Archives of South Asia

1. India PM pledges to clean up defence sector

   2013-05-23 09:37:53 GMT : (World/South Asia)

   NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged on Thursday to crack down on corruption in the defence sector after a string of recent graft scandals left his government facing renewed calls to step down.The premier said he was committed to making the process of buying arms and other military hardware more "transparent, smooth, efficient and less vulnerable to unethical practices"."Adequat...

2. Rise in Afghan women jailed for 'moral crimes': rights group

   2013-05-21 14:55:26 GMT : (World/South Asia)

   KABUL: The number of women jailed in Afghanistan for "moral crimes" such as fleeing abusive husbands has risen sharply, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday, undermining claims that the status of women has improved.The campaign group said interior ministry statistics revealed that the number of women and girls convicted of "moral crimes" in the war-torn country increased by 50 percent over 18 months...

3. China PM vows to open up markets to India

   2013-05-21 05:46:38 GMT : (World/South Asia)

   NEW DELHI: Visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang pledged on Tuesday to open up domestic markets to Indian businesses and narrow a gaping trade deficit between the two countries."As for Indian concerns over the trade deficit, the Chinese side is willing to provide facilitations for more Indian products to access the Chinese market," Li said during a speech in New Delhi."I am confident we have the abi...

4. India, China to make new bid to end border row: Singh

   2013-05-20 07:38:57 GMT : (World/South Asia)

   NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Monday he had agreed with his Chinese counterpart to make a new push to settle a long-running border row, pledging his commitment to "peace and tranquillity"."We agreed that our special representatives will meet soon to continue discussions seeking an early agreement on a framework for a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable boundary settl...

5. Visiting Chinese PM vows to build trust with India

   2013-05-20 06:20:06 GMT : (World/South Asia)

   NEW DELHI: Chinese Premier Li Keqiang pledged Monday to build trust with India and declared that ties between the Asian giants were key to world peace as he visited New Delhi only weeks after a border spat.Speaking alongside his counterpart Manmohan Singh, Li said China wanted to increase cooperation with India, saying his choice of destination for his first foreign visit showed the importance tha...

6. Iran hangs two for spying for Israel, US

   2013-05-19 09:00:38 GMT : (World/South Asia)

   TEHRAN: Iran hanged two convicted spies on Sunday, one found guilty of working for Israel, the other for the United States, the Tehran prosecutor's office announced.Mohammad Heydari was convicted of "receiving payment to provide intelligence on various security issues and national secrets in repeated meetings with the Mossad," Israel's intelligence agency, a statement said.Koroush Ahmadi w...

7. Sailor dies during Sri Lanka victory parade

   2013-05-19 07:28:56 GMT : (World/South Asia)

   COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's navy on Sunday recovered the body of a sailor who drowned during a parade marking the fourth anniversary of the defeat of Tamil Tiger rebels, an official said.The body was found near a beach in Colombo where his small boat capsized while taking part in the victory celebrations presided over by President Mahinda Rajapakse on Saturday."The boat was salvaged on Saturday and f...

8. Sri Lanka Tamils defy ban on rebel memorial

   2013-05-18 13:42:49 GMT : (World/South Asia)

   COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's main opposition Tamil party on Saturday defied a military ban and staged a commemoration of their war dead as the government celebrated the fourth anniversary of defeating Tamil Tiger rebels.The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) said it staged the remembrance in the northern town of Vavuniya for those who died in the final battle which also killed Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai...

9. US visit endorses 'Myanmar's Spring': Thein Sein aide

   2013-05-17 13:03:50 GMT : (World/South Asia)

   YANGON: President Thein Sein's historic invitation to the White House is an endorsement of "Myanmar's Spring" and a further sign that the former pariah's reforms are irreversible, a senior Myanmar official said.Washington will welcome the former general on Monday in a hugely symbolic reward for sweeping changes since he took power two years ago. He will be the first leader of the forme...

10. Bangladesh garment hub to reopen after unrest

    2013-05-16 09:08:29 GMT : (World/South Asia)

    DHAKA: Bangladesh manufacturers said Thursday they would reopen hundreds of factories in a key manufacturing hub outside the capital, days after they shut the plants due to worker unrest after a deadly accident."We've decided to reopen the factories (in the Ashulia area) from Friday," Shahidullah Azim, an executive of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, said after m...

