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Thousands in Indian-administered Kashmir with “resistance tattoos” including assault rifles inked to oppose New Delhi’s authority have been lining up to scrub them from their bodies, fearing police retribution after a deadly attack on tourists last week.Basit Bashir receives up to 100 people, mostly men, every day at his laser clinic in the main city of Srinagar, hovering swiftly over designs ranging from AK-47 rifles to Islamic symbols such as a crescent moon.”I have safely removed AK-47 and similar type tattoos from the arms and necks of more than 1,000 young people using laser,” Bashir told AFP at his clinic in the old quarter of Srinagar as he blasted high-intensity light pulses to break up the ink.Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947, with both governing the disputed territory separately and claiming it in its entirety.That long-running conflict has shot back to attention after gunmen targeting tourists carried out the deadliest attack on civilians in a quarter of a century in the Himalayan territory, killing 26 men on April 22 in Pahalgam.Indian police have issued wanted posters for three men accused of carrying out the Kashmir attack — two Pakistanis and an Indian — who they say are members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group, a UN-designated terrorist organisation.India blames Pakistan and, while Islamabad denies any role, troops from the nuclear-armed neighbours have repeatedly fired at each other across the Line of Control, the de facto border in contested Kashmir.”After Pahalgam, we have seen a rise in the number of people with a crescent or AK-47 tattoos coming in for removal,” 28-year-old Bashir said.One young man came in this week with an AK-47 tattoo after friends told him it was “better to get it removed” since the situation was “very precarious”, he said.- ‘Fearful young’ -In Indian-controlled Kashmir, body tattoos have been a form of political expression, like graffiti, since an armed rebellion against Indian rule erupted in 1989.Rebel groups — largely crushed in recent years — demand Kashmir’s independence or its merger with Pakistan, and tens of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict.But deeply held anti-India sentiment has remained.Many who grew up during the violent uprising had their bodies inked with symbols expressing not just resentment towards Indian rule but also their religious identity.Bashir, the laser technician, said he initially started erasing tattoos depicting Muslim religious symbols.”They wanted the tattoos removed, believing it was prohibited in Islam, and wanted to be buried as pure after death,” he said.But others with pro-independence slogans started coming in big numbers after 2019, when New Delhi cancelled the region’s partial autonomy and clamped down on dissent and protests.Thousands were arrested and civil liberties were drastically curtailed.Police and security forces increased surveillance following the 2019 change in the territory’s status.They punished political expression hinting at resistance or a reference to the disputed nature of Kashmir in any form — even on social media.”I started getting a stream of fearful young men and women seeking their tattoos to be safely removed,” Bashir said.On some days more than 150 people turned up at his clinic, prompting him to buy a new machine for a million rupees (nearly $12,000).”Many of them told me their stories of being harassed by police for their tattoos showing any anti-India sentiment”, he said. – ‘Interrogation’ -The rush for having tattoos erased for fear of police reprisal has now spawned more than 20 other laser clinics across Srinagar, charging between 300 and 3,000 rupees ($3.50-$35) for the job, depending on the tattoo’s size.Sensing the rush, Bashir said he had trained in India’s Gujarat state to learn how to erase tattoos safely.”People come from all across Kashmir,” Bashir said. “Many have told me their horrific stories of facing police interrogation for their tattoos.”Many were hesitant, fearful of speaking about younger motivations for the tattoo.”I get rebuked by my family and school friends all the time for my tattoos,” a student said, clenching his teeth during the painful procedure.”I can’t deal with it anymore, that is why I came here”.Another, a lawyer hoping to find a match for marriage, said she had an assault rifle tattooed on her arm during the 1990s when the armed rebellion was at its peak.”That is what I had seen all around me during my childhood — soldiers and militants wielding and firing from their AK-47s,” she said, declining to be identified for fear of reprisal.”Everything has changed since then,” she said, showing the blisters that now replaced the rifle after two rounds of laser. “These things are trouble.”

