India - Page 18

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Thursday claimed the United States prevented Iran from buying millions of doses of coronavirus vaccine from India.

New Delhi agreed on Tuesday to produce “additional” Russian military equipment in India during a meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in New Delhi.

Hundreds of Maoist militants killed at least 23 Indian security personnel in an ambush on Saturday in Chattisgarh.

China organized the first nationwide homages on Sunday to four soldiers killed fighting Indian troops on the nations’ border in June, the first time the Communist Party had allowed such public mourning over the incident in nearly a year.

India has supplied 82 countries with domestically made Chinese coronavirus vaccines as of Thursday since launching a vaccine outreach drive in January.

The Indian crew of the container ship Ever Given — which blocked billions of dollars in trade from passing through the Suez Canal for nearly a week — may face “criminal charges” and “house arrest” after Egyptian officials launched a probe Wednesday into how the ship became lodged in the channel.

Japan announced this weekend it would provide India with $2 billion in loans and grants to fund infrastructure projects, including the improvement of a power supply system in the strategic Andaman and Nicobar Islands, located in the Bay of Bengal.

Thousands of people gathered together in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday to celebrate Holi, the Hindu spring festival of colors, in open defiance of anti-coronavirus mandates such as social distancing and mask-wearing.

The United Kingdom, so far a world-leader in the vaccination game, may be forced to slow the pace of shots after a major supplier nation decided it would keep more of its production for its own people. 

India’s coronavirus caseload hit a three-month high on Wednesday, prompting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to urge state leaders to act quickly and decisively to counteract the new infection surge.

A study released by Swiss air-quality watchdog group IQAir on Tuesday found New Delhi, India, was the world’s most polluted capital city for the third year running, and South Asia overall had some of the worst air quality ever recorded.

The former spokesman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India said this week that a new anti-conversion law in India is a “ready-made tool” for those who wish to persecute Christians.

Hundred of thousands of Hindu pilgrims packed the banks of the Ganges River in northern India on Thursday for a chance to bathe in the sacred waterway as part of the major Kumbh Mela Hindu festival.

Tanzanian President John Magufuli is allegedly in India receiving medical treatment for the Chinese coronavirus, Tanzanian opposition leader Tundu Lissu told Reuters on Thursday.

India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) issued a cybersecurity report on Thursday that found India weathered a dramatic increase in cyberattacks from China and Pakistan during the year of coronavirus lockdowns.

The Indian government is expected to approve a purchase of 30 MQ-9B Predator drones manufactured by San Diego-based company General Atomics in April.

Reuters reported Wednesday that Pfizer has asked the government of India for “faster regulatory clearance and freedom on pricing on exports” to begin manufacturing its coronavirus vaccine in India.

Indian Health Minister Ashwini Choubey told the Rajya Sabha, the national legislature’s upper chamber, on Tuesday that an intranasal coronavirus vaccine candidate Bharat Biotech is developing had reached clinical development stages, the Times of India reported.

A man in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state was arrested on Wednesday after locals spotted him walking calmly down a village street with his daughter’s severed head in hand.

President Joe Biden joked that Indian-American people were taking over the United States during a call with a NASA team.

More than 5,200 people had signed a petition on Wednesday demanding Indian Supreme Court Judge Sharad Arvind Bobde resign after he recently suggested that an accused rapist marry his schoolgirl victim to avoid jail time.

Members of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), the government of Tibet in exile, requested that the Indian government aid in vaccinating the Dalai Lama, the top authority in Tibetan Buddhism, against the Chinese coronavirus.

A 38-year-old Chinese blogger named Qiu Ziming who writes under the name “Labixiaoqiu” on the social media platform Weibo was forced to broadcast a humiliating video apology on Tuesday for daring to question Beijing’s official narrative of the clash between Chinese and Indian soldiers in the Himalayas last June.

Indian diplomats condemned the government of Pakistan on Tuesday for what they called the “institutionalized violation of human rights” in that country before the United Nations, where Pakistan sits on the Human Rights Council.

Modi’s public endorsement of Covaxin comes despite a failure by its manufacturer, Bharat Biotech, to release efficacy data proving its ability to impart immunity against the Chinese coronavirus.

Internet security firm Cyfirma reported Monday that hackers linked to the Chinese government are attacking the computer systems of two major Indian pharmaceutical companies involved in producing vaccines for the Wuhan coronavirus.

A man who tied a knife to the leg of his rooster for an illegal cockfight was killed after the bird panicked and stabbed him in the groin, police in Lothunur village in Telangana state, India, said Sunday.

At least 6,500 South Asian migrant workers died in Qatar from 2011-2020, the Guardian reported Tuesday, citing government data from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Qatar.

The Chinese state propaganda outlet Global Times attacked Korean pop (K-pop) superstars BTS on Wednesday in response to a report that Big Hit Entertainment, the band’s record label, used a map in a corporate report that did not show parts of India as parts of China.

India’s active coronavirus caseload fell to under 150,000 on Tuesday, which amounts to 1.34 percent of the nation’s total number of recorded cases of the Chinese coronavirus to date, India’s health ministry said.

Chinese state media released a video over the weekend purporting to depict fighting between Chinese and Indian border troops in the Western Himalayas’ Galwan Valley in June 2020.

Chinese police arrested three bloggers Sunday for the “crime” of “slinging mud” at the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) by doubting its official narrative of the Galwan Valley clash in June 2020, a massive hand-to-hand brawl between Indian and Chinese troops in the Himalayas that resulted in dozens of casualties.

Air pollution killed 54,000 people in New Delhi, India’s national capital, last year, Greenpeace Southeast Asia revealed in a study published Thursday.

The Chinese Defense Ministry revealed the names of four People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers killed in hand-to-hand combat with Indian troops in June 2020 on Friday, claiming these to be the only casualties in an exchange the Indian government said killed dozens of Chinese.

The United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHCR) said on Friday it has asked the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to furnish proof that Princess Latifa bint Mohammed al-Maktoum, the 35-year-old daughter of Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, is alive and well. 

Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Thursday hit back at Facebook’s move to block news in the country and called it ”arrogant,” warning against “Big Tech companies who think they are bigger than governments and that the rules should not apply to them.”