that exist in the troika of India, China and Russia".

Not long ago, the United States cultivated India as a potential bulwark against China. Then President Donald Trump imposed 50% tariffs on Indian goods as retaliation for that country’s purchases of Russian oil. Now, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is meeting this weekend with Chinese leader Xi Jinping amid signs of warming relations between the Asian rivals.

That improvement was "spurred on in no small part by Trump's global trade war," said The Washington Post. Modi is one of 20 world leaders — including Russia's Vladimir Putin and Iran's Masoud Pezeshkian — who will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting. But the Indian leader's appearance particularly "underscores the way Trump's approach has alienated some friends" who, until recently, had a "warm diplomatic and trade relationship" with America.

Trump is the "great peacemaker" who deserves "all the credit" for the possibility of a China-India alliance, said Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to The Times of India. The tariffs "due to India's Russia oil purchases" are "causing considerable distress" to Modi's government. India and China have a history of fractiousness, but "Trump is a good incentive" for both countries to put aside their differences, said Antara Ghosal Singh at the Observer Research Foundation.

What did the commentators say?

Trump has "dealt a heavy blow to efforts" by American leaders to align with India against "Chinese domination of the Indo-Pacific," said the Financial Times editorial board. During his first term in 2020, Trump told a crowd that "America will always be faithful and loyal friends to the Indian people." But his "U-turn" will help Beijing "portray itself as a more reliable international interlocutor," said the Times. India and China are "unlikely partners" who will need "nimble footwork" to make their relationship last. But Trump's stumble is clear. "By alienating its friends, Washington is playing into Beijing's hands."

A burgeoning "Russia-India-China alliance" is "unlikely to endure," said Karishma Vaswani at Bloomberg. There are "inherent tensions" in the India-China relationship that make a solid partnership difficult. One of the biggest sticking points is their "long-running border dispute" in the Himalayan region. Those disputes have caused bloody clashes in the past and the "risk of future standoffs can't be discounted." The partnership could "unravel" if "American pressure diminishes."

Trump's actions "may have accelerated the Sino-Indian engagement," but the process was already underway, said Harsh V. Pant at Time. The two countries reached a deal in October to "de-escalate tensions" along the border. That makes Trump a "marginal" factor in this weekend's meeting, which may be less than meets the eye: "There have been too many false starts in the past."

What next?

The Xi-Modi summit is "unlikely to usher in a fundamental realignment," said CNN. The big test is whether the meeting translates into "de-escalation on the ground" at the border. If that happens, the two countries can look forward to a "more stable relationship, where competition isn't necessarily over, but conflict is at bay," said Tanvi Madan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

A massive zoo that helps thousands of animals might sound like a dream project for conservationists, but one wildlife center in India is facing a bevy of scandals and problems. The center, Vantara, is among the largest private zoos in the world; it is owned by a member of Asia's wealthiest family and has played host to politicians like Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But amid continuing controversies over Vantara's treatment of animals and alleged financial scandals, India's Supreme Court has authorized an investigation into the zoo.

What is Vantara?

The zoo, located in the Indian state of Gujarat, serves mainly as a wildlife rehabilitation center for Indian animals. It is designed for "those animals rescued from abuse and trauma, serving as a safe haven and a compassionate community built on a spirit of service," Vantara's website said. The zoo is "run by the philanthropic arm of billionaire Mukesh Ambani," said Reuters. Ambani is Asia's richest man with a reported net worth of $103 billion, and his son Anant Ambani is Vantara's owner. The heir made global headlines in 2024 for his lavish wedding that cost a reported $600 million.

The sprawling zoo complex encompasses 3,500 acres and is home to more than "150,000 animals, with facilities nurturing 2,000 species," said Vantara's website. The zoo's elephant rehab center alone is nearly 1,000 acres and houses over 250 elephants. Vantara is additionally host to at least 50 bears, 160 tigers, 200 lions, 250 leopards and 900 crocodiles, according to India's Central Zoo Authority. The facility is "thought to be unique in its size and ambition, dwarfing other private animal collections," said The Guardian. One private zoo in Ohio is "larger, covering more than 10,000 acres on a former coal mine, but has far fewer animals."

Why is it being investigated?

The zoo has faced "allegations that animals were acquired unlawfully and mistreated," said BBC News. India's Supreme Court has ordered investigators to look into these claims; they will "examine possible violations of wildlife laws at Vantara, as well as allegations of financial irregularities and money laundering."

Vantara first came under fire following an investigation in March 2025 by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. That investigation claimed Vantara was participating in "unlawful acquisition of animals — particularly elephants," plus other violations of wildlife regulations" and money laundering, said AFP. Wildlife activists have similarly lambasted the zoo, claiming that it is "housing endangered species on baking flatlands next to a giant oil refinery complex without any plan to return them to the wild."

In addition to checking out the claims of wildlife mistreatment, the Supreme Court–ordered investigators will also "scrutinize the standard of veterinary care, breeding programs, animal deaths in captivity and allegations that the sanctuary was being used as a 'private vanity project,'" said The Telegraph.

The Supreme Court admitted there was not yet proof of these claims, but "ordered an inquiry because authorities had been accused of failing in their duties," said BBC News. While the zoo is closed to the public, it has attracted celebrities and notable names in the past; photos of "Indian film stars visiting the shelter made headlines" in 2024, and the facility itself "was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi."

Istanbul has its cats, Cape Town its penguins, and now, thanks to India's highest court, Delhi will keep its stray dogs. The country's top jurists have walked back a controversial plan to permanently round up the million or so stray canines estimated to call Delhi home. The about-face comes after the court earlier this month ordered Delhi's one million estimated strays be captured, sterilized, immunized and placed in local shelters to combat the "menace of dog bites leading to rabies." But prompted by mass pushback both online and in the streets, the Indian Supreme Court revised its ruling last week. Rather than being condemned to mass detention, captured dogs not displaying signs of rabies or acting aggressively will instead be released back into the urban wild.

Causing 'panic among animal lovers'

The court's initial order giving authorities eight weeks to round up all of Delhi's dogs was "aimed to control rising cases of biting," including "incidents involving children," said The Associated Press. Delhi sees some 2,000 "dog bite episodes every day," according to "some estimates based on hospital records." Regardless of bite rates, the order caused a "panic among animal lovers and welfare organizations," many of which argued the city has "nowhere near the infrastructure to house its vast stray population," said CNN.

With millions of stray dogs nationwide, India "accounts for 36% of the total rabies-related deaths in the world," said the BBC, citing World Health Organization data. Despite that threat, critics of the court's ruling cited feasibility as their concern. "Most Indian cities currently do not have even 1% of the capacity" necessary to "rehabilitate stray dogs in shelters," said animal rights activist Nilesh Bhanage to the outlet. The order was an "impractical, unscientific move" and a "shortsighted measure for a problem" in need of "long-term solutions," said environmental journalist Bahar Dutt on X.

Balancing 'animal welfare and public safety'

In its revised ruling, the Indian Supreme Court "suspended the 'catch-and-keep' plan," offering in its place a "more 'holistic' India-wide approach," said The Guardian. The new order will see stray dogs "sterilized, vaccinated" and "dewormed" before they are ultimately returned to the neighborhoods where they were initially captured.

The ruling also specified that canines "exhibiting aggressive behavior or infected with rabies shall not be released into public spaces," said Indian newspaper The Hindu. The order accordingly bans unregulated public feeding of stray dogs but calls for the establishment of "designated areas for feeding" across the country, said CNN.

By scaling back their initial order, India's Supreme Court made a "progressive step toward balancing animal welfare and public safety," said Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the Indian parliamentary opposition, on X. The court made a "very good decision," said Delhi Mayor Raja Iqbal Singh. "We all love street dogs, and we are all dog lovers."

Crucially, the court "has not clarified what an 'aggressive dog' is," said Reuters, citing an interview between the ANI news agency and former federal minister and animal rights activist Maneka Gandhi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has told his fellow Indians that "nature has been testing us" after cloudbursts caused flash flooding that killed hundreds of people across the north of the country and in neighbouring Pakistan.

What causes cloudbursts?

Usually defined as more than 10cm (roughly 4 inches) of rainfall within an hour over an area less than 30 sq km (11.6 square miles), cloudbursts are caused by a combination of factors characterised by high humidity and low pressure.

When warm, moist air is forced upwards after, for example, encountering a hill or mountain, it cools and condenses, creating large, dense clouds. Once these become over-saturated they burst, releasing their rainfall all at once.

"Sudden and violent", these intense deluges behave effectively like "a rain bomb", said The Associated Press. They "thrive in moisture, monsoons and mountains", all of which are present in India and Pakistan, "making them vulnerable to these extreme weather events".

Why are they dangerous?

The intense rainfall often triggers deadly flooding and landslides, as happened in northern Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir last week, killing at least 344 people, according to authorities. The death roll includes 24 people from the same family, who were swept away on the eve of a wedding. In Indian-administered Kashmir, at least 60 people have been killed in flash flooding, with 200 more missing.

Flooding resulting from a cloudburst killed more than 6,000 people in 2013 at Kedarnath in the Indian Himalayas.