Rohit Sharma shined with the bat and Karn Sharma spearheaded a fine collective bowling effort as Mumbai Indians cruised to a massive 100-run win over Rajasthan Royals on Thursday, officially ending their opponents’ chances of reaching the playoffs. Rohit smacked 53 runs of 36 balls as Mumbai posted 217-2 after being invited to bat first at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur. Indian pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah and spinner Karn then picked up a combined total of five wickets to help bowl out Rajasthan for 117 in 16.1 overs after teenage sensation Vaibhav Suryavanshi fell to a two-ball duck. The match extends Mumbai Indians winning streak to six games and pushes them to the top of the points table. Mumbai skipper Hardik Pandya said the team were going back to “simple” cricket with clinical batting and bowling performances. “As a group, the way we batted was proper batsmanship…,” said Hardik. “Everyone is really clear. We’re going back to simple cricket, and it’s working for that. We want to take game by game, and be humble and disciplined.” Mumbai openers Rohit and Ryan Rickelton kicked off the first innings on a dominant note, producing a 116-run partnership before Rickelton, who hit 61 runs off 38 balls, departed in the 12th over. Rohit fell shortly after, leaving the team at 123-2. But the rest of the batting burden was shouldered ably by aggressive knocks from Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik. Both players smacked an unbeaten 48 runs each, giving no quarter to Rajasthan’s bowlers, with Yadav hitting a six off the very last ball to set Rajasthan a chase of 218. In reply, Rajasthan started the on a wobbly note. Suryavanshi (0) was dismissed cheaply in the first over while Yashasvi Jaiswal (13) fell soon after, leaving the team at 20-2 at the end of the second over. Unfortunately for the hosts, sharp spells from Mumbai’s bowlers triggered a batting collapse. Nitish Rana (9), skipper Riyan Parag (16), Shimron Hetmyer (0), Shubham Dubey (15) and Dhruv Jurel (11) fell like flies, leaving the team teetering at 76-7 at the end of the ninth over. England’s Jofra Archer offered a glimmer of hope, hitting 30 runs off 27 balls, but ultimately fell, leaving the Rajasthan Royals far short of their target. Parag said that Mumbai Indians deserved credit “for the way they batted”. “Yeah, 190-200 would have been ideal. We’ve been getting good starts,” he said. “But it’s up to the middle order… to step up. I think we’ve done a lot of things right. And a lot of things wrong.” 

Authorities in Pakistan-administered Kashmir shut more than 1,000 religious schools Thursday over fears of possible military action from India in retaliation for last week’s deadly attack.India blames Pakistan for the gun attack that killed 26 people on April 22 in Indian-administered Kashmir, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi giving his military “complete operational freedom”.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio late Wednesday separately called India’s top diplomat Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to “de-escalate tensions and maintain peace and security in South Asia”, the State Department said.Denying involvement in the attack, Islamabad says it has “credible evidence” that India is now planning an imminent military strike, vowing that “any act of aggression will be met with a decisive response”.Rubio “urged Pakistani officials’ cooperation in investigating this unconscionable attack”, said spokeswoman Tammy Bruce.India’s foreign minister said after the call that the attack’s “perpetrators, backers and planners must be brought to justice”.Fearing a military escalation, Pakistani authorities shut more than 1,000 religious schools in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.”We have announced a 10-day break for all madrassas in Kashmir,” said Hafiz Nazeer Ahmed, head of the local religious affairs department.A department source said it was “due to tensions at the border and the potential for conflict”.On Thursday, New Delhi reported the seventh straight night of small arms gunfire between the two sides at the heavily militarised Line of Control, the de facto border.