Led by Congress party, India’s opposition alliance channels anger over removal of 130 million names from voter roll

Thousands of opposition supporters have gathered in Delhi as protests against the Narendra Modi government continue to gather momentum.

Led by the Congress party, India’s opposition alliance has brought together supporters from across the country, amid growing anger over a large-scale revision of the country’s voter roll that has seen 130 million names erased.

On a wildlife walk in the Indian capital, a group of women share their stories of trying to enjoy nature in a city where strangers feel entitled to harass them

Vallari Sheel wishes she could carry a camera or a pair of binoculars without being asked what her father does for a living. Once, looking at a tree in her south Delhi neighbourhood, about 50 metres away from her home, a man in a car screamed at her: “You have been clicking photos here for 10 days. What are you going to do with them?”

Sheel, an urban ecologist, spends hours observing trees of all types in all seasons. She often travels by car for her own safety, worries about the impact of her work on her family, and has clear guidance for her female interns when they are, inevitably, approached: don’t engage, don’t respond.

Case filed in 2022 by patient unable to afford medicine leads to cap on drug prices for millions who face ruin if diagnosed

The Indian government has moved to reduce the price of cancer drugs after a retired bank clerk took her case to the supreme court.

From next month, 137 cancer drugs in India will be cheaper as the government tries to tackle the tragedy of poorer patients either forgoing treatment, selling land or falling into debt to meet the high cost of some medicines, which are making large profits for hospitals and pharmacists.

Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka spent a week in jail after defying restrictions on protests in Delhi amid government crackdown

An Indian court has ordered the release of two leaders of India’s Cockroach movement who were jailed last week amid a mounting state crackdown on youth-led protests.

The two leaders of the Cockroach Janta party (CJP) movement, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, had spent a week in Delhi’s Tihar jail after being arrested by Delhi police last week.

Abhijeet Dipke was arrested before planned anti-government demonstrations in Delhi

The leader of the Cockroach Janta party (CJP) youth movement, Abhijeet Dipke, was detained by police on Friday as authorities cracked down on fresh anti-government protests in the Indian capital.

Dipke was detained before a planned Friday evening demonstration he had called in central Delhi, urging supporters of the movement to come out and hold up the Indian flag.

Authorities impose strict lockdown in capital to try to stop rally against removal of 130m names from electoral roll

Indian authorities have placed Delhi under a severe lockdown and detained tens of thousands of people, including the leader of the youth-led “Cockroach” movement, in an attempt to stop an anti-government protest.

Thousands of people from across India were blocked from attending the demonstration, which had been called by the “Cockroach Janata party” (CJP) to protest against an exercise that has stripped 130m names from India’s electoral roll.

Pakistani authorities insist marchers calling for former PM to be released from jail will not reach the capital

Imran Khan’s supporters have begun a march to Islamabad to demand his release from jail after efforts by the government to halt the protest failed.

The march began in the former prime minister’s stronghold province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in north-west Pakistan on Sunday, according to leaders of his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party.

Swift actions of Smit Machchhar allowed passengers and off-duty pilots to subdue attacker and land plane safely

Smit Machchhar was lying on the floor of the flydubai flight deck, covered in blood, when he managed to click the release to open the cockpit door, allowing passengers and crew to gain entry, overpower his attacker and save 174 passengers onboard.

Moments earlier, Machchhar’s fellow pilot had stabbed him, in an apparent effort to crash the plane, which was travelling from Dubai to Tel Aviv. Machchhar, from Mumbai, is being treated in a hospital in Saudi Arabia’s north-western city of Tabuk, where the plane landed safely.

Women say nothing has changed since Delhi’s infamous Nirbhaya bus rape case 14 years ago

The posters, just like the women holding them, were taking no prisoners. “Girls don’t need curfews, rapists need consequences,” read one. “Lock your dicks rather than your women at home,” read another.

As hundreds of women walked from the gates of their university campus into the streets of Delhi – where sexual harassment, assault, catcalling and molestation are a constant, daily threat – they shouted together in a chorus of rage and defiance: “We want justice.”

Tens of thousands of police deployed and roads barricaded as PTI party demands release of jailed former PM

Leaders from Imran Khan’s party have vowed to go ahead with a nationwide demonstration in Pakistan to demand the former prime minister’s release, even as the government deployed tens of thousands of police to Islamabad, barricaded highways and issued arrest warrants to try to stop the march.

The state has taken extreme measures to prevent Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party from proceeding with the march. It was announced after mounting concerns of the treatment of Khan, who has been in jail since 2023 on corruption charges.

Islamic State-inspired bombings of churches and hotels in 2019 was one of the country’s worst ever attacks

A court in Sri Lanka has convicted 15 men on terrorist charges for their involvement in the deadly 2019 Easter bombings and sentenced them each to at least 220 years in prison.

