In recent days, as Pakistan’s economic woes have intensified, a veritable cottage industry has developed to suggest ways of putting the country back on track.
“My son went after his cow. He will come soon. Our work starts as soon as the sun rises — milking the cows, herding the sheep, rearing the calves, and on it goes. There is nothing more difficult than losing cows and calves on hot summer days," says herder D. Chimiddulam, standing in green grass on one side of a tall wooden fence, looking at dozens of black and white sheep and goats in the enclosure.
Sri Lanka is officially bankrupt and a failed state in all but name. How did a country of 22 million people with a level of literacy on par with most of the developed world end up in such a dire position where the state coffers did not have the measly sum of 20 million dollars to purchase fuel to keep the country functioning beyond the next working day?
The start of the “Decade of Action” to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has also marked the start of an unprecedented period of overlapping crises.
As part of the 2022 United Nations High-Level Political Forum, BRAC, with the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the United Nations, and the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Rwanda to the United Nations, hosted a side event this week to discuss development opportunities led by the Global South. The event highlighted the NGO’s achievements over the last five decades in alleviating and eradicating poverty and the interconnectedness between the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their initiatives.
The soaring temperatures this year in India’s northern state of Kashmir are proving calamitous for the region’s farming community. The place, otherwise known for its emerald streams, lush green hills, and ice sheets, is reeling under heat attributed to climate change this year. The heat wave of such intensity has left most of the water canals dead and dry, plunging the already conflict-torn region into a frightening agrarian crisis.
Villagers living with a desert at their doorstep in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province are finding life more bountiful thanks to recent training on how to use their smartphones to buy, sell and gather information.
Shinzo Abe, the longest-serving Prime Minister of Japan, has died. It was a murder caused by a personal grudge rather than political terrorism. And it was not a direct grudge against Mr. Abe. A religious group had supported Mr. Abe, and a murderer with a grudge against the religious group killed him. Murders targeting politicians are often related to political messages or claims. This is a very unique case in that the murder was committed out of a personal grudge, not against the individual for what he did, but against the organization that supported the individual.
Hidden in Pathumthaini province just outside of Bangkok, 0.24 hectares of land adjacent to Seangsan temple has been turned into an urban vegetable farm managed by members of the Association of the Physically handicapped of Pathumthani.
When Ceylon- now Sri Lanka- gained independence from Britain in 1948 after almost 450 years of colonial rule under three western powers, it was one Asia’s most stable and prosperous democracies.
Recently, I watched a documentary titled Why We Can’t See Disabled People [in Korea].
Older persons are highly visible across Asia and the Pacific: they work in agricultural fields producing our food supplies, peddle their wares as street vendors, drive tuk-tuks and buses, exercise in our parks, lead some of the region’s most successful companies and form an integral part of our families.
Farmer Abdul Waheed, 32, has been using his cell phone for everything but work for the past seven years. But after a recent training session he has installed six farming apps and says the move has paid off.
After losing everything in the recent devastating flood that swept the northeastern districts in Bangladesh, pregnant mother Joynaba Akter, her three children and her husband took refuge in a shelter centre at Gowainghat in Sylhet.
Parasite, a Korean black comedy film directed by Bong Joon-ho, shows the story of a poor family who infiltrated the household of an affluent family by getting employment by pretending to be highly qualified persons.
As the
Second Global Ocean Conference opens today in Lisbon, governments in Asia and the Pacific must seize the opportunity to enhance cooperation and solidarity to address a host of challenges that endanger what is a
lifeline for millions of people in the region.
It appears to be business as usual at the Al-Ittifaq
pesantren, the local term for an Islamic boarding school. Yadi and Rezki, both 18, join the
subuh, pre-dawn prayer, in the local mosque. After a session of religious meditation, along with other
santris, or students, the two study science in a pre-dawn class for about 30 minutes.
For years Indramayu has been known as one of Indonesia’s rice centres. The district in West Java is the country’s number one rice producer, generating 1.3 million tonnes of husked rice in 2021, according to Indonesia’s Centre of Statistics (BPS). The country’s total rice production was 54 million tonnes.
It wasn’t that long ago that Internet connectivity faded the moment one left a populated area like a city or big town – “no service” was the take-away message back then. But thanks to 3G, 4G and now 5G mobile technology, coupled with widespread installation of cellular towers in rural areas region-wide, that little message shows up much less frequently.
“We came here in 1979 after Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. My children and grandchildren have grown up here and they don’t want to go back to that war-ravaged country. I go there occasionally to mourn the deaths of near and dear ones,” says Muhammad Jabbar, 67, a former resident of Kabul, capital of Afghanistan.
Early estimates in the Afghan provinces of Khost and Paktika indicate that the earthquake took lives of over a thousand people, with the death toll likely to rise. Many more have been injured, lost their homes and everything they owned.