Cloudbursts are so dangerous in part because there is "no forecasting system anywhere in the world" that can predict exactly where and when they will occur, said Asfandyar Khan Khattak, an official from Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Are they caused by climate change?

Cloudbursts are a natural phenomenon, but extreme rain events and their related flash-flooding has worsened in recent years as a direct result of climate change.

A recent report from World Weather Attribution, an international group of scientists who study global warming's role in extreme weather, estimated that the 30-day maximum rainfall in northern Pakistan is approximately 22% more intense than it would have been without the impact of human-induced global warming.

Because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, "every tenth of a degree of warming will lead to heavier monsoon rainfall", said Mariam Zachariah, lead author of the study and an environmental researcher at Imperial College London.

A 2006 study published in the journal Science found "significant rising trends in the frequency and the magnitude of extreme rain events" in India in the second half of the 20th century as global temperatures have risen. And a study into the 2013 Kedarnath floods, published in Climate Dynamics in 2015, found more than half of the rainfall was likely to be linked to increases in greenhouse gases and aerosol particles in the atmosphere.

Khalid Khan, a former special secretary for climate change in Pakistan and chairman of climate initiative PlanetPulse, said global warming had "supercharged" the water cycle. "In our northern regions, warming accelerates glacier melt, adds excessive moisture to the atmosphere, and destabilises mountain slopes," he said. "In short, climate change is making rare events more frequent, and frequent events more destructive."

"The bear hugs have gone. The smiles have curled into sneers." The former friendship between Donald Trump and Indian PM Narendra Modi has descended into acrimony, said Amrit Dhillon and George Grylls in The Times.

India has been left reeling by Trump's decision to hit it with 50% tariffs. It's the penalty for Modi's refusal to cease buying Vladimir Putin's oil. Only a few months ago, Trump called Modi a "true friend", and Modi even breached protocol to urge the Indian diaspora in the US to vote for Trump during his second presidential campaign. Now the "easy badinage" between the two has been replaced with insults (Trump claimed that Modi doesn't care "how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian war machine").

In the face of Trump's fury, the appeasement lobby in Delhi has gone into overdrive, said Pratap Bhanu Mehta in The Indian Express (Noida). They argue that to protect the Modi/Trump partnership, we'll just have to accede to Trump's demands. They want us, in effect, to submit to a new form of "imperialism". How else, after all, would you describe the behaviour of a power that seeks to subjugate other nations and "treats its long-standing allies like pieces of dirt"?

Trump is being completely hypocritical, said Saroj Chadha in The Times of India (Mumbai). He may now talk tough on Putin, yet the US continues to import billions of dollars of fertilisers and nuclear material from Russia. If the aim is to rob the Kremlin of its energy revenues, why hasn't he slapped extra tariffs on the EU, which continues to buy substantial amounts of oil and gas from Russia?

Trump's volley isn't about Ukraine, said The Indian Express. What's really made him furious is Modi's refusal to open up India's dairy and agricultural sectors to US companies, so he's resorted to insults, among other things calling India a "dead economy". He needs to get with the times, said Shishir Priyadarshi and Bidisha Bhattacharya in The Print (New Delhi). We are now a "politically self-assured power" with one of the fastest growth rates of all large economies. We used to be "pressured into alignment"; now we push back. "This doesn't mean the partnership is dead. But it is not unconditional."

Even so, this spat has to be one of the Modi government's biggest foreign policy indictments, said Roshan Kishore in the Hindustan Times (New Delhi). He and his right-wing pals, won over by Trump's anti-Muslim rhetoric (which plays so well within Modi's Hindu nationalist project), waxed lyrical about how good Trump was for India. None of them seem to realise that Trump doesn't give a hoot about India's interests, only his own.

Personal relationships mean nothing to this transactional president, only "hard material realities". And the key material reality is that India stands to lose a lot if we don't fix this alliance. "Russia can sell us cheaper crude and air defence systems, but it cannot compensate for the loss of an economic partnership" with by far our largest trading partner. Our exports, our IT sector, the expats who send us remittances: all depend on this relationship. So we'll just have to suck it up, swallow our pride and get these tariffs reversed.

Imagine an event with all the fun of a wedding but none of the commitment, stress or family drama: you've just imagined the latest entry onto the Indian party scene.

At a "fake wedding", people gather "to enjoy a wedding party minus the actual marriage”, said the BBC, and the trend is spreading beyond India's shores.

'There for the energy'

There are "dazzling lights, glittering outfits, Bollywood hits, a lavish spread of food and an atmosphere soaked in celebration". It all feels "extravagant, emotional and larger than life" but there's no bride and groom, "just the party".

These "judgement-free" ceremonies offer the wedding experience "without drama", said Curly Tales. You can have the enjoyment of a Desi wedding "without the emotional baggage" or "financial headache". There's "no awkward gift-giving, no planning leave from work for a multi-day affair" and "fake smiles" aren't required for "distant relatives" you hardly know.

Fake weddings chime with young people's desire to find reasons to celebrate. And the trend's "low-commitment nature" works well for the younger generation because "you're not attending out of obligation"; you're there "because you want to be – for the music, for the energy, and for the people".

Dubai dance-offs

The trend is already evolving. At some fake weddings, the organisers divide attendees into "groom's team" or "bride's team"; at others, there's "no alcohol, just a themed celebration", said the BBC. Fake Indian weddings are also "taking over Dubai", said Curly Tales, where ticketed parties are "decked out with dhols, DJs, dance-offs and full-blown wedding decor".

In India's big cities – Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru – ticket prices for fake weddings start at around 1,500 rupees (£13) but they can be as high as 15,000 rupees or more. This is great news for India's $130 billion (£97 billion) wedding industry. Most "proper" weddings take place during the cooler months, typically between November and March, and venues are often empty between June and August. Fake weddings can step in to fill that gap.

It's already clear there's real appeal in faking it. And why not, said Curly Tales, when you can swerve the "social minefield" of relatives asking "questions about your career, relationships or why you're not next in line"? The "only thing expected of you" is to "show up, dress well and have fun".

What happened

President Donald Trump Monday said he would "substantially" raise tariffs on India for "buying massive amounts of Russian oil" and "selling it on the open market for big profits," elaborating on his threat last week to impose a penalty on top of a 25% tax for Indian imports. "They don't care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine," he said on social media Monday.

Who said what

India's foreign ministry called Trump's "targeting" of the country "unjustified and unreasonable," and said New Delhi would "take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security." China, the other top buyer of Moscow's oil, last week also rejected Trump's tariffs-linked demand to cut back on Russian imports.

Despite India's "defiance," its "main refiners paused buying Russian oil last week," Reuters said. But the "unpredictability of the Trump administration" makes negotiating difficult. "Given the wild fluctuations in Trump's policies," the U.S. "may return to high fives and hugs" with India, or even Russia, Sreeram Chaulia of New Delhi's Jindal School of International Affairs told The Associated Press.

What next?

Trump's oil outbursts "reflect his frustration with the pace of trade talks with India" and are mostly about "trying to play hardball in negotiations," the AP said, citing a White House official. Trump has also set a Friday deadline for Russia to halt its bombing of Ukraine or face new sanctions, though President Vladimir Putin has so far "shown no public sign of altering his stance," Reuters said.

There's really only one way to arrive at the largest religious gathering on planet earth: on the back of a motorcycle.

Our mode of transport wasn't a matter of arriving in style (although there was a cinematic feel to it) but pure necessity. Some 660 million pilgrims journeyed to the banks of the River Ganges over 44 days during Kumbh Mela, the religious Hindu festival we had come to witness – although as we moved with the swirling currents of an almost endless sea of ox carts, motorcycles and pilgrims on foot, it seemed like everyone had arrived all at once.

Witnessing the world's largest pilgrimage

In fact, our arrival at the festival coincided with another sacred day, the Maha Shivratri Festival. Over 15 million people came to bathe on this day alone.

Witnessing the sheer number of people moving to and from the Ganges during the festival is almost incomprehensible. And a surprisingly efficient cottage industry of "mototaxis" springs up each year: for a fee, young men ferry pilgrims on the backs of their motorcycles. To say the least, it's a white-knuckle ride, but it's also likely to be the most jaw-dropping journey you ever take.

It's only really possible to take in a few impressions as you dart through the crowds to the river bank: ash-covered sadhus sitting silently by the road, a rainbow of saris flashing past, entire families crammed impossibly into three-wheeled tuktuks, and all accompanied by a ceaseless background of devotional chants and traffic horns. All who travelled there had one shared goal: to bathe in the Ganges and cleanse themselves of sin.

A full Kumbh Mela is held every 12 years, when planetary alignments dictate that the Ganges is at its most potent for spiritual purification. Each gathering draws hundreds of millions, but this year carried a particular weight. We had arrived for the Maha Kumbh, a rare celestial event occurring only once every 144 years, making this festival a truly once-in-a-generation event.

My travelling companions and I mused that the scale of the festival on just the one day we visited was like over 350 Glastonbury Festivals occurring at once – although of course, it is almost nothing like the carefully planned revelry which happens on Worthy Farm.