The terror attacks, which targeted luxury hotels and churches as they held Easter services, left 267 people dead and wounded almost 6000. The bombings, which were inspired by Islamic State (IS), were among the deadliest terror attacks in Sri Lanka’s history and sent shockwaves through the country.

Activation of mutual defence agreement by Riyadh as fighting with Houthis escalates would have wide-reaching repercussions for Islamabad

As he stood in Riyadh last September, the world looked like a very different place for Pakistan’s most powerful man, Gen Asim Munir.

The country’s army chief was there to witness the signing of a historic defence pact with Saudi Arabia, which he had personally orchestrated with the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

Modi’s bid to ‘purify’ voter lists has affected a third of the city’s residents. In the GB Road red light district, those who lack permanent homes and documents are among the hardest hit

Rows of hardware and car-part shops line Garstin Bastion Road, with faded signs crammed together above their shutters. By day, the street is one of Old Delhi’s busiest commercial thoroughfares. But as dusk falls, GB Road, as it is known locally, transforms into one of the city’s most notorious red-light districts.

An estimated 2,800 sex workers live and work in brothels that occupy the upper floors of the dilapidated buildings, their entrances tucked behind narrow stairways and unmarked doors. Women sit on plastic stools beneath the stairways, calling out to men passing on the street, while others watch from windows above, their eyes following the movement below before customers are directed upstairs.

From Sri Lanka to South Korea, governments are preparing for droughts, wildfires, typhoons and floods – with climate plans facing their biggest challenge to date

Asian governments are rushing preparations for the most severe El Niño weather event on record, with hundreds of millions of people bracing for multiple crises at once as extreme heat, heavy rain and food shortages hit the region.

Fuelled by exceptionally warm ocean conditions across the tropical Pacific – and developing alongside the human-driven climate crisis – El Niño is virtually guaranteed to grow to a very strong intensity towards the end of this year and into 2027.

Kasim and Sulaiman Khan tell Guardian they believe ex-PM is being ‘slowly killed’ by harsh treatment, driven by Asim Munir

The sons of Imran Khan have accused Pakistan’s powerful army chief of a “personal vendetta” against the incarcerated former prime minister and expressed fears their father is being “slowly killed” in jail, as international pressure mounts over his prison conditions.

Kasim Khan, 27, and Sulaiman Khan, 29, have become strong advocates for the release of their father, who has been held in Adiala prison in Rawalpindi since his arrest in 2023, and is serving a 14-year sentence on corruption charges.

The activist said her two years studying and travelling in country ‘made me who I am’

• ‘We badly need to raise our boys more like our girls’: Gloria Steinem – a life in quotes

• Gloria Steinem: A life in pictures

When Gloria Steinem’s plane touched down in Bombay in 1957, she could not have known that her stay in India would become what she later called a “pivotal, life-dividing event [that] made me who I am”.

She was 22, with a degree in government from Smith college and was travelling on a Chester Bowles fellowship.

Das Land sieht die Flut als direkte Folge des Klimawandels und könnte mit einer Schadenersatzklage vor dem Internationalen Gerichtshof Erfolg haben. In China und Nepal drohen den Menschen Versorgungsengpässe.

Entire villages swept away after glacial collapse triggers flood in mountainous region popular with trekkers and pilgrims

• Nepal-Tibet flash flood – latest updates

• Have you been affected by the flash floods?

Rescuers are searching for nearly 1,400 people, most of them tourists, who are missing after a catastrophic flash flood hit Nepal and Tibet, thundering down valleys, obliterating entire villages and killing at least 356 people.

Efforts to locate those missing – including hundreds of people from India, the US, UK, Australia and Canada – have been complicated by the destruction of dozens of bridges and almost 25 miles (40km) of roads in the mountainous region popular with trekkers and pilgrims.

Authorities at biggest state hospital in Islamabad say 15 babies were in the ward when fire broke out

At least 14 newborn babies have died in a fire that broke out in the maternity ward at one of Pakistan’s most prominent state hospitals.

The blaze began in the early hours of Wednesday and engulfed the ward at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, the biggest state hospital in Islamabad.

Sonam Wangchuk’s fast was spark that drove youth protest movement – and now he wants to cleanse the political system

For 26 days, India watched as Sonam Wangchuk wasted away. His hunger strike, held in solidarity with India’s “Cockroach” youth protest movement, would prove to be one of the most politically consequential fasts held in the country’s modern history.

Many in the country view the gruelling fast, which began on 28 June, as the crucial spark that helped propel the Cockroach movement into one of the most formidable challenges to the government of prime minister, Narendra Modi, in more than a decade.