Tag Archives: India

Pakistan ‘completely rejects’ Indian claim of cross-border strikes

Indian Police

By Asad Hashim and Fayaz Bukhari

ISLAMABAD/SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) – Pakistan on Friday “completely rejected” India’s claim to have sent troops across its disputed border in Kashmir to kill suspected militants, as India evacuated villages near the frontier amid concerns about a military escalation.

In a rare public announcement of such a raid, India said it had carried out “surgical strikes” on Thursday, sending special forces to kill men preparing to sneak into its territory and attack major cities.

Indian officials said troops had killed militants numbering in the double digits and that its soldiers had returned safely to base before dawn, but declined to provide more evidence of the operation.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif maintained that India fired unprovoked from its side of the heavily militarized frontier in the disputed region of Kashmir, the flashpoint for two of three wars between the nuclear-armed neighbors, and killed two soldiers.

“The Cabinet joined the Prime Minister in completely rejecting the Indian claims of carrying out ‘surgical strikes’,” Sharif’s office said in a statement issued after a cabinet meeting on Friday.

It added that the country was ready “to counter any aggressive Indian designs,” but gave no further details.

The U.S. State Department said Washington was watching the situation closely and urged “calm and restraint” by both sides, saying it did not want to see escalation by the two nuclear-armed countries.

“Nuclear-capable states have a clear responsibility to exercise restraint regarding nuclear weapons and missile capabilities,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. “That’s my message publicly and that’s certainly our message directly.”

Pakistan captured an Indian soldier on Thursday on its side of the border, but India said this was unrelated to the raid as the man had inadvertently strayed across the frontier.

Domestic pressure had been building on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to retaliate after 19 soldiers were killed in a Sept. 18 attack on an Indian army base in Kashmir that India blames on infiltrators who crossed from Pakistani territory.

A senior leader of Modi’s ruling party declared himself satisfied with India’s “multi-pronged” response to the attack on the army base.

“For Pakistan, terrorism has come as a cheaper option all these years. Time to make it costly for it,” Ram Madhav, national general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party, wrote in a column for the Indian Express newspaper.

India has also launched a diplomatic campaign to try to isolate Pakistan. Its decision on Tuesday to boycott a summit of South Asian leaders in November in Islamabad was followed by Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan expressing their “inability” to attend.

Sri Lanka said on Friday that peace and security were vital for regional cooperation, but stopped short of pulling out.

“SURGICAL FARCE”

While India’s public and politicians have welcomed the operation, Pakistan greeted New Delhi’s version of events with scepticism and ridicule.

Television news channels and newspapers reported only small arms and mortar fire, a relatively routine occurrence on the de facto border.

Pakistan’s Express Tribune, an affiliate of the New York Times, led its edition with the headline “‘Surgical’ farce blows up in India’s face”.

Rising tensions have also hit cultural ties.

Pakistani cinemas have stopped screening Indian films in “solidarity” with the armed forces, and after an Indian filmmakers’ group banned its members from hiring Pakistani actors. Indian-made Bollywood films are wildly popular in both countries.

India’s announcement of the raid on Thursday raised the possibility of military escalation that could wreck a 2003 Kashmir ceasefire.

India evacuated more than 10,000 villagers living near the border, and ordered security forces to upgrade surveillance along the frontier in Jammu and Kashmir state, part of the 3,300-km (2,100 miles) border.

Hundreds of villages were being cleared along a 15 km (9 mile) strip in the lowland region of Jammu and further north on the Line of Control in the Himalayan mountains of Kashmir.

“Our top priority is to move women and children to government buildings, guest houses and marriage halls,” said Nirmal Singh, deputy chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.

“People who have not been able to migrate were instructed not to venture out of their houses early in the morning or late in the night.”

Modi’s government has been struggling to contain protests on the streets of Kashmir, where more than 80 civilians have been killed and thousands wounded in the last 10 weeks after a young separatist militant was killed by Indian forces.