Bidding farewell to our mototaxis, we ventured further to the bank of the Ganges, where, after some skilful negotiations from our guides, we were allowed onto a small wooden barge and rowed up the river. The most sacred spot to bathe is at the Triveni Sangam, where the Ganges, the Yamuna and the Sarasvati (a mythical river said to run under the Ganges) meet.

I was about to ask our guide where exactly this spot is, when it became clear there was no need: the floating mass in the distance was a small island made of countless numbers of the same wooden barges, which pilgrims would jump off into the water (which I was surprised to find was only waist-deep) and – as hundreds of millions of other Hindus also had done – take part in the sacred ritual bathing.

Uttar Pradesh's overlooked capital

After 24 frenetic hours at Kumbh Mela, we travelled from Prayagraj to Lucknow, a place offering as close to respite as any major Indian city can. Uttar Pradesh's sometimes overlooked capital carries a deep cultural heritage from its storied rulers – the Mughals, Nawabs, and the British. It is a city that brims with architectural marvels like the Bara Imambara, an awe-inspiring 18th-century mosque and meeting place, said to contain more than 1,000 passages and 489 doorways.

The city is equally famous for chikankari, the exquisitely delicate floral embroidery produced only here. This intricate handmade craft, refined under Awadh court patronage in the 18th and 19th centuries, was woven into Mughal court dress.

Here we were invited to dine at the ancestral home of academic and poet Ali Mahmudabad. Mahmudabad House is a striking example of Indo-European Regency architecture. Mahmudabad explained the home had been preserved with this philosophy in mind: "Rebuild what is necessary and retain what is beautiful."

That evening, a candlelit concert unfolded on the rooftop courtyard of the great house. And as the haunting Yaman raga emerged from the sarangi, accompanied by table drums, the music brought to mind the words of T.S. Eliot: "a music heard so deeply/That it is not heard at all, but you are the music/While the music lasts".

From there, we descended to the spectacular dining room, where portraits of past inhabitants gazed down and an ancient stuffed tiger's head watched over proceedings from the mantelpiece. Renowned chef and food writer Taiyaba Ali had prepared a 12-course feast of Awadhi cuisine that any Michelin-starred kitchen would struggle to replicate; any true foodie must eat here.

Dudhwa: Uttar Pradesh's hidden wilderness

The jewel of this region, however, is undoubtedly the lush Terai woodlands and wetlands found in Dudhwa National Park. It is one of India's "least-explored wildernesses", explains Chinmay Vasavada of the Explorations Company, the careful curator behind our trip, who marvelled at the forest's "almost Kipling-esque magic".

Based at the stunning Jaagir Manor, a boutique luxury hotel in the heart of this breathtaking landscape, we searched for tigers under the guidance of Amit Bhangre, the lodge's general manager and passionate naturalist. His deep connection to nature is evident – when asked his favourite type of music one evening, he replied simply: "birdsong".

More than 59 adult tigers and 29 cubs are thought to live within this region, where tigers grow notably larger than elsewhere, Bhangre explained, sometimes reaching 300kg due to abundant fresh water and cattle in the area. Yet these elusive creatures are not always easy to spot. Unlike the rich abundance of animals encountered on safari in countries such as Kenya and South Africa, a tiger safari becomes more of a waiting game – hours spent listening for alarm calls from spotted deer and langur monkeys that signal a predator's presence nearby.

Bhangre's years of observation have revealed surprising tiger behaviours. He has witnessed them hunting in scorching 45C midday heat, far from water sources, challenging the common belief that they are strictly nocturnal creatures. "We know them and we don't know them," he reflects, acknowledging how much mystery still surrounds these apex predators.

That doesn't mean that your patience won't be rewarded. Great hornbills soar overhead while fishing cats prowl the wetlands. Grey fish eagles dive for their catch as oriental pied hornbills, indicators of a healthy, prosperous forest rich with mixed trees and fruits, call from the canopy. Green bee eaters dart through the air alongside woodpeckers and kingfishers, while Reece's macaques chatter in the branches. And then, when you least expect it, perhaps after hours of silent waiting, a tiger's amber eyes emerge from the tall grasslands. For a breathtaking moment, predator and observer hold each other's gaze before the tiger plunges back into the heart of the ancient forest.

Sorcha was a guest of Explorations Company, explorationscompany.com

China has begun construction on the world's largest hydropower dam, a project so massive that Premier Li Qiang called it the "project of the century." But the dam could also create a big problem for China's next-door neighbor, India.

The Motuo Hydropower Station on the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Tibet could eventually "generate three times more energy" than current champion Three Gorges dam, said the BBC. But the $167 billion project has "attracted criticism" because of its potential to affect "millions of Indians and Bangladeshis" living downstream. The new dam gives China a "chokehold on India's economy," said the Lowy Institute in a 2020 report. That is an "existential threat" to India, said Pema Khandu, the chief minister of the state of Arunachal Pradesh. China could use the hydropower station "as a sort of 'water bomb.'"

The waterway is a "lifeline for millions" in India and Bangladesh, where it provides "irrigation, hydropower and drinking water," said Reuters. (The river is known as the Brahmaputra in those countries.) That heightens the risk of the dam project as a possible flashpoint: India and China "fought a border war in this region" during the 1960s. Beijing's "lack of transparency" about the new project has raised new fears that China would "cut off water in another conflict."

What did the commentators say?

China's "mega-dam" project could "reshape Asia," said Riley Callanan at GZERO. There are benefits: The hydropower station is expected to produce 60 gigawatts of electricity, "ten times as much" as the Grand Coulee dam in Washington state. That could "stimulate the Chinese economy." The danger is that the project will spark a water arms race of sorts, with China and India engaging in "competitive dam-building throughout the Himalayas." It would not be the first time that water has been weaponized. India suspended a decades-old water-sharing treaty with Pakistan during armed skirmishes in May. The new dam adds "another layer of complexity" to the relationships between regional "neighbors competing for the same resources."

The dam is "less a beacon of progress" and more a "harbinger of cascading crises," said Khedroob Thondup at The Sunday Guardian in India. The dangers are more than geopolitical. The dam is located in one of the "most seismically active zones on Earth," not far from the location of the 1950 Assam-Tibet earthquake that killed an estimated 4,800 people. While "China's pursuit of renewable energy is commendable," the world's climate future should not be "built on fault lines — literal and political."

What next?

India may start its own dam building, said Bloomberg. Officials are "working with local communities to build support" for a new dam downstream of the Tibet project. China has "already started their dam construction, and we cannot sit idle," said Ojing Tasing, a minister in the state government. Chinese observers see the new dam as a statement of their country's ambitions, said the South China Morning Post. The Motuo Hydropower Station is a "strategic pivot that could power both the nation and its markets into a new era," said Hong Hao, the chief investment officer at Lotus Asset Management.

New evidence suggests the crash of Air India Flight 171 could have been the result of human error or that the fuel cut-off switches were deliberately triggered by one of the pilots.

The AI171 flight from Ahmedabad, in western India, to London crashed less than a minute after take-off, killing all but one of the 242 passengers and crew on board as well as 19 people on the ground, making it the world's worst aviation disaster in a decade.

A preliminary report by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has revealed that the fuel supply to both engines was cut off as the plane was taking off. Seconds later the switches were turned back on, but it was too late to stop the aircraft from crashing.

What did the commentators say?

The findings reveal the "fundamental reason why the jet crashed, but much remains unexplained", said CNN.

The report does "not make clear how the fuel switches were flipped to the cut-off position during the flight, whether it was deliberate, accidental or if a technical fault was responsible".

Aviation experts have been quick to point out that on Boeing 787 Dreamliners the fuel switches must be pulled up to unlock before flipping and are also safeguarded by protective brackets to prevent them being activated accidentally.

A safety feature "dating back to the 1950s," these level-lock switches are "built to exacting standards" and are "highly reliable", said the BBC.

A key piece of evidence comes from the cockpit voice recording, in which one of the pilots is heard asking: "Why did you cut off?" in reference to the fuel supply switch. The other pilot responds: "I did not do so".

This has understandably focused attention on the two pilots.

The captain, 56-year-old Sumeet Sabharwal, was "nearing the end of an impeccable career as a commercial pilot" with more than 15,000 hours of flying experience, said The Times. His co-pilot, 32-year-old Clive Kunder, was "much nearer the start of his career". Both men were "well-rested".

In the aftermath of the crash, both pilots were "treated as heroes" as they managed to steer the descending plane away from a crowded block of residential flats. But the AAIB report "raises questions about the pilots' actions that afternoon", while simultaneously "finding no fault so far with the aircraft itself".

"Deliberate, malicious intent from either pilot would appear unthinkable given the record of the Air India officers in the cockpit", said The Guardian. "Switching off by mistake would also seem incredible. And yet human error cannot be excluded".

What next?

Analysis of the full cockpit voice recorder "holds the key to this puzzle", said the BBC. With "audio from pilot mics, radio calls and ambient cockpit sounds" as well as a "full cockpit transcript", it should be possible to ascertain who said what and which pilot was in control of the aircraft at the time the fuel switches were turned off.

