Indian Sub-continent

COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh, Aug 9 (NNN-BSS) – The International Rescue Committee (IRC), yesterday said, it has relocated over 15,000 Rohingya refugees and 300,000 members of the local communities in flash flood-hit Cox’s Bazar district of Bangladesh.

At least four people, including two Rohingya refugees, are reported to have died in the floods, IRC said in a statement.

ISLAMABAD, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Pakistan plans to privatise its loss-making national carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIAa.PSX), the government said on Monday, as the country also seeks to outsource its airport operations in line with an IMF deal.

The privatisation decision was taken at a meeting of the Cabinet Committee of Privatisation chaired by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.

ISLAMABAD, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif said on Tuesday that the country's federal government will step down on Aug. 9, following which a caretaker setup will take charge till the next general elections.

Sharif made the remarks when he paid a farewell visit to the Pakistan Army's general headquarters in Rawalpindi, a neighboring city of the capital Islamabad, and met relatives of the soldiers who got killed or injured during terrorist incidents in the country.

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s opposition accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of choosing silence while a northeastern state governed by his party convulsed in ethnic violence as Parliament began debate Tuesday on a no-confidence motion against his government that’s certain to be defeated.

“If Manipur is burning, India is burning. If Manipur is divided, India is divided,” Congress party lawmaker Gaurav Gogoi said as he opened debate on the motion.

ISLAMABAD, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan is being held in a small, dirty prison cell, one of his lawyer's said on Monday after being given access to the former cricket star in jail as he prepares to appeal against his graft conviction.

Khan, 70, has been at the heart of political turmoil since he was ousted as prime minister in a vote of no confidence last year, raising concern about stability in the nuclear-armed country as it grapples with an economic crisis.

NEW DELHI (AP) — His social media accounts suggest that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is launching high-speed trains and rubbing shoulders with foreign leaders as a powerhouse on the global stage and the face of an ascendant India.

But that carefully crafted image, followed by millions, sits uncomfortably at odds with his silence on what’s come close to a civil war engulfing India’s northeastern state of Manipur.

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s Parliament on Monday reinstated top opposition leader Rahul Gandhi as a lawmaker three days after the country’s top court halted his criminal defamation conviction for mocking the prime minister’s surname.

His reinduction as a member of Parliament is likely to strengthen the opposition’s effort to corner Narendra Modi’s government ahead of a no-confidence motion this week over deadly ethnic violence that has roiled India’s northeastern state of Manipur for more than three months.

KABUL, Aug 6 (NNN-ANA) – Afghanistan’s central bank, Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB), announced yesterday, to put on auction 13 million U.S. dollars today, to keep the country’s national currency, the afghani, stable against foreign currencies, a statement of the bank said.

According to the statement, DAB has called upon qualified banks and money exchange companies, to attend the bidding and the winner should pay in cash.

NEW DELHI, Aug 6 (NNN-PTI) – Authorities in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, yesterday said, rescuers have recovered three bodies from the debris of the massive landslide, and a search for 17 missing persons was underway.

The landslide was triggered on Thursday night, due to a flash flood, following incessant rains near Gaurikund in Rudraprayag district, about 245 km north-east of Dehradun, the capital city of Uttarakhand.

Officials said, mounds of earth and boulders fell from the nearby hill and swept away several shops below.

COLOMBO, Aug 6 (NNN-XINHUA) – About 90,000 people in four provinces of Sri Lanka had been affected by droughts, the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) said, today.

The DMC said, the four affected areas are Sabaragamuwa, Eastern, North Western and Northern provinces.

A total of 89,485 people from 27,885 families have been affected, and Jaffna in the Northern Province is the worst affected district, with 69,113 people from 21,714 families impacted, the DMC said.