Pakistan said on Friday that Sharif’s special envoys had arrived in Beijing to brief China on the deteriorating situation in Indian-controlled Kashmir. China, a Pakistan ally, expressed its concern, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

Farmer Rakesh Singh, 56, who lives in the Arnia sector of Jammu, said his family were among the first to leave home because his village was within range of Pakistan’s artillery.

“We suffer the most,” he said. “It is nothing new for us.”

(additional reporting by Shihar Aneez in COLOMBO; Writing by Rupam Jain and Tommy Wilkes; Editing by Nick Macfie and Alistair Bell)

In escalation, India says launches strikes on militants in Pakistan

An Indian soldier on patrol

By Sanjeev Miglani and Asad Hashim

NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – India said on Thursday it had conducted “surgical strikes” on suspected militants preparing to infiltrate from Pakistan-ruled Kashmir, making its first direct military response to an attack on an army base it blames on Pakistan.

Pakistan said two of its soldiers had been killed in exchanges of fire and in repulsing an Indian “raid”, but denied India had made any targeted strikes across the de facto frontier that runs through the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir.

The cross-border action inflicted significant casualties, the Indian army’s head of operations told reporters in New Delhi, while a senior government official said Indian soldiers had crossed the border to target militant camps.

The announcement followed through on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s warning that those India held responsible “would not go unpunished” for a Sept. 18 attack on an Indian army base at Uri, near the Line of Control, that killed 18 soldiers.

The strikes also raised the possibility of a military escalation between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan that would wreck a 2003 Kashmir ceasefire.

Lt General Ranbir Singh, the Indian army’s director general of military operations (DGMO), said the strikes were launched on Wednesday based on “very specific and credible information that some terrorist units had positioned themselves … with an aim to carry out infiltration and terrorist strikes”.

Singh said he had called his Pakistani counterpart to inform him of the operation, which had ended. India later briefed opposition parties and foreign ambassadors in New Delhi but stopped short of disclosing operational details.

“It would indicate that this was all pretty well organized,” said one diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity because the briefing by Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar was confidential.

Pakistan’s military spokesman slammed the Indian account as “totally baseless and completely a lie”, saying the contact between DGMOs only included communication regarding cross-border firing, which was within existing rules of engagement.

“We deny it. There is no such thing on the ground. There is just the incident of the firing last night, which we responded to,” Lt General Asim Bajwa told news channel Geo TV.

“We have fired in accordance with the rules of engagement[…] We are acting in a responsible way.”

Pakistan said nine of its soldiers had also been wounded. Neither side’s account could be independently verified.

India’s disclosure of such strikes was unprecedented, said Ajai Sahni of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi, and sent a message not only to his own people but to the international community.

“India expects global support to launch more focused action against Pakistan,” Sahni told Reuters. “There was tremendous pressure on the Indian prime minister to prove that he is ready to take serious action.”

NO MORE STRATEGIC RESTRAINT

The border clash also comes at a delicate time for Pakistan, with powerful Army Chief of Staff General Raheel Sharif due to retire shortly and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif still to decide on a successor.

The Pakistani premier condemned what he called India’s “unprovoked and naked aggression” and called a cabinet meeting on Friday to discuss further steps.

Share markets in India and Pakistan fell on India’s announcement. India’s NSE index closed down 1.6 percent after falling as much 2.1 percent to its lowest since Aug. 29, while Pakistan’s benchmark 100-share index was down 0.15 percent.

India announced its retaliation at a news conference in New Delhi that was hurriedly called, only to be delayed, as Modi chaired a meeting of his cabinet committee on security to be briefed on the operation.

“The prime minister is clear that this is exactly what we should have done,” a senior government official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. “Informing the world about the surgical strike was important today.”

U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice spoke with her Indian counterpart, Ajit Doval, before news of the Indian cross-border operation broke, the White House said.