The Air India crash has also made a case for "revisiting" cockpit video recorders, said The Air Current. More than 20 years – and multiple airline crashes – after the US National Transportation Safety Board recommended fitting crash-protected cockpit image recording, "video recording technology is ubiquitous, advanced and nowhere to be found in the cockpits of most commercial jetliners".

The AAIB report also highlighted a 2018 bulletin from the US Federal Aviation Administration about the potential for the fuel control switch locking mechanism to disengage. While "not mandatory, the inspection recommended by the FAA was not performed by Air India", said The Times, prompting legal action from victims' families to obtain information on the Boeing 787's fuel control system.

A full report into the crash is expected in 12 months.

This dish, by DabbaDrop co-founder Anshu Ahuja, has made its way through three generations of her family: from her grandmother's Sunday lunches, to her mother's dinner parties, and now to her own south Asian food-delivery service.

In a twist on erisseri, a comforting, coconut-heavy dish from Kerala, this curry includes plump, creamy butter beans to add bite and soak up the golden, spice-laden sauce.

It's sweet, rich, and tangy all at once: an instant mood-lifter and the ultimate crowd-pleaser. Serve it with fluffy jasmine rice – or eat straight from the pot with a spoon.

Ingredients (serves 2-3)

• 1 tbsp coconut oil
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 6-8 fresh curry leaves (or 1 tsp dried)
• 1 small red onion, sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 1 tbsp grated ginger
• 1 green chilli, chopped
• 1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
• ½ tsp turmeric
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 cup (about 200ml) coconut milk
• ½ cup (120ml) water
• 1 cup (about 200g) cherry tomatoes, halved
• 400g butter beans, drained and rinsed
• salt, to taste
• lemon juice, to taste

Method

• Heat the coconut oil in a medium pan over medium heat. Add the mustard seeds and cook until they begin to pop, before adding the curry leaves and letting them sizzle for a few seconds.
• Add the sliced onion, chopped garlic, grated ginger and chopped green chilli. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft and golden.
• Stir in the Kashmiri chilli powder, turmeric, and sugar, and let the spices toast for 1 minute to release their aroma.
• Pour in the coconut milk and water. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 5 minutes.
• Add the halved cherry tomatoes and drained and rinsed butter beans. Simmer for another 5 minutes, until the tomatoes have softened and the sauce has thickened slightly.
• Season to taste with salt and lemon juice. Serve hot with fluffy jasmine rice or warm naan.

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After nearly 60 years of violence, the jungle-based struggle for communist rule in India could finally be coming to an end. Operation Kagar, a military offensive launched by Indian security forces in April this year, has apparently reduced to remnants the once-powerful Naxalite insurgency group. But Prime Minister Narendra Modi's crackdown on the guerrilla movement "comes at a bloody price", and may, critics say, be motivated by something "other" than a "wish for peace", said The Guardian.

Agrarian revolution

The Naxalite insurgency began in 1967, with a peasant uprising in Naxalbari, West Bengal. Inspired by Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong and Marxist-Leninist ideology, the rebels advocate for class struggle and agrarian revolution through armed resistance. Their aim is to overthrow the government and establish a communist state.

The insurgents say their fight is for the rights of indigenous tribes and the rural poor, pointing to decades of state neglect and land dispossession. Since 2000, violence between insurgents and security forces has claimed nearly 12,000 lives, more than 4,000 of them civilian, according to the South Asian Terrorism Portal.

The strength of the insurgency has "surged" at various points over the past 50 years, said The Guardian. During its "peak" in the early 2000s, the Naxalites controlled "large swathes of the country, known as the 'red corridor'", and had more than 30,000 foot soldiers. But now there are thought only to be about 500 active fighters, operating in "limited districts".

Corporate interests

Last month, India's most-wanted Naxalite, Nambala Keshava Rao, was cornered and killed, along with 26 others, in a major attack, described by Home Minister Amit Shah, as "the most decisive strike" against the Maoist insurgency in three decades, said the BBC. The moment marked "more than a tactical victory", it also signalled a "breach in the Maoists' last line of defence in Bastar", the densely forested heartland that's been the group's "fiercest stronghold" since the 1980s.

The government crackdown has its sceptics, however, given the Naxalite leaders' repeated calls, since the start of the year, for a ceasefire and peace negotiations. The government has "ignored" these calls, said The Guardian, reinforcing a "suspicion among activists and lawyers" that the main motive for the crackdown is "not peace but corporate interests". The forests in which the insurgents have historically operated are "rich with coal and minerals", such as iron ore, and some of India's biggest industrialists have plans to expand their mining operations there, with government backing.

"This is not an anti-Maoist operation; it is a killing spree," N. Venugopal, a newspaper editor who has spent years writing about the Naxalite movement, told The Guardian. The security forces have "become like bounty hunters, killing for rewards".

Modi's government has vowed that the Maoist insurgency will be "completely eradicated" by March 2026, so this "battle-hardened" story of rebellion "stands at a crossroads", said the BBC. It remains to be seen if this is "truly the end" or "just another pause in its long, bloody arc".

The deadly crash of Air India Flight 171 last week has centered renewed scrutiny on the airplane's manufacturer, Boeing, and this time it's the 787 Dreamliner in investigators' sights. The accident, which killed over 270 people, was the first fatal crash for the Dreamliner since the model began flying in 2011.

Experts had previously raised concerns about safety issues for the Dreamliner, and the crash comes just weeks after Boeing agreed to a multi-billion-dollar payout related to another one of its faulty aircraft, the 737 Max. Now, the Dreamliner's troubles may begin to overshadow the Max's issues.

More problems for Boeing

Worries about the Dreamliner are not entirely new, as the "planes have been the subject of heightened scrutiny after whistleblowers raised concerns about manufacturing and quality issues going back many years," said The New York Times. Despite these concerns, the plane had never been involved in a fatal crash in the 14 years it has been flying, according to the Aviation Safety Network.

The cause of the Air India crash remains unclear, and "multiple factors, including bird strikes, pilot error, manufacturing defects or inadequate maintenance, can play a role in aviation accidents," said the Times. Determining the cause of the accident could take "months or years." Boeing "stands ready to support the investigation led by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau," said Boeing President and CEO Kelly Ortberg in a statement.

But this is only the latest in a string of issues for Boeing, which has faced public ire over safety incidents in recent years. Just weeks before the Air India crash, Boeing "agreed to pay $1.1 billion in a deal with the U.S. Department of Justice to avoid prosecution over the two crashes that together killed 346 people" on 737 Max jets, said The Guardian.

Recent problems with the Dreamliner have also drawn attention. American Airlines decided to ground a "new premium-heavy Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner due to serious maintenance problems," the aviation news site Simple Flying reported two days before the Air India crash. Another Dreamliner that was "identical to the one that crashed in India made four emergency landings in less than a month earlier this year," said The Telegraph.

New questions

The Dreamliner debacle "comes at a critical moment for the hobbled American icon, which has been buffeted by a succession of crises in recent years, losing billions of dollars due to plane groundings and production delays," said The Wall Street Journal. The Air India crash will likely "raise fresh questions about Boeing just as it begins to emerge from the fallout of a high-profile incident early last year when a door plug on a recently delivered 737 Max fell off during a flight."

Boeing employees have "observed shortcuts taken by Boeing" during assembly of the Dreamliner, "resulting in drilling debris left in interfaces and deformation of composite material," one Boeing engineer told CBS News. The engineer also claimed to have witnessed issues with other models. While this was the first fatal crash involving the Dreamliner, the plane has been "involved in previous investigations."

The Air India crash was also critically timed for Boeing on the business side, as it occurred "days before the opening of the Paris Air Show, a major aviation expo where Boeing and European rival Airbus will showcase their aircraft and battle for jet orders from airline customers," said The Associated Press. Boeing has already been dealing with significant losses in recent years, having "posted a 2024 loss of $11.8 billion," said CBS, bringing its total losses to over $35 billion since 2019.

What happened

A London-bound Air India flight crashed into a residential area of Ahmedabad seconds after takeoff yesterday, killing 241 or 242 passengers and crew and more than two dozen people on the ground, including at least five medical students in a hostel hit by the plane.

The only surviving passenger, British national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, told medics he was thrown from the plane as it split in two. It was the first fatal crash of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the deadliest aviation disaster in India since 1996.

Who said what

About "30 seconds after takeoff, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed," Ramesh told the Hindustan Times. "When I got up there were bodies all around me." His brother told Sky News that Ramesh "video-called my dad and said, 'Our plane crashed — I have no idea how I got outside, or how I survived.'" Most of the people on the flight were Indian nationals, but 52 British passengers, seven Portuguese and one Canadian also died in the crash.

What next?

Outside experts speculated, based on CCTV footage, that the plane may have lost altitude and crashed due to a bird strike, "extremely rare double engine failure," improperly set flaps or heat-related lift issues, the BBC said. "Early hypotheses often are ruled out during lengthy, technical crash investigations," The New York Times said.

BBC One's Bafta-winning "Race Across the World" has become one of the channel's hottest properties, spawning an inevitable celebrity spin-off and even a live experience in London.

