China’s factory-gate inflation eased to its slowest pace in six months and consumer price growth also softened in January amid weakening property sector demand, new coronavirus curbs and government efforts to rein in surging materials costs.

Schools reopened in southern India under tight security yesterday with public gatherings banned following protests over Muslim girls wearing the hijab in classrooms.

North Korea marked the 80th birthday of leader Kim Jong Un’s late father with a mass outdoor meeting in sub-zero temperatures, state media reported

A chaotic situation prevailed in the southern Indian state of Karnataka today as burqa-clad Muslim students were barred entry in several pre-university colleges following a High Court order restraining pupils from wearing any religious clothing in educational institutions.

Fortify Rights has urged ASEAN to support the establishment of a UN Security Council-mandated global embargo on the sale of weapons and military technology to Myanmar.

A dispute over restrictions on the wearing of the hijab by female students in a southern Indian state has now reached India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, with a group of youngsters asking a college to ban the head covering.

Myanmar’s junta on Monday said it would not attend an upcoming Asean summit after the bloc’s “regrettable” exclusion of its top diplomat over a lack of progress in defusing post-coup violence.

The Myanmar military massacred civilians, used human shields, and committed other atrocities in Karenni State in acts that may amount to war crimes, said Fortify Rights in a new flash report published today.

India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) today questioned actor and West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress lawmaker Deepak Adhikari, popularly known by his on-screen name Dev, for nearly five hours in connection with its probe into a cattle smuggling racket operating along the border with Bangladesh.

India today advised its nationals in Ukraine, particularly students whose stay is not essential, to leave the country temporarily in view of “uncertainties of the current situation following escalating tensions between the European country and Russia.

A special court in India today convicted senior opposition leader and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav in the Rs 139.5 crore government treasury embezzlement case.

Hong Kong’s health facilities have been overloaded by an “onslaught” of Covid-19 infections, its leader said, even as authorities cling to a “zero-Covid” policy despite an unprecedented rise in cases fuelled by the Omicron variant.

Armed men stormed the home of a high-profile Sri Lankan television journalist critical of the government yesterday, police said, sparking condemnation by local media rights groups.

The Trinamool Congress yesterday made a clean sweep in the civic polls to four municipal corporations in West Bengal — Bidhannagar, Siliguri, Chandernagore and Asansol — as per data available on the State Election Commission’s website.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan yesterday dispelled the impression that Pakistan was more inclined towards China than any other country, clarifying that the country’s strategic direction was to “maintain relations with everyone”.

A mob lynched a man because he had allegedly burnt pages of the Holy Quran in central Pakistan and dozens of people have been arrested, police and officials said on Sunday.

Five United Nations staff have been abducted in southern Yemen while returning to Aden after a field mission, the United Nations said on Saturday.

Celebrated philosopher and social critic Noam Chomsky has said the “pathology of Islamophobia”, now growing throughout the West, is “taking its most lethal form in India where the Modi government is systematically dismantling Indian secular democracy and turning the country into a Hindu ethnocracy”.

China yesterday said it had given “conditional” approval for Pfizer’s Covid-19 drug Paxlovid to treat adults with mild to moderate illness and a high risk of developing severe disease.

India yesterday reacted sharply to the comments coming from some countries on the hijab controversy in the southern state of Karnataka and said “motivated comments” on its internal issues “are not welcome”.