India

2017 General Election underway!

http://www.looppng.com/elections/2017-general-election-underway-57134

The 2017 General Election is now underway following the signing and issue of Writs this morning.

Thousands witness PNC members’ nominations

http://www.looppng.com/elections/thousands-witness-pnc-members%E2%80%99-nominations-57135

The little girl, aged between eight and 10, was found a few weeks ago in a forest in Uttar Pradesh.

Doctors said she could not communicate and displayed "monkey-like" traits.

A senior police official told BBC Hindi she had been playing with a pack of monkeys and imitating their behaviour when police went to rescue her.

The little girl was spotted by villagers in the Katarniaghat wildlife sanctuary, on the Indian border with Nepal.

The police official, Suresh Yadav, said the monkeys attacked his squad when they arrived to take her away.

The attacks were prompted by the death of a local teenager due to a drug overdose. His parents blame Nigerian students for giving him the drugs.

Five Nigerian students were attacked on Monday by crowds, while another was beaten by a mob inside a shopping mall.

Police say five people have been arrested over the attacks.

Ms Swaraj said she had spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and he had assured her of a "fair and impartial investigation into this unfortunate incident".

As vote counts trickled in from five state elections on Saturday, one result loomed large: that of central India's Uttar Pradesh, home to more than 200 million people. The staggered five-week vote in that state alone marks the biggest election in the world in 2017.

Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, or the BJP, looks poised to take about 75% of the 403 seats on offer in Uttar Pradesh.

Australia, 1-0 ahead in the series after its 333-run triumph in the first Test in Pune, scored only 197 runs on the second day at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium but took a vital lead of 48 by the close of play with four wickets in hand.

The pitch is providing inconsistent bounce and turn for the bowlers. India was bundled out for 189 in its first innings and a bigger first-innings lead will only boost Australia's confidence.

Australia's spinners took 17 out of the 20 wickets in Pune as the tourists rolled to a stunning win over India inside three days, but expectations are for far less turn in the second match in the series which starts on Saturday.

Starc bowled well without as much reward as Steven O'Keefe and Nathan Lyon in Pune, and Marsh was asked whether he thought the paceman had got into the Indian batsmen's heads.

"He's probably one of the best bowlers in the world if not the best bowler in the world," Marsh said.

Photographer Cheena Kapoor spent months documenting the women on the ward. Mental illness is "not the only war the women fight here - the stigma of social acceptance and gender discrimination is a major cause of their trauma", she says.

"The male ward is always filled with anxious faces waiting for the sons to return home, while the daughters are so easily forgotten."

These are some of their stories:

Among the smallest frogs in the world, they live on the forest floor and make insect-like calls at night.

Three larger species were also found, bringing to seven the number of night frogs discovered in the Western Ghats.

The mountain range, which runs parallel to the western coast of India, is home to hundreds of threatened plants and animals.

Scientists discovered the new species after several years of exploration in the forests of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Secretive habits

The violence, sparked by the alleged harassment of a young Hindu woman by a Muslim man, lasted two days.

A few days later, seven women, all Muslims, went to the police alleging that they were gang-raped during the violence that broke out in their villages. The police took a year to arrest all the 29 accused, who were later released on bail.

The trials were supposed to be completed in special fast track courts within two months. But nearly four years on, the women are still waiting for justice.

The BBC had reported how Wang Qi, an army surveyor who says he accidentally crossed into India in 1963, had not been given the necessary documents to leave the country.

Following the report, he was visited by Chinese diplomats, who told him efforts were being made to take him back.

Mr Wang was met by family members when his flight landed in Beijing.

Later, in his home city of Xianyang, crowds met him with banners reading "Welcome home, soldier, it's been a rough journey".