Rice discussed deepening collaboration between the United States and India on counter-terrorism and urged Pakistan to combat and delegitimize individuals and entities designated by the United Nations as terrorists.

SIX-HOUR EXCHANGE

Exchanges of fire took place in the Bhimber, Hot Spring, Kel and Lipa sectors in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and lasted about six hours, the Pakistani military said earlier.

An Indian army officer in Kashmir said there had been shelling from the Pakistani side of the border into the Nowgam district, near the Line of Control, and the exchange of fire continued during the day.

There were no casualties or damage reported on the Indian side of the frontier. An Indian military source told Reuters that the operation was carried out on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control where there were between five and seven infiltration “launchpads”.

“It was a shallow strike. The operation began at around midnight and it was over before sunrise,” this source, who had been briefed by his superiors on the operation, said. “All our men our back. Significant casualties inflicted. Damage assessment still going on.”

Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in full, but govern separate parts, and have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.

Tension between the South Asian rivals has been high since an Indian crackdown on dissent in Kashmir following the killing by security forces of Burhan Wani, a young separatist leader, in July.

They rose further when New Delhi blamed Pakistan for the Uri attack, which inflicted the heaviest toll on the Indian army of any single incident in 14 years.

India has been ratcheting up pressure on Pakistan, seeking to isolate it at the U.N. General Assembly in New York and winning expressions of condemnation from the United States, Britain and France over the attack.

China, another of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and a traditional ally of Pakistan, has urged dialogue between the two antagonists.

On Wednesday, officials from several countries said a November summit of a the South Asian regional group due to be held in Islamabad may be called off after India, Bangladesh and Afghanistan said they would not attend.

(Writing by Douglas Busvine; Additional reporting by Fayaz Bukhari in SRINAGAR, Rupam Jain in NEW DELHI, Drazen Jorgic and Mehreen Zahra-Malik in ISLAMABAD.; Editing by Nick Macfie)

India begins campaign at United Nations to isolate Pakistan

India's Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – India began a campaign to isolate Pakistan at the United Nations on Monday, telling the 193-member General Assembly it was time to identify nations who nurture, peddle and export terrorism and isolate them if they don’t join the global fight.

India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said the arrest of Pakistani Bahadur Ali was “living proof of Pakistan’s complicity in crossborder terror.” India has said Ali confessed that he was trained by the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group.

“But when confronted with such evidence, Pakistan remains in denial. It persists in the belief that such attacks will enable it to obtain the territory it covets,” she said on the final day of the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

“My firm advice to Pakistan is: abandon this dream. Let me state unequivocally that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and will always remain so,” Swaraj said.

India accuses Pakistan of having a role in a Sept. 18 raid on an Indian army base in Kashmir, one of the deadliest attacks in the Himalayan region that has been divided since 1947 and lies at the heart of the nuclear-armed neighbors’ rivalry. Pakistan denies any role in the attack.

“We need to forget our prejudices and join hands together to script an effective strategy against terror,” Swaraj said. “And if any nation refuses to join this global strategy, then we must isolate it.”

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed on Saturday to mount a global campaign to isolate Pakistan. Last month U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged Pakistan to join other nations in fighting terrorism.

India has long accused Pakistan of backing militant groups operating in disputed Kashmir as well as of sending fighters to other parts of the country to carry out acts of violence. Pakistan denies the allegations.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif last week told the U.N. General Assembly India had put unacceptable conditions on dialogue.

“What pre-conditions?” Swaraj said on Monday. “We took the initiative to resolve issues not on the basis of conditions, but on the basis of friendship.”

Pakistan’s U.N. Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi dismissed Swaraj’s statement on Monday as “a litany of falsehoods and baseless allegations.”

