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A flickering candle casts a dim light on the photo of 12-year-old Akash Patni, a pensive look on the face of the Indian boy who died in a plane crash that has left his family inconsolable.He is among dozens of people who died on June 12 when Air India flight 171 smashed into buildings in a neighbourhood of Ahmedabad, in the western state of Gujarat.Since the disaster six months ago, Akash’s parents and four siblings have gathered every day to pray in front of his picture, placed on a shelf in a corner of the small, dark space that serves as their living room.”My son was sitting near the tea stall when a part of the plane fell on him… there was smoke and fire everywhere and nobody could go near the site,” said the father, Suresh Patni, a 48-year-old tea vendor.”The boy was burnt to ashes… We could not even take him to the hospital.”The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner had just taken off for London when, for reasons that an investigation has not yet clarified, fuel was cut to both of its engines.Deprived of power, the aircraft crashed onto buildings at the end of the runway, engulfing in flames 241 of its 242 passengers and crew, and 19 residents of Ahmedabad.One passenger survived.”Everything happened before my own eyes,” said Akash’s mother Sita Patni, 45.From beneath the headscarf covering her grey hair and shoulders emerges a bare arm covered in large burn scars — the mark of her lost battle to pull her son from the flames.”I am in pain the whole day,” she said softly.”I tried to save him, but he did not survive.”- Compensation -Kiritsinh Chavda, 49, lost his brother and sister-in-law in the crash.He recalled the horror of receiving a call from his father, telling him that a plane had crashed in the neighbourhood where he lives.”He told me that my younger brother and his wife were unreachable,” said Chavda, a police officer.When he arrived at the scene, chaos awaited him.”The bodies were very badly damaged and burned,” he said.”It took nearly a week for my brother and his wife to be identified.”Relatives of the victims have been looking for answers, trying to understand what caused their loved ones’ deaths.They are also just beginning to deal with the ordeal of compensation.Air India quickly paid the equivalent of $28,000 to the families of each of the dead. The airline’s owner, Tata Group, pledged to add another $112,000.”We are yet to get the remaining amount,” muttered Chavda.Air India has acknowledged the delay but asked for patience.”The process for final compensation is underway,” a spokesperson said.”We are deeply conscious of our responsibility and are providing support and care to all families affected by the tragedy, which remains our absolute priority.”To Chavda, “they should give whatever compensation they promised. That is enough for me.”- ‘Who is the culprit?’ -Badasab Saiyed, 60, said that for him, “compensation is secondary.”A retired academic, he lost his brother, sister-in-law, a nephew and a niece in the accident.They had initially planned to fly from New Delhi to London, but the flight was cancelled, and they took the doomed flight from Ahmedabad instead.Saiyed did not hesitate long before joining a complaint filed by a British law firm seeking answers.”The main thing is, who is the culprit responsible?” he said.”Was there lax maintenance, or was there a problem with the Boeing plane itself? Or was it a small (pilot) fault? This should not have happened.”The crash site has been cleared of all the aircraft debris. Only the charred ruins of the building that supported its tail remain, along with a few rusted shells of burned-out cars.- ‘Can’t bear it’ -Curled up in his grief, Suresh Patni cares little about getting answers.”I’m not interested in the investigation,” he said. “I don’t understand any of it.”Nor does he care about compensation.”What do we do with money?” he said. “We lost our son.”The family had had high hopes for Akash.”He was our youngest and the most adored,” his father said. “We wanted him to study and do something.””He was the brightest in our family,” added his mother, who has not had the strength to return to, much less reopen, her tea stall.”I can’t bear it, I keep on thinking about him,” she said.”I can’t bear the sound of a plane now. I keep looking down, can’t look up in the sky.”

