India unveiled a bust of an independence-era nationalist icon at the presidential palace on Monday, replacing a monument to British architect Edwin Lutyens in a symbolic break from its colonial past.Lutyens was the chief architect of New Delhi, the area that houses India’s power centre, and still often referred to as Lutyens’ Delhi.His bust was replaced with that of Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, known as Rajaji, a towering statesman, jurist and writer who served as Governor General from 1948 to 1950, bridging the transition from British rule to the modern Indian republic.”This initiative is part of series of steps being taken towards shedding the vestiges of colonial mindset and embracing, with pride, the richness of India’s culture,” said President Droupadi Murmu in a statement.Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi has long sought to eliminate remnants of India’s colonial past by reshaping several key British-era relics with his own mega projects.In 2023 he inaugurated a grand new hexagonal national parliament, replacing a colonial-era building, also designed by Lutyens along with his British colleague, Herbert Baker.Modi said the move to replace Lutyens’ bust was part of initiatives to achieve “freedom from the mindset of slavery”.”Statues of British administrators were allowed to remain… but those of the nation’s greatest sons were denied space,” he said in a radio broadcast on Saturday. “Today, the country is leaving that colonial mindset behind.”In 2022, Modi’s government erected a statue of an independence hero venerated for taking up arms against colonial rule — but controversial for his collaboration with Nazi Germany’s war machinery.The statue of Subhas Chandra Bose was placed in a canopy near the India Gate war memorial in New Delhi on a long empty plinth that had once housed a statue of British monarch King George V.The canopy, too, had been designed by Lutyens.Lutyens’ great-grandson, British biologist Matt Ridley, said he was “sad to read that the bust of Lutyens (my great grandfather) is to be removed from the presidential palace he designed in Delhi”.

Pakistan on Monday warned England’s inconsistent batting line-up to expect a trial by spin when the teams clash in the T20 World Cup Super Eights.Pakistan batsman Sahibzada Farhan told reporters that England struggled to 146-9 against Sri Lanka’s spinners on Sunday. Farhan said that England can expect more of the same from Pakistan’s spinners when they meet on the same Pallekele ground in Kandy on Tuesday night.Pakistan desperately need a win after their first match against New Zealand was washed out. A defeat would put England, who skittled Sri Lanka for 95 to win by 51 runs, through to the semi-finals with a game to spare.Pakistan would then need to beat Sri Lanka in their final Super Eights match and hope other results go their way to reach the last four.”What we saw in the Sri Lanka-England game was that the ball was gripping and England struggled against spin,” said the in-form opener Farhan on Monday.”Sri Lanka have one or two spinners but we have five in all so we will give England a tough time on a pitch that looks good and will grip,” said Farhan.Pakistan’s spinners have taken 26 wickets in the four matches so far. Their seamers have dismissed only seven batsmen.History will be against Pakistan as they have never beaten England in three previous Twenty20 World Cup clashes.”We are confident and our morale is high,” said Farhan, who scored an unbeaten 100 against Namibia in Pakistan’s final group match. “We are focused on this match to win and progress.”Farhan, who tops the T20 World Cup run-scoring chart with 220, said he was ready for the threat of England’s express pace bowler Jofra Archer.”Facing Archer will not be difficult because I have faced similar bowlers in Pakistan,” said Farhan. “So if he has plans against me, I also have plans against him.”Pakistan are likely to bring in spinner Abrar Ahmed in place of seaming all-rounder Faheem Ashraf.England may name an unchanged side for the fifth match in succession with Liam Dawson, Will Jacks, Adil Rashid and Jacob Bethell providing their spin options.Sri Lanka and New Zealand are the two other teams in Pakistan and England’s Super Eights group. They face each other in Colombo on Wednesday.The top two teams will qualify for the semi-finals.

Defending T20 World Cup champions India need “two big performances” to reach the semi-finals after Sunday’s huge defeat to South Africa, said their assistant coach.India came into the T20 World Cup as hot favourites on home soil but were thrashed by 76 runs in the Super Eights as 80,000 fans at the massive Narendra Modi stadium were stunned into silence.In their first chase of the tournament, India’s batting came up woefully short in the face of some disciplined South Africa bowling. India collapsed to 111 all out in 18.5 overs in response to South Africa’s 187-7 as their 12-match win streak in the T20 World Cup came to a crashing end.The magnitude of the defeat has left India with a desperate net run-rate of -3.8 and likely needing to win their last two Super Eight matches convincingly to make it to the semi-finals.Anything less and India will need to rely on a combination of other results going their way.”Very disappointed in the performance,” said Ryan ten Doeschate.”When you set out to win a World Cup, don’t expect someone to come and deliver it to you halfway through,” the assistant coach added.”We’ve messed up on a grand scale and now the onus is on this group of guys to turn it around and put in two solid performances.”India are grouped with South Africa, the West Indies and Zimbabwe in Super Eights, with the top two advancing to the semi-finals.The West Indies face Zimbabwe on Monday night in Mumbai in their Super Eights opener. India next face giant-killers Zimbabwe, who have already beaten Australia and Sri Lanka, on Thursday in Chennai.South Africa play the West Indies the same day in Ahmedabad where Aiden Markram’s side could put one foot firmly in the semi-finals with another win.- ‘Cloak came off’ -“Obviously with the way the group goes, you need at least four points to get through now, and it’s going to need two big performances and a big bounce back from everyone,” said Ten Doeschate.India’s fragile batting was exposed against an in-form bowling attack led by left-arm quick Marco Jansen, who returned figures of 4-22 from 3.5 overs. Keshav Maharaj took 3-24 with his left-arm spin.India’s media tore into the team on Monday morning. “The night the cloak came off,” blazed a headline in the Indian Express newspaper.”Sloppy India reach point of no return,” said the Hindustan Times.India’s ultra-aggressive left-handed opening pair have failed to fire, leaving a shaky middle order to pick up the pieces. Ishan Kishan was out without scoring to Markram on Sunday, while the world’s top- ranked T20 batter Abhishek Sharma fell to Jansen for 15, his only runs of the tournament so far after three ducks.”It’s certainly not panic stations,” said Ten Doeschate, who hinted there could be discussions about India’s batting line-up.”If those guys (Ahbishek and Ishan) bat for six overs, the score is going to be 70-plus,” said Ten Doeschate.”So can we get them to temper the way they’re playing and be a little bit smarter?”Or do we just let them go on the way they are? “Or do we bring in a right-hander at the top and make a change somewhere in the middle?” Captain Suryakumar Yadav agreed India need to use their brains in the first six-over power play when only two fielders are allowed on the boundary.”Chasing 180-185, you can’t win the game in the power play, but you might lose it,” he said after his side stumbled to 31-3 after six overs, which became 43-4 a few balls later and then 51-5. “We lost too many wickets in the power play.” The 2024 champions also have the weight of history against them. No team has ever retained the T20 World Cup and no side have ever won the trophy on home soil.