The show follows two-person teams racing to get to a finish line that is often in a far-flung part of the world. This year, the five teams are covering 8,700 miles, from the Great Wall of China to the very south of India in a bid to win £20,000.

The challenge comes from the wildly low budget they are given for the two-month adventure – the cash equivalent of the air fare from start to finish. But plane journeys, as well as credit cards and mobile phones, are banned.

Some fans are so enamoured with the premise that rather than battle through the ultra-competitive audition process, they are embarking on their own big adventures with limited budgets and resources. Some of the "DIY trips" taken by "adventurous families" include interrailing around Europe, a "hop-on, hop-off" bus trip through Peru and a four-month "epic journey" across South America, said The i Paper.

For those following in the contestants' footsteps, one of last year's winners, Alfie Watts, "shared some tips" as well as "things you should never do when exploring", said Richmond & Twickenham Times. "My top tip is to research everything," said Watts, who travelled from Japan to Indonesia on the show. He recommends budgeting for £40 a day as a minimum and considering the less-trodden path. "I was absolutely shocked by the affordability of Uzbekistan when I went there in March. I also found Brazil and, of course, South East Asia extremely cheap."

Travel agencies have even devised their own tours inspired by the show. Audley Travel offers various itineraries in China, Nepal and India so you "could experience each destination your own way". One is a 15-day "Classic China tour", seeing "iconic sights", trekking through rice terraces and exploring Shanghai's French Concession by bicycle. Price? From £5,115. But at least you don't have try to sleep on an overnight bus.

For those who don't have the time, events specialist CityDays has created Race Across the World: The Experience London, an immersive experience that mimics the show but lasts just two to three hours.

About 2,000 years ago, art on the Indian subcontinent underwent "a stunning transformation", said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian.

Where it had previously been "enigmatically abstract", it started to become "incredibly accomplished at portraying the human body – and soul". This extraordinary cultural development, pioneered by Buddhist artisans, is the subject of this exhibition at the British Museum, which examines the region's devotional art reaching back more than 2,000 years, and tells "a passionate story about the three great religions of ancient India – Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism – and their vitality across time".

Featuring around 180 objects (sculptures, paintings, manuscripts and drawings), it is filled with treasures, from a miraculous statue of the elephant-headed Hindu deity Ganesha to a silk painting of the Buddha "set in a dreamworld of deep reds and greens". All three faiths are, of course, still practised by millions worldwide today: videos of contemporary worshippers help to "blast the museum dust off" this ancient art, and give a "sense of its living power". "Ethereal and sensual", this is a fabulous event.

Given its vast geographical scope, the show feels remarkably "compact", said Nancy Durrant in The Times. Separated into four sections and "accompanied by a soundtrack of temple bells and birdsong", it shows how imagery initially developed in the worship of "nature spirits" worked its way first into Jainism, then Buddhism – both of which appeared in India about 2,500 years ago – and finally into Hinduism.

The objects themselves are "gorgeous": we see much "lively, expressive, dynamic sculpture", from "rudimentary" yakshas and yakshis (small terracotta statuettes of male and female spirits), to a "skilful, intricate" depiction of a Jain goddess of knowledge "wielding a pen and a palm-leaf manuscript".

The "rich devotional art" of any of these three religions could easily merit its own show, said Alastair Sooke in The Telegraph. It's a shame, then, that they have been bundled into a single package here, in a way that is often confusing. The contextual notes fail to address "simple, nuts-and-bolts questions". We don't learn why the Buddha was frequently depicted with "elongated ears" or, in the early days, using symbols such as footprints; nor why female deities were sometimes represented "semi-nude" even when wielding objects associated with knowledge.

Elsewhere, important subjects – such as the art of Gandhara in present-day Pakistan and Afghanistan, where a "fascinating fusion" of Greco-Roman and south Asian influences took hold – are "short-changed". Unfortunately, though the subject matter is fascinating, "this isn't, by any stretch, a vintage show". I left feeling "frustrated, disappointed, even cross".

Nestling at the point where the borders of India and Pakistan meet in the Himalayas, Jammu and Kashmir is the only Muslim-majority state or territory in Hindu-majority India (excepting the tiny Lakshadweep archipelago). It has been a flashpoint between India and Pakistan since Partition in 1947, partly because of its geo-strategic importance.

The glacial waters flowing through Kashmir provide water and electricity to tens of millions of people in India; Pakistan's biggest river, the Indus, also passes through it. But to both sides it is also a symbol of pride, a land famed for its beauty. "If there is a heaven on Earth," the Mughal emperor Jahangir once remarked, "it's here, it's here, it's here."

Its mountainous landscape appears often in Bollywood films and on restaurant walls across the subcontinent. There are also significant Muslim and Hindu shrines in Kashmir.

How did Kashmir end up largely under Indian control?

In the mid-19th century, Kashmir's Sikh rulers ceded the Valley of Kashmir to the British, who in turn sold it to the Hindu rajah of neighbouring Jammu. Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, became a holiday resort for the British.

Upon independence a century later, the princely states in theory had the right to choose whether to join India or Pakistan, but the decision was largely determined by religious demographics and geographical location. Kashmir's playboy maharaja, Hari Singh, could not decide, as his state adjoined both nations; he pondered turning it into an independent "Switzerland of Asia". But his hand was forced when, after Partition, Muslims in northwest Kashmir, backed by a Pakistani tribal army, rose up against the Hindu population and massacred them.

Independent India's new PM, Jawaharlal Nehru, a Kashmiri Hindu by descent, sent in troops to quash the revolt – in return, Singh ceded Kashmir to India, in October 1947.

How did Pakistan react?

Pakistan has (like India) always claimed the whole of Kashmir, and its regular forces entered the conflict soon after. The resulting First Indo-Pakistani War ended in 1949, with a UN-brokered ceasefire.

Most of the region was left under Indian control, except the northwestern third, including Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad ("Free") Kashmir, which is controlled by Pakistan. In 1948, the UN called for both sides to withdraw troops and let the people of Kashmir vote on their future status. This referendum never took place, essentially because Nehru realised that it would not be decided in India's favour.

Instead, the countries went to war over Kashmir again, first in 1965 and then in 1971. The ceasefire line agreed in the Simla Agreement in 1972 became the de facto border, known as the "Line of Control".

How did the Kashmiris react?

From the 1950s on, popular movements emerged in Kashmir demanding either independence or a merger with Pakistan. India responded with repression, while Pakistan provided support for militant groups. In the late 1980s, growing opposition to Indian rule was fuelled by a rigged election and the killing of peaceful protesters.

The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, a pro-independence group backed by Pakistan, launched an insurgency against the Indian authorities. India responded with a massive counterinsurgency operation, flooding the region with troops, and making Kashmir one of the most highly militarised areas in the world. About 41,000 people were killed over the following 27 years. Extrajudicial military killings were rife; at least 8,000 Kashmiris "disappeared". Nearly all the Hindus in the Valley of Kashmir, known as the Pandits – about 100,000 – left following a series of terrorist killings.

What has happened since?

The insurgency was largely brought under control by the early 2000s, but there have been regular eruptions of violence since. Pakistan's military intelligence service, the ISI, has encouraged the growth of radical Islamist groups that focus on the Kashmir issue, though their members are often not Kashmiris.

The usual pattern is that an atrocity takes place (the killing of 40 paramilitary police by a car bomb in 2019, for example); India then holds Pakistan responsible, and attacks alleged terrorist camps in Pakistan, which denies responsibility and counter-attacks. But the latest atrocity was different, since it hit tourists, not a military target.

What is PM Narendra Modi's policy on Kashmir?

All Indian governments since 1947 have taken a hard line on Kashmir, but Modi's Hindu nationalist BJP has been particularly unyielding. In 2019, it revoked Article 370 of India's Constitution, dating from 1949, which had guaranteed Kashmir a degree of autonomy, and restricted property rights to "permanent residents". Instead, Jammu and Kashmir is now ruled directly from Delhi. His government had also claimed that militancy in the region was in check, and encouraged the resumption of tourism.

What do Kashmiris want?

This is hotly contested, and there is no simple answer. An authoritative poll, conducted by Chatham House and Mori in 2010, found that in India-administered Jammu and Kashmir, 43% said they would vote for independence, while 28% would vote to stay with India, and only 2% to join Pakistan. However, this varied strongly by region: of some 13 million people in the state, eight million live in the Kashmir Valley, which is now over 95% Muslim; upwards of 74% there supported independence.

But in Jammu, where five million people live, 68% of them Hindu, support for independence was only 1%. In Azad (Pakistani) Kashmir, 50% thought Kashmir as a whole should be part of Pakistan, and 45% thought it should be independent. Robert Bradnock, who ran the poll, concluded that the referendum envisaged by the UN would now fail to resolve the conflict.

A landmark trade deal has been agreed between the UK and India but there are concerns over the National Insurance concessions it contains for Indian workers.

The UK government claimed the deal was a win for working people and British business, pointing to reduced tariffs on goods such as whisky, gin and chocolate.