Nepal on Thursday estimated that the country suffered losses of about $586 million in September’s deadly anti-corruption protests that ousted the government.The youth-led demonstrations, initially triggered by anger over a brief government ban on social media, were fuelled by deeper frustration over economic hardship and corruption.After a police crackdown killed young protestors, the riots spread and on the second day more than 2,500 structures were torched, looted or damaged.The committee formed to assess the damage caused during the protest submitted its report to Prime Minister Sushila Karki on Thursday, the prime minister’s secretariat said in a statement.  The report said that a total of 77 people died during the movement, 20 people on 8 September, 37 on the following day and another 20 later. “In terms of total physical damage, the committee estimates the loss to be equivalent to 84 arab 45 crore 77 lakh rupees ($586 million),” the statement said.The report said that damage to government and public buildings accounted for half of the amount. The unrest spread nationwide on its the second day as parliament and government offices were set ablaze, resulting in the government’s collapse.Within days, 73-year-old former chief justice Sushila Karki was appointed interim prime minister to lead the Himalayan nation to elections on March 5, 2026.Karki’s cabinet formed the committee to assess the damage soon after. The committee also submitted a reconstruction plan, estimating a need of $252 million.  Three months on from the September 8–9 protests, and with three months to go before elections, Nepal faces daunting challenges including rising unemployment and collapsing foreign investment.Some of Nepal’s largest companies — major contributors to state revenue — suffered heavy losses, including Bhat-Bhateni supermarkets, the Chaudhary Group conglomerate and the telecom provider Ncell.In Pokhara, one of Nepal’s key tourist hubs, Hotel Sarowar was set ablaze.”The loss is immense,” chairman Bharat Raj Pahari told AFP in an interview earlier this month. “It has directly affected 750 family members.”The World Bank in November revised its growth projections for Nepal, warning that due to the recent unrest and “heightened political and economic uncertainty, real GDP growth is projected to slow to 2.1 percent” in 2025, from an earlier forecast of 5.1 percent.  It also raised its poverty estimate to 6.6 percent of the population this financial year, up from 6.2 percent. 

On any Friday, when the Afghan weekend begins, dozens of drivers gather in the Kandahar desert to charge their SUVs up steep ochre dunes, kicking up rooster tails of sand to the delight of spectators.Sometimes they don’t make it, and have to carefully roll down backwards as other 4x4s surge past just an arm’s length away. Accidents are rare but not unheard of.It’s an anarchic ballet where drivers can stomp on the gas and let loose not far from the historic bastion of the ruling Taliban.”This desert is half of Kandahar’s beauty, its charm lies here in the dunes,” said Abdul Qadir, a 23-year-old shopkeeper from Kandahar, the country’s second-largest city.Like scores of other men — no women are allowed under the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islam — Qadir was relishing a party that lasts well into the night.”We came in a small car and are just here to watch and enjoy,” he told AFP, as fellow fans drank tea and ate snacks on blankets spread around fire pits.- No fear -Mohammad Rahim, a 25-year-old partner at a Kandahar car dealership, has been climbing the sheer sand walls for the past “four or five years”.”We’ve been driving on these dunes for a long time, so the fear that young drivers usually have is gone. Anyone who comes here and drives no longer feels afraid,” he said.Many of the SUVs look like new, even after hours of roaring up dune crests so steep the trucks look on the verge of tipping over backwards.Some drivers have customised their vehicles with “snorkel” air intakes that rise over the bonnet to keep sand out, while others add spotlights for when the sun goes down.The cheapest cars on show cost around $8,000, while pricier models fetch up to 10 times that amount, said Haji Abdul Samih, a 39-year-old customs agency employee who came to watch. “The poor cannot afford such cars,” he acknowledged.”The good thing is that Kandahar’s young men use their own vehicles to bring many underprivileged people here to the dunes and the picnic area, and after the gathering they take them back to their places.”- Fun and fireworks -The thrill-seekers say no one has ever been hurt or killed during the rallies, in a country where road accidents are a main cause of death, according to UN Habitat Afghanistan.”Accidents do happen here, but the good thing is that when a collision happens, no one asks for compensation,” Samih said.”No matter how damaged the vehicles get, people don’t demand payment from each other.”Like in North America and Europe, the trucks attract fans from all walks of life, offering a bright moment of unity in a country where the UN estimates 45 percent of the population will need humanitarian assistance next year.And in a country wracked by decades of war, where the Taliban authorities have banned music, films and other entertainment since 2021, the increasingly popular gathering offers a rare chance for loud fun in the sun.When the bright orange moon rises, fans start shooting fireworks over the drivers as their motors keep revving into the night.