11. Azerbaijan extends detention of opposition leaders

    2013-05-15 15:56:10 GMT : (World/South Asia)

    BAKU: A court in Azerbaijan on Wednesday extended the pre-trial detention of two prominent opposition leaders accused of fomenting rare anti-government riots in the tightly-controlled former Soviet state, opposition activists said.Ilgar Mammadov who heads the Republican Alternative (REAL) movement and Tofig Yagublu deputy head of opposition group Musavat were handed an additional three months in j...

12. IOC to oversee India return to Olympic fold

    2013-05-15 15:51:32 GMT : (World/South Asia)

    LAUSANNE: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Wednesday said it had held successful meetings with exiled member India, following its suspension over claims of corruption and political meddling.The Lausanne-based body said its representatives had held "fruitful" talks with India's sports minister, Jitendra Singh, as well as members of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) to discuss the...

13. Indian medics conduct 'perfect' op on baby's swollen head

    2013-05-15 07:48:55 GMT : (World/South Asia)

    NEW DELHI: Doctors on Wednesday successfully carried out life-saving surgery on an Indian baby suffering from a rare disorder that caused her head to swell to nearly double its size, a neurosurgeon told AFP."The surgery went perfectly, much better than expected," said Sandeep Vaishya after the procedure on 15-month-old Roona Begum."It's definitely a success but it's too early to say what t...

14. Air India flight diverted as cockpit door jams

    2013-05-14 15:55:43 GMT : (World/South Asia)

    NEW DELHI: An Air India flight to Bangalore was diverted to another city after the pilot returned from a toilet break and found the door to the cockpit jammed shut, the state-run carrier said Tuesday.The flight left Delhi for Bangalore on Monday but the plane had to be diverted to Bhopal in central India when the pilot realised he could not get back to the controls."The commander of the flight had...

15. Hundreds of Bangladesh textile plants shut indefinitely

    2013-05-13 14:05:25 GMT : (World/South Asia)

    DHAKA: Hundreds of Bangladeshi garment factories are to close indefinitely after worker unrest sparked by last month's collapse of a nine-storey building, the textile industry's main body said Monday."All factories at Ashulia industrial area will be shut down indefinitely from Tuesday due to unrest by the workforce," Shahidullah Azim, vice president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers ...

16. Afghanistan says 9 migrants killed by Iranian border guards

    2013-05-11 14:40:25 GMT : (World/South Asia)

    HEART: Iranian guards fired on a large group of Afghan migrants illegally crossing the border overnight, killing at least nine people, Afghan officials said on Saturday.Hostility to the US role in Afghanistan, regional ambitions and an economy choked by Western sanctions have contributed to a tough Iranian policy against Afghan migrants who flee war and seek work in their more prosperous neighbour...

17. Bangladesh miracle survivor 'doing great': doctor

    2013-05-11 06:48:57 GMT : (World/South Asia)

    SAVAR: Bangladeshi doctors treating a "miracle" survivor pulled from ruins of a collapsed building after 17 days said Saturday she was doing "great" and had been reunited with her family.Reshma, 18, a seamstress dug out from the rubble of the garment factory complex Friday, "never gave up hope" she would be rescued from the ruins of one of the world's worst industrial disasters, army doctor Fa...

18. Miracle survivor Reshma pulled from Bangladesh ruins

    2013-05-10 12:35:13 GMT : (World/South Asia)

    SAVAR: Bangladeshi rescuers pulled a woman alive from the ruins of a collapsed garment factory complex on Friday after she spent 17 days trapped in a basement under the rubble.Hours after officials had announced that the death toll had surged past the 1,000 mark, recovery teams who had long given up any hope of finding more survivors were stunned to hear the voice of a woman calling out for help.T...

19. Bangladesh’s Village of Widows

    2013-05-09 08:10:31 GMT : (World/South Asia)

    DHAKA: A special Bangladeshi court sentenced a senior opposition official to death by hanging on Thursday for crimes including genocide and torture during the 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, the assistant general secretary of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, is the third politician to be sentenced by the International Crimes Tribunal, a much-criticised domestic court based in...

20. Eight dead in Bangladesh garment factory fire: police

    2013-05-09 07:53:23 GMT : (World/South Asia)

    DHAKA: At least eight people have been killed in a fire that swept through a garment-making factory in the Bangladeshi capital, with the owner among the victims, police said Thursday.The cause of the fire was not known but authorities said it broke out during the night on the third floor of an 11-storey building housing two garment factories in the capital's Darussalam district."There were no ...