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Pakistan will host a first major cricket tournament in almost three decades from Wednesday in a move hailed as a landmark just a few years after the country was off-limits because of security fears.Staging the Champions Trophy in three cities over the next two-and-a-half weeks will be a huge boost to the South Asian nation’s reputation if authorities can pull it off smoothly and safely.”Convincing the world that Pakistan is a safe country and that it is capable of delivering such a global event from an administration point of view took serious hard work and convincing,” former Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Ramiz Raja told AFP.”The world eventually understood our viewpoint,” said Raja, under whose tenure the event was awarded in 2021.The build-up has not been without problems after neighbours and arch-rivals India refused to play in Pakistan over long-standing political tensions.A powerhouse of the sport on and off the pitch, India will instead play their matches in Dubai, but the other seven countries will be based in Pakistan.The country has stepped up security, especially in host cities Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi, even if attacks in major cities are increasingly rare.Pakistan had been due to host the Champions Trophy, the premier ODI event after the World Cup, in 2008.It was instead staged in South Africa a year later because of a security crisis that spilled over from the war in neighbouring Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks.Pakistan became a no-go zone for international sides in 2009 after Islamist gunmen attacked a bus carrying Sri Lanka’s team in Lahore, wounding several players and killing eight policemen and civilians.   But since a sweeping military crackdown that started in 2014 and lasted several years, security has vastly improved.Test cricket returned to Pakistan in 2019 and Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa later toured the country, helping Pakistan’s bid to host the tournament. Those teams will all be in Pakistan for the Champions Trophy.- ‘Terrorism took everything’ -For 77-year-old businessman Haji Abdul Razzak, a global event coming back to Pakistan is like another birthday. The last time Pakistan held a major international cricket tournament was as co-hosts, with India and Sri Lanka, in 1996.Razzak raised the Sri Lankan flag on March 17, 1996 at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore when the islanders defeated Australia to clinch the title.Twenty-nine years later the cricket fanatic will attend the opening match of the Champions Trophy in Karachi on Wednesday between holders Pakistan and New Zealand. “It is fresh in my mind,” a teary-eyed Razzak told AFP. “My country was thriving back then and cricket was on everyone’s mind.”He added: “Terrorism took everything away from us. I am overjoyed to see a global event coming back to our country and I am feeling like it will be my birthday.” Although militancy is still a threat in Pakistan, the violence is nearly entirely limited to the remote border regions from north to south, far away from the stadiums.With the capital Islamabad placed in lockdown, Pakistan recently hosted a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and a global meeting on girls’ education, raising its profile on the international stage. As a test case for its readiness, Pakistan last week staged a tri-series with New Zealand and South Africa and crowds flocked to the recently renovated stadiums in Lahore and Karachi.Raja, a former Pakistan captain who played in the 1987 World Cup hosted by Pakistan and India, said holding the Champions Trophy has enormous significance that goes beyond sport. “This Champions Trophy is a crucial step toward normalising its standing in the global cricket community,” he said.”It’s also about national pride and sending a strong message about resilience and determination. “It is about youth engagement, cultural promotion and building a global image.”Now the onus is on us to deliver.” 

