India

Attacks on Nigerian students shock India

The attacks were prompted by the death of a local teenager due to a drug overdose. His parents blame Nigerian students for giving him the drugs.

Five Nigerian students were attacked on Monday by crowds, while another was beaten by a mob inside a shopping mall.

Police say five people have been arrested over the attacks.

Ms Swaraj said she had spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and he had assured her of a "fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident".

Why these Indian state elections matter to the whole world

As vote counts trickled in from five state elections on Saturday, one result loomed large: that of central India's Uttar Pradesh, home to more than 200 million people. The staggered five-week vote in that state alone marks the biggest election in the world in 2017.

Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, or the BJP, looks poised to take about 75% of the 403 seats on offer in Uttar Pradesh.

Junior Fed Cup success a boost for Pacific tennis

The team of Carol Lee from the CNMI, Tahiti's Naia Guitton and Eleanor Schuster from Samoa won their pool without dropping a set before defeating Singapore in the semifinals and accounting for Sri Lanka 2-0 in the final on Friday.

Team captain Brittany Teei was impressed by their work ethic and ability to execute the game plan in pressure situations.

"Just their ability and willingness to execute on the plans that we were talking about throughout the match," she said.

Pacific Oceania into tennis final

The team of Carol Lee from the CNMI, Tahiti's Naia Guitton and Eleanor Schuster from Samoa won their pool without dropping a set.

Yesterday they swept Singapore 3-0 to advance to the tournament decider against Sri Lanka.

Naia Guitton came from a set down to defeat Tammy Tan 4-6 6-2 6-2 Carol Lee cruised to a 6-0 6-0 drubbing of Joelle Goh before teaming up with Schuster to win the doubles tie 6-2 6-2.

Meanwhile the Pacific Oceania Junior Davis Cup Team had their first win yesterday, beating Tajikistan 2-0.

The forgotten women in an Indian mental health ward

Photographer Cheena Kapoor spent months documenting the women on the ward. Mental illness is "not the only war the women fight here - the stigma of social acceptance and gender discrimination is a major cause of their trauma", she says.

"The male ward is always filled with anxious faces waiting for the sons to return home, while the daughters are so easily forgotten."

These are some of their stories:

Meet the frog that can sit on a thumbnail

Among the smallest frogs in the world, they live on the forest floor and make insect-like calls at night.

Three larger species were also found, bringing to seven the number of night frogs discovered in the Western Ghats.

The mountain range, which runs parallel to the western coast of India, is home to hundreds of threatened plants and animals.

Scientists discovered the new species after several years of exploration in the forests of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

 

Secretive habits

No justice in sight for India's riot rape survivors

The violence, sparked by the alleged harassment of a young Hindu woman by a Muslim man, lasted two days.

A few days later, seven women, all Muslims, went to the police alleging that they were gang-raped during the violence that broke out in their villages. The police took a year to arrest all the 29 accused, who were later released on bail.

The trials were supposed to be completed in special fast track courts within two months. But nearly four years on, the women are still waiting for justice.

Chinese man trapped in India goes home after 50 years

The BBC had reported how Wang Qi, an army surveyor who says he accidentally crossed into India in 1963, had not been given the necessary documents to leave the country.

Following the report, he was visited by Chinese diplomats, who told him efforts were being made to take him back.

Mr Wang was met by family members when his flight landed in Beijing.

Later, in his home city of Xianyang, crowds met him with banners reading "Welcome home, soldier, it's been a rough journey".

Mother sold 12-year-old to 70-year-old man

Muneera Begum, now aged 19, lives in Hyderabad, India. She says she was just 12 years old when her parents sold her into a forced marriage with a man from Oman. He was aged 70.

She calls the so-called wedding night "torture."

"I wasn't educated and I couldn't understand anything that was going on," she said. I had a childishness in me."

She says that for two months, he kept her locked in a room, using her repeatedly for sex.

"If he had to go anywhere he would lock me from the inside, come back later and then again that torture would start," she said.

India is planning to give free WiFi to more than 1,000 villages

Now, the Indian government is stepping up its own efforts.

It plans to provide free WiFi to 1,050 villages across the vast country under a new pilot project known as Digital Village.

Over the next six months, each village will get its own WiFi hotspot mounted on a special towerto which villagers can connect using their cell phones.

Global tech firms and Indian internet providers are racing to grab a piece of the country's unconnected population of more than 900 million people.