“For the Indian Foreign Minister to claim that her country has imposed no preconditions for talks with Pakistan is another flight from reality. India suspended talks more than a year ago, and has refused to resume these despite repeated offers from Pakistan,” Lodhi said.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by David Gregorio)

Teacher in violence-torn Indian Kashmir starts makeshift classrooms

A protester prepares to throw a stone towards an Indian policeman during a protest in Srinagar against the recent killings in Kashmir

By Fayaz Bukhari

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) – Wedding halls and prayer rooms have been turned into classrooms in Indian-administered Kashmir as families struggle to provide children with a normal life after more than 50 days of the Muslim-majority region’s worst violence in years.

At least 68 civilians and two security officials have been killed and more than 9,000 people injured, according to official tallies, in clashes between protesters chaffing at Indian rule and security forces.

Authorities trying to stifle protests that erupted after a young militant leader was gunned down by the security forces on July 8 ordered schools and colleges to close two days later.

There’s no sign of them re-opening.

Teacher Ghulam Rasool Kambay, seeing children becoming increasingly restless cooped up at home, decided to do something.

He opened a tutorial center in a village on Aug. 3 and now has more than a dozen of them in villages in a district south of the region’s main city of Srinagar.

“The response is good. We have about 800 students in these centers. Parents are eager to send their children as they have no option right now,” Kambay told Reuters.

Students find their way to the makeshift schools in small groups through back lanes, careful not to attract the attention of police.

They often sit on the floor as there are not enough desks and share books.

“It’s more like a self-learning exercise, just a way to keep in touch with books,” said Muneer Wani, 16, at his temporary school at a mosque where classes begin after morning prayers.

Muneer said it was the only place to meet friends and study.

“We can’t even go outdoors.”

Disputed Kashmir is claimed by both India and Pakistan and has been a flashpoint for more than 60 years, sparking two wars between them.

Militant groups have taken up arms to fight for independence from Indian rule or to merge with Pakistan. India has blamed Pakistan for supporting the violence. Pakistan denies that.

Thousands of teenage boys defy a curfew every day and gather in groups to throw stones at police. Almost all of the deaths have been caused by security forces shooting at protesters.

On the streets of Srinagar, people have scrawled “Go India, go back”.

Zubair Ahmad said he was too worried about the safety of his two children to send them to classes at a nearby mosque.

His wife has been teaching them at home instead, but the children were getting restless, he said.

“It is very difficult for children … they’ve become aggressive.”

(Writing by Rupam Jain; Editing by Tom Lasseter, Robert Birsel)

U.S. aid to Pakistan shrinks amid mounting frustration over militants

A State Department contractor adjust a Pakistan national flag before a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on the sidelines of the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism at the State Department in Washington February 19, 2015.

By Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Pakistan’s continued support for resurgent militant groups hostile to the United States, coupled with warming U.S. military and business relations with India, is sharply diminishing Islamabad’s strategic importance as an ally to Washington, U.S. military, diplomatic, and intelligence officials and outside experts said.

The United States has cut both military and economic aid to Pakistan sharply in recent years, reflecting mounting frustration among a growing number of officials with the nuclear-armed country’s support for the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.

That frustration has dogged U.S.-Pakistan ties for more than a decade, but has spiked anew as the militant Islamic group has advanced in parts of Afghanistan that U.S. and allied forces once helped to secure, U.S. officials and analysts say.

“We’re seeing a very definitive and very sharp reorienting of U.S. policy in South Asia away from Afghanistan-Pakistan and more towards India,” said Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert with the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Washington think-tank.

(For graphic showing U.S. annual military and civilian aid to Pakistan since 2011 click http://tmsnrt.rs/2boG04J)

The U.S. relationship with Pakistan has long been a transactional one marked by mutual mistrust, marriages of convenience, and mood swings.

The long-standing U.S. frustration with Pakistan’s refusal to stop supporting the Taliban, especially within the U.S. military and intelligence community, is now overriding President Barack Obama’s administration’s desire to avoid renewed military involvement in Afghanistan, as well as concerns that China could capitalize on fraying ties between Washington and Islamabad, the U.S. officials said.