It is an agreement that has been in the making since 2022 and touted as a "big Brexit boon", said The Guardian. But since the announcement there have been "political fireworks", said Politico, namely over a perceived relaxation of social security or National Insurance payments for Indian workers in the UK.

What is the NI concession?

The UK-India trade deal includes what is known as a "double contributions convention", where "neither Indian nor British workers" will need to pay National Insurance contributions "in both their home country and the one they are working in", said Politico. Instead, workers will only need to pay it in one nation for the first three years of their placement.

But the announcement means ministers have been "left on the defensive", said The Times, as critics claim Indian workers will be "paying less in tax than their British counterparts for doing the same job".

It comes after the government controversially increased employer NI payments during the Autumn Budget.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch described the NI issue in the UK-India trade deal as "two-tier taxes from two-tier Keir".

Are Indian workers getting a better deal?

Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds has insisted the deal "would not impact British workers", said the BBC, stating the UK has 16 agreements designed to prevent "double taxation of work". Such agreements cover more than 50 countries, "including the US, EU and South Korea".

Even influential Tory figures such as Oliver Dowden and former Brexit minister Steve Baker have backed the deal, said The Guardian, highlighting that opt-outs for seconded workers "were routine in trade deals".

Delhi has also argued that its workers "would not receive any of the benefits that National Insurance is supposed to pay for", said The Times, such as pensions and welfare payments.

The exemption also doesn't apply to all Indian nationals working in the UK, said FullFact, "though this hasn’t been made clear".

Trade minister Douglas Alexander told LBC the exemption would be for "a very specific and limited group of Indian business people for a period of three years".

Indian workers seconded here will still have to pay the UK immigration health surcharge on NHS care, said FullFact. Plus, the arrangement is reciprocal. Consequently, British workers sent by their companies to work in India will benefit as "they won't have to make Indian social security payments for up to three years".

India and Pakistan's escalating military attacks against one another in recent weeks, which brought the two antagonistic powers closer to major conflict than they had been in years, called attention to another stakeholder in the region: China. The global superpower has a keen interest in what happens in its national backyard.

Following last month's terrorist assault on tourists in the contested Kashmir region, long claimed by both India and Pakistan, the two nuclear-armed nations' escalating violence seemed to resolve with a shaky but stable weekend ceasefire. But China's shadow looms large over the events of this past week, and the hints at the possibility of future violence between South Asia's longtime adversaries.

A 'rich intelligence harvest' for China

Pakistan's claim that its forces used Chinese-made J-10C fighter jets to down Indian aircraft, "including the advanced French-made Rafale," may have provided the world's "first real glimpse" at how "advanced Chinese military technology performs against proven Western hardware," CNN said. While it hasn't fought a major war in nearly half a century, China has "raced to modernize its armed forces." As Pakistan's "primary arms supplier," Beijing is "likely watching intently" to gauge how well its weapons "have and potentially will perform in real combat."

With China supplying the "vast majority" of Pakistan's military purchases, and India turning westward for its own arms, the result has "injected superpower politics into South Asia's longest-running and most intractable conflict," The New York Times said — particularly as China has "deepened its investment in its advocacy and patronage of Pakistan" in the face of warming Indian-American relations. The "most important global aspect" of this latest Indian-Pakistani violence is that for the first time, "Chinese military equipment has been tested against top-notch western equipment," said Sushant Singh, a lecturer at South Asian Studies at Yale University, at the Financial Times.

The latest violence between India and Pakistan also offers a "potentially rich intelligence harvest" for China, which has advanced enough capabilities to "deeply scrutinize Indian actions in real time" across border installations, naval fleets, "as well as from space," Reuters said. While both India and China have "taken steps to strengthen their military facilities and capabilities" along their shared border, China's host of orbital satellites in particular "packs an intelligence gathering punch" compared to India's capabilities.

'Peace, stability and development' in the region

While China and Pakistan enjoy close military and diplomatic ties, Beijing has conspicuously — and perhaps surprisingly — pushed for a measure of restraint during this latest spate of Kashmir violence. India and Pakistan are both "important countries in South Asia," said Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Guo Jiakun last month. The "harmonious coexistence" between the two rival nations is "vital to the peace, stability and development of the region.

Continued violence between India and Pakistan could threaten China's "very important equities in Pakistan, including sizeable levels of infrastructure investment and other assets," said regional analyst Michael Kugelman to the South China Morning Post. Moreover, Beijing's "recent efforts to improve relations with India may limit its response to diplomatic support for Pakistan," said The Diplomat.

At the same time, Pakistan's alleged use of Chinese-made fighter jets to successfully repel Indian planes is "essentially a powerful advertisement" for China's arms industry, said military observer Antony Wong Dong to CNN. "All countries potentially looking to buy fighter jets, as well as China’s regional rivals, will need to seriously reconsider: how should they face this new reality?"

India launched missiles into Pakistan on Wednesday in an escalation of tensions after militants opened fire on tourists in the disputed Kashmir region last month.

The attack took place in the Indian-administered part of the region and the 26 victims were mostly Indian tourists. Though Pakistan denies responsibility, the Indian defence ministry said its "Operation Sindoor" hit targeted sites within Pakistani territory used by the perpetrators – a group known as Kashmir Resistance.

Who controls Kashmir?

Control over Kashmir is split mainly between India and Pakistan. India controls a little over half of the region, while roughly a third is administered by Pakistan. China controls the remaining 15% – the desolate northeastern region of Aksai Chin, through which it built a strategically valuable road in the late 1950s connecting Xinjiang with the recently annexed Tibet in the south.

Kashmir is hotly disputed and has been since the partition of British India in 1947, with the first armed conflict between Pakistan and India taking place that year. Delhi and Islamabad claim rightful ownership over the entirety of Kashmir to this day, and tensions between the two nuclear states have increased in the last decade.

How did the dispute begin?

In 1947, Britain's former Indian colony was split into two independent states: Pakistan, a predominantly Muslim nation, and India, which is majority Hindu. The then ruler of Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh, ceded control to India in exchange for security guarantees. But the region was then attacked by militants from Pakistan, sparking the First Kashmir War.

That conflict, also known as the Indo-Pakistani War, lasted two years before the United Nations stepped in to negotiate a ceasefire. This resulted in a de facto division of Kashmir between India and Pakistan, called the Line of Control. The line was meant as a stopgap, "pending a more permanent political settlement", said The New York Times.

Have there been more conflicts since?

With no long-standing political resolution, there have been two further wars over the region. The second Kashmir war took place in 1965, sparked by a covert operation by the Pakistani military into Indian Kashmir. The conflict was brutal but lasted only a few weeks, with the US and Soviet Union helping to broker a ceasefire.

The most recent official conflict took place in 1999, though insurgencies and attacks had been a common feature in Kashmir in the intervening period. The Kargil War again began after Pakistani forces infiltrated Indian Kashmir. Although it was a short war – with India ultimately regaining control of the area – it was fierce, resulting in hundreds of casualties for both nations.

India and Pakistan also went to war in 1971 over the independence of Bangladesh, a conflict that led to talks aimed at improving relations between the two powers. One upshot of those talks was that the Line of Control in Kashmir was made permanent.

What's happened more recently?

Although there have been no further wars in Kashmir since 1999, the area has been blighted by small-scale insurgencies and terror attacks. In 2019, Delhi stripped Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status, as part of a wider security clampdown that attracted criticism from human rights groups. The Pakistan-controlled area, called Azad Kashmir, is officially self-governing but economically and administratively dependent on Pakistan.

The recent strikes by India represent the "most significant military actions in recent years", said India Today. Islamabad has called the attacks a "blatant act of war", leaving the prospect of further conflict in Kashmir on a knife-edge.

What happened

India launched missiles at nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir Tuesday night, killing at least 26 people and drawing retaliatory fire. Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said the strikes targeted "terrorist infrastructure" used to plan the deadly April 22 attack on tourists in India-controlled Kashmir and alleged future terrorist plots. Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called it an "act of war."

Who said what

The two nuclear-armed neighbors "have inched closer to conflict" since last month's terrorist attack, exchanging "small-arms fire across the Kashmir border" despite "diplomatic efforts" to "lessen tensions" now at their "highest point in years," following "years of frosty peace," The Wall Street Journal said. The longtime rivals last came to "the brink" of war over Kashmir in 2019, said The New York Times, but India's overnight strike on Pakistan's Punjab Province represented "an escalation" in the simmering conflict.

World leaders called for restraint and de-escalation. "The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan," said a spokesperson for United Nations Secretary General António Guterres.

India's Defense Ministry said its strikes were "focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature" and "no Pakistan military facilities" were targeted. "Justice is served," the Indian Army said on X. Sharif said Pakistan had "every right to give a robust response to this act of war imposed by India, and a strong response is indeed being given." Pakistan said it shot down five Indian fighter jets and a drone. India said at least 10 civilians were killed by Pakistani shelling.

What next?

India and Pakistan are "two strong militaries that, even with nuclear weapons as a deterrent, are not afraid to deploy sizeable levels of conventional military force against each other," South Asia analyst Michael Kugelman told The Associated Press. "The escalation risks are real. And they could well increase, and quickly."