Warmer seas and heavier rains linked to climate change, along with Indonesia and Sri Lanka’s unique geographies and vulnerabilities, combined to produce deadly flooding that killed hundreds, scientists said Thursday.Two tropical storms dumped massive amounts of rain on the countries last month, prompting landslides and flooding that killed more than 600 people in Sri Lanka and nearly 1,000 in Indonesia.A rapid analysis of the two weather systems carried out by an international group of scientists found a confluence of factors drove the disaster.They include heavier rainfall and warmer seas linked to climate change, as well as weather patterns such as La Nina and the Indian Ocean Dipole.The research could not quantify the precise influence of climate change because models do not fully capture some of the seasonal and regional weather patterns, the scientists said.Still, they found climate change has made heavy rain events in both regions more intense in recent decades, and that sea surface temperatures are also higher due to climate change.Warmer oceans can strengthen weather systems and increase the amount of moisture in them.”Climate change is at least one contributing driver of the observed increase in extreme rainfall,” said Mariam Zachariah, one of the study’s authors and a research associate at Imperial College London.The analysis, known as an attribution study, uses peer-reviewed methodologies to assess how a warmer climate may impact different weather events.The scientists found extreme rainfall events in the Malacca Strait region betwen Malaysia and Indonesia had “increased by an estimated 9-50 percent as a result of rising global temperatures,” said Zachariah.”Over Sri Lanka, the trends are even stronger, with heavy rainfall events now about 28-160 percent more intense due to the warming we have already experienced,” she told reporters.While the datasets “showed a wide range,” Zachariah added, “they all point in the same direction, that extreme rainfall events are becoming more intense in both study regions.”The scientists said other factors were also at play, including deforestation and natural geography that channeled heavy rain into populated flood plains.The two tropical storms coincided with the monsoon rains across much of Asia, which often brings some flooding.But the scale of the disaster in the two countries is virtually unprecedented.”Monsoon rains are normal in this part of the world,” said Sarah Kew, climate researcher at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, and study lead author.”What is not normal is the growing intensity of these storms and how they are affecting millions of people and claiming hundreds of lives.”

India’s festival of lights, Diwali, was on Wednesday announced as an addition to UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list, sparking celebrations. The United Nations cultural agency, meeting in the Indian capital New Delhi from Tuesday to Thursday, is examining dozens of nominations from as many as 78 countries.The new announcements will join UNESCO’s list of cultural heritage, whose purpose is to “raise awareness of the diversity of these traditions” and protect them in future.Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed the announcement, saying the festival was “very closely linked to our culture and ethos”.”It is the soul of our civilisation. It personifies illumination and righteousness,” he said in a statement on social media, adding the move “will contribute to the festival’s global popularity even further”.The Delhi government is organising several events, including special illumination of buildings and decoration across major roads, along with a massive lamp-lighting ceremony.As one of Hinduism’s most significant festivals, millions of Indians celebrate Diwali, also known as Deepavali, not just in India but globally. Many people, including those from the Sikh and Jain religious communities, observe it as a five-day festival which symbolises the triumph of good over evil. Celebrations, which happen on the new moon day in either late October or November, usually see lighting of lamps and bursting of firecrackers.In much of north India, Diwali marks the return of Hindu Lord Rama to Ayodhya after defeating the demon king Ravana.The festival is also strongly associated with worship of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity.India’s foreign ministry said Diwali’s addition to the UNESCO list was a “joyous moment” for the country.