Obama announced last month he would keep U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan at 8,400 through the end of his administration, shelving plans to cut the force in half by year end.

American civilian and military aid to Pakistan, once the third-largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, is expected to total less than $1 billion in 2016, down from a recent peak of more than $3.5 billion in 2011, according to U.S. government data. The United States has not appropriated less than $1 billion to Pakistan since at least 2007.

The decrease also comes amid budget constraints and shifting global priorities for the United States, including fighting Islamic State militants, a resurgent Russia and an increasingly assertive China.

In March, Republican Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would seek to bar $430 million in U.S. funding for Islamabad’s purchase of $700 million of Lockheed Martin Corp. F-16 fighter jets.

Earlier this month, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter refused to authorize $300 million in military reimbursements to Pakistan, citing the limited gains the country has made fighting the militant Haqqani network, which is based in the country’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. The approval of such funding has been mostly routine in the past.

LIMITS OF COOPERATION

The U.S. Congress has yet to authorize hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Pakistan for the next fiscal year. The Pentagon is due to authorize $350 million in military aid for the next fiscal year, and is unlikely to approve it under the Obama administration, a U.S. defense official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

“Congress is no longer willing to fund a state that supports the Afghan Taliban, which is killing American soldiers,” said Bruce Riedel, a Brookings Institution expert and former CIA officer who headed Obama’s first Afghanistan policy review.

In a stark illustration of the limits of U.S.–Pakistan cooperation, the United States killed Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a drone strike in Pakistan’s remote Baluchistan region in May, without informing Pakistan.

Some U.S. officials still warn of the dangers of allowing relations with Pakistan to deteriorate. In a July 26 opinion piece in the Financial Times, Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, argued that “the strategic imperative for improved relations between the U.S. and Pakistan is clear – for the safety of American troops and the success of their mission in Afghanistan, for the stability of the region and for the national security of both Pakistan and the U.S.”

A senior Pakistani defense official said the United States will continue to need Pakistan in the fight against terrorism. Authorities in Islamabad have long rejected accusations that Pakistan has provided support and sanctuary to militants operating in Afghanistan.

“We have lost over a hundred billion dollars in fighting terrorism, which is more than anything they have given us,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In any event, the official said, Pakistan can turn to other sources of aid, including China. Last year the two countries launched a plan for energy and infrastructure projects in Pakistan worth $46 billion.

Nevertheless, the U.S. tilt toward India, Pakistan’s arch-foe, is likely to continue.

U.S. defense companies including Lockheed Martin and Boeing Co. are entering the Indian market, and the country has become the world’s second-largest arms buyer after Saudi Arabia, according to data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Earlier this year, India and the United States agreed in principle to share military logistics, as both sides seek to counter the growing maritime assertiveness of China.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington. Additional reporting by Tommy Wilkes and Mehreen Zahra-Malik in Islamabad.; Editing by John Walcott and Stuart Grudgings)

China expresses concern about Indian missiles on border

A signboard is seen from the Indian side of the Indo-China border at Bumla, in Arunachal Pradesh,

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Defence Ministry said on Thursday that it hoped India could put more efforts into regional peace and stability rather than the opposite, in response to Indian plans to put advanced cruise missiles along the disputed border with China.

Indian military officials say the plan is to equip regiments deployed on the China border with the BrahMos missile, made by an Indo-Russian joint venture, as part of ongoing efforts to build up military and civilian infrastructure capabilities there.

The two nuclear-armed neighbors have been moving to gradually ease long-existing tensions between them.

Leaders of Asia’s two giants pledged last year to cool a festering border dispute, which dates back to a brief border war in 1962, though the disagreement remains unresolved.

Asked about the missile plans at a monthly news briefing, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said maintaining peace and stability in the border region was an “important consensus” reached by both countries.