- ‘Constant fear’  -Muslim-majority Kashmir, a region of around 15 million people, is divided between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India which have fought several wars over the disputed territory.About 1.5 million people live near the ceasefire line on the Pakistani side, where residents are readying simple, mud-walled underground bunkers — reinforced with concrete if they could afford it. “For one week we have been living in constant fear, particularly concerning the safety of our children,” Iftikhar Ahmad Mir, a 44-year-old shopkeeper in Chakothi on the Line of Control (LoC), told AFP.”We make sure they don’t roam around after finishing their school and come straight home.”Emergency services workers in Muzaffarabad, the main city in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, have also begun training schoolchildren on what to do if India attacks. “We have learned how to dress a wounded person, how to carry someone on a stretcher and how to put out a fire,” said 11-year-old Ali Raza.- Tit for tat aggression -Since the attack — the deadliest in Kashmir on civilians in years — India and Pakistan have exchanged tit-for-tat diplomatic barbs and expulsions and shut border crossings.Indian police have issued wanted posters for three men suspected of involvement — two Pakistanis and an Indian — who they say belong to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN-designated terrorist organisation.They have announced a two-million-rupee ($23,500) bounty for information leading to each man’s arrest and carried out sweeping detentions seeking anyone suspected of links to the attackers.New Delhi on Wednesday closed its airspace to Pakistani planes, after Islamabad banned Indian planes from overflying.India and Pakistan have fought over the Himalayan territory since the violent end of British rule in 1947.Rebels in the Indian-run area of Kashmir have waged an insurgency since 1989, seeking independence or a merger with Pakistan.The worst attack in recent years in Indian-run Kashmir was at Pulwama in 2019, when a suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a security forces convoy, killing 40 and wounding 35.Indian fighter jets carried out air strikes on Pakistani territory 12 days later.burs-ecl/stm/pst

Sri Lanka’s government pledged closer ties on Thursday with Communist parties in China and India, two regional powers competing for influence in the small but strategically important nation.The leftist government of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake held its first May Day rally with special guests from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Communist parties in India.CCP official Peng Xiubin told the mass rally in Colombo that his party had been working closely with Dissanayake’s JVP, or People’s Liberation Front.”We will make China–Sri Lanka relations even stronger,” the Chinese official said.JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva said he hoped cooperation with China would help address rural poverty.”China has done tremendous work in this area and we want to get their expertise,” Silva said.A.R. Sindhu, a Central Committee member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), which governs India’s southern Kerala state, said they were drawing inspiration from the JVP’s rapid rise to power.”We proudly tell the people that, yes, Kerala will follow the Sri Lankan way. Not only Kerala –- the entire India will be following the Sri Lankan way,” Sindhu said.The JVP, which held just three seats in the previous parliament, went on to win 159 -– just over two-thirds –- in the 225-member assembly at the November elections.With the leftist Dissanayake in office, New Delhi has been concerned about Beijing’s growing influence in Sri Lanka, which India considers to be within its sphere of geopolitical influence.Sri Lanka lies just south of India and is located at a halfway point along the main east–west international shipping lane, making it a strategic location in the Indian Ocean.Dissanayake has been trying to balance relations with the two regional super powers. His first overseas visit was to India after coming to power following September presidential election.He then travelled to China, which is also the island’s largest single lender.Beijing was the first to restructure its loans to Sri Lanka after the country declared a sovereign default in April 2022, following an acute shortage of foreign exchange that triggered an unprecedented economic meltdown.India extended credit lines to help salvage the Sri Lankan economy after it declared bankruptcy three years ago.

