UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet acknowledged Sri Lanka’s legal, institutional, and constitutional reforms, but added concerns remain about the lack of accountability in Sri Lanka after gross violations of human rights
South Asia’s climate risks are shared across countries. Rivers such as the Ganga, Brahmaputra and Indus do not respect national boundaries, and torrential rains in one country can lead to floods in another. Satellite data, flood forecasts and flood warnings could, therefore, be shared to enhance disaster preparedness across the region.
The disasters at Kedarnath and Nepal should therefore be read not simply as tragedies of the past or isolated episodes of extreme weather. They are warnings from a changing mountain system. The question before South Asia is whether we will continue to respond to each disaster after it occurs, or whether we will listen to what the mountains are telling us beforehand.
AI may genuinely extend the horizon over which seasonal climate risk can be estimated. For communities across South Asia living under the influence of the monsoon, a longer view could mean the difference between a farmer adjusting her planting in time and a family receiving a flood warning too late to act.
The broader lesson for South Asia is equally important. Hilly regions cannot be developed simply by transferring lowland infrastructure models into mountainous terrain. Investment has to respond to local economic systems, geography and environmental risks.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet acknowledged Sri Lanka’s legal, institutional, and constitutional reforms, but added concerns remain about the lack of accountability in Sri Lanka after gross violations of human rights
India, along with China and the United Arab Emirates, abstained on a Security Council resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine
The UN resolution would be a test of India's position in a post-Cold War world that is quickly plunging into a new Cold War
As Russian President Vladimir Putin announced “special military operations” in Ukraine even as the Security Council was meeting in a late-night emergency session, India warned of a looming major crisis
India's statement was one of the mildest straddling the East and the West while most of the members roundly criticised Putin's actions
In what comes as huge relief to Afghan teachers, who remain unpaid for months, the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF has said it will pay a fixed stipend for two months to support them
Tirumurti expressed India's support for the Minsk Agreements and the Normandy format of diplomacy for finding a solution to the Ukraine situation
The United Kingdom will co-host next month an international aid conference for Afghanistan with the United Nations, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss confirmed on Tuesday, as the UN seeks $4.4 billion, the largest the UN has ever sought for a single country for meeting the growing humanitarian needs
The lack of progress in the investigations involving the killings of journalists in Bangladesh highlights an “appalling and pervasive culture of impunity” in the country, the United Nations’ human rights monitors said, urging authorities to “conduct thorough, independent and effective investigations”
'There are no recent signs that the Taliban has taken steps to limit the activities of foreign terrorist fighters in the country', the UN report said
About eight to nine people, who were among 76 listed as missing by the United States, have reappeared, a senior Bangladesh official said, amid reports that authorities were coercing families to give false testimonies about victims
A UN rights body has called for the release of four Afghan women activists and their relatives detained or arrested by the Taliban in the last few weeks
Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawa has a charity wing Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation which was banned by Pakistan in 2019 amid intense global pressure
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has condoled the death of Indian singing legend Lata Mangeshkar, calling her the “voice of an entire subcontinent.”
The Taliban haven’t taken any steps to limit the activities of foreign fighters; they, in fact, enjoy greater freedom under them