Kashmir has experienced its share of violence over the past 70 years, said Daily Excelsior (Jammu), but last week's massacre in the "idyllic" Baisaran valley was a "grim" new low for the Indian-administered territory. As families and honeymooners relaxed in Pahalgam, one of Kashmir's "most tranquil corners", gunmen from a militant group called The Resistance Front slaughtered 26 people in a meadow, all but one of whom was Indian.

Relations between India and Pakistan are now "cratering", pushing the nuclear-armed rivals to the brink of outright war, said Rhea Mogul on CNN (New York). India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, accused Pakistan of organising the attack, vowing to pursue the perpetrators "to the ends of the Earth"; New Delhi then downgraded ties with Islamabad and shut a key border crossing. The two sides have exchanged fire over the "line of control" in the Himalayan territory, and India has taken the unprecedented step of suspending a vital treaty that allows both countries to share control of the Indus River System – a move that Islamabad called an "act of war".

Pakistan may deny it "a hundred times", said Aaj Ki Baat on India TV (Noida), "but the entire world" knows it was behind this attack. Just look at the videos of the massacre: they show gunmen kitted out with sophisticated weapons and bodycams killing their Hindu victims at point-blank range. This was "a planned, professional job", most likely organised by Pakistan's army and its powerful intelligence agency, the ISI.

It has been the same with almost every major attack on India, said Vir Sanghvi in The Print (New Delhi). After the 2008 Mumbai attacks, when 166 people were killed by Pakistani Islamists, the Manmohan Singh government ignored the angry cries for retribution, saying a war would not benefit anyone. Hailed as "statesman-like", such restraint now "looks more and more like a terrible miscalculation". Pakistan walked away knowing it could kill Indian civilians without consequences. It's time India showed Pakistan that terrorism has a price, even if that means war.

India wants to drag Pakistan into this "deplorable" episode, said Dawn (Karachi). But perhaps Modi's nationalist government should look a little closer to home and "review its brutal rule" in Kashmir, and the "immense discontent" that has bred in the "occupied" territory. In 2019, Modi revoked Kashmir's already limited constitutional autonomy, bringing it under the direct control of New Delhi. He claims "all is well" in the region, but there will be no end to these "blood-soaked episodes" if India continues to stamp out Kashmiri autonomy "through brute force and intimidation".

Modi's long-term goal is to choke off Pakistan's water supply, said The Nation (Lahore), and he happily seized the opportunity last week by withdrawing from the Indus Waters Treaty, which splits control of the rivers flowing down from the Himalayas between India and Pakistan. The Indian PM is "playing with fire": 80% of Pakistan's irrigated agriculture is supported by that treaty, and if he disrupts that supply and undermines our economic and food security, Pakistan will have no choice but to respond – with possibly "catastrophic" results "for the entire region".

India can't actually disrupt Pakistan's water supply, said Abhishek De in India Today (New Delhi). It would take years to build the reservoirs and dams required to plug the water flow from the Indus. It's more of a "psychological" tactic by Modi, who is under severe domestic pressure to respond to the attacks.

India won't be the last country to "weaponise" rivers, said Matthew Campbell in The Times (London). China controls much of the world's water tower, as the Himalayan glaciers are known, and Beijing is already building dams that could stop their flow to India. The decline in glaciers is only adding to tensions. If any of the other 800 international water treaties unravel, we could be entering "a new age of 'water wars'".

India and Pakistan inched closer to overt conflict last week after an attack in the Indian-administered Kashmir region left dozens dead and set the two nuclear-armed neighboring nations on the latest collision course. India has threatened to withdraw from the treaty that provides water to the bulk of Pakistan, prompting that country to close its airspace to Indian flights. As both countries continue baring their teeth at one another, where might all this hostility lead?

What did the commentators say?

The "fast-rising tensions" between India and Pakistan have led to a "series of escalating tit-for-tat moves" since the terrorist attack, The Guardian said. As a result, the two nations have moved "closer to military confrontation." The hostilities are "rekindling memories of February 2019 when a car suicide bombing in Kashmir brought the two countries to the verge of war." The two nations have "unleashed a raft of measures" against one another in the last week, said Al Jazeera, and there have been "cross-border skirmishes" involving "small arms fire" across the India-Pakistan border. With "diplomatic, trade and travel links" in the region "already at a low ebb" since 2019, The Economist said, the actions taken in the past few days have been "largely symbolic."

In particular, India's threat to withdraw from the Indus Waters Treaty signifies a "rupture" with "huge symbolic and strategic weight," The New York Times said. Within Pakistan, there is "growing concern" as various Indian figures "hint at the possibility of military strikes," with some Pakistani analysts warning that the "current confrontation could intensify beyond the 2019 standoff." While Pakistan has denied allegations that its government may have played a role in the Kashmir attack, the incident fits a "pattern of terrorist attacks occurring on Indian soil," when the Pakistani military "feels excluded from the geopolitical conversation," said Manjari Chatterjee Miller, a senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. Given the Trump administration's apparent closeness with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, current events "could have given such an impetus."

In Kashmir, "thousands have flocked to the streets" to protest the violence, while business owners "express concerns" over the commercial impact of the attacks on the "popular tourist destination during peak season," CNN said. At the same time, several anti-Pakistan protests have "erupted" in various Indian cities, raising fears of "fueling anti-Kashmiri and anti-Muslim sentiment."

What next?

For India, "military retaliation, at some point in the coming days, is a real possibility," said South Asia analyst Michael Kugelman at Newsweek. The "scale and targeting" of the Kashmir attack make it "all but assured" that India will respond "with muscle."

At the same time, New Delhi's regional rivalry with Beijing and the proximity of all three nations make the shared border the "world's only three-way nuclear junction," said The Associated Press. With China's support of Pakistan and the United States' ongoing backing of India, any India-Pakistani conflict that starts as a bilateral engagement is "unlikely to stay strictly between them, as their strategic partners are likely to get involved." Pakistan has "reinforced" its military forces ahead of an "imminent" action by India, said Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif to Reuters. But the country will only turn to its nuclear arsenal if "there is a direct threat to our existence."

Despite concerns of a wider regional conflict, China is thus far urging India and Pakistan to "exercise restraint," and "meet each other halfway" with "dialogue and consultation" for the sake of "regional peace and stability," said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun at Deutsche Welle.

The U.S., meanwhile, has met with Indian and Pakistani officials at "multiple levels" of government, and "encourages all parties to work together towards a responsible resolution," a state department spokesperson said to Reuters. India and Pakistan "work themselves into a frenzy every few years," said Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistan ambassador to the U.S., to Reuters. "This time, there is no U.S. interest in calming things down."

The leader of India's opposition party and great-grandson of its first prime minister has been charged with money laundering, in what his allies claim is part of a "vendetta" by Narendra Modi.

India's financial crime-fighting agency charged Rahul Gandhi, his mother Sonia and other members of the Congress party last week, accusing the family of forming a shell company to acquire assets of the National Herald newspaper illegally. The Nehru-Gandhi family (known as the Gandhis, but no relation to Mahatma Gandhi) have previously denied wrongdoing in the long-running case, although haven't commented on the charges.

But Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh described the allegations as "politics of vendetta and intimidation, external" by the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the prime minister.

Who are the Nehru-Gandhi family?

The Gandhis are the "first family of Indian politics", said Al Jazeera. They have ruled for almost half the years since India's independence in 1947. Jawaharlal Nehru, the country's inaugural and longest-serving prime minister, was followed by his daughter Indira, and later his grandson Rajiv. And their party, the Congress, is "synonymous" with the family. It governed India almost continuously until 2014, when Modi's BJP swept to power in a landslide.

But for Modi and his allies, the Gandhi dynasty is still "an object of intense loathing that manifests itself in visceral outbursts", said The Times. Modi "routinely singles the family out for behaving as though they were 'born' to rule India". Sonia "tends to be spared the worst epithets", but her son Rahul has been called "everything from an entitled 'prince' to having only one talent: the Gandhi name".

What is the case?

India's Enforcement Directorate, the agency that investigates financial crimes, began looking into the case in 2021 after a complaint filed by a member of the BJP.

Subramanian Swamy claimed that in 2010 the Gandhis used Congress party funds to take over Associated Journals Limited, which used to publish the National Herald – one of India's oldest newspapers, started by Jawaharlal Nehru. The paper ceased publication in 2008 after long-standing financial troubles, but was relaunched as a digital news outlet in 2016.

Associated Journals cleared its arrears by "swapping its debt for equity and assigning the shares to a newly created company", the Young Indian, said the BBC. Sonia and Rahul Gandhi are two of the company's directors; they each own 38%, with the remaining 24% owned by Congress leaders. The couple were questioned by the enforcement agency in 2022 as part of a probe into the case.

The allegation is that through the purchase of Associated Journals, the Gandhis illegally assumed control of its valuable real estate assets across several Indian cities, worth $300 million.

A hearing is scheduled for 25 April.

What is the defence?

