Islamic State fighters have also repeatedly struck in and around the eastern Syrian town of Hajin, where an American-backed Kurdish militia has been battling over the last sliver of territory controlled by the extremists.“All I know is that I.S. attacks, like, 3,727,638 times a day,” Mustafa Bali, a spokesman for the militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, said sarcastically on Wednesday, speaking through an interpreter.The number of Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria is estimated at 20,000 to 30,000, according to recent reports by the Pentagon, the United Nations and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank based in Washington.The extremist group has repeatedly boasted in online messages that the military withdrawal from Syria is evidence that it has outlasted the Americans.American military officials have warned that there was also a surge in violent attacks in Iraq in 2011 as United States troops were withdrawing from that conflict. Wednesday’s bombing in Syria, the officials said, could be viewed as a signal from the Islamic State that, contrary to Mr. Trump’s assertions that the caliphate has been destroyed, it remains a threat.Hassan Hassan, an analyst at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy and an author of a book about the Islamic State, said the attack in Manbij showed that the extremists could still strike in the heart of an area that has long been liberated from its control — and has been the recipient of extensive American support.“The U.S. has focused on the city so much and it still has ISIS cells,” he said. “That should be a warning to everyone, that they should build on what the U.S. has been doing rather than just cut and run, leaving the city exposed to an ISIS recovery.”

PARIS (Reuters) - France’s foreign minister said on Wednesday that the indiscriminate bombing of Syria’s Idlib region by Russian, Syrian and Iranian forces could amount to war crimes. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian attends the questions to the government session at the National Assembly in Paris, France, September 12, 2018. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes“The hypothesis of war crimes can not be excluded ... once one begins to indiscriminately bomb civilian populations and hospitals,” Jean-Yves Le Drian told lawmakers. An estimated 3 million people live in Idlib - the last major stronghold of active opposition to President Bashar al-Assad. Assad has vowed to retake the province, backed by his Russian and Iranian allies. Syrian government and Russian warplanes began air strikes in Idlib last week in a possible prelude to a full-scale offensive and aid organizations said several medical facilities have already been targeted. It is not the first time France has warned Assad, Russia or Iran that their aggression could amount to war crimes. In 2016, the government of former president Francois Hollande said it was working to find a way for the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor to launch an investigation into war crimes that it believed had been committed by Syrian and Russian forces in eastern Aleppo. Little came from the French initiative as the court has no jurisdiction for crimes in Syria since Damascus has not signed up to the Rome treaty establishing the ICC. The ICC could investigate, however, through a U.N. Security Council referral. But the council has been deadlocked over Syria for years. Moscow vetoed a French resolution in May 2014 to refer the situation in Syria to the ICC. French officials were not immediately available to comment on whether Paris planned a new push at the ICC. “The situation is extremely serious. We are on the eve of a considerable humanitarian and security catastrophe,” Le Drian said. He said that efforts should be made immediately to prepare for a mass humanitarian crisis should thousands of people be displaced by the fighting. Reporting by John Irish; editing by Richard LoughOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The soldiers around us became agitated by the onslaught. One of them got on a walkie-talkie for more information about the assault. Then a huge blast rocked somewhere nearby and gray smoke started billowing from the side of our building.Retreating to the building's stairwell, it occurred to us that we might be in danger of being overrun by ISIS -- one of their tactics is to encircle during an attack rather than come from the front.We weighed our options and decided it was time to move back. We pulled back about five kilometers to another house in a safer area to reassess, eat breakfast and drink tea. As we shared a meal with the soldiers, it was clear that their earlier confidence of a quick and easy battle was shaken.Until Monday morning, the operation had seemed to be working on schedule. The battle's first 24 hours saw little resistance from ISIS and buoyed the confidence of the SDF fighters we traveled with. Commanders had told us over tea that they might take the town by Monday or Tuesday. Canadian women emerge from ISIS's crumbling caliphateBut the morning's events had brought a harsh truth home: ISIS was not going to give up easily, and its fighters certainly weren't going to be defeated quickly.Later in the day, we came across an assembly point where people fleeing the town are checked, given medical assistance and food and water. It's here that men are separated from women and questioned to identify any potential ISIS members or sympathizers. Most remarkable was the sheer number of residents escaping Baghouz Al-Fawqani. I counted 21 trucks loaded with people destined for refugee camps. A local official managing the convoy estimated that about 700 people were leaving. SDF officials had been telling us for days that the total number of people in Baghouz Al-Fawqani was only about 1,500 residents, with 500 ISIS fighters -- but clearly that number is much bigger. SDF spokesman Mustrafa Belli later told me that they had underestimated the number of civilians and that they likely numbered the thousands. One of the fleeing civilians, an older woman, told me that the town's residents were being used as human shields. A man who had fled told me the entire town had been shelled and little shelter remained. Another said those that remained were resorting to eating the grain for their livestock. As ISIS shrinks, Syrians return home and discover a wastelandWhen I asked about ISIS, one resident described fighters from all over the globe -- some appeared to be European while others looked to be Russian and Chechen, as well as others from Central Asia, he said. As I spoke with these exhausted and disoriented townspeople, I thought back toUS President Trump's remarkthat he hoped to announce a victory against ISIS in Syria, in the coming days.His statement may have galvanized SDF commanders as their last offensive began. But the reality is that this is not an operation that works on a timetable. It will take as long as necessary -- maybe even weeks. And as fighting intensifies and soldiers push forward, nobody on the ground is making predictions anymore.

In September, a fire ripped through Brazil’s 200-year-old National Museum, destroying more than 90% of its collection of 20 million scientific and historical items, including statues, fossils, and irreplaceable artifacts. Both the museum and its contents seemed gone for good.Now, however, that’s not quite true. Starting this week, digital tourists can “walk” through the collections via an impressively rendered digital “museum” produced by Google Arts & Culture, and powered by Museum View. (It uses the same interface as Google Street View.) Stepping through its parquet-floored hallways, you can see such treasures as the oldest human skeleton in the Americas, the Bendegó meteorite, and an unparalleled collection of ancient Brazilian ceramics. Look up at the bones of a looming dino skeleton, or linger by indigenous masks and masterworks.The collaboration predates the tragedy. Google had begun working with the museum in 2016 to create the digital experience, using a combination of “high-resolution photography, photogrammetry, 3D laser scanning, and virtual and augmented reality,” writes program manager Chance Coughenour in a recent blog post. “Even though images cannot replace what has been lost, they offer us a way to remember.”Yes, it’s not as good as the real thing. But it’s better than nothing—and it’s an interim measure. The Brazilian government has announced plans to restore the museum itself over the next few years, with a budget of R$10 million (around US$2.6 million) coming out of the country’s emergency funds. Until the project is complete, however, it’s cheering to know that the museum has a temporary home online, as well as in the hearts and minds of its patrons and visitors.

The nun wrote a second letter to Archbishop Diquattro on June 25, days after Bishop Mulakkal filed his accusations with police.“I was waiting for the Catholic Church to give me justice,” she wrote, but as her situation had grown worse, “I am forced to approach for the legal procedures,” read a copy of the email, written in halting English.Three days after sending the letter, she went to the police on June 28 and filed a complaint accusing Bishop Mulakkal of rape.As the weeks went by, the church ordered the nuns to leave St. Francis and return to their respective convents.Worried they would be evicted, and with the police slow to respond, the nuns decided in early September to take the nearly two-hour drive to Kochi, a major city in Kerala, and protest outside the High Court. When they returned the next day with their placards, they were surprised to see dozens of churchgoers, activists and even priests, holding their own signs demanding Bishop Mulakkal be held accountable.The nuns are now filing multiple civil cases against church officials in India, claiming they tried to intimidate them to drop the case or ignored the rape accusations. The nuns are still at St. Francis, ignoring repeated orders issued by church authorities last month to disband. On Saturday, with the nuns planning another public protest, the church revoked those orders — giving the nuns a small victory.“We took a vow to be in a congregation — to make the congregation our family,” said Sister Josephine Villoonickal, one of the nuns, who had been ordered to return to her convent in northern Jharkhand, about 1,500 miles away. “They are now trying to destroy this family.”

Eight women from rural Malawi travelled to India to train as solar engineers. Now they are lighting the way for their communities, in a country where just 10% of households are powered by electricity Photographs by Peter Caton/VSO

BANGKOK (Reuters) - She is a Thai princess who became a champion sailor, married a foreign commoner, earned two degrees in the United States, starred in a soap opera and tragically lost her son in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. FILE PHOTO: Thai Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya is seen after the men's singles final match at the Thailand Open tennis tournament in Bangkok, Thailand September 29, 2013. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj/File PictureThailand’s Princess Ubolratana Rajakanya Sirivadhana Barnavadi on Friday set her sights on a new role: prime minister of the Southeast Asian kingdom as candidate for a party loyal to ousted ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, arch-rival to the pro-military and ardently royalist establishment. But her bid to enter politics - and thereby break a long-standing tradition of the royalty - looked likely to be cut short just hours after it had begun. Her brother, King Maha Vajiralongkorn, late on Friday moved to block her candidacy, saying her involvement in politics was “inappropriate” and unconstitutional. Ubolratana said in an Instagram post earlier it was her right as a citizen to accept the nomination which could see her becoming prime minister after a March 24 general election. She has disregarded royal tradition before - most notably by marrying an American fellow student, Peter Jensen, while studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) when she was 21 years old. The princess was required to give up the titles Her Royal Highness and Chao Fa (Lady of the Sky), which were bestowed on her birth in 1951 in Switzerland, where her father, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, was attending university. After her marriage and 1973 graduation from MIT, she moved with her family to California and used the name Julie Jensen, earning a master’s degree in public health at the University of California, Los Angeles. She had three children - daughter Ploypailin Jensen, son Bhumi Jensen and younger daughter Sirikitiya Mai Jensen. She lived in the United States for years, though frequently visited her parents, the much-revered King Bhumibol, who died in 2016, and Queen Sirikit. Ubolratana grew up close to her father and during her teens shared his love of sports, becoming his favorite partner in tennis, badminton and small-boat sailing. The pair shared a gold medal in sailing at Southeast Asian games in 1967. Her trips back to Thailand became more frequent in the 1990s, when she began joining the queen at charity events and balls. She appeared on the covers of Thai magazines, at society parties and fashion events and founded a charity for children orphaned by HIV-related illnesses. Ubolratana and Jensen divorced in 1998, and she brought their three children back to Thailand to resume her royal duties. The children received Thai citizenship and were treated as royals. She was increasingly included in royal ceremonies and used the royal title “Tunkramom Ying”, meaning “Daughter to the Queen Regent”. But perhaps because she had relinquished her formal royal titles, Ubolratana appeared less bound by the formalities of the court. She launched an anti-drug foundation for at-risk youth and teens, for which she occasionally sings and dances at awareness-raising programs. Ubolratana also starred as a historical princess in a 2003 Thai soap opera set in the Ayutthaya period of the 14th to 18th centuries, and in an action movie in which she played a tough journalist facing danger as she works to uncover a dastardly plot. But her new life in Thailand was marred by tragedy in 2004 by the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people in Asia. When the tsunami struck, Ubolratana was on holiday with two of her children at a southern beach resort. They fled the giant waves but her 21-year-old son Bhumi was swept away and died. Ubolratana mourned and threw herself into charity work. Her entry into politics has come as a shock to many, but in recent years there had been signs of closeness to exiled ex-prime minister Thaksin, who was deposed in a 2006 coup and whose sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, served as an elected prime minister until the latest coup in 2014. Ubolratana and Thaksin’s daughter exchanged public messages of support on social media after her father, King Bhumibol, died in 2016 and her brother assumed the throne. In 2018, images of Ubolratana, Thaksin and Yingluck watching a World Cup soccer match together in Russia appeared on social media. More recently, Ubolratana appeared to be signaling a closeness to ordinary folk on her Instagram account, with posts in past weeks showing her enjoying street food and complaining about a spell of heavy pollution in Bangkok. Editing by John Chalmers, Robert Birsel and Peter GraffOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Zomato may be preparing for a future with drone deliveries, but for some of its immediate problems, the food-delivery app’s solution is old-world: bicycles.The firm is introducing mechanical and electric bikes into its last-mile delivery fleet, it said in a press release yesterday (Feb. 11). Those using e-cycles will make short-distance deliveries of 2.5 kilometres on average.The move is not only good for the environment but will also help “tackle traffic and parking issues, especially in thinner lanes of the country,” it said.Given their cost-effectiveness, bicycles are used extensively in many countries for local deliveries. But in India, scooters and motorbikes are the most popular modes.“It’s a good green move towards solving the delivery problem at a very small hyper-local level. Innovation is not just about technology and moving forward—it’s also about harmony with nature and solving new problems in a sustainable manner,” said Deepak Menaria, founder of the startup incubator Lemon Ideas.Some 50,000 Zomato cyclists are already on the road across 12 Indian cities, with “(a) majority of the fleet pushing the pedal in Delhi NCR,” the company release said. It has now partnered with bike-sharing apps like Mobycy and Yulu and Zoomcar’s PEDL, to roll out electric bicycles in the over 150 Indian cities it operates in.Analysts are upbeat.For one, they say, Zomato will have a wider pool to hire from as it can look beyond just licensed motorists, said Harish HV, an independent consultant who tracks India’s startups. A shortage of delivery executives has been a major challenge for food-tech startups lately.Bicycles are also way cheaper than motorbikes, which means more job seekers may be able to afford joining the Zomato delivery team (Food-delivery startups in India typically expect executives to bring their own vehicles).Then there is fuel cost. Food delivery startups can save up to 20% by reducing dependence on fuel, said Yugal Joshi, vice-president at Texas-based consulting firm Everest Group.However, sceptics warn that India may not be ready for the eco-friendly solution.“My fear in India is safety, time, and working conditions for the couriers themselves,” said Sid Talwar, partner at Mumbai-based Lightbox VC. “We have no safety lanes or rights for cyclists. The cycles that are used abroad are designed differently to help the delivery team not use so much force. And most cities bear weather conditions in mind.”

