The symbolism of the visit will be hard to avoid. As Narendra Modi arrives in Washington DC on Wednesday – the capital of a country he was once prohibited from visiting for almost 10 years – he will join the ranks of Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and Volodymyr Zelenskiy as one of the few leaders to address a joint session of Congress more than once. Statements from US officials ahead of the visit have been rapturous on the subject of US-India relations, praising the “significant defence partnership” and describing it…
Tag: South and Central Asia
Weather tracker: extreme rainfall and heat hits China amid Asian heatwave
Many people in China have experienced a variety of weather extremes in recent days. Parts of southern and eastern China experienced prolonged periods of torrential rainfall, as the summer rains known as “dragon boat water” got off to a remarkable start. The city of Yulin in the Guangxi region experienced 35 hours of non-stop rain on 8 and 9 June, while the nearby city of Beihai was flooded after 614.7mm of rainfall over 24 hours in the same period. This is approximately a third of the city’s average yearly precipitation,…
China and Saudi Arabia boycott G20 meeting held by India in Kashmir
India’s presidency of the G20 group of leading nations has become mired in controversy after China and Saudi Arabia boycotted a meeting staged in Kashmir, the first such gathering since India unilaterally brought Kashmir under direct control in August 2019. The meeting, a tourism working group attended by about 60 delegates from most G20 countries taking place from Monday to Wednesday, required a large show of security at Srinagar international airport. In 2019 the Indian government stripped the disputed Muslim-majority region of semi-autonomy and split it into two federal territories…
Australia, India, Japan and US take thinly veiled swipe at China
The leaders of the Quad group – Australia, India, Japan and the United States – delivered a thinly veiled swipe at Beijing’s behaviour on Saturday at a summit in Hiroshima. The US president, Joe Biden, and his three partners in the group did not mention China by name but the communist superpower was clearly the target of language in a joint statement calling for “peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific maritime domain”. “We strongly oppose destabilising or unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion,”…
‘It’s not like chicken farming’: why manta rays are chopped up in Sri Lanka
Every morning, starting at 3am, Lakshan hacks up manta rays. A wholesale buyer who plies his trade at Sri Lanka’s largest fish market, in the city of Negombo, just north of Colombo, he jostles with fishers offloading their catches. His business is primarily to find fresh tuna but he also buys 700kg (1,540lb) of manta and devil rays every day. He doesn’t want the ray’s meat, which most Sri Lankans don’t eat. Instead, he’s after the gill plates: cartilage that helps manta and devil rays filter out microorganisms in ocean…
Military construction on Myanmar’s Great Coco island prompts fears of Chinese involvement
Since the early 1990s, Myanmar’s Great Coco – a small, remote island in the Bay of Bengal – has been at the centre of intrigue. Rumour had it that the island was home to a Chinese intelligence facility, a claim lacking hard evidence. Now concerns over the island, and its uses, have re-emerged. Satellite images taken in January 2023 show telltale signs of military modernisation, according to a report by the thinktank Chatham House. There’s a newly lengthened 2,300-metre runway and radar station, two new hangars, what appears to be…
India accuses China of aggressions amid border stalemate
India’s defence minister has accused China of border aggressions that that have “eroded the entire basis” of their relationship, as negotiations between the two nuclear powers remain at a stalemate. On Thursday, China’s defence minister Li Shangfu landed in Delhi for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit. It is the first visit to India by a Chinese minister since 2020, when 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers died in clashes along the Himalayan border in Ladakh and the two sides came the closest to war for almost 70 years. Since…
‘Endless record heat’ in Asia as highest April temperatures recorded
Asia is experiencing weeks of “endless record heat”, with sweltering temperatures causing school closures and surges in energy use. Record April temperatures have been recorded at monitoring stations across Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, as well as in China and South Asia. On Tuesday, four weather stations in Myanmar hit or matched record monthly temperatures, with Theinzayet, in eastern Mon state, reaching the highest, at 43C (109.4F). On Wednesday, Bago, north-east of Yangon, reached 42.2C, matching an all-time record previously recorded in May 2020 and April 2019, according to Maximiliano…
Indian ministers rebuke Der Spiegel for ‘racist’ cartoon mocking population size
A cartoon in the German magazine Der Spiegel poking fun at India as it becomes more populous than China has been castigated as “racist” by Indian ministers. The cartoon shows a rickety old Indian train packed with people and swarms of passengers atop it. On a parallel track, a sleek Chinese bullet train is seen with just two drivers, looking surprised at the sight of the Indian train. According to United Nations projections published on Monday, India has a population of 1,425,775,850, surpassing China for the first time. Kanchan Gupta,…
India overtakes China to become world’s most populous country
India has overtaken China as the world’s most populous country, according to UN population estimates, the most significant shift in global demographics since records began. According to the UN’s projections, which are calculated through a variety of factors including census data and birth and death rates, India now has a population of 1,425,775,850, surpassing China for the first time. It is also the first time since 1950, when the UN first began keeping global population records, that China has been knocked off the top spot. China’s population decline follows decades…