Farmers in Indian-administered Kashmir say a major government infrastructure drive is taking their deeply cherished land, fearing it spearheads a push to “Hinduise” the disputed Muslim-majority territory.Musadiq Hussain said that police “destroyed” his rice crop when a large chunk of his smallholding was expropriated to make way for a four-lane, 60-kilometre (40-mile) highway around the key city of Srinagar.”It has affected my sense of who I am and my self-respect,” said 41-year-old Hussain, adding he can no longer can grow enough rice and vegetables to feed his family.”I feel like my mind is shrinking, just like my land.”Hussain’s land was taken in 2018 but the process has intensified in recent years.The road, along with other highways and railways, is also swallowing swathes of orchards prized for their almonds, apples and other fruit in the Himalayan region, split between India and Pakistan since 1947.Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist government, which imposed direct rule in 2019, says that the multi-billion-dollar drive is bringing a “new era of peace” and “unprecedented development”.New Delhi says it will boost trade and tourism, while also bolstering military access across the restive territory and to strategic border zones with Pakistan and China.- ‘Settler colonial land grab’ -Authorities say construction within 500 metres (yards) on either side of the highway around Srinagar is banned.But last year, authorities unveiled plans to build more than 20 “satellite townships” along the route, with drawings showing highrise developments it called a “Pearl in the Paradise”.Kashmiri political parties are demanding to know who the housing is for, accusing Modi’s government of wanting to change Kashmir’s demographic makeup to create a Hindu majority — something the authorities do not comment on.Goldie Osuri, who studies Indian policies in Kashmir at Britain’s University of Warwick, uses a phrase often associated with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank to describe the situation: a “settler colonial land grab”.”Kashmiri farmers… are being dispossessed of their land and livelihoods in the name of Indian development as ‘a gift’ for Kashmir,” Osuri told AFP.She called the project a bid to “‘Hinduise’ Kashmir at the expense of Kashmiri Muslims”.After New Delhi ended Kashmir’s constitutionally enshrined partial autonomy in 2019, land laws also changed.That allowed all Indians to buy land in Kashmir for the first time.Thousands of acres of “state lands” were added to registers to attract outside businesses.”This is a land grab in plain sight,” said Waheed Ur Rehman Para, a member of Kashmir’s local assembly.Many say that has undermined previous land reforms that granted ownership or farming rights to hundreds of thousands of people.It worries Kashmiri leaders.”We want this land to remain ours”, Modi critic Omar Abdullah, Kashmir’s chief minister, told a rally last month. “Without it, what do we truly possess?”But Siddiq Wahid, a historian at India’s Shiv Nadar University, said that the region’s political parties showed “no intent to unite, only to pull each other down”.”In this lazy politics lies the chief worry for us all”, he said. – ‘Where will we go?’ -More than half a million Indian soldiers are in Indian-administered Kashmir, battling rebels who want independence or to be part of Pakistan.Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict since 1989 in the territory of some 12 million people.Police have also seized land and properties — including orchards, commercial buildings and homes — of people with alleged links to rebel groups.Exact figures for the total area requisitioned are not public. Landowners say that the compensation offered is sometimes too low, and some are suing the government.In December, government authorities ordered the transfer of more than 600 acres (240 hectares) of orchards for a new university campus for the National Institute of Technology.It sparked furious protests from the hundreds of families who depend on the almond and apple trees.Elsewhere, in the village of Dirhama, farmers are angry at their land being requisitioned for a new train station, serving a 40-kilometre railway to an important Hindu shrine.Standing in a field as snow fell, apple farmer Mohammad Ramzan said there was no room for a railway line.”Where is the space? We all have our small patches of land. Where will we go?” asked the 78-year-old.The plan has struck a nerve in Kashmir, where land and identity are deeply intertwined.”This self-sustenance has ensured Kashmiri survival despite decades of curfews, strikes and uprisings,” said Osuri.Mohammad Shafi, a 61-year-old farmer, asked: “What is this development for when my family will be landless?”