Shah Alam travelled from his home in Bangladesh to Pakistan for a brief visit nearly three decades ago, but flaring hostility between the two countries and financial woes left him stranded in the megacity of Karachi.Now the 60-year-old, who makes a modest living selling dried seafood, is determined to return to his birthplace, having already missed the deaths of his parents and first wife in Bangladesh.Direct flights between Pakistan and Bangladesh — one nation until 1971 — finally resumed last month after a 14-year pause, reflecting a warming of once-frosty ties since a Bangladeshi student-led uprising ushered in new leadership in 2024.Shah Alam has already started planning his trip to be reunited with remaining family.”I will go,” he told AFP with teary eyes. “I am facing some financial issues but will certainly go with my son after Eid al-Adha,” referring to the Muslim holiday expected in late May.Shah Alam, who married again in Pakistan, still owns agricultural land and his family home in Bangladesh.”Everything is there. I was stuck here,” he told AFP in Karachi, near the well-known Bengali market where he peddles desiccated fish and prawns to make ends meet for $7 to $9 per day.”I wanted to go back, but there was no way. The relationship (between Pakistan and Bangladesh) was not good. I had no money as well to go back home.””Now, I want to see my elder brother and my married daughter who live in Bangladesh.”- Bitter civil war -Bangladesh and Pakistan, which are geographically divided by about 1,500 kilometres (930 miles) of Indian territory, split after a bitter war in 1971.Hundreds of thousands were killed in the conflict — Bangladeshi estimates say millions -– and Pakistan’s military was accused of widespread atrocities.There are estimated to be over a million ethnic Bengalis now living in Pakistan, many of whom arrived during the war, after which East Pakistan declared independence and became Bangladesh.The vast majority of Bangladesh’s population of 170 million people identify as belonging to the ethnic and linguistic group, and tens of millions more Bengalis live across South Asia, mostly in neighbouring India.Bengalis have long complained that Pakistan, where they are a small minority, has never accepted them as citizens and that they lack access to education, business opportunities and the property market.Hussain Ahmed, 20, whose family lives in Machhar Colony, one of Karachi’s largest slum areas where most of the population is comprised of Bengalis, does not have Pakistani nationality or an identity card.”How can I go (to Bangladesh)? I want to go there,” the fish factory worker told AFP. “Even my father doesn’t have an identity card. How can I get it then?”Karachi has several Bengali neighbourhoods, mainly slums, which residents say have housed Bengalis since before East Pakistan became Bangladesh.Most Bengalis rarely venture outside their home areas owing to fear of being interrogated by law enforcement agencies to prove their “identities” as Pakistani citizens.”I am a Pakistani, but I don’t have my identity card,” another 22-year-old Bengali, Ahmed, told AFP.Ahmed says he has the required documents, but cannot prove that his family was living in what is now Pakistan before 1971.”They declare me a Bangladeshi, but I am a Pakistani,” he said.Like many others, Ahmed’s relatives live in Bangladesh, but he and his family have never had the chance to see them as they remain stateless.”We have our relatives there, but the (Pakistan) government doesn’t recognise us.”- ‘Cordial relationship’ – Last August, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar visited Dhaka and met with Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus in the first Pakistani government visit to Dhaka since 2012, with Islamabad calling it a “significant milestone”.Yunus vowed to warm strained ties with Islamabad after he took the helm of Bangladesh’s government in a temporary capacity following the 2024 overthrow of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina who fled to her long-time ally India — Pakistan’s arch-rival. The diplomatic thaw is widely expected to continue under Bangladesh’s newly elected Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, who took office this month.Local politician Muhammad Rafiqul Hussain, who was born in Karachi, told AFP that Bengalis like him live across Pakistan and contribute to the economy like other Pakistanis.He is one of the seven elected leaders from the Bengali community in Karachi’s municipal government.”This is our fourth generation in Pakistan,” he said, adding there are more than 106 Bengali neighbourhoods in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city which is known as a multicultural melting pot. For Hussain, the “cordial relationship” between Pakistan and Bangladesh has made a big difference for Pakistani Bengalis.”Everyone is happy. It will boost both countries’ economies. It will encourage brotherhood like we had in the past.”However, community activist and lawyer Hafiz Zainulabdin Shah said Bengalis living in Pakistan have lost some of their identity by adopting local languages.”Bengalis who live in Karachi mostly speak Urdu,” he said, adding: “We don’t have our own culture now”.But despite Pakistan-based Bengalis living “with a sense of deprivation”, Shah said “they feel content with the newly developed relationship between the two countries”.”It should continue forever,” he said.