“We hope that the Indian side can do more to benefit peace and stability along the border and in the region, rather than the opposite,” Wu said, without elaborating.

China lays claim to more than 90,000 sq km (35,000 sq miles) ruled by New Delhi in the eastern sector of the Himalayas. India says China occupies 38,000 sq km (14,600 sq miles) of its territory on the Aksai Chin plateau in the west.

India is also suspicious of China’s support for its arch-rival, Pakistan.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping when he visits China next month to attend the G20 summit.

Modi’s government has ordered BrahMos Aerospace, which produces the missiles, to accelerate sales to a list of five countries topped by Vietnam, according to a government note viewed by Reuters and previously unreported.

Modi visits Vietnam, which is embroiled in a dispute over the South China Sea with Beijing, before arriving in China.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Eastern India struggles to evacuate reluctant villagers as floods wreak havoc

People stand on a partially submerged house as they wait to receive food parcels being distributed by a Indian Air Force helicopter on the outskirts of Allahabad,

By Jatindra Dash

BHUBANESWAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Authorities in eastern India are struggling to evacuate more than 100,000 people stranded in villages after floods intensified, killing more than 300 and driving hundreds of thousands from their homes, officials said on Thursday.

The heavy monsoon rains have caused rivers including the Ganges and its tributaries to burst their banks forcing over 200,000 people into relief camps in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand.

The deluge has submerged thousands of villages, washed away crops, destroyed homes and roads and disrupted power and phone lines, affecting millions of people across the five states.

In India’s eastern Bihar state, one of the worst-hit regions, disaster management officials said villagers in some areas were not willing to be evacuated, reluctant to leave their homes, possessions and livestock for fear of looting.

“We are asking them with folded hands, please come to the relief centers. Those who do not want to leave homes, their number is very large, probably more than 100,000 people,” said Bihar’s Principal Secretary for Disaster Management Vyas Ji.

“The water is rising downstream and we do not want people in those areas to stay in their houses,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Since the monsoons began in June, more than five million people across 26 out of Bihar’s 38 districts have been affected and at least 127 people have died, mostly due to drowning.

In the past week, 2.3 million people have had their lives disrupted and the death toll has reached 28. At least 107,000 people have taken refuge in government relief camps.

News reports said one person died and nine others were missing in Aurangabad district after a boat carrying 18 people who were trying to flee the disaster sank in the Punpun river, a tributary of the Ganges, on Tuesday.

In neighboring Uttar Pradesh state, at least 53 people have died and more than 1.8 million people across 29 out of total of 75 districts have been hit by the disaster.

Television pictures showed people wading neck-high in water in Ballia district, while others took shelter on roof tops of multi-storey buildings.

Uttar Pradesh’s Relief Commissioner Dinesh Kumar Singh said rescue and relief teams from the National Disaster Response Forces had evacuated thousands of people in boats and the Indian Air Force was airdropping food packets from helicopters.

People unload relief food material from an Indian Air Force helicopter to be distributed among the flood victims, on the outskirts of Allahabad, India,

People unload relief food material from an Indian Air Force helicopter to be distributed among the flood victims, on the outskirts of Allahabad, India, August 24, 2016. REUTERS/Jitendra Prakash

“More than 90,000 people have been displaced from their homes and about 60,000 of them have taken shelter in relief camps,” Singh told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“The good thing is there has been no rain over the last three days.”

India usually experiences monsoon rains from June to September, which are vital for its agriculture — making up 18 percent of its gross domestic product and providing employment for almost half of its 1.3 billion population.

But in many states the rains frequently cause landslides and flooding that devastate crops, destroy homes and expose people to diseases such as diarrhea.

Authorities said there was no problem in reaching flood-hit areas, but television pictures on Wednesday showed crowds of people in Bihar’s Patna district blocking roads and complaining of a lack of aid.

“We are in difficulty. We are not getting food,” a middle-aged woman standing on an embankment told Kashish News, a local Hindi station.