India captain Rohit Sharma and superstar batsman Virat Kohli enter the Champions Trophy this week with intense focus on their dwindling powers and speculation over when they will retire.The 37-year-old Rohit and Kohli, 36, got back among the runs to some degree in India’s 3-0 ODI home sweep of England last week.But both have been mired in long lean patches in Tests and have already retired from T20 cricket following last year’s World Cup triumph.Age is clearly catching up with the duo ahead of India’s first match of the 50-over Champions Trophy, against Bangladesh on Thursday in Dubai.Neither player — both mainstays of a formidable India team for more than 15 years — has said what their plans are.But one Indian media report, citing anonymous sources at the cricket board, said opener Rohit had been pressed to make a decision on his future by the time the tournament ends.Rohit’s Test career already looks over, the skipper having “rested” for the decisive, final Test against Australia.”Hopefully they know when the right time to play is,” India’s 1983 World Cup-winning captain Kapil Dev said. “When they think it is not, they will call it off.”Following the bruising 3-1 Test defeat in Australia, India’s board ordered contracted players to play domestic cricket.But both flopped, with Rohit scoring three and 28 in his first and second innings for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy and Kohli scoring six off 15 balls for Delhi.If the idea was to help them play their way back into form, it did not work.Despite intense conjecture about their futures India head coach Gautam Gambhir said the two stalwarts will have “massive roles” to play at the Champions Trophy. India, who will play their games in Dubai after refusing to visit neighbours and hosts Pakistan, are favourites to win the title for a third time.- ‘Not confident’ -Rohit came into the England ODIs with just 31 runs in three matches in the Australia Test series defeat.He scored two in the first ODI against England before rolling back the years in the second with a 90-ball 119.Former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar was sceptical that Rohit could push on from there.”He wanted a big hundred and he finally got it,” Manjrekar told ESPNcricinfo.”Whether he can hit a few more… we will have to wait. I am not confident.”Rohit then got out for one in the final match against England.It was in that match that Kohli finally came good with his 52 — his 73rd half-century in 297 ODIs.Kohli started tentatively before finding his groove in Ahmedabad to finish with seven fours and one six in his 55-ball innings.No matter what happens at the Champions Trophy, the expectation in India is that Kohli will continue to play Test cricket.Former England batsman Kevin Pietersen warned India against discarding the duo prematurely.”You can’t write these guys off because of the aura they have when they walk out to bat,” said Pietersen in his role as a television pundit.Pietersen said that Kohli in particular had earned the right to go out on his own terms.”The question mark doesn’t come down to me, you, the selectors, the coaches, and the other players,” he said.”Virat Kohli can only answer the question in terms of how long he wants to continue and how much fight he has to get better and to create those high standards that everybody expects from him.”

The head of the World Health Organization insisted on Monday it was “now or never” to strike a landmark global accord on tackling future pandemics, after the United States withdrew from negotiations.WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said no country could protect itself from the next pandemic on its own — three days after US President Donald Trump’s administration told the UN health agency it was leaving the pandemic agreement talks.”We are at a crucial point as you move to finalise the pandemic agreement in time for the World Health Assembly” in May, Tedros told WHO members at the opening of the week-long 13th round of negotiations in Geneva.”It really is a case of now or never. But I am confident that you will choose ‘now’ because you know what is at stake.”You remember the hard-won lessons of Covid-19, which left an estimated 20 million of our brothers and sisters dead, and which continues to kill.”A further one-week session is planned before the WHO’s annual assembly.The process began in December 2021, when, fearing a repeat of Covid-19 — which killed millions of people, crippled health systems and crashed economies — countries decided to draft an accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.- Next pandemic ‘when, not if’ -After returning to office on January 20, Trump signed an executive order to start the one-year process of withdrawing from the WHO, an organisation he has repeatedly criticised over its handling of Covid-19.The order added that Washington would “cease negotiations” on the pandemic agreement.Tedros said Washington had formally notified the WHO on Friday of its withdrawal from the talks.”The next pandemic is a matter of when, not if. There are reminders all around us — Ebola, Marburg, measles, mpox, influenza and the threat of the next disease X,” he said.”No country can protect itself by itself. Bilateral agreements will only get you so far,” Tedros added.”Like the decision to withdraw from WHO, we regret this decision and we hope the US will reconsider,” he said.- System ‘under siege’ -Non-governmental organisations following the pandemic agreement process urged remaining member states to get the accord finished.Pandemic Action Network said: “Despite geopolitical and policy challenges, do not walk away from this vital mission.”Spark Street Advisors, a health sector consultancy, said the world had changed since the last negotiations in December, with the global multilateral system “under siege”.”This is why member states cannot afford to fail this week. In this new reality meant to reverse decades of progress, the pandemic agreement is a concrete action against this great dismantling,” it said.While much of the draft text has been agreed, disputes remain over sharing access to pathogens with pandemic potential and the sharing of benefits derived from them — vaccines, tests and treatments.Talks co-chair Precious Matsoso expressed hoped that proposed new wording would ensure a breakthrough. “Let’s make sure that the three years that we’ve spent does not end up being regretted — that we wasted three years of our time,” she said.