Three days of political rallies began in Bangladesh on Thursday with rival groups to stage mass demonstrations in Dhaka, drumming up support for eagerly anticipated elections following an uprising last year.Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, 84, has led an interim government since autocratic prime minister Sheikh Hasina fled into exile as crowds stormed her palace in August. He has said elections will be held as early as December, and at the latest by mid-2026.The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), widely tipped to win the poll, will hold a May Day rally in Dhaka.”We are confident this will be the most memorable grand rally in recent times,” BNP media officer Shairul Kabir Khan said.The largest Islamist political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, will also take to the streets of the capital on Thursday.The Jatiya Party, formerly close to Hasina’s regime, will likewise hold a rally.It will be its first outdoor political event since its offices were vandalised in October, allegedly for helping Hasina’s Awami League cling to power.On Friday, the National Citizens Party (NCP), formed by students who spearheaded the youth-led protests that overthrew Hasina, will hold a rally. NCP leader Nahid Islam initially joined the interim government led by Yunus, before resigning to form the party.”Political programmes help us build public engagement,” said senior NCP official Ariful Islam Adib.”This rally isn’t about showing strength, but we expect 20,000 to 30,000 attendees.”Hefazat-e-Islam, a platform of Islamic seminaries, will hold a “grand rally” on Saturday.”Our rally is a reminder to the government of the sacrifices we’ve made,” said its leader Mamunul Haque, adding they will use the event to present their demands.Key among them is cancelling recommendations by a government women’s commission for ending discriminatory provisions, a further indication of how hardline, religiously fuelled activism is strengthening after years of suppression.”We will present four demands. Chief among them is scrapping the recommendations of the Women’s Rights Commission,” Haque said.”We don’t care if it’s Muhammad Yunus in charge or someone even more prominent, we’ll take to the streets,” he added. – Democratic reforms -Hasina’s government was blamed for extensive human rights abuses and she took a tough stand against Islamist movements during her 15-year rule.She remains in self-imposed exile in India, and has defied an arrest warrant from Dhaka to face charges of crimes against humanity.The South Asian nation of some 170 million people last held elections in January 2024, when Hasina won a fourth term in the absence of genuine opposition parties who boycotted the vote after a crackdown.It is not confirmed if Hasina’s Awami League will take part in elections.Yunus says the caretaker administration he is leading has a duty to implement democratic reforms before it holds a fresh election.He said the timing of elections depends on how much change the political parties can agree on.”If they are in a hurry… then we have the early election in December,” Yunus told broadcast Al Jazeera on Sunday, adding that if parties want more reforms, polls would be later.”If they want a longer version, we go up to June. Beyond June, we don’t go.”

School playing fields in Pakistan’s Kashmir are being transformed into first aid camps for children to learn how to respond if war breaks out with India.Wearing a protective helmet and a fluorescent vest, 13-year-old Konain Bibi listened attentively to her first aid lesson. “With India threatening us, there’s a possibility of war, so we’ll all have to support each other,” she told AFP.Pakistan’s government has warned that it has “credible intelligence” that India was planning an imminent military strike.Already frosty relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours have plummeted since a deadly assault on tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir last week.India blames Pakistan for the gun attack that killed 26 people on April 22, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi giving his military “complete operational freedom”, although Islamabad has denied any involvement.Muslim-majority Kashmir, a region of around 15 million people, is claimed in full by both Islamabad and New Delhi but is divided between them.There are more than 6,000 schools, colleges and universities on the Pakistan side of the border — including 1,195 along the Line of Control (LoC), the heavily militarised de facto border separating the disputed territory.Local authorities launched first aid training this week, teaching students how to jump out of a window, use an inflatable evacuation slide, or carry an injured person.- ‘Come straight home’  -Pakistan and India have exchanged fire at the border for several nights in a row, breaking a ceasefire agreement.In Muzaffarabad, the largest city in Pakistani Kashmir, training sessions have already taken place in 13 schools, according to emergency workers.”In an emergency, schools are the first to be affected, which is why we are starting evacuation training with schoolchildren,” Abdul Basit Moughal, a trainer from Pakistan’s Civil Defence directorate, told AFP.The agency will deploy its rescue workers to schools bordering the LoC in the coming days.”We’re learning to help our friends and provide first aid in case India attacks us,” said 12-year-old Faizan Ahmed as students watched an instructor handle a fire extinguisher.Eleven-year-old Ali Raza added: “We have learned how to dress a wounded person, how to carry someone on a stretcher and how to put out a fire.”About 1.5 million people live near the Line of Control on the Pakistani side, where residents were preparing for violence by readying simple, mud-walled underground bunkers reinforced with concrete if they could afford it. In Chakothi village, about three kilometres (two miles) from the Line of Control, there are around 30 bunkers for a community of 60 families overlooked by Indian army check posts atop the surrounding green mountains.”For a week we are living under constant fear,” said Iftikhar Ahmad Mir, a 44-year-old shopkeeper in Chakothi.”We are extremely worried about their safety on the way to school because the area was targeted by the Indian army in the past,” he said of the village’s children.”We make sure they don’t roam around after finishing their school and come straight home.”