When Nepal’s government was toppled in September after deadly youth-led protests against economic stagnation and corruption, many in the impoverished country hoped for a period of meaningful political change.But experts warn that the upheaval — which killed 76 people and left thousands of buildings including parliament damaged — has pushed the nation backwards economically.Three months on from the September 8–9 protests, and with three months to go before elections on March 5, Nepal faces daunting challenges including rising unemployment and collapsing foreign investment.”My family depended entirely on my salary,” said Kamal Gautam, who lost his job as a kitchen worker at the Hyatt Regency when it was closed after rioters looted the hotel.”It’s been three months since my salary stopped, and I have no idea how to support my family,” 40-year-old Gautan, the sole breadwinner for his family of four, told AFP in their cramped one-room home in Kathmandu.Protests, initially triggered by anger over a brief government ban on social media, were spearheaded by protesters under the loose “Gen Z” umbrella.But anger at economic woes and a political elite accused of creaming off cash had primed the Himalayan nation of 30 million people for upheaval.After police cracked down on the protesters, the riots spread and on the second day more than 2,700 structures were torched, looted or damaged.- ‘Economic uncertainty’ -A preliminary report from the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) estimates losses exceeding $278 million, with nearly 15,000 people losing their jobs.Foreign direct investment commitments plunged 91 percent to just $14 million in the three months since mid-August, according to government data.Even before the unrest, the World Bank estimated that 82 percent of Nepal’s workforce was in informal employment, while one in five Nepalis aged 15–24 was jobless.In November, the bank revised its projections, warning that “reflecting the recent unrest and heightened political and economic uncertainty, real GDP growth is projected to slow to 2.1 percent” in 2025, from an earlier forecast of 5.1 percent.  It also raised its poverty estimate to 6.6 percent of the population this financial year, up from 6.2 percent. Some of Nepal’s largest companies — major contributors to state revenue — suffered heavy losses, including Bhat-Bhateni supermarkets, the Chaudhary Group conglomerate and the telecom provider Ncell.”Multinational companies are psychologically disturbed, even national entrepreneurs are in the position of wait and see,” economist Chandra Mani Adhikari told AFP.”We assume that, even now, only half of the country’s economy is running.”- ‘Loss is immense’ -Remittance inflows surged between mid-September and mid-October, crossing 200 billion Nepali rupees ($1.4 billion) in a single month for the first time. Remittances make up the equivalent of around a third of Nepal’s gross domestic product.Tourism — which contributes about 6.6 percent to GDP — was also hit hard. Visitor numbers plunged 18 percent year-on-year in September.In Pokhara, one of Nepal’s key tourist hubs, Hotel Sarowar was set ablaze.”The loss is immense,” chairman Bharat Raj Pahari told AFP. “It has directly affected 750 family members.”Mani Raj Lamichhane, the head of the Nepal Tourism Board in Pokhara for Gandaki province, estimated the industry lost more than $20 million. “Many tourists cancelled their travel to Pokhara, and hotel occupancy dropped by over 90 percent throughout September,” he said.While visitor numbers rebounded in November, the effects of the unrest continue to ripple, and workers like Kamal Gautam are still adrift.”I can neither go back to the village, nor can I live in this expensive city,” he said.

Hardik Pandya struck an unbeaten 59 and took a key wicket as India thrashed South Africa by 101 runs in the first T20 international on Tuesday.Pandya’s 28-ball blitz, laced with six fours and four sixes, powered reigning world champions India to 175-6 after they were put in to bat first in Cuttack.The Indian bowlers then combined to skittle South Africa for their lowest T20 total of 74 in 12.3 overs to take a 1-0 lead in the five-match series as part of their build-up for the T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka in February-March.India’s Test and ODI captain Shubman Gill returned from injury for the match but had a disappointing outing. He started with a boundary off Lungi Ngidi but got out next ball when he spooned a catch to mid-off.Wickets kept tumbling as T20 skipper Suryakumar Yadav fell for 12 and swashbuckling opener Abhishek Sharma soon followed him for 17 as India slipped to 78-4.But all-rounder Pandya made an instant impact at the crease on his international return after suffering a quadriceps injury in September.”I was very satisfied with the way I was batting,” Pandya said after being named player of the match.Pandya looked back at his recovery in the last 50 days at the National Cricket Academy, saying: “It’s very satisfying when you come here and the results follow.”The 32-year-old came out firing as he hit Keshav Maharaj for two sixes and kept up the attack despite losing Axar Patel, who made 23 off 21 balls, and Shivam Dube (11).Pandya powered India to a position of strength as, alongside Jitesh Sharma, he helped India score 30 runs off the last two overs.In reply, South Africa were hit hard when Arshdeep Singh sent back Quinton de Kock for a second-ball duck in the first over of the chase and in his next dismissed Tristan Stubbs for 14.Skipper Aiden Markram and Dewald Brevis, who made 22, attempted to hit back with boundaries before Axar cut short the captain’s knock on 14.Pandya had David Miller out for one with his first ball, and when spinner Varun Chakravarthy dismissed Donovan Ferreira, South Africa slumped to 50-5.South Africa kept losing wickets and Jasprit Bumrah dismissed Brevis for his 100th T20 wicket and took one more in the over.”There was some good form with the ball and field; some boxes ticked,” said Markram.”From a batting point of view, it’s unfortunately something that can happen in this format. “It’s a pity that it had to happen in the first game. It’s a quick turnaround and we’ll give it another crack in a couple of days’ time.”The second match is on Thursday in New Chandigarh.