The head of the World Health Organization insisted on Monday it was “now or never” to strike a landmark global accord on tackling future pandemics, despite the United States withdrawing from negotiations.WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said no country could protect itself from the next pandemic on its own — three days after US President Donald Trump’s administration formally told the United Nations health agency it would play no further part in the pandemic agreement talks.”We are at a crucial point as you move to finalise the pandemic agreement in time for the World Health Assembly” in May, Tedros told WHO member states at the opening of the week-long 13th round of negotiations at the organisation’s Geneva headquarters.”It really is a case of now or never. But I am confident that you will choose “now” because you know what is at stake.”A further one-week session is planned to finalise the agreement before the WHO’s annual decision-making assembly.In December 2021, fearing a repeat of the devastation wrought by Covid-19 — which killed millions of people, crippled health systems and crashed economies — countries decided to draft a new accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.While much of the draft text has been agreed, disputes remain over some key provisions, notably over sharing access to pathogens with pandemic potential and then equitably sharing the benefits derived from them, such as vaccines, tests and treatments.- ‘Protect future generations’ -“You remember the hard-won lessons of Covid-19, which left an estimated 20 million of our brothers and sisters dead, and which continues to kill. “They are why we are here — to protect future generations from the impact of future pandemics,” said Tedros.”The next pandemic is a matter of when, not if. There are reminders all around us — Ebola, Marburg, measles, mpox, influenza and the threat of the next disease X.”Hours after returning to office on January 20, Trump signed an executive order to start the one-year process of withdrawing from the WHO, an organisation he has repeatedly criticised over its handling of Covid-19.The order also said that during the withdrawal process, Washington would “cease negotiations” on the pandemic agreement.Tedros said Washington had formally notified the WHO on Friday of its withdrawal from the agreement talks.”No country can protect itself by itself. Bilateral agreements will only get you so far,” Tedros said, adding that prevention, preparedness and response was the responsibility of all countries.”Like the decision to withdraw from WHO, we regret this decision and we hope the US will reconsider,” he said.

Sri Lanka is banking on vehicle import taxes to boost revenue and revive the island nation’s battered economy, leftist President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s maiden budget showed on Monday.Vehicle imports were banned in 2020 to save foreign exchange but the move deprived authorities of a lucrative revenue stream, as cars were taxed at about 300 percent. Dissanayake said the ban’s end would bolster state revenue to meet the tax target of 15 percent of GDP, which the country must achieve under the terms of an International Monetary Fund bailout agreement.”For the year 2025, the bulk of revenue gains is expected to be delivered by the liberalisation of motor vehicle imports,” the president told parliament.”This process is being carefully monitored to ensure that the import of vehicles does not result in undue negative impacts on external sector stability.”The budget also doubled the entrance fee of the island’s two casinos to $100 and raised the turnover tax on gaming establishments to 18 percent, up from 15 percent. The IMF wants Sri Lanka to double its income from taxation compared to the 7.3 percent of GDP it took in 2022, when the country defaulted on its $46 billion foreign debt.That year saw the island run out of foreign exchange to finance the import of food, fuel and other essentials, prompting months of street protests led to the toppling of then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa.Sri Lanka secured a $2.9 billion four-year loan from the IMF the following year.Dissanayake, who was elected last year promising to end corruption and bring back stolen assets stashed abroad, said the economy was on the mend.”We should be in a comfortable position to service our foreign debts from 2028,” he said. He also announced a hefty 65 percent increase in the minimum wage to 40,000 rupees ($133) and raised subsidies for low-income earners.