(Reporting by Jatindra Dash. Editing by Nita Bhalla and Astrid Zweynert. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)

Flash floods kill scores in Nepal, India

rmy personnel assist flood victims in Kapilvastu, Nepal July 26, 2016.

By Gopal Sharma and Biswajyoti Das

KATHMANDU/GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) – Flash floods and landslides have killed at least 68 people in Nepal in the past three days and another 15 are missing, local authorities said on Thursday.

Rescue teams of soldiers and police personnel used rubber boats and helicopters to rescue people from rooftops and trees, Yadav Koirala, spokesman for Nepal’s home ministry, said. Some waded through waist-deep water with women and children, police said.

In the western town of Butwal, 170 km (110 miles) from Kathmandu, local TV stations showed the Tinau river washing away a huge suspension bridge.

Dramatic footage shot from a smartphone by Yub Raj Rana, a local, also showed the Tinau breaching a concrete embankment, forcing him to flee a tide of water until he reached the safety of higher ground.

In neighboring India, nearly 1.7 million people have been affected by floods and 15 lives lost as the situation remained critical the northeast state of Assam with rivers continuing to overflow, local authorities said.

There was some respite, however, from incessant rains on Thursday.

Floods and landslides are common in India and Nepal during the June-September monsoon season and the death toll runs into the hundreds every year.

The oil-rich and tea-growing state of Assam is under water except for a few districts, the state forest minister said.

The Brahmaputra, Assam’s main river which is fed by Himalayan snow melt and monsoon rains, has burst its banks in many areas along its course. The majority of Assam’s land area is in the Brahmaputra valley.

“The situation is still very bad. We are taking measures to help people in every possible way,” Indian Forest Minister Pramila Rani Brahma said.

The army has been deployed to repair dams washed away by gushing waters and helicopters have been pressed into action to distribute food and medicines to homeless people who have taken shelter on highways and in hilly areas.

Local officials have opened around 500 temporary shelters and more than 150 distribution camps for the displaced people, officials at the state disaster management authority said.

(Writing by Malini Menon; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Flood kills 22 people in India, 170,000 homeless

A man rows a boat as they pull out a horse from the flooded river Ganga in Allahabad

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Flash floods triggered by torrential rain have killed at least 22 people in India and forced more than 170,000 from their homes, officials said on Monday, as forecasters predicted more downpours in coming days.

India’s monsoon rains, though vital for agriculture, regularly bring death and destruction. The rain was 35 percent above average in the week that ended on July 6, the weather office said.

Twenty people were killed in the central state of Madhya Pradesh where 70,000 people were left homeless as water rose to dangerous levels along parts of the Narmada river.

Firemen waded through thigh-deep water to rescue women and children in flooded villages while rescue teams used inflatable boats to reach people stranded in urban areas.

“Thousands of people will be evacuated today. We are working on a war footing mode to set up relief camps,” additional home secretary Basant Singh said in Bhopal, the state capital.

“The health department is distributing medicines to prevent outbreak of water-borne diseases.”

Stormy weather also ravaged parts of the remote northeast.

Heavy rain pounded the tea-growing, oil-rich state of Assam killing at least two people. About 100,000 people were forced to take shelter on higher ground, officials there said.

The rain has also swelled the Brahmaputra river, which flows into Bangladesh, to dangerous levels.

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal ordered officials to distribute food, clothing and medicines to people who could not return to their homes.

(Reporting by Biswajyoti Das in GUWAHATI Rupam Jain in NEW DELHI, Editing by Tommy Wilkes, Robeert Birsel)

Murders, violence rises as parched Central India battles for water

By Shuriah Niazi

BHOPAL, India (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Imrat Namdev and her younger sister Pushpa Namdev were neighbors in Chhatarpur district, in the drought-hit Indian region of Bundelkhand. Both relied on the same well for water and, according to police, frequently quarreled over how much the other was using.