Global technology giant Microsoft announced on Tuesday plans to invest $17.5 billion to help build India’s artificial intelligence infrastructure, with CEO Satya Nadella calling it “our largest investment ever in Asia”.Several global corporations have announced large investments this year in the South Asian nation, which is projected to have more than 900 million internet users by year’s end.”To support the country’s ambitions, Microsoft is committing US$17.5B (billion) — our largest investment ever in Asia — to help build the infrastructure, skills, and sovereign capabilities needed for India’s AI first future,” Nadella said in a post on X.Nadella made the announcement on social media after he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi, thanking the leader for “an inspiring conversation on India’s AI opportunity”.In a statement, Microsoft said the investment would be spread over four years.”Together, Microsoft and India are poised to set new benchmarks and drive the country’s leap from digital public infrastructure to AI public infrastructure in the coming decade,” the statement said.The tech giant said one of the key priorities of its investment plan was “building secure, sovereign-ready hyperscale infrastructure to enable AI adoption in India”.”At the heart of this effort is the significant progress being made at the India South Central cloud region, based in Hyderabad — that is set to go live in mid-2026,” Microsoft added.The planned cloud region is twice the size of the iconic Eden Gardens stadium in India’s eastern city Kolkata, which has a capacity of over 65,000 people. Microsoft said the latest announcement “builds on” a previous investment pledge Nadella had made earlier this year, committing $3 billion for AI and cloud infrastructure in India over the next two years.Modi said he was “happy” that the tech giant had chosen India as the destination for its largest investment in Asia.”The youth of India will harness this opportunity to innovate and leverage the power of AI for a better planet,” the prime minister said in a post on X. “When it comes to AI, the world is optimistic about India,” Modi added.- ‘Tremendous potential’ -Modi on Tuesday also met with the heads of tech firms Intel and Cognizant.Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said the company was “committed to support India’s semiconductor mission”.”We had a wide-ranging discussion on a variety of topics related to technology, computing and the tremendous potential for India,” Tan said in a post on X.Cognizant said its CEO Ravi Kumar S met with the prime minister “for an inspiring conversation on accelerating AI adoption and advancing education and skill development to enhance AI capabilities and productivity”.Global technology giants are aggressively courting more users in India, the world’s most populous country and fifth-largest economy.A special area of focus has been artificial intelligence with US startup Anthropic in October unveiling plans to open an office in India. Its chief executive Dario Amodei has also met Modi.The same month, Google said it will invest $15 billion in India over the next five years, as it announced a giant data centre and artificial intelligence base in the country.OpenAI has said it will open an India office, with its chief Sam Altman noting that ChatGPT usage in the country had grown fourfold over the past year.AI firm Perplexity also announced a major partnership in July with Indian telecom giant Airtel, offering the company’s 360 million customers a free one-year Perplexity Pro subscription.But India’s bid to become a global technology and artificial intelligence hub is colliding with increasingly tightening digital regulations.According to recent media reports, authorities are drafting plans to ensure that manufacturers enable satellite location tracking in smartphones that cannot be turned off by users — a proposal that rights groups have raised the alarm over.

India’s biggest airline IndiGo said Tuesday its operations had stabilise after it cancelled thousands of flights, triggering days of airport chaos last week.”Our on-time performance is… back to normal levels,” an IndiGo statement said, adding the airline was operating more than 1,800 flights on Tuesday, and planned to “fly nearly 1,900 flights” on Wednesday.But India’s civil aviation regulator told the company to cut its planned flights by 10 percent as it had “not demonstrated an ability to operate these schedules efficiently”.A previous order called for a five-percent reduction.Civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu said it was “necessary to curtail the overall IndiGo routes, which will help in stabilising the airline’s operations and lead to reduced cancellations”.Airports across India were thrown into disarray last week, with the private carrier admitting “misjudgement and planning gaps” in adapting to a new pilot rest policy which has since been suspended.The operational meltdown came even though IndiGo had two years to prepare for the the new rules, which came into effect last month with the aim of giving pilots more rest periods to enhance passenger safety.Naidu last week said the flight duty time limitations rules had “been placed in abeyance”.The minister told parliament on Tuesday that a “detailed enforcement investigation” into the disruption had begun.”No airline, however large, will be permitted to cause such hardship to passengers through planning failures, non-compliance or non-adherence to statutory provisions,” Naidu said.”Safety in civil aviation is completely non-negotiable.”The crisis is one of the biggest challenges faced by IndiGo, a no-frills airline which has built its reputation on punctuality.India is one of the world’s fastest growing aviation markets, hitting 500,000 daily flyers last month for the first time.

Long before dawn, people were already queueing for medical aid on Tuesday at an emergency camp in Sri Lanka’s coastal town of Chilaw, hit hard by a deadly cyclone and floods.Carpenter Prasantha Perera, 60, was waiting to have a shard of wood removed from his left foot, so that he can finally begin the arduous task of cleaning up.The disaster caused by Cyclone Ditwah — the island’s worst this century — has affected more than two million people, or nearly 10 percent of the population.At least 638 people were killed.Perera was the first patient of the day to leave the disaster medical camp, run by Japanese aid workers to support Chilaw’s flood-hit state hospital.”I couldn’t get into the camp yesterday, so I turned up today at 4:00 am to be first in line,” he said, bowing to thank the Japanese medics.Dozens of men, women and children were standing in the orderly queue, already so long some were told to return the next day.”My house went under five feet (1.5 metres) of water,” Perera told AFP, as he limped home clutching medicines to prevent infection.”I couldn’t start cleaning up because of this splinter, but now I can begin.”Aid workers were treating a long list of ailments, but could only see around 150 patients a day.”I will come very early tomorrow to get medicine for eczema,” Eva Kumari, 51, told AFP after being turned away when the facility hit its daily capacity.The Sri Lankan government had asked Japan to send its outpatient disaster medical unit to Chilaw, about 70 kilometres (43 miles) north of the capital Colombo, after the town’s main hospital was flooded.The hospital’s deputy director, Dinesh Koggalage, said it had only just resumed admitting patients — nearly two weeks since the cyclone hit.- Disease threat -Demand for the Japanese team remains high, said Professor Taketo Kurozumi, head of disaster medical management at Tokyo’s Teikyo University.”Numbers are increasing,” he told AFP between seeing patients, with common problems including skin issues, respiratory problems and mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue fever and chikungunya.Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has said Cyclone Ditwah was the most challenging natural disaster in recent history and appealed for international aid for the daunting recovery effort.The 31-member medical aid team, deployed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, arrived just days after the cyclone had left Sri Lanka.They set up a clinic in white tents, equipped with their own medical kits and power generators, and with the support of a team of 16 translators.All medics greet patients by bowing their heads and with hands clasped in a traditional Sri Lankan greeting.Queue management is handled by a Japanese volunteer monk, who has been living on the island for 15 years, and speaks Sri Lanka’s Sinhala language.Kazuyuki Takahashi, also known by his Buddhist name Saranankara Himi, oversees the process.The queue moves slowly as doctors listen to patient histories and spend more time on each one than Sri Lanka’s overstretched health system can generally afford, even in the best of times.