The Champions Trophy begins Wednesday after a turbulent build-up that saw the tournament split between Pakistan and Dubai, and with England facing calls to boycott their match against Afghanistan.The event, regarded as second only to the World Cup in the one-day game, runs until March 9 and is the first global cricket tournament hosted by Pakistan in nearly three decades.India’s matches will however be played in the United Arab Emirates after the sport’s financial superpower refused to visit their neighbour over long-standing political tensions.A month-long impasse ended in December when the International Cricket Council said that India would play their games in Dubai.It raises the prospect of the final of the eight-nation showpiece taking place there, rather than in Pakistan, if India get that far — a good chance given they are favourites to lift the trophy. Arch-rivals India and Pakistan, who only face off in international competitions because of the politics, clash in Dubai on February 23 in the group phase.England play Afghanistan three days later in Lahore in a match that has been met with a backlash in some quarters in Britain.More than 160 British politicians called for a boycott in response to the Taliban government’s ban on women in sport.England Cricket Board chairman Richard Thompson vowed the match would go ahead, saying a “coordinated international response” by the cricket community would achieve more than unilateral action.  The Champions Trophy will be Pakistan’s first ICC event since co-hosting the 1996 World Cup with India and Sri Lanka.Karachi and Rawalpindi are the other Pakistani cities that will stage games.Pakistan became a no-go area for foreign teams after the visiting Sri Lankan squad were attacked by gunmen in 2009, leaving eight people dead and wounding several touring players.But with improved security across most of the country, international cricket returned to Pakistan in 2020.- India favourites -India, Pakistan, New Zealand and Bangladesh form Group A while Australia, England, Afghanistan and South Africa are in Group B. Two teams from each group qualify for the semi-finals in Dubai and Lahore.Pakistan are reigning champions, having defeated India in the final in 2017 at The Oval in London.But it is two-time winners India who are favourites, with superstar batsman Virat Kohli hoping to overcome a poor run of form by his sky-high standards.It could be the 36-year-old’s last hurrah on the international stage, with captain Rohit Sharma also likely to retire after the tournament.”India is playing superb all-round cricket and so are among the favourites for the Champions Trophy,” former India skipper Sunil Gavaskar told AFP.”The other teams, in my opinion, to watch out for are defending champions Pakistan, New Zealand and South Africa.”India will however be missing ace pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah.Australia beat hosts India to win the one-day World Cup in 2023 but they are missing several key players.Their formidable pace attack of Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood are all out.Coupled with the sudden retirement from ODIs of Marcus Stoinis and injury to Mitchell Marsh — both key all-rounders — and Australia suddenly look vulnerable.They were well beaten 2-0 in Sri Lanka in a two-match series last week. Sri Lanka failed to qualify for the Champions Trophy.Pakistan will open the ninth edition of the Champions Trophy with a match against New Zealand in Karachi on Wednesday.The co-hosts are unpredictable, as they showed in the last edition of the tournament, losing to India by 124 runs in the opening match before winning the final against them by 180 runs.England go into the competition under a cloud, having been outclassed by India in both a T20 and one-day series in the lead-up.With quality spinners led by Rashid Khan, Afghanistan are dangerous.They shocked England, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in the 2023 ODI World Cup and reached the semi-finals of the Twenty20 World Cup last year. 

Kolkata locals cherish their city’s past, which is why many in the one-time Indian capital are mourning a vanishing emblem of its faded grandeur: a hulking and noisy fleet of stately yellow taxis.The snub-nosed Hindustan Ambassador, first rolling off the assembly line in the 1950s with a design that barely changed in the decades since, once ruled India’s potholed streets. Nowadays it is rarely spotted outside Kolkata, where it serves as the backbone of the metropolitan cab fleet and a readily recognisable symbol of the eastern city’s identity. But numbers are dwindling fast, and a court ruling means those that remain — lumbering but still sturdy — will be forced off the roads entirely in the next three years.”I love my car like my son,” Kailash Sahani, who has sat behind the wheel of an Ambassador cab for the past four decades, told AFP.”It’s a simple car — no electronics, no frills,” the 70-year-old added. “It’s unbelievable how much things have changed… The end of these taxi cars also marks our end.”Sahani is among thousands of Kolkata cabbies relinquishing their vehicles in line with tough emissions standards introduced in 2009 to ease the city’s endemic smog problem. Only around 2,500 Ambassador taxis were still working at the start of this year, down from 7,000 a year earlier, according to Bengal Taxi Association figures. Another 1,000 will be retired this year, and West Bengal state transport minister Snehasis Chakraborty told AFP that the remainder will be gone by the end of 2027.”The car is strong. Parts and maintenance are cheap and if it breaks down, it’s easy to find a mechanic,” said Bengal Taxi Association spokesman Sanjeeb Roy.Their disappearance, he added, “represents all that’s wrong with India’s changing economy”.