India will conduct its first official caste census since independence, the government announced on Wednesday, a move likely to have far-reaching consequences for its politics and contentious affirmative action policies.Caste remains a crucial determinant of one’s station in life in India, with higher castes the beneficiaries of ingrained cultural privileges and lower castes suffering entrenched discrimination — and a rigid divide between both.More than two-thirds of India’s 1.4 billion people are estimated to be on the lower rungs of a millennia-old social hierarchy that divides Hindus by function and social standing.The decision to include detailed caste data as part of the next census — originally due in 2021 but yet to take place — was approved by a government meeting headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “The Cabinet Committee of Political Affairs has decided today that caste enumeration should be included in the forthcoming census,” government spokesman Ashwini Vaishnav told reporters.”This demonstrates that a government is committed to the values and interests of a society and country.”No date has been announced for the next census.Amit Shah, India’s interior minister, called the move “historic”. “This decision will empower all economically and socially backward sections,” he said in a statement. – Support from opposition leader -Caste data was last collected as part of the official census exercise in 1931, during British colonial rule that ended with Indian independence 16 years later. Successive governments have since resisted updating the sensitive demographic data, citing administrative complexity and fears of social unrest. A caste survey was conducted in 2011 but its results were never made public because they were purportedly inaccurate.That survey was separate from the 2011 general census, the last time the world’s most populous nation collected demographic data.Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has in the past opposed the idea of enumerating people by caste, arguing it would deepen social divisions.Proponents say detailed demographic information is crucial for targeted implementation of India’s social justice programmes, including earmarking nearly half of all university seats and government jobs for socially disadvantaged communities. Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi — a strong advocate of the idea — said he “welcomed” the move. “We see the caste census as a new paradigm of development,” Gandhi told reporters. “We are going to push this paradigm one way or the other.”Modi himself belongs to a low caste and has in the past said he wants to improve the living standards of all irrespective of birth status, saying that for him, the four biggest “castes” were the poor, youth, women and farmers.

Pakistan said on Wednesday it had “credible intelligence” that India was planning an imminent military strike and vowed to retaliate, as the United States appeals to both sides to de-escalate after a deadly attack in Kashmir.Already frosty relations between the nuclear-armed neighbours have plummeted further since New Delhi blamed its arch-rival Pakistan for last week’s assault on tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, the deadliest attack on civilians there in a quarter of a century.Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the military “complete operational freedom” to respond to the attack during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, a senior government source told AFP.Pakistan’s government has denied any involvement in the shooting and vowed that “any act of aggression will be met with a decisive response”.”Pakistan has credible intelligence that India intends to launch a military strike within the next 24 to 36 hours using the Pahalgam incident as a false pretext,” information minister Attaullah Tarar said in a statement early on Wednesday.However, Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar also said Pakistan would not strike first.Later in the day, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif issued a statement saying he had protested “India’s escalatory and provocative behaviour” in a phone call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.Rubio, in a US readout of the call, told Sharif of the “need to condemn the terror attack” in Kashmir.Rubio “urged Pakistani officials’ cooperation in investigating this unconscionable attack,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said.The United States has close relations with India and has voiced solidarity.But Rubio, in a telephone call with India’s top diplomat Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, also “encouraged India to work with Pakistan to de-escalate tensions and maintain peace and security in South Asia,” Bruce said.In a sign of mounting tensions, New Delhi on Wednesday closed its airspace to Pakistani airplanes, after Islamabad banned Indian planes from overflying, in the latest tit-for-tat measure.Muslim-majority Kashmir, a region of around 15 million people, is divided but claimed in full between Pakistan and India which have fought three full-fledged wars since their separation at birth in 1947. About 1.5 million people live near the ceasefire line on the Pakistani side of the border, where residents were preparing for violence by readying simple, mud-walled underground bunkers reinforced with concrete if they could afford it. “We are cleaning the bunker to ensure that if the enemy attacks at any time, we are not caught off guard and we can bring our children to safety,” 42-year-old Muhammad Javed told AFP in the village of Chakothi.