Indian Sub-continent

NEW DELHI, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) -- A mid-air scare forced an IndiGo airlines flight to make an emergency landing Friday at the airport in Patna, the capital city of the eastern Indian state of Bihar, officials said.

All the passengers are said to be safe.

The Delhi-bound flight 6E 2433 carrying 181 passengers and eight crew made the landing shortly after taking off from the Jay Prakash Narayan International Airport, Patna, after one of its engines became inoperative.

Officials said the flight returned to its origin barely three minutes after its departure.

ISLAMABAD, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan's state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) has launched the South Asian country's first-ever Chinese news service to further promote friendly relations between Pakistan and China.

The newly launched service would publish international, domestic and China-related news in the Chinese language, editors at the China News Desk told Xinhua Thursday.

ISLAMABAD, Aug 3 (APP):Pakistan and Iran on Thursday set a target of $5 billion for bilateral trade as the two countries chalked out a five-year trade cooperation plan to enhance cooperation.

Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, addressing a joint press stakeout with his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir Abdollahian, said the five-year trade cooperation plan was aimed at removing impediments in bilateral trade, finalizing the Free Trade Agreement and establishing of institutional linkages between the private sectors of both countries.

ISLAMABAD, Aug 3 (NNN-APP) – Four people were killed in a shootout between two groups, in Pakistan’s south-west Balochistan province, last night, police said.

The incident happened in the provincial capital of Quetta, where a verbal argument between members of two groups turned worse, and they opened fire at each other, police told the media from the incident site.

Both groups were from the city’s influential families, who clashed over a land dispute, the police added.

NEW DELHI, Aug 3 (Reuters) - China's loss in India could be Elon Musk's gain.

Tesla (TSLA.O) has had a red-carpet welcome from India for its proposal to invest in the country, while its largest rival in electric vehicles, China's BYD (002594.SZ), has been stopped cold by increased scrutiny from New Delhi.

The result could be an opening for Tesla to negotiate terms for an entry to the world's third-largest auto market without the competitive threat from BYD that it faces in other emerging markets, like Thailand.

NEW DELHI, Aug 3 (Reuters) - India on Thursday said it will impose a licensing requirement for imports of laptops, tablets and personal computers with immediate effect, a move that could hit hard the likes of Apple, Dell and Samsung and force them to boost local manufacturing.

Current regulations in India allow companies to import laptops freely, but the new rule mandates a special licence for these products similar to restrictions India imposed in 2020 for inbound TV shipments.

NEW DELHI (AP) — India will participate in a weekend meeting that Saudi Arabia is hosting to find a way to start negotiations to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Saudi Arabia invited India to the two-day meeting in Jeddah and its “participation is in consonance with our long-standing position that dialogue and diplomacy is the way forward,” Arindam Bagchi, the spokesman for India’s External Affairs Ministry, told reporters in New Delhi on Thursday.

COLOMBO, Aug 2 (NNN-XINHUA) – A woman died and 15 others were injured, when a passenger bus collided with a truck, in Thulhiriya town, north of the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, today, the local police said.

The Colombo-bound bus departed from the city of Anuradhapura in North Central province. The police said, the injured were rushed to local hospitals.

In a separate accident, at least 18 were injured when a state-owned bus veered off the road and fell into a precipice, at Watawala, in central Sri Lanka, during the early hours of yesterday morning.

NEW DELHI, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Traffic was lighter than usual on Wednesday and some streets deserted in the Gurugram business hub south of the Indian capital New Delhi as authorities said the death toll from two days of Hindu-Muslim clashes in the region had mounted to seven.

The violence erupted during a religious procession by Hindus in the Muslim-dominated Nuh district on Monday, resulting in the death of four people, including two police personnel, and around 60 people were injured.

By Wednesday morning, two more civilians had succumbed to injuries, officials said.

NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s top court Wednesday began hearing a clutch of petitions challenging the constitutionality of the legislation passed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in 2019 that stripped disputed Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood, scrapped its separate constitution and removed inherited protections on land and jobs.