- Litany of defects -The Hindustan Ambassador was the cornerstone of India’s automotive industry for decades from its 1957 debut at a factory on Kolkata’s northern outskirts. Modelled on a similarly regal sedan car from Britain’s now long-defunct Morris Motors, the car was a triumphant achievement of industry in the first years of India’s history as an independent nation.A deluxe model, its windows adorned with lace curtains, was for years the main means of conveyance for government ministers and captains of industry. But the car’s shortcomings also served as a reminder of deep structural problems with the quasi-socialist economic system that prevailed in India at the time. Buyers sat on wait lists for years because pervasive red tape stopped Hindustan Motors from raising production to meet demand, while a near-monopoly on sales left no incentive to maintain quality standards.That gave rise to an oft-repeated joke about the litany of defects found in the average “Amby”: the only thing in the car that doesn’t make a sound is its horn.Market reforms from the 1980s onwards saw the Ambassador muscled off Indian roads by more modern vehicles, and production was halted entirely in 2014 after years of flatlining demand.- ‘Get with the times’ -Kolkata, the headquarters of Hindustan Motors, is the last place where the cars are seen in any great number — a reminder of the tethers binding the city to India’s past. Grand public buildings evoke the immense riches that flowed through the city’s tree-lined boulevards back when it was the second-largest city in the British Empire, after London. Nobel laureate poet and polymath Rabindranath Tagore was born and died in Kolkata, where the national anthem he composed was sung for the first time during India’s long independence struggle.The city is also renowned for its thrumming nightlife, with crowded and dimly lit restaurants serving up chicken Kiev alongside the same suite of old-world European staples that have been listed on their menus since the late colonial era.But its importance has shrunk dramatically since that heyday, first with the relocation of India’s capital to Delhi in 1911 and then with Mumbai’s ascension as the country’s most important commercial hub.Many of Kolkata’s younger generations have left in search of better opportunities elsewhere, giving it a median age at least six years older than other big Indian cities, according to census data.The city’s skewed demographics prompted its pre-eminent novelist Amit Chaudhuri to once quip that while Delhi was for seeking power and Mumbai was for chasing riches, Kolkata was for visiting one’s parents. “People like me are under pressure to get with the times,” retired Kolkata schoolteacher Utpal Basu, 75, told AFP.”Old cars go, new ones come,” he added. “But it will break my heart when the city loses another icon.”

Sri Lanka’s main elephant orphanage marked its 50th anniversary Sunday with a fruit feast for the 68 jumbos at the showpiece centre, reputedly the world’s first care home for destitute pachyderms.The Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage lavished pineapples, bananas, melons and cucumbers on its residents to celebrate the anniversary of their home, which is a major tourist attraction.A few officials and tourists invited to the low-key celebration were served milk rice and traditional sweets while four generations of elephants born in captivity frolicked in the nearby Maha Oya river.”The first birth at this orphanage was in 1984, and since then, there have been a total of 76,” said chief curator Sanjaya Ratnayake, as the elephants returned from their daily river bath.”This has been a successful breeding programme, and today we have four generations of elephants here, with the youngest 18 months old and the oldest 70 years,” he told AFP.The orphanage recorded its first twin birth in August 2021 — a rarity among Asian elephants — and both calves are doing well.Two years before the orphanage was formally established as a government institution in February 1975, five orphaned elephants were cared for at a smaller facility in the southern resort town of Bentota.”Since the orphanage was set up at Pinnawala in 1975, in a coconut grove, the animals have had more space to roam, with good weather and plenty of food available in the surrounding area,” Ratnayake said.The home requires 14,500 kilos of coconut and palm tree leaves, along with other foliage, to satisfy the elephants’ voracious appetites.It also buys tonnes of fruit and milk for the younger calves, who are adored by the foreign and local visitors to the orphanage, located about 90 kilometres (56 miles) east of the capital Colombo.It is also a major revenue generator for the state, earning millions of dollars a year in entrance fees. Visitors can watch the elephants from a distance or get up close and help scrub them during bath times.- Tragic toll -The facility lacked running water and electricity at its inception but things improved as it gained international fame in subsequent years, said retired senior mahout K.G. Sumanabanda, 65.”I was also fortunate to be present when we had the first birth in captivity,” Sumanabanda told AFP, visiting the home for the jubilee celebrations.During his career spanning over three decades as a traditional elephant keeper, he trained more than 60 other mahouts and is still consulted by temples and individuals who own domesticated elephants.Twenty years ago, Sri Lankan authorities opened another elephant home south of the island to care for orphaned, abandoned or injured elephants and later return them back to the wild.While Pinnawala is seen by many as a success, Sri Lanka is also facing a major human-elephant conflict in areas bordering traditional wildlife sanctuaries.Deputy Minister of Environment Anton Jayakody told AFP on Sunday that 450 elephants and 150 people were killed in clashes in 2023,continuing an alarming trend of fatalities in the human-elephant conflict. The previous year saw 433 elephants and 145 people were killed.Killing or harming elephants is a criminal offence in Sri Lanka, which has an estimated 7,000 wild elephants and where jumbos are considered a national treasure, partly due to their significance in Buddhist culture.But the massacre continues as desperate farmers face the brunt of elephants raiding their crops and destroying livelihoods.The minister was confident the new government could tackle the problem by preventing elephants from crossing into villages.”We are planning to introduce multiple barriers—these may include electric fences, trenches, or other deterrents—to make it more difficult for wild elephants to stray into villages,” Jayakody told AFP.

At least 18 people died during a stampede at a railway station in India’s capital late Saturday when surging crowds scrambled to catch trains to the world’s largest religious gathering, officials and reports said.The Kumbh Mela attracts tens of millions of Hindu faithful every 12 years to the northern city of Prayagraj, and has a history of crowd-related disasters — including one last month, when at least 30 people died in another stampede at the holy confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers.The rush at the train station in New Delhi appeared to break out Saturday as crowds struggled to board trains for the ongoing event, which will end on February 26.”I can confirm 15 deaths at the hospital. They don’t have any open injury. Most (likely died from) hypoxia or maybe some blunt injury but that would only be confirmed after an autopsy,” Dr Ritu Saxena, deputy medical superintendent of Lok Nayak Hospital in New Delhi told AFP.”There are also 11 others who are injured. Most of them are stable and have orthopaedic injuries,” she said.Broadcaster NDTV reported three more dead from the stampede quoting an official of another hospital in the city.Those dead were mostly women and children.”I have been working as a coolie since 1981, but I never saw a crowd like this before,” the Times of India newspaper quoted a porter at the railway station as saying.”People started colliding and fell on the escalator and stairs” when platform for a special train departing for Prayagraj was suddenly shifted, the porter said.Railways minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said a “high-level inquiry” had been ordered into the causes of the accident.- ‘Doing our best’ -Vaishnaw said additional special trains were being run from New Delhi to clear the rush of devotees.Undeterred by the accident crowds of devotees continued to throng the railway station on Sunday with more police and railway protection forces deployed to control the flow of passengers.”We are operating an unprecedented and record number of special trains for the ease of passengers,” railways official Himanshu Shekhar Upadhyay told reporters. “We are doing our best.”Opposition parties, however, criticised travel arrangements for the mega-festival and blamed the government for attempting a coverup, after they denied for hours that a stampede had occurred.”They are worried about their image at the cost of the faith of crores of people who are visiting Maha Kumbh… There is no arrangement,” opposition Congress party leader Pawan Khera told ANI news agency.Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “distressed” by the stampede.”My thoughts are with all those who have lost their loved ones. I pray that the injured have a speedy recovery,” Modi wrote on X.The governor of the capital territory Delhi, Vinai Kumar Saxena said disaster management personnel had been told to deploy and “all hospitals are in readiness to address related exigencies.”  The six-week Kumbh Mela is the single biggest milestone on the Hindu religious calendar, and officials said around 500 million devotees have already visited the festival since it began last month.More than 400 people died after they were trampled or drowned on a single day of the festival in 1954, one of the largest tolls in a crowd-related disaster globally.Another 36 people were crushed to death in 2013, the last time the full festival was staged in Prayagraj.