- De-escalation calls -Both sides said on Wednesday they had repeatedly traded gunfire for a sixth straight night across the Line of Control (LoC), a heavily fortified zone of high-altitude Himalayan outposts that represents the de facto Kashmir border.Another Pakistani security source told AFP that two drones were shot down on Tuesday near the LoC “after violating our airspace”. The two sides discussed the violations in a weekly call on Tuesday, the country’s army spokesman Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry told a press conference on Wednesday, adding that the details of the routine call are not usually made public.A defence source in India confirmed the director generals of military operations in both countries talked over a hotline.Since the Pahalgam attack there have been tit-for-tat diplomatic barbs, expulsion of citizens and border crossings shut.Modi vowed last week to pursue those who carried out the attack and those who had supported it.”We will pursue them to the ends of the Earth,” he said.- Wanted posters -Rebels in the Indian-run area of Kashmir have waged an insurgency since 1989, seeking independence or a merger with Pakistan.Indian police have issued wanted posters for three men accused of carrying out the Kashmir attack — two Pakistanis and an Indian — who they say are members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group, a UN-designated terrorist organisation.They have announced a two million rupee ($23,500) bounty for information leading to each man’s arrest and carried out sweeping detentions seeking anyone suspected of links to the alleged killers.The worst attack in recent years in Indian-run Kashmir was at Pulwama in 2019, when a suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a security forces convoy, killing 40 and wounding 35.Indian fighter jets carried out air strikes on Pakistani territory 12 days later.burs-pjm/ecl/md-sct/md/jgc

A hat-trick by Yuzvendra Chahal and skipper Shreyas Iyer’s 72 helped Punjab Kings to a four-wicket win over Chennai Super Kings on Wednesday, officially ending their opponents’ slim chances of reaching the playoffs.Five-time champions Chennai made 190 all out after England’s Sam Curran scored 88 off 47 balls but Punjab overhauled the total with two balls to spare.Iyer stood tall with his 41-ball knock and put on a second-wicket partnership of 72 with impact substitute Prabhsimran Singh, who made 54.”I love chasing on any field,” said player of the match Iyer.”I feel like I thrive whenever there is a big total on the board and you need to take the charge and momentum for the team for the rest of the batters to come and go full throttle.”Punjab climbed to second in the 10-team table as they hunt for a first IPL title.The top four teams reach the play-offs, but bottom side CSK are already out of contention after suffering an eighth defeat in 10 matches.Punjab were cruising to victory despite losing Prabhsimran and then Nehal Wadhera to fall to 136-3 in the 15th over.Iyer picked up the pace alongside Shashank Singh, who made 23.But the Kings stuttered late on after Iyer was bowled by Sri Lanka bowler Matheesha Pathirana to leave three required from eight balls.The dismissal of Suryansh Shedge with one needed in the final over, followed by a dot ball, created some late excitement at Chepauk stadium, but Marco Jansen inside edged Khaleel Ahmed for a boundary to seal his team’s sixth victory of the campaign.Leg-spinner Chahal’s four wickets in the penultimate over of CSK’s innings — including the IPL’s first hat-trick since 2023 — proved crucial as the hosts were bowled out in 19.2 overs.Earlier, Chennai lost three early wickets, including Ravindra Jadeja for 17 in the sixth over, before Curran and Dewald Brevis, who hit 32, put on 78 runs for the fourth wicket.”it was the first time we put enough runs on the board,” said skipper M.S. Dhoni.”But was it a par score? I feel slightly short. Yes, a bit demanding from the batters but I feel we could’ve got slightly more.”Afghanistan all-rounder Azmatullah Omarzai broke the stand by bowling Brevis before Curran reached his fifty.Curran’s score was the highest by any Chennai batter this season as the England all-rounder hit nine fours and four sixes.He was finally dismissed by South African left-arm quick Jansen before Chahal took centre stage.Chahal sent back the 43-year-old Dhoni after being hit for a six by the Chennai captain.The India international then took the wickets of Deepak Hooda, Anshul Kamboj and Noor Ahmad to claim his second and the 23rd IPL hat-trick since its inaugural season in 2008.

Climate change, women’s rights, displacement, poverty: Afghanistan remains a priority as it faces overlapping crises, the UN’s relief chief Tom Fletcher told AFP on Wednesday, deploring “brutal” aid budget cuts. “We’ve identified 17 crises across the world where our engagement is most urgent, most vital. Afghanistan is high on that list,” said the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs in an interview with AFP during a visit to northern Afghanistan’s Kunduz province. Fletcher’s visit comes after US President Donald Trump’s decision to slash foreign aid sent shock waves across the globe. Washington had been the top donor to Afghanistan, having spent $3.71 billion in humanitarian and development aid since the Taliban returned to power in 2021 and imposed a severe interpretation of Islamic law. “We’re in a period when we’re having to massively prioritise, take brutal choices… literally life and death choices, about where to operate and which lives to save,” Fletcher said. “You can look at Sudan for the scale of the crisis, you can look at Gaza for the intensity, the ferocity of the killing there,” he added. “Afghanistan is a different kind of challenge but it’s a huge challenge nonetheless.” Climate change is hitting the Central Asian country “particularly hard” and it “will drive the needs even more than conflict will in the period ahead”, he said. “You’ve got that combined with the existing levels of poverty and these decades of instability and conflict.” – ‘Dialogue’ on women’s rights -The situation of women’s rights in the country adds to the layers of a “building up of crisis upon crisis”, Fletcher added. The Taliban authorities have imposed restrictions on women that the UN has denounced as “gender apartheid”. Women and girls have been banned from education beyond primary school as well as many sectors of work and public spaces.  “I think this particular dynamic around women and girls is something that can surely cut through to even the most hard-hearted and cynical transactional politician right now,” Fletcher said. After meetings with Taliban officials this week in the capital Kabul and the Taliban heartland of southern Kandahar, Fletcher noted the need for “dialogue in order to try and change the mindset” on women’s rights. “It’s encouraging to me that people were willing to have the conversation and not have it in a purely defensive way,” he said. Afghan women are particularly affected by humanitarian aid cuts, especially in the health care sector, which has been heavily dependent on foreign support. In Afghanistan, maternal mortality rates of 620 per 100,000 births and infant mortality rates of 55 children under five per 1,000 births are among the highest in the world, according to UNICEF. “I challenge anyone who celebrates aid cuts to sit with a woman who has lost her child because she had to cycle for three hours while in labour to get the care that she needed,” said Fletcher, after having met Afghan women at a mobile health centre. – ‘Humanitarian reset’ -When Amina, a 28-year-old housewife, fell ill, she walked for an hour and a half to reach the centre in the rural countryside.”There are no clinics, no doctors who come here, nothing nearby. We don’t even have electricity,” she told AFP. The small facility, supported by the local non-governmental organisation JACK and UN agencies, is under strain. Already overwhelmed, it now has to accommodate patients from US-funded clinics that had to close, as well as Afghans who have been expelled from neighbouring Pakistan since early April. “The reality with the cuts was that we didn’t see the impact straight away,” Fletcher said.”It’s now that we’re really coming to understand how brutal these cuts are going to be.” Under these conditions, he said, “we’re in the process now of a massive humanitarian reset”.”We’ve got to rediscover that sense of coexistence and care for the most vulnerable people on the planet. I don’t think that’s gone away just because of a few election results,” he said. “I don’t think you can put tariffs on humanitarian action,” he added, referring to the trade war recently launched by Trump.