The Congress "maintains that it bailed out the publisher due to its historical legacy", said the BBC, claiming it had lent the company more than 900 million rupees over the years. The party said the Young Indian was a not-for-profit company, and accused Modi's BJP of using the directorate and other federal agencies as "attack dogs".

"It's the BJP being determined to remain the predominant party and look invincible by weakening the Congress with these allegations and telling voters it can't provide an alternative to the BJP," Neerja Chowdhury, an Indian political analyst, told The Times.

The Prevention of Money Laundering Act, which came into effect in 2005, allows the Enforcement Directorate to summon anyone without giving a reason. According to data compiled by Reuters last year, the powerful agency has summoned, questioned or raided nearly 150 opposition politicians since Modi came to power in 2014, leading to criticism that it has become a "weapon" of the prime minister to "cull political opponents".

"Financial and investigative agencies of the government have been weaponised to harass, intimidate, silence, and criminalise independent critical voices in the country," said Amnesty International.

What happened

Gunmen killed at least 26 tourists and injured 17 others in India-controlled Kashmir Tuesday. Omar Abdullah, the top elected official in the restive region, said the attack was "much larger than anything we've seen directed at civilians in recent years."

Who said what

Indian tourists "were snapping photos and riding ponies in the meadows of Pahalgam," often called "mini-Switzerland" locally, when "assailants emerged from the nearby forest and fired indiscriminately," The Washington Post said, citing local media reports. The bloodshed signals a "major shift in a regional conflict in which tourists have largely been spared," The Associated Press said.

The attack "shattered the relative calm in Kashmir, where tourism has boomed as an anti-India insurgency has waned" following India's revocation of the region's semi-autonomous status in 2019 and subsequent security crackdown, Reuters said. "Kashmir Resistance," a "little-known militant group" that Indian intelligence claims is a front for Pakistani insurgent organizations, claimed responsibility on social media, citing anger over 85,000 "outsiders" settling in the region.

What happened

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has vigorously promoted tourism in Kashmir, said the terrorists "behind this heinous act will be brought to justice." He returned to New Delhi early Wednesday after cutting short a state visit to Saudi Arabia.

An Indian podcaster is under police investigation and has received death threats after asking a "perverted" question on the YouTube talent show "India's Got Latent".

Ranveer Allahbadia, whose own YouTube channel BeerBiceps has eight million followers, is no stranger to publicity but "the amount of attention" his comments have received "is mind-boggling", said the BBC.

Debates about free speech

Allahbadia, a well-known online personality who has interviewed ministers, Bollywood celebrities, cricketers and Hollywood stars, found himself in hot water after he asked the "India's Got Latent" contestant, "Would you rather watch your parents have sex every day for the rest of your life or join in once and stop it forever?"

The question "sparked massive outrage", said the BBC. The story has made "national headlines", with some leading news sites even devoting live blogs to the latest developments in the scandal. The reaction has "triggered debates around free speech and India's obscenity laws", as well as "conversations around the thirst for viral content" and what the consequences should be when online content creators cross a line.

Supporters of the embattled Allahbadia include Apar Gupta, founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation, who said "it feels like the state is trying to make an example" of him. Opposition lawmaker Saket Gokhale also posted on X that it would be wrong for the state to "persecute and lock up people for offending your moral sentiments".

Charges of obscenity

In a bid to quell the storm, Allahbadia has apologised but he's still facing legal charges of obscenity. At a hearing before India's Supreme Court, Allahbadia petitioned for temporary protection from the multiple criminal cases opened against him by various state governments. Justices described his remarks as "dirty", "vulgar" and "perverted", and ordered him to co-operate with the investigation, submit his passport to the police, and seek permission before leaving the country. They also banned him from posting content on social media. On Monday, though, he was permitted to resume releasing episodes of his podcast, "subject to morality and decency", said India Today.

The controversy has led a parliamentary panel to consider making laws around digital content stricter, and "the Supreme Court has pushed for tighter regulations around online content, too", said the BBC. Critics have accused the federal government of exploiting events to justify restrictions on freedom of expression, as well as using it as a "smokescreen" to divert attention from more "pressing problems", such as unemployment and pollution.

"A pre-emptive and proactive policy is always better when it comes to Trump," said the former Indian ambassador to the US, Harsh V Shringla –and current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems very much to agree.

As Modi prepares for an Indian-US summit in Washington this week, it appears India is once again "ready to adapt" to the US president's "transactional style of diplomacy", said The Washington Post.

What will be on the agenda?

India's slowing economy means the main priority for Modi is to avoid crippling tariffs, like those Trump has already imposed on China, imposed (then rescinded) on Canada and Mexico, and threatened against the EU. Trump last year referred to India as a "very big abuser" of trade ties with the US, highlighting America's $45 billion (£37 billion) trade deficit with the country.

Modi will "almost certainly make some concessions on two vexed issues: trade and illegal immigration", said Foreign Policy. On the former, he has already made a "clear concession to Trump", said Bloomberg, by cutting India's "own (notoriously high) tariffs" on some US goods, including Harley-Davidson motorbikes.

"India's posture of appeasement is not unique, but it's very clever," Milan Vaishnav, director of the South Asia Programme at the US Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told The Washington Post.

"By making pre-emptive concessions on relatively minor issues, governments can allow Trump to put quick wins on the board, without enduring too much pain themselves."

What about immigration?

Modi's government has signalled its willingness to accept the return of nearly 18,000 Indians living in the US, despite growing "anger" in his country at the "humiliating deportation" by the US last week of more than 100 Indian nationals in shackles and chains, said The Independent.

Delhi hopes this attempt to "placate the new US administration" over the number of illegal Indian immigrants – which the Pew Research Center estimates at 725,000 – will "safeguard legal migration pathways for its citizens, including student visas and H-1B visas for skilled workers".

Why is India tightening its ties with the US?

The US-India relationship is on a "more secure footing than it has been in decades", said Foreign Policy. Aside from the obvious "bonhomie" between their strongman leaders, this alignment is largely down to "a shared belief that China increasingly constitutes a threat to both countries' strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific".

India is one of the founding members of the Brics bloc, a group that has "long projected itself as an alternative to Western-led models of global governance", said the BBC. However, India is "perhaps the most Western-oriented Brics member", in line with its foreign-policy strategy to "balance relations with a wide spectrum of geopolitical players".

What does the US want?

As Brics member states become "more prominent and influential", the US hopes India's pre-eminent position in the bloc will allow it to act as a bulwark against the "longstanding vision – articulated emphatically by Beijing and Moscow – of serving as a counter to the West", said the BBC.

Trump has so far adopted a hawkish approach to the group, even going so far as to threaten Brics states with 100% tariffs when news emerged of them talking about replacing the US dollar as their reserve currency. His close relationship with Modi, however, may allow the US to exert more "soft-power" influence over the bloc.

India is building a giant hydropower dam near the Siang river to counter a huge Chinese dam further north.

But this latest move in a tit-for-tat saga of water geopolitics between the two nations is seen as a threat by the millions of people who live and work in the surrounding areas, or further downstream in Bangladesh.

'Dam for a dam'

India's $13.2 billion (£10.6 billion) Siang Upper Multipurpose Project will "create a reservoir that can hold nine billion cubic metres of water and generate 11,000 megawatts of electricity", said Al Jazeera.

And news of these construction plans comes a mere month after Beijing approved the building of its "most ambitious – and the world's largest –dam over the Yarlung Zangbo river, in Tibet's Medog county", just before it enters Indian territory (where it's known as the Siang river).

India says its dam will serve as a "buffer" in case of "excess and sudden water releases from dams in China", said The Diplomat, but Beijing has "downplayed" Delhi's concerns, insisting that detailed studies were carried out to make sure the new Chinese dam would "not have any negative effects on downstream countries".

For all this "dam for a dam" water war, relations between the two nations along their disputed Himalayan border are not currently at boiling point. In recent years, there have been skirmishes between Indian and Chinese troops in the area but 2024 "witnessed a thaw", with both sides "withdrawing troops from two flashpoints", said VOA News.

The troop withdrawals have set ties between New Delhi and Beijing "in the direction of some improvement", according to Subrahmanyan Jaishankar, India's foreign minister, but mutual mistrust "remains a key hurdle" to more friendly relations, said the US news site.

'Dangerous power tussle'

Either way, there's plenty of concern about India's plans in India itself. Locals in the Siang Upper Multipurpose Project area "have warned that at least 20 villages will be submerged" and two dozen more will be partly flooded, uprooting thousands of residents, said Al Jazeera

And, as a result of "this dangerous power tussle" over water resources, the "presence of two giant dams" in a region of the Himalayas that's prone to earthquakes "poses serious threats to millions of people" in India and Bangladesh.

Amid "intensifying resistance" from locals, the state government has sent in paramilitary forces – though there have not been any clashes yet.

The effects of climate change could "make these tensions" much more "dangerous and potentially destabilising in the upcoming decade", Michael Kugelman, South Asia Institute director at the Wilson Center, a US think tank, told Al Jazeera.

What's needed is a "comprehensive water-sharing agreement between China and India", said Rouhin Deb in The Indian Express, with the current "unilateral assurances" replaced by a "binding" formal framework.