Born in India, Engelbert Humperdinck, 82, moved to Leicester as a child. He had his first hit in 1967 with Release Me; his other multi-platinum-selling songs include The Last Waltz. In 2017 he celebrated his 50th year in show business with the album The Man I Want To Be, and he continues to tour the world. Ten years ago, his wife, Patricia, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. The couple have four children and live in California and Leicester.What was your most embarrassing moment?Splitting my pants on stage. It happened a lot in the early days, because I used to wear very tight pants. I was always asked, “How does one get into those?” and I’d say, “You start off with a kiss!”What is top of your bucket list?If my wife recovers somewhat, I will be delighted to take my entire family to Barbados. We’re working very hard to bring her back to normality, with western and eastern medicine.What is your most treasured possession?My passport.What would your super power be?Healing.What makes you unhappy?Other people’s incompetence, because I feel I do things to the best of my ability.What single thing would improve the quality of your life?I just did it. I wanted to lose weight and respect my body more, and I’ve lost 31 pounds in three months.What is the worst thing anyone’s said to you?After an early show, my then manager told me, “You were shit. You only just got by on bullshit and charm.” If you could bring something extinct back to life, what would you choose?Record stores.What do you most dislike about your appearance?Ageing.To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?My wife. I made mistakes in my early life and hurt her. Everybody thinks the grass is greener, but it’s not. To say sorry to her when she understands will be one of the greatest gifts God has given me.Who would play you in the film of your life?Me – if they can make you old, they can make you young again.When did you last cry, and why? I have to say I am an easy sob. I don’t mind, because there’s no harm in having a big man cry.Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?Sammy Davis Jr, Dean Martin and Elvis – I knew them all.What did you want to be when you were growing up? A saxophonist, but destiny chose another path for me, and I’m glad it happened that way.Which words or phrases do you most overuse?“Sorry, can you say that again – I’m a bit Mutt and Jeff?”What has been your biggest disappointment?Not understanding the business side of my career enough. I could have probably been much wealthier than I am.What song would you like played at your funeral?I don’t like to think about that.What is the most important lesson life has taught you?Manners.What or who is the greatest love of your life? I’ve had only one love, and that is my wife. I asked her to dance when she was 17 and we’ve been dancing together ever since.• This article was amended on 11 February 2019. An earlier version quoted Engelbert Humperdinck as saying “mutton Jeff”. The reference to cockney rhyming slang has been corrected to “Mutt and Jeff”. Topics Engelbert Humperdinck The Q&A features

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India’s antitrust commission is looking into accusations that Alphabet Inc’s unit Google abuses its popular Android mobile operating system to block its rivals, four sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Android One based mobiles are on display during its launch in New Delhi September 15, 2014. REUTERS/Anindito Mukherjee The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has for the past six months been reviewing a case similar to one Google faced in Europe that led to a fine of 4.34 billion euro ($5 billion) by antitrust regulators last year, three of the sources said. Google has challenged that order. The European Commission found Google had abused its market dominance since 2011 with practices such as forcing manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and its Chrome browser, together with its Google Play app store on Android devices. “It is on the lines of the EU case, but at a preliminary stage,” said one of the sources, who is aware of the CCI investigation. Google declined to comment. The CCI did not respond to Reuters’ queries. The watchdog’s enquiry into allegations against Google over its Android platform has not previously been reported. Google executives have in recent months met Indian antitrust officials at least once to discuss the complaint, which was filed by a group of individuals, one of the sources said. The Indian watchdog could ask its investigations unit to further investigate the accusations against Google, or throw out the complaint if it lacks merit. The watchdog’s investigations have historically taken years to complete. Android, used by device makers for free, features on about 85 percent of the world’s smartphones. In India, about 98 percent of the smartphones sold in 2018 used the platform, Counterpoint Research estimates. In October, Google said it would charge smartphone makers a fee for using its popular Google Play app store and also allow them to use rival versions of Android to comply with the EU order. The change, however, covered only the European Economic Area, which comprises the 28 EU countries and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. “The CCI will have a tough time not initiating a formal investigation into Google given the EU case, unless they can show the problem has been addressed (by remedies),” one of the sources said. The Indian complaint presents the latest regulatory headache for the Mountain View, California-based company in a key growth market. Last year, the Indian antitrust watchdog imposed a fine of 1.36 billion rupees ($19 million) on Google for “search bias” and abuse of its dominant position. It also found Google had put its commercial flight search function in a prominent position on the search results page. Google appealed against that order, saying the ruling could cause it “irreparable” harm and reputational loss, Reuters reported. Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Aditi Shah in New Delhi; Editing by Clarence FernandezOur Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

India’s startup community is up in arms against the Narendra Modi government.Over the past weekend, angry entrepreneurs and venture capitalists (VCs) trended #ShutdownIndia on Twitter. They were looking to show how far removed reality is from the promise of the prime minister’s highly publicised Startup India initiative aimed at boosting entrepreneurship in the country.Their concerns stem from a series of incidents over the past few weeks involving the slapping of tax notices on startups and freezing of their bank accounts. The most bizarre of these included the inexplicable withdrawal of companies’ funds by tax authorities.The entrepreneurs believe these actions are tied to the contentious angel tax, though the government has squarely denied this.The angel tax is triggered when a company raises equity funding in excess of its “fair valuation.” The premium is treated as income, attracting over 30% tax.More than 70% respondents in a recent LocalCircles survey said they had received at least one angel tax notice, while almost 30% said they had received three or more. In many cases, the startups have been slapped with hefty penalties for late payment, which sometimes cumulatively exceeds the entire amount raised by the firm.On Feb. 06, the issue took a drastic turn.The income tax department withdrew Rs33 lakh (around $46,000) from the bank accounts of Noida-based TravelKhana, which delivers food to train passengers. “On Feb. 05, as we logged into our bank account, we saw that money was extracted…So we rushed to the bank and there we got to know that there were four people who had come to the bank and they had extracted all the money through demand drafts,” Pushpinder Singh, founder of TravelKhana, told news channel ETNow. “They had ceased all the accounts in two banks—State Bank of India and ICICI Bank. We had three bank accounts in ICICI, and all the money from all the accounts was taken. The accounts were showing a liaison of minus Rs2 crore on them.”A similar story unfolded at Babygogo, a five-year-old startup that helps parents connect with paediatricians and other parents:On Feb. 09, the central board of direct taxation said the recoveries from TravelKhana were not made on account of angel tax but due to unexplained cash credit. However, the company refuted this claim, saying, “There was no cash transaction as investment with us. Each transaction came through the bank transfers or equivalent.”TravelKhana and Babygogo are now struggling to stay afloat. “Some of our employees are really low-paid. We just had an incident where one of our employees had a death in his family. These are people who are impacted, some 70 of them,” said Singh of TravelKhana.These two incidents have left entrepreneurs and investors baffled. Some fear these firms’ plight will discourage entrepreneurship.Thousands of posts on social media, using the hashtags #ShutdownIndia, #TaxTerrorism, and #ShiftOutIndia, called for moving startups out of India to friendlier destinations like Singapore.For several decades, India has only been known as a destination for cheap tech labour. In the 1990s, the country saw a massive boom in its IT outsourcing industry and went on to become the “back office of the world.” However, in recent years, techies in the country have taken a cue from Silicon Valley and launched innovative businesses.Today, India has over 7,000 startups. In 2018, Indian tech startups raised a total of $4.2 billion, more than twice the amount raised in the previous year.This boom, though, has happened despite the government.Young Indian firms have had to deal with laws that predate the advent of the internet. So some of the largest startups have been forced to register in more business-friendly countries like Singapore and the US, even though their entire teams operate from India, their primary revenue source.Following its election in 2014, the Modi government’s fresh attention to startups kindled hopes that things could get easier. But that didn’t happen.“Bureaucrats and politics still stick to their ancient beliefs of ‘guilty until proven innocent,'” said Pankaj Jain, an advisor to startups and funds and a former member of accelerator 500 Startups. “It’s unfortunate that Startup India and Make in India haven’t become a reality…it’s not something startups or investors can pin their hopes on.”Over to the government.On Feb. 04, Ramesh Abhishek, secretary at the department for promotion of industry and internal trade (DPIIT), told a clutch of entrepreneurs that his team would come up with solutions for the problem within a week. Among other things, the government is likely to raise the ceiling of exemption from paid-up share capital of up to Rs10 crore now to Rs25 crore.“We are hopeful that DPIIT and CBDT will soon bring these changes along with extending the validity of a startup from seven years to 10 years,” Sachin Taparia, founder of by social engagement platform LocalCircles and part of the team that met Abhishek last week, told Quartz.

Thirty-nine people have died in northern India and more than two dozen others have fallen sick after drinking bootleg liquor containing toxic methanol .In two separate incidents, senior police officer Ashok Kumar said 26 people died in the state of Uttar Pradesh, 306km east of capital New Delhi, while 13 others died in the neighbouring state of Uttarakhand.Kumar said the victims consumed liquor during a customary feast.Police have arrested eight suspected bootleggers while the provincial governments have suspended 35 officials including 12 police.Deaths from illegally brewed alcohol are common in India because the poor cannot afford licensed brands. Illicit liquor is cheap and often spiked with chemicals such as pesticides to increase potency. Topics India South and Central Asia news

At least 99 people have died and scores have been admitted to hospital in northern India after drinking toxic alcohol.News of the deaths in the states of and Uttarakhand has trickled out in over the past three days, with police suspecting the moonshine had been laced with methanol. Authorities said many victims had complained of dizziness and were taken to hospital writhing in pain.Cheap, locally made liquor is common in parts of rural India and bootleggers often add methanol, a highly toxic form of alcohol sometimes used as antifreeze, to their product to increase its strength. If ingested in large quantities methanol can cause blindness, liver damage and death.In one district of Uttar Pradesh, 59 people died after consuming toxic alcohol, a police spokesman, Shailendra Kumar Sharma, said. In a neighbouring district, a senior police officer said nine had died, adding that 66 suspected bootleggers had been arrested and samples of the liquor sent to a laboratory for testing.At least 31 people died in neighbouring Uttarakhand state and two people were arrested on suspicion of supplying the liquor. “We are trying to find out the main source of this illicit liquor. We will soon [find] the main culprit behind this tragedy,” Janmejay Khanduri, a senior Uttarakhand police official, said.About 3,000 people linked with the illicit trade have been arrested in Uttar Pradesh in connection with the incident, according to newspaper reports.Hundreds of people die every year in India from consuming cheap alcohol. In 2015, more than 100 people died in a Mumbai slum after drinking moonshine.Of the estimated 5bn litres of alcohol consumed every year in India, about 40% is illegally produced, according to the International Spirits and Wine Association of India. Topics India South and Central Asia news

A fire has swept through a budget hotel in Delhi, killing at least 17 people and raising fresh questions about safety standards in the poorly regulated sector.Frequent raids by civic authorities to enforce building codes, fire safety measures and evacuation procedures have failed to curb violations in the rapidly expanding Indian capital, a city of more than 18 million people.“Seventeen people are no more, they died because of suffocation, not fire,” said the deputy fire chief, Virendra Singh, adding that 35 people had been rescued.Most of the victims were sleeping when the fire broke out, believed to have been caused by a short circuit, local media said.The dead included a woman and a child who had tried to escape by jumping from a fifth-floor window of the 65-room hotel in the shopping district of Karol Bagh, some of which had been booked by a wedding party.Footage showed flames leaping from the top floor. Those staying in the hotel included a group of tourists from Myanmar, the broadcaster NDTV said, adding that authorities were trying to ascertain their whereabouts.Authorities appeared to have been negligent in enforcing building laws in the surrounding area, Delhi’s urban development minister, Satyendar Jain, said. “There is a clear case of negligence here,” he added.Even though the law limits construction only to four floors, the hotel had a fifth floor, like some other nearby structures, Jain said, adding that a kitchen and dining area on its top floor constituted another violation.Reuters could not immediately reach hotel officials for comment.Jain said hotel guests tried to flee through the hotel’s narrow corridors, panelled in wood. Some were unable to break through the windows of their rooms. Topics India Delhi South and Central Asia news

A bookish, bespectacled man in his forties with a fedora on his head walked onto a neon-lit stage decorated with fluorescent tapestries of Ganesha, Shiva, Vishnu, Lakshmi, and Kali and started rapping.The staccato rhythm of the lyrics was punctuated by his propulsive body language: “Ganesh is so fresh chillin on his throne / surrounded by incense fruit and gold / With a heap of sweets piled in his bowl / he guards the gate and protects the threshold / When your blessed by Ganesh than you can travel / on a sacred journey to an inner temple / He paves the path that leads to the soul / & he’s known for removing all obstacles / Now some may think it’s illogical / a myth or it’s just philosophical / But Ganesh makes everything possible / because elephant power’s unstoppable.”A large crowd swayed to the beats of rapper Nicholas Giacomini’s Ganesh is Fresh from his hit album Elephant Power. Not wanting to be left out, I joined in the revelry. A woman twirling neon hoops on different parts of her body danced in a clearing while a juggler threw fireballs in the air. It was a fascinating spectacle. “Love is the drug, man,” said Narayan Das, passing me a joint. Clearly it was not the only one. He was a tall, gangly man with waist-length blonde dreadlocks, adorned with tattoos of Sanskrit alphabets on his arms. I had met him earlier at a vegan burrito stall.Giacomini aka MC Yogi started rapping when he was 13. His memoir Spiritual Graffiti describes him growing up as a delinquent who was expelled from various schools, sent to live at a home for at-risk youth, arrested for destruction of property, and caught up in a world of drugs and chaos.At 17, a yoga class at a home for juvenile delinquents had such a profound effect on Giacomini that he travelled to India a number of times, stayed at ashrams, and often collaborated with Indian musicians. He says he is inspired by Indian myths and cosmology, an influence that is visible in his musical repertoire, with tracks such as Rock on Hanuman, Renegade Rickshaw, Breath Control, Son of Shiva, Krishna Love, and a song dedicated to his idol Mahatma Gandhi called Be the Change. No doubt many of his fans can identify with his rocky road to redemption.The MC Yogi concert was one of several events I attended at a sprawling 420-acre retreat centre called the Institute of MentalPhysics in Southern California’s Joshua Tree National Park in September 2018. Built by architect-writer Frank Lloyd Wright in 1946 as a desert sanctuary for California’s higher consciousness community, the retreat has become known for hosting the Bhakti Fest, a yearly gathering of yoga buffs, devotional musicians, astrologers, Hare Krishnas, herbalists, shamans, tantric healers, cannabis entrepreneurs, whirling dervishes, born-again Hindus, and all manner of spiritual hucksters.Many visitors at the Bhakti Fest were driven by a genuine drive to “transform the individual consciousness and reinvent the global paradigm,” as a yogini informed me, but there was no denying that they were tapping into the New Age boom for more than just spiritual sustenance. Among the luminaries present at the festival were self-help guru Deepak Chopra, yoga celebrity Shiva Rea, and kirtan rock star Krishna Das.The Bhakti Fest was conceived as a spiritual Woodstock by its founder Sridhar Silberfein, who hosted the first gathering in 2008 as homage to his late guru Swami Satchidananda. He became a devoted follower of Satchidananda (a Sanskrit term meaning truth-consciousness-bliss) after being blessed by him before of a crowd of 400,000 swaying hippies at Woodstock in 1969, an event that captured the zeitgeist of a generation. “People come to festivals now to do the same things they do every day: get stoned, drink a lot of alcohol, and f**k a lot of people,” Silberfein told the website Vice in 2017. “Everyone thinks you’re going to go and get high and have the best time, but you really don’t because you’re coming back to the same problems. We wanted to establish a different paradigm.”The Fest prides itself on being vegan, free of alcohol, meat, dairy, gluten, genetically-modified organisms, plastic, and processed foods.The mainstay of the festival is the rocking kirtan scene that attracts thousands of people willing to fork out a few hundred dollars for a pass. Kirtan exploded in the United States in the nineties after pioneers like Dave Stringer, Krishna Das, and Jai Uttal brought traditional Indian devotional chanting into yoga studios, accompanied by their harmoniums, tablas, incense, and idols of Hindu gods and goddesses. They introduced Americans to India’s Bhakti tradition, a movement that emphasises direct access to the divine through devotional love, and rejects barriers of caste, gender or priestly mediation.The kirtan stars of today are a far cry from their Indian forebears. Their Sanskrit chants are infused with rock, reggae, country, hip-hop, blues and soul music, and their events feel more like a rave or pop concert than a Hindu religious ceremony. Their signature sound—a holistic pastiche of different styles centred on the common theme of union with the divine—has been embraced enthusiastically by mainstream audiences.One of the pioneers of the scene, Jeffrey Kagel aka Krishna Das, was invited to perform at the 2013 Grammy awards, and his album Live Ananda was nominated for the Best New Age album. Like many of his contemporaries, Kagel found his true calling after a transformative encounter with an Indian guru, Neem Karoli Baba. A Los Angeles-based band, White Sun, inspired by the teachings of Yogi Bhajan of Kundalini Yoga fame, won the Grammy for best New Age band at the 2017 Grammy awards. Most of their lyrics derive from the Guru Granth Sahib, the chief text of the Sikh faith, and apart from their American fans, they attract a following in Punjab.The Bhakti Fest is one of several stops on the transformational festival circuit, which includes hugely popular events like Wanderlust, Symbiosis, Lightning in a Bottle, Hanuman Festival, Burning Man, Glastonbury, and the Bali Spirit Festival. While the events differ by theme, décor and the types of performers they attract, they are undergirded by common features of the New Age worldview: a disenchantment with mainstream society and the belief that modernity is in crisis, belief in reincarnation, astrology, spirits, extra-terrestrials, psychic mediums, and traditional or holistic healing methods as opposed to modern medicine.Their intentions may be benign, but some of the methods used by New Age healers are dubious. A video on YouTube shows a tantra workshop at the Bhakti Fest called Sex Actualisation hosted by Dawn Cartwright, a middle-aged white lady who claimed she had “discovered the path of tantra by accident, shortly after a period of life-changing mystical experiences in lovemaking more than twenty years ago.” About 20 people sit around her in a circle. Three strapping young men dressed in white are seated to her left. She explains that enlightenment is basically a cosmic orgasm and making love is like merging with Shakti, the infinite consciousness. “It’s all through that same moment, where nothing else exists, except our complete merging and dissolving into all that this is,” she intoned. “It’s just as sacred to have headboard-banging sex, as to chant Om Mani Padme Om…[the] key is, are you there while it’s happening? That’s what makes it sacred.” The people in the room listen earnestly, oblivious to the hilarity of the dialogue.Traditional kirtan and yoga practitioners criticise the watering down and misappropriation of South Asian religious traditions by the New Age community. Upset with the lack of ethnic diversity in the Shakti Fest line-up (Bhakti fest’s sister event), Charles Ekabhumi Ellik, a sacred art practitioner and yoga teacher from San Francisco’s Bay Area, wrote an open letter to the organisers to draw their attention to it. It did not have much of an impact.An ardent devotee of the Hindu goddess Kali, Ellik organises spiritual retreats in India for his largely American clientele, and has published books on religious art. “Mā allows me to serve Her through art, ritual, and instruction,” he said in an email interview. “I get to witness Her play. Spiritual practice expands awareness and infuses meaning into every experience and action.” He marked himself as Hindu in the last United States census.As a long-time service provider to the spiritually-inclined, Ellik is dismayed at the rampant commercialisation in his field. “Unfortunately, all kinds of people are calling themselves yoga entrepreneurs these days,” he said. “This seems to me to be turning yoga into a thing that can be sold. I don’t sell yoga. I sell my labour, skills and craft. The values of modern society are unnatural, so for those of us who are mixing spiritual practice with business, there are continual challenges to choose between making money and serving the dharma. It’s not easy.”Spirituality is a commodity just like any other in the American marketplace, sold with the same competitive drive, but much less monitoring and regulation. Instead, fuzzy catchphrases like dharma, karma and mindful living, open to a wide range of interpretations, are invoked to guide consumers through the informal networks of spiritual capitalism. Today, yoga and its many spin-offs comprise a thriving multi-billion-dollar industry that continues to grow and is a source of income for many.What self-appointed guardians of these traditions ignore is that religion and spirituality has been big business in South Asia for centuries, especially since the early modern period when the sampradayas (ascetic orders) were established to literally protect turf and investments in capital such as disciples and devotees, pilgrimage centres and pilgrimage routes and political affiliations.Today, the Indian state uses the capitalist apparatus to sell its own essentialism for spiritual tourism—for example, the Incredible India and Maharani of Manhattan advertising campaigns—based on the colonially constructed narratives of orientalism.Ellik is just one of millions of westerners who, inspired by eastern religions, have taken on Asian names, mannerisms and lifestyles. Whether it’s the saffron-robed, shaven-headed worshippers of the Hindu god Krishna, better known as Hare Krishnas, the white-turbaned Sikh followers of the late Yogi Bhajan or the numerous Buddhist lineages in America, scores of westerners have enthusiastically adopted a foreign identity, in some cases discarding all vestiges of their birth culture. They can be found roaming the backwaters and bylanes of South Asia, looking for the magic ingredient missing from their strip malls, sitcoms and Super Bowl Sundays.The popularity of Indian spirituality in the West exploded after the Beatles visited Rishikesh in 1968 to study under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, in turn giving birth to the New Age movement. Renowned authors like JD Salinger, Aldous Huxley, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Joseph Campbell, influenced by Hindu philosophy, incorporated the teachings of Vedanta in their works, further catalysing the trend. The arrival of major Indian gurus like Paramahamsa Yogananda on American shores in the 1920s, his iconic work Autobiography of a Yogi and his predecessor Swami Vivekananda’s historic address at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, contributed greatly to push these ideas into the mainstream.In 2010, nearly six million foreigners, including close to a million Americans, travelled to India, continuing a trend that began long ago. Not all of their stories had happy endings. In 2006, following a 10-day meditation course in Bodh Gaya, the town where the Buddha was said to have attained nirvana two millennia ago, an American college student killed herself by jumping off the roof of the retreat centre. The last entry in her diary read “I am Bodhisattva”—an enlightened being.India can cause seemingly normal people to wake up believing they are an incarnation of a long-dead Indian saint, or they have awakened their kundalini and acquired latent superhuman powers, or that the world is about to end. A Californian gentleman in his sixties told me about the time he had travelled out of his physical body while on a pilgrimage in India and meditated with the Dalai Lama, Muktananda, and Yogananda on the astral plane. His Australian wife was convinced the world will end in 2065. When I asked her how she was so certain, she said that the “ascended masters” of the lost continent of Lemuria had come to her in a dream with detailed instructions on how to prepare for the calamitous event.So common is this phenomenon that there is a name for it—India Syndrome. Regis Airault, a psychiatrist stationed at the French consulate in Mumbai, wrote a book called Fous de L’Inde (Crazy about India) based on his experiences treating westerners who had suffered psychotic episodes while in India. “There is a cultural fantasy at play,” he told The Cult Education Institute, an internet archive of information about cults and movements. “[India syndrome] hits people from developed Western countries who are looking for a cultural space that is pure and exotic, where real values have been preserved. It’s as if we’re trying to go back in time.”On the final night of the Bhakti Fest, I sat beside Narayan Das and a motley crowd under the star-encrusted skies of Joshua Tree National Park. The nebulous glow of the Milky Way galaxy was clearly visible in the night sky. People were tired but happily satiated after the day’s exertions. There was a palpable sense of shared joy and bonding. Everyone was refreshingly sincere and earnest about what they do.One could be forgiven at the moment for feeling that we are all part of a bigger plan, and that things will work out just fine, even if the shrieking news channels indicate the opposite. I was reminded of what Ellik told me – that the most profound benefit of his spiritual practice was the “gradual easing of fear on the soul-level”. Surely, we can all do with a little less fear and a little more hope in these uncertain times. We may feel helpless to do anything about the chaos, but there’s nothing preventing us from changing how we relate to it.Narayan Das asked what I was thinking about. I told him about the article I was planning to write and enquired about his future plans. He said he intended to go to Nepal to attend a month-long meditation retreat. I sighed. “Don’t go jumping off any tall buildings.” He looked at me quizzically, then laughed, head turned up to the sky.This article was originally published in Scroll.in. We welcome your comments at ideas.india@qz.com.

India’s railways minister has been mocked for sharing a video of the country’s first locally built fast train – using footage that had been sped up to twice its normal speed.Piyush Goyal posted the video of the Vande Bharat Express on his official Twitter and Facebook accounts on Sunday.But the video was doctored, according to an investigation by AltNews.in, an Indian website that has made a speciality of debunking false news stories and social media rumours.A member of a “train spotters” Facebook page wrote under Goyal’s post that the video appeared to be footage he had taken in December, with its speed doubled.The Vande Bharat Express, India’s fastest train, will make its maiden voyage with passengers on Friday. It travels from Delhi to the holy city of Varanasi.Before it was revealed to have been altered, Goyal’s post had been retweeted by prominent members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata party and was reported as a news by Republic, a generally pro-government news channel.Goyal is regarded as one of prime minister Narendra Modi’s highest performing ministers and oversaw the first phase of the government’s ambitious plans to generate 227 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2020.But he has been less impressive at posting on social media. In August 2017, he shared a picture of a highway lit up by a row of LED streetlights, boasting of the government’s success in illuminating Indian roads. The picture was of a Russian street, it soon emerged.“Thanks to many who pointed issues with earlier image,” he wrote at the time. “While we illuminate streets, social media helps illuminate facts, helping us improve.”In June of the same year, he posted a picture of a coal mine alongside a message promoting the government’s scaling down of foreign coal imports. But the image was taken from an Amnesty International report condemning the government’s mining policy – research Goyal had criticised as “completely baseless”. He deleted the tweet. Topics India Rail transport South and Central Asia

At least 17 people have died in a Delhi hotel fire that broke out early on Tuesday morning, police said. Eyewitnesses said the dead included a woman and a child who attempted to jump from a window to safety. Officials said 35 people were rescued. Some were injured and have been taken to hospital.Hotel Arpit Palace is located in Karol Bagh, an area popular with tourists for its budget hotels and shopping. At least two of those killed were Buddhist pilgrims from Myanmar (Burma), the country's embassy in Delhi confirmed. A number of Indian guests also died.Videos recorded by eyewitnesses show people jumping from the building - in one of them, a man can be seen hanging on to the side of the building before he jumps off. "There was wooden panelling in the corridor, because of which people couldn't use the corridors to leave the hotel," firefighter Vipin Kenta told the Hindustan Times newspaper. He said they were still investigating what caused the fire. Local media reported that most of the deaths were caused by suffocation. Vineet Khare, BBC HindiI met Somshekhar sitting on a bench outside the mortuary of Delhi's Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital where the dead and injured from the hotel fire have been taken. He was gazing vacantly at TV journalists gathering information and policemen completing paperwork.Mr Somshekhar said he had come to Delhi to attend his niece's wedding and was staying with his family on the second floor of the hotel.The fire killed his 84-year-old mother, his brother and sister. "There was a power cut at around 5am [23:30 GMT]. My sister who was in a nearby room shouted for help and asked everyone to get out. We opened the windows, but the smoke quickly filled the rooms. It all happened very quickly. There was no fire or emergency equipment," he said.Mr Somshekhar's cousin and the bride's mother, Uma Nair, said she had not told her daughter, who is on her honeymoon, about the tragedy. "They are in the Maldives. My daughter has read news stories about the fire and keeps calling me. I tell her everything is fine. But it's a matter of time before she finds out."India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has tweeted his condolences. Fire accidents are not uncommon in Indian cities, where builders often flout safety regulations. Many structures, both old and new, lack proper fire exits. In recent months, officials have shut down a number of shops and restaurants in some of Delhi's most exclusive neighbourhoods for not following fire safety measures. India fire destroys natural history museum in Delhi Kamala Mills: Fire at Mumbai complex kills 15 people India: Second Mumbai building fire in a week kills four Owners of commercial buildings have also been known to construct additional floors without the necessary permissions. Delhi minister Satyendra Jain told the NDTV news website that the Arpit Palace had built a fifth floor with a kitchen and a terrace, even though the owners only had permission to build four storeys. PTI quoted officials as saying that they had found used fire extinguishers inside the hotel, suggesting that some of those who were trapped had tried to put out the fire.

India's capital Delhi was hit by a strong hailstorm on Thursday, turning the city white and leaving people stunned and delighted.Pictures and videos posted on social media show cherry-sized ice balls and streets covered in white. Many people compared the unusual sight to scenes from Chicago or London. Hailstorms "are not rare for Delhi, but their occurrence is infrequent," according to US website Accuweather's senior meteorologist Jason Nicholls. The severe weather also forced more than 30 flights to be diverted during the early hours of the evening.However, the hail and rain storm did have an upside. Apart from delighting Delhi's residents, it also helped improve the city's notoriously toxic air quality. Parts of northern India have experienced heavy snowfall over the past days. The harsh weather in the country's north has also led to avalanche warnings and schools closures.

The man in charge of India's railways has been mocked for sharing a video of a "high-speed" train that turned out to be a time-lapse of a slower train.Piyush Goyal, Minister of Railways and Coal, tweeted that the train was "zooming past at lightning speed".Trainspotter Abhishek Jaiswal then replied with the original footage, which he said he filmed in December for his railway-themed YouTube channel.In Mr Jaiswal's clip, the same train travels at a much slower speed.In the video posted on his official Twitter account, Mr Goyal says the video shows "India's first semi-high speed train built under 'Make in India' initiative, Vande Bharat Express".As India's railways minister, he is in charge of the fourth-largest rail network in the world. The train, Train 18, is indeed India's fastest train to date. It will travel between the capital Delhi and Varanasi at a maximum speed of 130km/h (80mph).But in response, Mr Jaiswal tweeted a link to his version of the clip, which was posted to his YouTube channel The Rail Mail on 20 December. In that, the same train is significantly slower.Mr Jaiswal says the clip was filmed at Asaoti station in the northern state of Haryana.Indian news site Alt News then put the two videos together so they could be viewed side-by-side.Since the exchange, people have been mocking the minister online with their own videos of "high-speed trains".Meanwhile, some offered their own editing expertise.Mr Goyal has yet to respond to the claims. However, he has continued to post videos of trains on his social media.

Media player Media playback is unsupported on your device Video Parle-G: Reinventing a biscuit empire A popular teatime snack and a staple in many Indian households, homegrown biscuit brand Parle-G is one of the oldest and most recognised names in India. This family-run confectionery empire is now run by the grandson of the founder who is looking at ways to stay on top.Filmed and edited by Vishnu Vardhan; produced by Devina Gupta and Pooja Agarwal; series produced by Pamela Parker.