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/ 7 September 2008
India grapples with the task of feeding and housing close to a million villagers displaced by huge floods in the eastern state of Bihar.
A shock of thick black hair was all that peeped out from under a white sheet that covered a small body Wednesday at a morgue in Jaipur after serial bomb blasts killed about 80 people. Eight bombs went off within minutes of each other in crowded markets close to several Hindu temples in what police said was a terror attack.
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/ 23 December 2007
Controversial Hindu nationalist party leader Narendra Modi swept back to power in India’s religiously divided Gujarat state on Sunday in what was called a national victory over the rival Congress party. The Congress loss in the Hindu nationalist bastion, though widely expected, was its fourth setback in regional polls this year.
Perched high above the Himalayan town of Leh, a warren of traditional mud-brick houses squats by the ruins of the royal palace and a monastery, appearing to grow out of the mountainside. These homes in the capital of India’s Buddhist Ladakh region, which have stood for centuries, are regarded as some of the best remaining examples of urban Tibetan-style architecture.
Villagers returned home to ruins as flood waters continued to recede on Monday but the toll from the annual monsoon flooding across South Asia rose to 2 300, officials said. Tens of thousands are still housed in shelters while millions more are dependent on food and medical aid.
Answering the call of nature over a pit of manure with no flush water in sight and learning how to churn butter may not be everyone’s idea of a great holiday. But in India’s "Little Tibet", the remote Himalayan region of Ladakh, a pioneering scheme to offer tourists the authentic tastes of mountain life is taking off — and could hold the key to preserving a fragile ecosystem.
Relief teams in India, Bangladesh and Nepal on Thursday battled to reach about 18-million people stranded in massive flooding, with food, clean drinking water and medicines in short supply. More than 1 100 people have died across South Asia since the start of the annual monsoon season in mid-June.
Billboards dotting New Delhi are exhorting city residents to imagine a future made up of tall buildings and sky trains that will take the Indian capital from ”walled city to world city”. The phrase ”world-class city” is increasingly on the lips of city officials too, on a massive drive to tidy the capital in the run-up to the Commonwealth Games in 2010.
Waving flags replaced clouds of tear gas as tens of thousands of people in Kathmandu celebrated ”Victory Day” over their king on streets where protesters had fought pitched battles with police. Festivities that started late on Monday after King Gyanendra ended 14 months of absolute rule and restored Parliament, swelled to street parties by mid-morning.