In May, during one fight over water, Pushpa, 42, beat Imrat, 48, with a stick, police say. The injured sister was rushed to a hospital, but died there, and Pushpa was charged with murder.

“Our village faces a severe shortage of potable water,” Imrat’s son, Jitendra, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Pushpa always felt my mother drew more water from the well.”

As northern and central India continue to suffer thorough severe drought and oppressive heat, police in Bundelkhand and several other regions are reporting a rise in violent – and often deadly – clashes over water.

After almost 10 years of below-average rainfall and several consecutive years of drought, the region’s rivers, lakes, reservoirs and wells are drying up.

Disputes are a common problem in many places in India that face water shortages. But Indian police report that the fighting is getting more frequent and bloody. In many parts of the country, neighbors, friends and family are turning on each other, desperate to protect what little water they have left, police records suggest.

Last month, in the tribal-dominated Alirajpur district of Madhya Pradesh, 13-year-old Surmada, her brother and her uncle used a neighbor’s hand-pump, without permission, to get water for the family’s houseguests.

According to police, the owner of the pump and his son attacked the group with arrows. One pierced Surmada’s eye, killing her.

And in the village of Kanker, in Shivpuri district, a large-scale argument broke out after two motorcyclists got into an accident, causing one to spill the 15-litre (4 gallon) container of water he was carrying.

“The two later called their family members and friends and attacked each other with spears, axes and sticks,” said investigating officer Jaisingh Yadav of Sathanwada police station. Fifteen people were injured, five of them women, he said.

Lal Singh Arya, Madhya Pradesh’s urban administration and development minister, said the government is using all its resources to try to make sure everyone has water. But he predicted tensions will remain high until monsoon rains – which began recently in some areas – take hold.

“There have been disputes over water in many parts of the state because of two consecutive droughts,” he said. “The situation will improve with the monsoon rains.”

ONLY DRINKING WATER

Activists say the government’s failure to act to better manage water is partly to blame for the rise in violence.

“The present crisis is the fallout of over-consumption, wasteful use and inefficient water governance systems,” said Ajay Dubey, an activist with the environmental non-governmental organization Prayatna, based in Madhya Pradesh.

“People are going to any lengths for the sake of water. They’ve lost hope that the situation will ever improve. Things were never so bad,” Dubey said.

According to the Madhya Pradesh water resource department, out of the state’s 139 main reservoirs, 82 are at only 10 percent capacity and 22 are empty. As authorities try to make the remaining water last until monsoon rains help refill the reservoirs, the measures they have implemented have only exacerbated the sense of desperation.

Across much of the region, authorities have banned the use of water for washing cars or trucks, bathing cattle or irrigating crops. In most cities in Madhya Pradesh, the local government only supplies drinking water on one out of every two to seven days.

The district administration of Sehore in Madhya Pradesh has temporarily taken charge of all water sources, whether government or privately owned, so that it can manage use of the dwindling resource. And in three towns in Madhya Pradesh, the use of water for anything other than drinking is banned.

Lokesh Kumar, sub-divisional magistrate of Ichhawar town, said water can’t be used for farming or industrial purposes until July 5, when the monsoon is underway and authorities hope water sources will be replenished.

For many in rural India, the struggle to survive with very little water is proving too difficult. In areas like Bundelkhand, a growing number of people are leaving their homes and abandoning their work in hopes of finding water – even just a little more – somewhere else.

Asandi Das, who lives in a village in Chhatarpur district, plans to take his family to Agra, where the famous Taj Mahal is located, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. He said that right now his family has neither food nor water.

He knows it won’t be easy even in Agra – or anywhere else – but hopes to get enough work to make ends meet.

“We’ll not be able to survive in our village,” Das said. “There’s just no water. We’ll have to go to some other place if we want to live.”

(Reporting by Shuriah Niazi; editing by Jumana Farouky and Laurie Goering :; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, women’s rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate)