When India's Yamuna River, which runs through the country's capital region, overflowed its banks last year, New Delhi found itself plunged into a flood emergency.

At the height of the crisis, Bhagwati Devi, who runs a small vegetable farm in the low-lying Yamuna plains on the outskirts of New Delhi, had to be evacuated to higher ground.

"We spent the entire night stranded up on a tree before we were evacuated," she said.

The 37-year-old said she spent the following weeks in abysmal conditions on the capital's highway as her shanty was washed away — along with many of her belongings.

Devi's livelihood suffered for months as her crop was destroyed in the floodwaters.

Environmental experts blamed heavy rainfall in India's northern states along with poor urban planning for New Delhi's floods.

This year, Devi will cast her vote in the ongoing national elections. But, unaware of the scientific phenomenon of climate change, which is wreaking havoc in her daily life, it will not influence her vote.

The case of Devi is not an outlier, as anecdotal evidence suggests that the issue of climate change is rarely seen trickling down in India's electoral politics.

Why isn't environment a hot-button election issue?

Experts say that the discourse around climate change is not actually missing in India, it's just different.

"The politics of climate change in India is just not labeled neatly as 'climate change' but it does not mean that climate change is not shaping the Indian politics," said Aditya Valiathan Pillai, a fellow at the New Delhi-based Sustainable Futures Collaborative, an independent climate change research organization.

Most of the politics around climate change translates into finding ways to solve the consequences of climate change — which can be seen if we look at the mobilization around irrigation, lack of access to water, demands for farm loan waivers etc., he explained.

"In party manifestos, many sectoral promises are climate-related but not placed within the climate chapters," he said.

Connecting the dots

Aarti Khosla, founder of Climate Trends, an Indian research-based consulting initiative, explained that to many people climate change in itself is never the issue — but it becomes an issue when it makes other problems more pronounced.

"We continue to think that climate politics only exists when there is a Green Party like that in the West or when the exact terminology of 'climate change' is used in manifestos," she said.

"I don't think climate change will be addressed like that in India anytime soon."

How do Indian voters perceive climate change?

Observers believe that awareness about climate change in India is growing.

Only 9% of Indians said they know "a lot" about global warming. But when given a small definition of global warming, a resounding 84% said that it is happening, according to the findings of a 2022 survey.

The study also reported that 81% of Indians are "very worried" about global warming.

"I think people are much more aware than what we give them credit for," Khosla said.

But despite the growing concern, it has not yet become a major issue in electoral politics.

How are politicians responding to climate change?

Even in the Indian Parliament, the discourse around climate change has been largely ignored.

A 2022 study found that between 1999 and 2019, only 0.3% of questions raised by politicians were about climate change.

"Speeches on climate change do not connect with the public unless there is a triggering issue," said Rajeev Gowda, a candidate from the Congress party contesting the southern Indian city of Bengaluru, which is experiencing a water crisis.

"We actually repel a lot of people by saying it's climate change," said Khosla.

If we present climate change in terms of more palpable events of day-to-day life, then we can get more people to understand it, she said.

In case of Devi, while perhaps she does not know what climate change truly means, its consequences have not gone unnoticed to her. "Earlier the crop yield used to be much higher and we could get potable water directly from handpumps but now we depend on water tankers."

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Edited by: Keith Walker

Unidentified gunmen shot and killed at least seven workers in Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan, police said on Thursday.

According to police official Mohsin Ali, gunmen stormed into a house some 25 kilometers (15 miles) east of the port city of Gwadar, and shot the workers while they were asleep. 

The coastal town of Gwadar is the site of several Beijing-backed projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor investment, which is part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

The victims, who were from the central Pakistani province of Punjab, were running a barber shop, Ali said.

However, police said they believed the attack was not related to their jobs. Previous attacks claimed by the Pakistani Taliban near the Afghan border in the north were believed to have been motivated by a militant ban on Western-style beard trimming and haircuts.

Incident follows similar attack last month

Although no group has claimed responsibility for the killings, it follows a pattern of ethnically-motivated attacks in the restive Balochistan province. 

Last month, the so-called Balochistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility for killing several workers who were abducted from a bus on a highway.

Balochistan, a mineral-rich region, is home to a decades-old insurgency led by ethnic Baloch guerillas fighting the government. 

The separatists, who oppose Chinese investments, have long complained that they do not get a fair share of the province's profits.

The Baloch are an ethnic group living on both sides of the Iran-Pakistan border and into parts of southern Afghanistan in an area roughly the size of France. The Pakistani province of Balochistan forms the largest part.

Balochs accuse both governments of systematic discrimination and plundering their region. Several groups of militant insurgents have carried out attacks on both sides of the border.

fb/rm (Reuters, AP, dpa) 

Hungarian President Tamas Sulyok received Chinese President Xi Jinping in Budapest on Thursday with a ceremonial welcome before the latter was due to hold talks on possible further cooperation between the two countries. 

Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, was at the ceremony , where Xi and Sulyok walked down a red carpet and listened to the Chinese and Hungarian national anthems.

Xi arrived in Hungary on Wednesday evening, after meeting leaders in France and Serbia on his first state visit to Europe since 2019.

In the Hungarian pro-government daily Magyar Nemzet, Xi wrote that he "developed deep friendships" with Hungarian politicians. He also described Hungary as "the number one target in the central eastern European region for Chinese investment."

Chinese state media reported that Xi said Beijing was ready to promote high-level development of ties with Budapest, adding that their relations were not targeting, nor dictated by any third party.

 

What is on the agenda?

Russia's war in Ukraine is likely to be a topic of discussion. Earlier this week in Paris, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron sought to press Xi to use his influence on Moscow to end the conflict.

China and Hungary are also expected to sign more than 16 new cooperation agreements, according to Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto. 

Those agreements could include a large-scale infrastructure project within the Belt and Road Initiative, Szijjarto told the press earlier this week.

Budapest was the first EU member nation that joined the Belt and Road Initiative — the plan launched by Xi in 2013 to build networks connecting Asia, Africa and Europe.

It's unclear whether there could also be an agreement on security, after China offered in February to cooperate on public security and law enforcement issues.

fb/rm (dpa, Reuters)

Investigators in India have announced that federal police arrested four people accused of duping young men into going to Russia to fight in the Ukraine war.

At least two Indians have been killed in the conflict, with many more saying they were lured to Russia and sent to the front lines under false pretenses.

What we know about the trafficking operation

Two of the four suspects were arrested on Tuesday, India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said, while another two were arrested on April 24.

They included a translator, a person who would arrange visas and plane tickets, and two main recruiters operating in the southern states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

The CBI said "gullible youths" would be promised lucrative jobs or university places, only to be forced to the front line in Ukraine after arriving in Russia. The operation targeted victims using online platforms such as YouTube.

"The trafficked Indian nationals were trained in combat roles and deployed at front bases ... against their wishes, thus putting their lives in grave danger," said a CBI press release.

It added that investigations were ongoing against other accused people believed to be part of an international network.

The arrests come two months after investigators raided 13 locations in India and detained several suspects.

At the time, the CBI said it had recorded at least 35 instances of Indians being lured to Russia.

The Indian Foreign Ministry has said it is working to secure discharges from the Russian army for some 20 Indian nationals.

New Delhi has refused to condemn Moscow over the war, instead calling for dialogue and diplomacy to resolve the conflict. The countries have enjoyed a close trading relationship for decades.

rc/nm (AFP, Reuters)

Malaysia has said it plans to present orangutans to major palm-oil-importing countries with the aim of boosting its credentials as a conserver of biodiversity.

The Asian nation is the world's second-largest producer of the widely used commodity, whose production is blamed by environmentalists for fuelling the destruction of the great ape's habitats in both Malaysia and Indonesia.

The move comes after the EU last year decided on phasing-out commodities, like palm oil, that are linked to deforestation by 2030.

Malaysia argues that the ban has been introduced to protect the bloc's own oilseeds market.

What has Malaysia said?

Malaysia's commodities minister, Johari Abdul Ghani, said the plan would entail gifting the great apes to trading partners, such as the EU, India and China, that import large quantities of palm oil for use in products from food to cosmetics.

"This will prove to the global community that Malaysia is committed to biodiversity conservation," Johari said on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, late on Tuesday.

"Malaysia cannot take a defensive approach to the issue of palm oil," he added. "Instead we need to show the countries of the world that Malaysia is a sustainable oil palm producer and is committed to protecting forests and environmental sustainability."

The plan was likened by the minister to China's "panda diplomacy," in which the Chinese government has long sent giant pandas to other countries as a diplomatic tool.

In the scheme's current form, China only loans pandas to foreign zoos, which must usually return any offspring within a few years of their birth to join the country's breeding program.

What is the problem with palm oil and orangutans?

Palm oil is used in a wide range of products, from pizza and other foodstuffs to lipsticks, soaps and shampoos.

However, according to the conservation organization WWF, its production on large plantations has decisively contributed to a significant loss of orangutan habitat in both Malaysia and Indonesia, which is the main exporter of the commodity.

This has led to the orangutan becoming in critical danger of extinction, with, for example, a population of fewer than 105,000 in Malaysian Borneo in 2012, according to the WWF.

On its website, the WWF warns that the number is expected to fall further to 47,000 by 2025 if effective measures to protect the animal are not introduced.

tj/nm (Reuters, AFP)

Hong Kong's appeal court on Wednesday banned the protest song "Glory to Hong Kong" — an anthem popularized during the territory's widespread democracy demonstrations in 2019.

The decision makes the song the first to be prohibited since Britain handed the former colony back to China in 1997.

Why has the song upset authorities?

Demonstrators often sang the anonymously written piece during their pro-democracy protests. 

Its lyrics include the slogan "Liberate Hong Kong; Revolution of our times," and it had already become dangerous to play or sing after authorities crushed the demonstrations.

Officials have lobbied Google to remove the song from search results and video platforms, although with little success.

In one mix-up that particularly embarrassed officials, the song was played as the city's anthem at an international sporting event instead of China's "March of the Volunteers."

In March 2023, tech giant Google said city authorities had urged it to remove two YouTube videos about that mistake. Although Hong Kong police said the content was a deliberate insult to China's national anthem, Google left the videos online.

What did the court say?

Hong Kong's High Court last year made a surprise ruling against the ban, which it said could have a "chilling effect" on innocent third parties.

However, Court of Appeal judge Jeremy Poon said the court was satisfied that an injunction should be granted to prevent acts including the broadcasting and performing of the song.

"The composer of the song has intended it to be a 'weapon' and so it had become," Poon wrote in his deliberation.

Poon said the injunction was needed as "criminal law alone would not achieve the public interest purpose of safeguarding national security."

In December, government lawyer Benjamin Yu had argued the song was akin to "misinformation and propaganda."

He maintained that the song was still "prevalent" and that it "remains highly effective in arousing emotions of the public."

Beijing's "one country, two systems" doctrine means that Hong Kong is governed under a judicial system of its own, separate from mainland courts.

Since the protests were quashed and Beijing's national security law enacted in 2020, public dissent has largely dissipated with most pro-democracy activists and opposition politicians either arrested, silenced, or living in self-imposed exile.

rc/nm (AFP, AP)

North Korea's former propaganda chief, Kim Ki Nam, who is credited for his role in building personality cults around the country's dynastic rulers, has died at the age of 94, according to state media reports.

Kim Ki Nam had been receiving treatment since 2022 and died on Tuesday due to age-related illnesses and "multiple organ dysfunction," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited the body of Kim Ki Nam at a funeral hall in the capital, Pyongyang, paid his condolences to his family, and looked at the bier with "bitter grief over the loss of a veteran revolutionary who had remained boundlessly loyal" to the regime, KCNA said.

Kim Ki Nam will be buried on Thursday and his funeral committee will be led by Kim Jong Un, KCNA reported.

What is Kim Ki Nam's legacy?

A former secretary of the ruling Workers' Party's central committee, Kim Ki Nam is renowned for leading North Korea's key department for propaganda.

In the 1970s, he was the chief editorial writer of Pyongyang's official mouthpiece, the Rodong Sinmun newspaper, before going on to work in leadership roles in the ruling party's propaganda departments.

State media on Wednesday described him as "a veteran of our Party and the revolution, a prestigious theoretician and a prominent political activist."

His work as the country's chief propagandist made him infamous in South Korea where he earned the moniker of "North Korean Goebbels," after Nazi Germany's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

Kim Ki Nam was one of the seven senior officials who joined Kim Jong Un in accompanying the hearse of the late leader Kim Jong II following his death in 2011. He also led a North Korean delegation to South Korea in 2009 to attend the funeral of Seoul's former president, Kim Dae-jung.

In the late 2010s, the position of the regime's chief propagandist was eventually assumed by Kim Jong Un's powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong.

mfi/nm (AP, AFP)

In April, Vuong Dinh Hue, a high-ranking member of Vietnam's Communist Party, stepped down from his role as National Assembly chairman over unspecified "violations" of party regulations.

Without including specifics, the party's Central Committee cited "shortcomings" in announcing that Hue had resigned from Vietnam's fourth-highest political office. 

According to reports in the state media outlet VN Express, the party's Central Inspection Committee said the "violations ... affected the reputation" of the party.

Hue, a 67-year-old lawmaker and a veteran of Vietnamese politics, had served as assembly chairman since 2021. He also served as Vietnam's deputy prime minister from 2016 to 2020. 

His resignation followed the stepping down of other top-level Communist Party officials.

In March, President Vo Van Thuong resigned from his position after just over a year in the role, also over unspecified "violations" of party policy.

He was the second Vietnamese president to leave the post in two years, after Nguyen Xuan Phuc was forced to resign in January 2023 after being blamed for "wrongdoing" following reports of corruption during the pandemic.

Cracks in Vietnam's power pillars?

Although Vietnam has a fast-growing economy, and is seen as a blossoming production and trade partner for both the US and China, the country is ruled as an authoritarian one-party state, with the Communists  having complete control over the government, social organizations and the media.

Vietnam also has a poor reputation on corruption, political censorship, human rights and civil society. 

At the top of the country's leadership is Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Since 2016, he has mounted a large-scale anti-corruption campaign that has seen thousands of government officials, and business leaders dismissed or imprisoned.

Vietnam's leadership consists of what are called the "four pillars": the general secretary of the Communist Party, the president of Vietnam, the prime minister of Vietnam and the chairperson of the National Assembly of Vietnam. 

For years, unexpected departures within Vietnam's communist political structure were rare. So the spate of high-level dismissals and resignations has raised eyebrows.

Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow at ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, told DW that Vietnam is going through political "turbulence" not seen in decades. 

"Vuong Dinh Hue's resignation indicates that we're currently experiencing one of the most turbulent periods in postwar Vietnamese politics. Since 1956, none of the 'four pillars' have had to step down midtenure, yet three have fallen within the past two years," he said.

 Zachary Abuza, a political scientist focusing on southeast Asian politics at the National War College in Washington, said Trong started the "blazing furnace anti-corruption campaign" because he "believed that the party's legitimacy was at stake."

"In many ways the party has emerged weaker. The churn in leaders is destabilizing. The purge of senior officials has weakened the party organization. But it has also delegitimized the party in the eyes of the people. It's not just one or two bad apples, it's all of them," he added. 

A more hard-line Politburo?

Abuza said five members of Vietnam's 18-person Politburo had been forced to resign since December 2022.

The Politburo of the Central Standing Committee of the Communist Party is the highest decision-making body of the Communist Party.

The body has seen some changes, and includes several members from Vietnam's Public Security Ministry (MPS). 

"The thing that should be very concerning to Vietnamese right now is the domination of the security bloc on the Politburo," Abuza said.

"All had long careers in the MPS, which has shaped their worldview," he added. 

In leaked Politburo documents titled "Directive 24," dated from July 2023, plans were revealed to increase media censorship and surveillance, and squash civil society and limit foreign influence.

In its report on the Politburo documents, Project 88, a group advocating free speech in Vietnam, wrote that for years the US and the EU "have argued that deepening ties with Vietnam will help promote human rights in the country," but the national security policy revealed in the document "puts to rest this magical thinking."

Economic impacts of corruption crusade?

The shakeup in government positions, and the harder track on national security, come less than a year after the United States and Vietnam upgraded their ties to comprehensive strategic partners. The US is Vietnam's second-largest trade partner, only behind China. 

Analysts say Vietnam's high-level corruption allegations could worry foreign investors.

And the recent death sentence for businesswoman Truong My Lan, who was found guilty of embezzling about $12.5 billion (€11.6 billion), has also been opposed by Vietnam's Western partners. 

"The instability is troubling for a country that has seen remarkable elite political stability over the past four decades following its market reforms in 1986," Giang said.

"Restoring normalcy is crucial to reassure concerned investors, but this won't be easy, given the current dynamics of the anti-corruption campaign," he added.

Despite this and the recent political infighting, Vietnam's Communist regime isn't at risk of capitulating, Abuza said. 

"The party isn't going anytime soon. It still has a nationwide organization and legitimacy based on their leadership in gaining independence and reunification and the country's economic development since 1987," he said.

"But that doesn't mean they aren't confronted with a lot of challenges. Their political system creates a very small and shallow gene pool at the top. Politics has never been this personalized, nasty and zero-sum. The party infighting right now is doing lasting damage to the Communist Party," he added.

Edited by: Wesley Rahn 

The boundary dispute between India and Nepal has heated up once again after Nepal's government last week announced a new currency note featuring a map that shows three border areas claimed by both nations.

The dispute involves the territories of Kalapani, Lipu Lekh and Limpiyadhura, which are currently under India's control.

The map adds 335 square kilometers (130 square miles) of land to Nepal, and the country's central bank is expected to take up to a year to print and issue the new note.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar slammed Nepal's decision, saying it will not change the reality on the ground.

"Our position is very clear. With Nepal, we are having discussions about our boundary matters through an established platform. In the middle of that, they unilaterally took some measures on their side," Jaishankar told media persons.

"But by doing something on their side, they are not going to change the situation between us or the reality on the ground," he added.

What's the dispute about?

The boundary dispute between the two countries began to escalate after New Delhi issued a political map in November 2019 that placed the contested area within India's territory.

Relations became more strained when India inaugurated an 80-kilometer-long roadway that passes through Lipu Lekh, a disputed area that lies at the strategic Nepal-India-China triborder.

The unilaterally built motorway links India's Uttarakhand state to Tibet's Kailash Mansarovar via the Lipu Lekh Pass, a territory historically claimed by Nepal and considered one of the shortest and most practical trade routes between India and China.

The small Himalayan nation challenged India's inauguration of the road by publishing a new map showing the contested areas — including the areas of Kalapani, Lipu Lekh and Limpiyadhura — as lying inside Nepal's borders.

Nepal, which was never under colonial rule, has long claimed these areas in accordance with the 1816 Sugauli treaty with the British Raj following the Anglo-Nepalese War, also known as the Gurkha War.

The treaty recognized the Kali river as Nepal's western boundary with India, and the land lying east of the river as Nepalese territory.

However, these areas have been under India's administrative control since the early 1960s. 

Resolution through dialogue?

Former diplomats and foreign policy experts say New Delhi should initiate dialogue with Kathmandu and resolve the issue. 

"This unilateral action does not change the situation on the ground. Both sides can produce maps supporting their claims of the territories belonging to them," Suk Deo Muni, an academic who has also served as India's special envoy to Southeast Asian countries, told DW.

"But in the final analysis, this will have to be decided mutually by both sides through negotiations, or otherwise they must approach bodies such as the International Court of Justice," he added.

Nepal said it's in favor of finding a solution to the dispute through diplomatic means.

"We want to resolve the boundary issue with India. We want to fix it through diplomatic means and through table talks. We are taking an initiative for this," Nepal's Foreign Minister Narayan Kaji Shrestha was quoted as saying by the Kathmandu Post.

Some observers in India believe that the currency note redesign decision of Nepal's cabinet, led by Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, reflects the domestic political makeup of the current government, which they allege "thrives on whipping up anti-India sentiments" for sustaining their political appeal.

"The status of the three areas being claimed as part of Nepal could have been resolved through dialogue with India, but the leftists prefer confrontation and provocation such as publishing maps on currency notes," said Sreeram Chaulia, professor and dean at the Jindal School of International Affairs, referring to the communist-led coalition government in Kathmandu.

"Downplaying the real threat of communist and expansionist China while exaggerating territorial disputes with India is part and parcel of ideological games being played by Nepal's Maoists," he added.

Border row damages India-Nepal ties

Despite the boundary dispute, both Nepal and India share a unique relationship of friendship and cooperation, characterized by open borders and deep-rooted religious, cultural and people-to-people ties.

India is also Nepal's largest trading partner and is investing billions of dollars in infrastructure, including hydropower plants.

But the border dispute threatens to derail the ties between the two countries, said Mahendra Prasad Lama, a professor and development economist.

"There have been very noticeable actions by the political parties, civil society groups and the government in Nepal that showed both before and after the 2020 parliamentary resolutions, that they would pursue this matter of a new map protractedly and proactively," Lama, who has studied the dispute closely, told DW.

"India seemingly took this matter as a routine official diplomatic bilateral matter that it thought could be resolved along with other protracted issues," he said.

"This sensitive matter required exclusive attention and much quicker interventions based on larger consultations," he added. 

Unless new political formations come up in Nepal based on larger and broader representations, the expert stressed, "India will continue to face so-called balancing games primarily triggered by political survival and regime renewals."

Anil Wadhwa, a former Indian diplomat, said that Nepali governments are stuck with the border issue as the nation's parliament passed a resolution stating that the disputed territories belonged to them.

He urged both sides to engage in candid talks to put an end to the dispute.

"Both India and Nepal will always remain closely tied due to historical relations. It would be in the interest of both to not let this issue hold the relationship back."

Before you leave: Every Friday, the DW Asia newsletter delivers compelling articles and videos from around the continent right to your inbox. Subscribe below.

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru

In February 2019, Somesh Jha, an Indian journalist who used to work for the Business Standard newspaper, got his hands on a "smoking gun" of a story. 

Jha found out that an official survey had flagged shocking levels of unemployment in the country, but the authorities had chosen not to publish the findings, which had been made by the federal government's statistics department.

The newspaper published the report showing that India's unemployment rate stood at 6.1% in 2017-18. That is the highest unemployment percentage for India in the previous 45 years.

It is well known that post 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent lockdowns imposed across the globe caused a dent in employment worldwide.

But the 2017-18 data data was from the pre-COVID era.

At the time, this would have been bad news for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has painstakingly crafted the image of his government as one that has taken India to unprecedented heights of economic growth.

High economic growth but insufficient jobs

Modi has often been blamed for what is now known as "demonetization," a drastic move in 2016 to ban all high-value currency notes in circulation at the time. The measure affected almost everyone in the country and the resulting cash crunch hit the economy hard and killed many jobs, according to economists. 

After denying the Business Standard report for months, Modi's government finally released unemployment figures in May 2019, which confirmed what the newspaper had claimed in February that year.

Five years later, India's labor market situation continues to be precarious, despite the Modi administration's efforts to accelerate economic development. 

Over the last three years, the government has stepped up spending on roads, bridges and other infrastructure as a way to boost the economy and create jobs.

But these efforts to create jobs remain inadequate.

According to latest government estimates, the unemployment rate rose to 5.4% in the fiscal year that ended March 2023, from 4.9% in 2013/14 before Modi took over. In urban areas, the rate is higher at 6.5%.

Data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), a private think tank, show that the jobless rate rose to 8% in February 2024.

"The problem of unemployment is indeed a huge one. There is unanimous opinion that there has not been any kind of improvement in overall employment scenario," said Praveen Jha, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Youth unemployment rate a big worry

Many experts say they're particularly worried about the high youth unemployment rate.

Nearly 16% of urban youth in the 15-29 age group remained jobless in 2022-23 due to poor skills and lack of quality jobs, government data shows.

Estimates by private agencies are much higher. According to the CMIE, for instance, the youth unemployment rate stood at as high as 45.4%.

A recent report published jointly by the International Labor Organization and the Institute for Human Development (IHD), an Indian think tank, revealed that one in three young people in the South Asian nation was neither in education nor in employment or training.

It also pointed out that higher educated young people are more likely to be unemployed than those without any schooling.

The jobless rate for graduates was 29.1%, almost nine times higher than the 3.4% for those who can't read or write, the ILO/IHD report said. The unemployment rate for young people with secondary or higher education was six times higher at 18.4%.

Ravi Srivastava, director of the Center for Employment Studies at IHD, led the team that published the joint report.

He told DW that youth joblessness is at the heart of India's unemployment problem.

"The rest of it is underemployment, or what we call disguised unemployment, where people are working but are getting very low wages or working for very few days. But as far as open unemployment is concerned, the bulk of it is youth unemployment."

Demographic dividend or liability?

The lack of sufficient well-paying jobs poses a huge challenge to the nation's leadership as millions of young people enter the labor market every year.

While PM Modi and others talk of a "demographic dividend" of more workers, experts caution that the dividend could turn into a "liability" if the economy failed to create enough jobs to absorb the labor influx.

Arun Kumar, an economist, said his calculations indicate that there is a backlog of around 280 million jobs in the country. Adding to that, about 24 million young people are entering the workforce every year, he told DW.

"But the country ends up generating a measly half a million jobs in the organized sector, while all other jobs fall in the unorganized sector," he told DW.

Against this backdrop, unemployment remains one of the top concerns on voters' minds as they cast their ballots in the ongoing general election, which is being held in seven phases between April 19 and June 1, with vote counting on June 4.

In April, 62% of respondents of a poll by New Delhi-based think tank Centre for Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) said that finding a job is more difficult now than it was in the past. And 27% said unemployment was an important issue for them when deciding who to vote for in the elections.

The ruling BJP, however, has largely avoided discussing the issue during the election campaign.

Gopal Krishna Agarwal, the BJP's spokesperson on economic affairs, did not respond to DW's requests for comment.

The main opposition alliance, however, has tried to galvanize voters focusing on unemployment and other economic and social issues.

Now both sides are anxiously waiting for the day when the results of the election will be announced to find out whose pitch the voters have accepted.

Before you leave: Every Friday, the DW Asia newsletter delivers compelling articles and videos from around the continent right to your inbox. Subscribe below.

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru

North Korea is building new ties with like-minded nations and entrenching older alliances beyond its powerful neighbors Russia and China. Recently, the Iranian regime seems to be of particular interest to Pyongyang and the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un .

"Just as in the Cold War, two blocs are emerging and North Korea sees this as a good opportunity to stand with Iran and repeat its opposition to the US," said Kim Sung Kyung, a professor of North Korean society and culture at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. 

"The North probably also sees this as a good opportunity to sell weapons and military technology to Tehran and obtain some sort of economic benefit in return, as there are powerful sanctions on both countries that limit what they are able to obtain," she said.

In late April, North Korea sent a high-level delegation of economic and trade experts on a nine-day visit to Tehran, the first such mission since 2019. As both nations remained tight-lipped on the details, analysts have speculated the talks involved military technology, including nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

Iran denies talks on nuclear program

Tehran, however, rejected assumptions that the delegates discussed cooperation on nuclear technology. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani slammed foreign media for "biased speculations by publishing untrue and baseless news."

The following day, North Korean state media condemned a new round of sanctions imposed on Iran by Washington as "unfair." Tehran is believed to have provided Russia with thousands of drones for use in Moscow's war against Ukraine, and Iran also launched drone and missile attacks against Israel on April 13 in retaliation for the attack against the Iranian embassy in Syria. The latest round of sanctions targets Iran's capacity to manufacture and use unmanned aerial vehicles.

The Korean Central News Agency also claims the US had imposed new sanctions on Iran's steel, automobile and drone sectors after it "misled the facts as if Iran was responsible for the deterioration of the regional situation."

Anti-Western alliance of communists and theocrats

"Tehran and Pyongyang have a longstanding relationship, which is in many ways paradoxical, as one is a theocratic Islamic regime and the other is a communist cult of personality," said Daniel Pinkston, a professor of international relations at the Seoul campus of Troy University.

"But while they are very different, they also share some similarities. They are both authoritarian regimes that are intolerant of others and share deep grievances against the US and the West in general," he told DW. Iranian leaders frequently refer to the US as the "Great Satan," he pointed out, while Pyongyang's propaganda focuses on "US imperialism."

North Korea focuses on closest allies

While North Korea has been looking to deepen its ties with Iran and countries like Russia, China, Syria and Belarus, Pyongyang has been shutting down its embassies elsewhere. Last year, it shuttered diplomatic missions in Spain, Angola, Uganda, Hong Kong and Nepal. 

Some suggest this is due to Pyongyang simply struggling to afford operating the diplomatic outposts, but analysts have also suggested that North Korean leadership is reducing the risk of its diplomats defecting while abroad.

Instead, Pyongyang appears to be focusing on allies that will support it economically and militarily.

Nuclear and drone secrets

Iran and North Korea can be expected to demonstrate more political and diplomatic support for each other, such as Pyongyang backing Iran over Israel and the US, Pinkston said.

"In the past, North Korea provided Iran with nuclear technology, which upset the Israelis, and it is probable that the North will again be able to share what it has developed," he said. "It will be able to provide data from the nuclear tests it has conducted, it can share best practices on its space program and information from its home-grown satellite program."

Drone technology is almost certain to be of huge interest to both sides as they look to increase the capabilities of a battlefield system that is relatively new but, as has been seen in Ukraine, devastatingly effective, Pinkston said.

"They will have data back on things like battle damage assessments, the technology that is most effective, and possible countermeasures, so they will be able to compare designs."

Pyongyang needs Iranian oil

North Korea is desperate for oil, one of the key products that has been targeted by international sanctions, but it is possible that Iran may be able to skirt monitoring and take advantage of trilateral trade agreements with Russia to provide fuel to the North, Pinkston said.

A little over 22 years after then-US President George W. Bush coined the phrase the "axis of evil" to refer to North Korea, Iran and Iraq, the analysts warn that a far more powerful bloc is emerging. 

"There are 'aggrieved' states who are set against the US-led world order," Pinkston said. "Their national interests may not align perfectly, but they share the common component of opposition to the West."

Edited by: Darko Janjevic

About 1.9 billion people around the world rely on glaciers and snowpacks as a source of drinking water.

As glaciers undergo a normal process of melting during the year's warmer months, they steadily pour vast quantities of water into rivers, sustaining humans, industry, and ecosystems. But to be able to do this, glaciers have to replenish at a similar rate during winter months when snow falls.

Yet as global temperatures rise and rainfall patterns change, the system has been thrown off. Now the world's glaciers are shrinking by 1.2 trillion tons of ice a year. Even if humanity can limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), half of the world's mountain glaciers could disappear by 2100.

One of the world's most vulnerable areas is the Indus basin, which provides water to at least 250 million people in Afghanistan, China, India, and Pakistan.

But one group in the Himalayas, the Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL), says it has found a solution — growing artificial glaciers.

What is an artificial glacier?

Stories of artificial glaciers go back to at least the 13th century AD, when according to legend, the residents of modern-day Pakistan seeded glaciers in key mountain passes to block the approach of Genghis Khan's marauding army. For centuries, communities in the Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountain ranges have created rudimentary glaciers to strengthen water supplies.

More recently in the 1990s, as glaciers retreated further up the mountains in India's cold desert mountain region of Ladakh, important meltwater started arriving later in the growing season, causing problems for water-sensitive staple crops. In response, local engineers started creating artificial glaciers that would counter water shortages by melting earlier and more reliably.

One of the techniques used required the construction of a series of cascades on perennial rivers to allow ice to accumulate on the exposed surfaces. Large streams can also be diverted into smaller streams that are shaded by mountains and then freeze over. Another option is to build massive basins and fill them up in fall to slowly freeze. The Himalayan city of Leh relies on one of these. 

When the stored ice melts, they provide an important water source for farmers in the sowing months of April and May, before the rivers start fully flowing again in June.

However, these approaches can be unreliable due to susceptibility to flash floods, landslides, erosion, and sedimentation. Reconstruction efforts after such problems can be enormously taxing for villagers, and often coincide with labor demands for agriculture.

To address these concerns, a new technique was developed — the ice stupa, a large cone of ice that looks vaguely like Buddhist ceremonial burial mounds called stupas. Hence the name. 

During the wet season, a gravity-fed underground pipe brings water from high-altitude streams down the valley. There it is sprayed into a vertical fountain at night, allowing the water to refreeze over a cone-shaped base. Stupas are built next to villages and are less prone to melting due to their low surface area.

The large mounds of ice survive long after the surrounding area has melted, slowly releasing water over the spring and summer months. 

The technique has since been adopted globally, with stupas popping up in Kyrgyzstan, Chile, Mongolia and other countries where they have proven to help villages with water supplies.

To what extent can artificial glaciers prevent water scarcity?

Because human-caused climate change is reducing snowfall in the mountains, the total amount of available water in those environments is not what it once was. Ice stupas can do nothing to remedy this. And scientists say as the world heats up, these artificial glaciers will ultimately suffer the same fate as their natural cousins.

A 2018 review of various ice reservoir projects found they could be helpful in specific local contexts but were a questionable solution to the overall problem of melting glaciers due to climatic variability, natural hazards, and socioeconomic issues. 

The Ladakh projects have also suffered some backlash from villagers, who question the organization's right to draw water from the streams, as well as who gets to reap the benefits.

Proponents claim that the meltwater harvested would otherwise go to waste, but critics say the streams recharge springs that provide drinking water for the villages.

Are there other ways to prevent glaciers from receding?

Countries such as Switzerland and Italy have resorted to protecting their glaciers with giant blankets over summer. Another approach is to spray them with vast quantities of artificial snow to grow their size and reduce melting.

These both help, but only slow the inevitable. They also come with high price tags and heavy environmental tolls including plastic pollution and emissions from high energy use.

Experts agree that the most effective way to protect the world's cryosphere is by limiting climate change. And the best way to do that is to stop burning fossil fuels. 

Edited by: Tamsin Walker

Sources: 

Half of world's glaciers to 'disappear' with 1.5C of global warming, Carbon Brief, 2023
https://www.carbonbrief.org/half-of-worlds-glaciers-to-disappear-with-1-5c-of-global-warming/

Review article: Earth's ice imbalance, Copernicus, 2021
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/233/2021/

Socio-hydrology of "artificial glaciers" in Ladakh, India: assessing adaptive strategies in a changing cryosphere, Regional Environmental Change, 2018
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10113-018-1372-0

Praful Reddy, 49, an IT professional from the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, has lung cancer and has been undergoing treatment, including targeted therapy, chemotherapy and radiation, to stop its spread since he was diagnosed two years ago. 

Vomiting, headaches and ulcers are a few of the recurring side effects that he faces and he doesn't know whether he will get better, although doctors are holding out hope for his recovery.

"The doctors have been administering drugs to block the growth and spread of cancer cells. If it does not improve, I might have to undergo a lobectomy to remove the entire lobe of one lung," Reddy told DW.

In the city of Bengaluru, in the neighboring state of Karnataka, 12-year-old Dipti is receiving treatment for Wilms tumor, a rare type of cancer that originates in the kidneys and mainly affects children.

"She is undergoing radiation therapy for now, but it has caused side effects such as skin damage and hair loss," her doctor, Charu Sharma, told DW.

These aren't isolated cases and an increasing number of people, especially children, in India are being diagnosed with cancer, marking the fastest rise in cases worldwide.

Cancer capital of the world?

A report released by the Indian multinational health care group, Apollo Hospitals, last month labeled the South Asian nation as "the cancer capital of the world."

The study revealed an alarming picture of declining overall health across India, pointing to soaring cases of cancer and other non-communicable diseases.

It found that at present, one in three Indians is pre-diabetic, two in three are pre-hypertensive and one in 10 struggles with depression. Chronic conditions like cancer, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases and mental health disorders are now so prevalent that they have reached "critical levels," it added. 

The study projected the number of annual cancer cases would rise to 1.57 million by 2025, from almost 1.4 million in 2020.

Breast, cervical and ovarian cancer are the most common forms affecting women, while cancer of the lung, the mouth and the prostate are those most affecting men.

"Cancer cases and deaths are rising and are expected to rise further over the next two decades," said K. Srinath Reddy, the former president of the Public Health Foundation of India.

"Contributory factors to rising incidence are advancing age, unhealthy diets with ultra-processed foods stoking inflammation, exposure to air pollution laden with carcinogens and climate change with increased exposure to ultraviolet radiation," he explained.

Children increasingly affected by cancer

The Apollo Hospitals report also detailed how certain cancers were affecting people in India at an earlier age than in certain other  countries. The median age for lung cancer is 59 in India, but 68 in China, 70 in the United States and 75 in the United Kingdom.

Around a million new cases of cancer are detected in India every year, 4% of which are in children. Doctors and other health professionals have deplored the shortage of pediatric oncology facilities.

"Most private hospitals have trained pediatric oncologists, but this may not be the case in medical colleges or government hospitals," said Ruchira Misra, pediatric oncologist and senior consultant at Mumbai's MRR Children's Hospital.

"Only 41% of public hospitals have dedicated pediatric oncology departments," she added.

A lack of funds and access to care, as well as social stigma, were big hurdles for many affected families, she continued.

"Diagnosis, access to care and medications and follow-up are difficult and there is a lot of abandonment of treatment as the parents cannot afford treatment," she said.

Regular screenings needed

Experts say low health screening rates in the country pose a significant challenge for the fight against cancer, and stress the importance of preventive health care measures.

"There is no doubt that cancer is growing and there needs to be prioritized action by everyone. The government should incentivize screening as a first measure," said Nitesh Rohatgi, a senior director of medical oncology at the Fortis Memorial Research Institute.

"There is also a need for policies to impart financial protection and expand the screening and curative services for cancer," he added.

India has a screening program in place for oral, breast and cervical cancer, but screening rates are below  1%, according to national data, despite the WHO's recommendation that at least 70% of women should be tested.

"I would not want to call it an epidemic but we will see cancer cases double by 2040 compared to 2020. A lot of them can be prevented at the individual, societal and governmental levels," said Asit Arora, director of cancer care at the Max Super Speciality Hospital in the Indian capital, Delhi.

"If we don't do anything we, as a society, will be paying a heavy price."

Before you leave: Every Friday, the DW Asia newsletter delivers compelling articles and videos from around the continent right to your inbox. Subscribe below.

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru

The Japanese government has expressed "disappointment" with recent remarks made by US President Joe Biden, in which he described Japan as "xenophobic" when it came to immigration policy.

At a campaign fundraiser on the evening of May 1, Biden deemed Japan, along with India, China and Russia, as "xenophobic" as he tried to contrast the nations' economic circumstances to those in the US as a nation of immigrants.

Through diplomatic channels, Tokyo informed the White House that the president's remarks were not based on an "accurate understanding" of Japanese policies, Kyodo News quoted a government official as saying. Many Japanese and foreign residents have also expressed their disagreement with Biden's choice of words.

They cited Japan granting entry to more refugees than ever before last year, tourists consistently receiving a warm welcome and many foreign nationals integrating into Japanese society.

For others in the country, the comment prompted some soul-searching regarding Japan's policies toward asylum-seekers, low refugee numbers and potentially discriminatory checks on foreign nationals.

What did Joe Biden say?

The diplomatic storm was triggered when Biden spoke at an event at a hotel in Washington attended by Asian American voters. "One of the reasons why our economy is growing is because of you and many others," Biden reportedly said. "Why? Because we welcome immigrants."

He added, "Look, think about it. Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they are xenophobic. They don't want immigrants."

White House officials later attempted to play down the issue, with spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre telling reporters that the president had been highlighting the US tradition of welcoming immigrants.

"Our allies and partners know very well how much this president respects them," she added.

In addition to the choice of words, many in Japan were upset at Biden lumping the nation together with China and Russia, two nations that have been accused of human rights abuses and that have historically had tense diplomatic relations with Japan.

Xenophobia is 'too strong'

Malcolm Adams, an African American who has lived in Japan for 48 years, said he "respectfully disagrees with the president's characterization of Japan as xenophobic."

"It is true that Japan has historically had strict immigration policies, but it is important to acknowledge the significant strides that country has made in recent years to welcome and accommodate foreign workers," he told DW.

Adams, 74, said Japan has recognized that it faces a demographic crisis of an aging society where too few babies are being born and it is opening up — admittedly gradually — to outside workers to meet the labor shortage. He added that he felt he has been "embraced by Japanese society."

"This country is evolving, and its efforts to address demographic challenges should be commended rather than criticized."

Ken Kato, a businessman from Tokyo, also disagreed with the US president's remarks. "That accusation is completely untrue and unfair," he said. "I would say that Japan is one of the most welcoming nations in the world, which is completely the opposite of what Biden said."

Kato pointed out that modern Japan has historically welcomed foreign ideas, having opened up to the outside world with the Meiji Restoration of 1868.

Japan's discriminatory policing

"To generalize that all of Japan is xenophobic or unwelcoming to foreign nationals is completely groundless," said Teppei Kasai, program officer at the Japan office of Human Rights Watch.

However, he admitted that "certain aspects" of society in Japan might be considered less accepting of foreigners.

There are reports that non-Japanese can find it difficult to rent properties as Japanese owners are reluctant to accept foreign tenants. There is also an ongoing legal case against the police over allegations of non-Japanese being stopped and questioned far more frequently than Japanese.

The government and police authorities have strenuously denied they are actively picking out foreigners for questioning after a former inspector who was based in western Japan caused a storm by stating in an interview in April with the Mainichi newspaper that he was told to "target foreigners for questioning and check their foreign resident registration cards."

One month of the year was designated for "cracking down on foreigners," the unnamed former officer said, with police instructed to "put extra effort into checking cards, but also searching foreigners for drugs, knives or anything else illegal."

"It is important to distinguish the problematic policies of the Japanese government and what the general public thinks," said Kasai, pointing to a 2020 government survey which showed that 20% of respondents said they were open to accepting more refugees in a "proactive" manner. A further 57% said they were willing to accept greater numbers of refugees "carefully."

Changing attitudes toward immigration in Japan?

However, getting into Japan can prove challenging. The country granted a "record 303 asylum-seekers" refugee status out of 13,823 applicants in 2023, The Japan Times reported, citing figures from a recent Justice Ministry report. This was a jump from 202 people granted refugee status in 2022.

Japan also practices policies criticized by human rights groups, such as "indefinite" or prolonged detention for migrants requesting asylum and deportation.

The country remains opposed to large numbers of foreign nationals settling permanently. A poll conducted by The Asahi Shimbun newspaper in April indicated that 62% of people support the government policy of granting more visas for skilled workers, up significantly from just 44% in the previous poll conducted in 2018. However, some remain resistant to large-scale immigration.

Kato's own attitude seems indicative of Japan's general mood against "unrestricted immigration."

"We see on television that that policy has not gone well in other countries, and I am not convinced that Japan needs large numbers of foreign workers as within a decade or two, AI, robotics and other technologies will have advanced to such a degree that they will have solved the labor problems," the Tokyo businessman said.

"I don't see this as xenophobia; it's just a sensible policy."

Edited by: Kate Martyr

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When Chinese President Xi Jinping last visited the European Union in 2019, the world was a simpler place. No one had heard of COVID-19, Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine was far off and Brussels and Beijing were eyeing a trade and investment deal.

Relations are far frostier now: the deal is on ice after an exchange of sanctions, and an increasingly hawkish EU has brewed a list of new laws to decrease dependence on China.

Xi begins his trip in France on Sunday, before heading to Serbia and Hungary. And while he may feel the heat from the EU's toughened stance in Paris, the welcome will be warmer in Belgrade and Budapest, both seen as more sympathetic toward Moscow and Beijing.

France: Ukraine gets top billing, but will Xi listen?

French President Emmanuel Macron will host his Chinese counterpart in Paris on Monday, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also invited. The French and Chinese leaders will then travel to Macron's childhood holiday destination in the Pyrenees mountains. Bucolic setting aside, a source in the French president's office said the talks will be "very political" — dominated by divisions on Russia's war in Ukraine.

France has imposed successive rounds of sanctions on Moscow through the EU since 2022, while China has fostered closer relations with Russia."The Chinese government has always maintained an objective, neutral and balanced stance and does not favor any party," Lu Shaye, China's ambassador to France, told Chinese media earlier this week.

The French government source said Macron will "encourage China, as one of Russia's main partners, to use the levers at its disposal to change Moscow's calculation and contribute to a resolution of the conflict."

But the push from Paris may fall on deaf ears. Xi agreed to call Ukraine's president after Macron visited China last year, but little resulted.

Emmanuel Lincot, a researcher at the Catholic Institute of Paris and the Institute of International and Strategic Relations, told DW that as the EU's only nuclear power, Beijing views France as important. But for Lincot, a planned visit to China by Russia's president later this month proves Beijing's immovability.

"There won't be one iota of change in terms of Xi Jinping's approach to big international questions," he said.

EU-China trade remains a sticking point

Xi's time in France will also see him sign new business deals, including reported plans for fresh Chinese orders with French aviation giant Airbus. The EU and China are among each other's biggest trading partners — but European imports significantly outweigh exports to China, and Brussels has often alleged unfair market access.

Last year, the EU opened a probe into Chinese electric vehicle subsidies, slammed by Beijing as "naked protectionism."

Isabelle Feng, a researcher at the French-language Free University of Brussels, said she expects EU-China trade to decrease "very, very slowly” amid these strained ties.

"Changing global supply chains takes time," Feng said.

China invests billions in Serbia

After France, Xi heads to Serbia, where timing is everything. His arrival coincides with the 25th anniversary of US bombs hitting the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade as part of NATO's aerial campaign to stop the then-Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's ethnic cleansing campaign against Kosovar Albanians. 

Washington apologized for the incident, calling it an accident, and paid compensation for the Chinese nationals killed. But many in China still believe the embassy was targeted deliberately.

"For China, it plays a role of a historical moment in which the 'big bad West' harmed China directly. It has created a lot of emphasis on the narrative that there is a need for reconstructing the global order," said Stefan Vladisavljev, a Belgrade-based researcher with the Foundation BFPE for a Responsible Society. "There is a joint victimhood moment."

Officially an EU membership candidate, Serbia and other Western Balkan nations sit in a geopolitical hot spot where different powers are competing for influence. Though the EU is Serbia's top economic partner, some €10.3 billion ($11 billion) in Chinese investments flowed into the country from 2009 to 2021, according to the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.

"There has been some positive economic impact to the Chinese presence in Serbia, but also what we should discuss — and we are not doing that currently — are those negative or corrosive aspects of the presence of the Chinese capital. We are talking mostly about environmental impact," said Vladisavljev.

Hungary: A friend on the inside?

Xi will wrap up his Europe trip in Hungary, the EU member most often at odds with Brussels. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has said the two states have "deepened political mutual trust" in recent years. But researcher Isabelle Feng describes the trend differently. 

"Hungary is China's Trojan horse in the EU," she told DW. Budapest has in the past blocked EU statements on Hong Kong, and delayed EU aid for Ukraine and sanctions on Russia.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told Chinese media outlet The Global Times on Tuesday that the EU's probe into Chinese electric vehicle subsidies was "really dangerous and harmful," and that his country will be "very much engaged" in improving EU-China ties.

Feng said this EU disunity is useful for Beijing. "China's strategy toward the EU for 20 years has always been to divide and conquer," she explained.

And for Emmanuel Lincot, Xi's move to court Hungary and snub the EU capital sends a message: "He wants to work with a Europe which is disenchanted with Brussels — a Europe which plays Moscow's cards."

Edited by: Cristina Burack

"There was no such word as 'rest' on Chinese fishing vessels," explained a former crew member to a group of investigators from the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), a London-based NGO. "If there were a lot of fish, the work could be up to 22 hours long."

The testimony was part of a recently released report by the EJF accusing China's fishing fleets of environmental and human rights abuses in the southwestern Indian Ocean. 

As a leading fishing nation, China's distant water fishing (DWF) industry is the world's largest in both catch volume and fleet size. And according to the Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing Index, China ranks as the worst offender among 152 countries worldwide.

The EJF report provides the first comprehensive investigation of Chinese fishing activities off the East African coast. 

China's DWF fleet has mainly faced scrutiny for illegal activities in Latin America and West Africa. However, the EJF report provides the first comprehensive investigation of Chinese fishing activities off the East African coast.

 

China's 'systematic' illegal fishing

While China is not solely responsible for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in the region, it is seen as one of the major culprits. East African countries, such as Madagascar and Mozambique, are among the hardest hit. 

Callum Nolan, a senior researcher at the EJF who led much of the study, told DW that "there's real cause for concern" as the Chinese fleet's illegal fishing activity is "systematic."

"This isn't a handful of bad actors or captains. What we're seeing is a fleet-wide issue on the Chinese distant-water fleet," he said. 

The report comes as China is developing fishery infrastructure in cooperation with East African coastal countries and sending fleets out to fishing grounds in the southwest Indian Ocean.

The EJF interviewed 44 fishermen who had worked on China's fleet in the Indian Ocean, the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions.

When quizzed about illegal activities aboard Chinese boats, 80% of them had reported shark finning — the act of removing fins from sharks and discarding the rest of the shark back into the ocean — and 59% reported the deliberate capture and/or injury of vulnerable marine megafauna, including manta rays, dolphins and sharks.

"The sharks were caught. They only took the fins and threw the bodies away," a fisherman told the EJF in a video interview.

Another common illegal behavior is entering a fishing zone reserved only for local fishers, Nolan said.

He said Chinese trawlers often come into the zone at night, which has led to collisions between small skiffs and industrial vessels. 

"That creates huge economic problems for local people," Nolan pointed out, adding that these fishers may have to suspend their work for weeks and months to repair the damage to their skiffs.

Forced to eat 'rotten' food and drink distilled seawater

Chinese DWF vessels rely heavily on recruiting foreign fishermen, mostly from Indonesia and the Philippines.  

Dios Lumban Gaol, a coordinator at Indonesian migrant workers union SBMI, told DW that the EJF report vividly portrays exploitation, violence and harsh working conditions faced by Indonesian crew members on Chinese-flagged ships, a situation "which continues today."

Of 44 crew members interviewed by EJF, all of them reported abusive working and living conditions, 96% excessive overtime and 55% physical violence. 

Between 2017 and 2023, four deaths were reported by interviewees on board Chinese tuna longliners.

Gaol said there have been reports of Indonesian crew members on Chinese vessels being provided with poorly distilled seawater to drink and expired, canned, rotten foods for meals.  

On top of that, interviewees reported that Chinese captains or crew members were provided with mineral water, while Indonesians were only given distilled seawater.

"Ironically, despite catching high-value fish […] which are fresh and typically consumed by affluent international communities, the crew members face these dire living and food conditions aboard Chinese-flagged vessels," Gaol said. 

China widens its net in the Indian Ocean

The EJF report also mentioned that via China's global infrastructure investment scheme, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), its fishing fleet has been given more access to the resources of East African countries receiving BRI investments that may "feel obligated" to cooperate.

Since the BRI's launch in 2013, 52 African countries have joined, which has helped China deepen its footprint in Africa by constructing roads, rail lines and ports.

Meanwhile, China's "nearly unparalleled" influence in the United Nations also plays a role in holding back criticism of China's activities in Africa, said Elizabeth Freund Larus, adjunct senior fellow at Pacific Forum, a US-based foreign policy think tank.

"The BRI literally buys China a lot of compliance," she said, indicating that member countries "are reticent or hesitant to criticize China" and would likely "carry the water" for the country. "So, no one should expect that the UN is going to take on this issue in any meaningful way."

Besides, it's challenging to scrutinize activities aboard remote Chinese vessels, and China's DWF industry in general usually lacks transparency, said Nolan.

For example, flags flown by vessels may not accurately represent their true ownership and onboard observers may be bribed or threatened. 

China denies any wrongdoing

The Chinese government has repeatedly denied any mismanagement in response to the accusations of illegal and unregulated fishing.

A 2023 government white paper on the development of distant-water fisheries said China holds a "zero tolerance" attitude toward illegal fishing and has "the world's strictest management measures and regulations" on DWF fleets. 

China also claimed in the paper that it has made "notable progress" on critical issues and in priority areas by introducing policies such as closed seasons, a total allowable catch and regular company assessment. 

A list of Chinese firms was also included in EJF's report, including "Shandong Zhonglu" and the "Zhejiang Ocean Family." 

Their tuna fishing fleets have been accused of being the top offenders of illegal and unregulated fishing or human rights abuse cases in the southwest Indian Ocean as of 2023.  

DW reached out to the firms for comment.

Shandong Zhonglu said it is currently verifying the relevant issues mentioned in the EJF report.

Zhejiang Ocean Family said it has launched an internal investigation, but said it found the accusations in the report lacking "factual basis and rigor." 

DW correspondents Kate Hairsine and Levie Mulia Wardana contributed to the report 

Edited by: Wesley Rahn 

Noor Ul Amin Danish, 29, was once a well-known investigative crime reporter in Islamabad, the capital city of Pakistan. But he left the South Asian nation in 2021 and is now living in Canada, working at a currency exchange point.

"Journalism in Pakistan offers no financial or intellectual growth. The controlling institutional policies and media ownership are significant barriers," he told DW.

Danish is among the numerous journalists who have fled Pakistan in recent years, seeking physical safety and financial stability in either North America or Europe.

The exodus is driven by security fears, financial struggles and job dissatisfaction, and it highlights the dire conditions faced by journalists in Pakistan.

"Journalists in Pakistan are often killed or abducted, and many continue to work for meager salaries, or no salaries at all," Danish told DW.

'No one is safe back there'

Mumtaz Hussain, a former journalist who served in Pakistani media for a decade before relocating to the United States in 2021, shares a similar view. "No one is safe back there. Journalists are frequently abducted in Islamabad, and many suffer severe injuries while covering protests," he said.

Hussain emphasized the lack of support from media organizations, which he said even fail to provide health insurance or cover medical expenses.

The situation is more grim for female journalists, in a media landscape that is predominantly male. 

Most female journalists in the country are typically confined to major cities and limited to covering themes such as culture, health and sports.

Iffat Rizvi used to work for one of the leading news channels in Pakistan. From 2013 to 2018, she was the only female reporter covering the Supreme Court of Pakistan. But she has since left the country and is currently based in Norway.

"Being a journalist in Pakistan means you must live with multiple risks, including professional, financial and social ones. You receive calls from unknown people, and you must toe the line given by someone. It was total dissatisfaction for me," she said.

Dangerous place for critical journalists

A 2023 report from Freedom Network, an Islamabad-based civil liberties organization, echoed these concerns, noting a more than 60% increase in threats and attacks against journalists over the past year.

Many media professionals believe the situation is likely to worsen as the country remains embroiled in political turmoil and pressures grow on the press to follow the official line.

Last month, over 40 journalists and YouTubers were summoned by the authorities for questioning over their criticism of Supreme Court judges.

According to data released by the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 64 journalists have been killed in connection with their work in Pakistan since 1992.

The country ranked 11th on CPJ's 2023 Global Impunity Index, which ranks countries by how often killers of journalists go unpunished.

Journalist safety remains a major concern in Pakistan, said the France-based Reporters Without Borders NGO.

"We see neither the state nor the media owners taking responsibility for the protection of journalists," the Pakistani chapter of Reporters Without Borders told DW.

Pakistan ranked 152 out of 180 countries on RSF's Press Freedom Index, released on Friday, down two places from 2023. 

Media groups facing financial struggles

The deeply polarized and hyperpartisan media landscape has also exacerbated problems, observers have said.

Besides security challenges, journalists and media organizations are facing financial woes, with independent news outlets often struggling to generate sufficient revenue to pay their staff a decent wage.

"The financial constraints within media organizations significantly influence editorial policies and the well-being of journalists," said Shabbir Hussain, a Ph.D. scholar in media studies in Pakistan.

Ali Khan (name changed) has been working as a political correspondent at a leading new channel for the past five years. He said he is now planning to leave the country for the United States.

"The professional, organizational and security challenges are overwhelming. There's no freedom of the press, the pay is dismal, no job security, no support from government or organization," Khan, who asked not to reveal his real name for security reasons, told DW.

"I am planning to work at either a gas station or a restaurant. I could earn enough money to support my family in Pakistan," he said.

Moving abroad has its own problems

Moving abroad, however, comes with its own set of challenges for many Pakistani journalists.

"I'm doing a completely different job here, but at least I can earn a decent living and live without fear of threats or pressure from powerful entities," said Danish in Canada.

Rizvi,the Pakistani journalist living in Norway, echoed this view. She said she sometimes contributes to digital media back home while pursuing a master's degree in Europe.

"The earnings here don't matter as much. What matters is the security and peace, which has greatly improved my mental health," she stressed.

Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru

Bruce Gilley, a Portland State University professor, sparked a scandal in Malaysia late last month. Gilley claimed during a lecture in Kuala Lumpur that the Southeast Asian country could never be a trusted friend of the West because its leaders are supporting a "second Holocaust against the Jewish people."

His comments referred to the Malaysian government's public support of Hamas since the Gaza War began.

 Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has twice spoken with the leader of the militant group, Ismail Haniyeh, since the October 7 attacks carried out by Hamas.

Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by Israel, the German government, the EU and the United States, among others.

Gilley's comments and previous posts on X, formerly Twitter, ignited a firestorm on social media.

Even Anwar intervened to criticize the Universiti Malaya, the country's highest-ranking university, for inviting a "mediocre scholar" to give the lecture on April 23.

But that wasn't the end of it.

After Gilley left the country, he posted on X that he managed to escape an "Islamo-fascist mob" whipped up by Malaysia's government, adding it "was not safe" to travel there.

This prompted even more of a rebuke from the Malaysian authorities.

The US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur became involved to clarify that it classifies Malaysia at Level 1 on its travel risk index, meaning travelers are to exercise normal precautions in the country but that it is still a safe visit.

'Hypocrisy' and double standards

Other foreign nationals living in Malaysia jumped in to accuse Gilley of spreading lies about insecurity.

The incident has reignited debates within Southeast Asia about the West's alleged moral decline for not having more forcefully condemned Israeli actions in Gaza. 

Israel launched a military operation in the Palestinian territory in response to the Hamas terror attacks on October 7 that killed at least 1,200 people. More than 250 people were taken hostage. Since then, more than 34,000 people in Gaza have been killed, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

The Hamas-run ministry does not differentiate between civilians and militants in the figures that it provides, which are accepted as broadly accurate by several international bodies, including the UN.

During a state visit to Berlin in March, Anwar, the Malaysian prime minister, accused European countries of "hypocrisy" over their apparent support for Israel's attacks on Hamas.

At a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Anwar called on Western governments to end their "selective" and "ambivalent" attitude to human rights globally.

He insinuated that Europe was engaged in double standards by defending Ukraine against the Russian invasion but not helping Palestinians in the face of what he called Israel's "colonialism," "apartheid" and "ethnic cleansing."

Writing in a guest column in the Economist, a British magazine, on April 26, Indonesia's president-elect, Prabowo Subianto, argued that much of the world feels "the failure of Western governments to put pressure on Israel to end the war indicates a serious moral crisis."

"How else can such double standards be explained where we are asked to have one set of principles for Ukraine and another for the Palestinians?" he wrote.

However, Indonesia's outgoing president, Joko Widodo, and Prabowo, who will take office later this year, are trying to occupy a moderate, centrist position, argues Jakarta-based analyst Kevin O'Rourke from the political risk consultancy Reformasi Information Services.

O'Rourke said the administration of President-Elect Prabowo Subianto will want to avoid antagonizing the US.

"As for the general public in Indonesia, foreign affairs is a distant concern for most," O'Rourke added. 

"There is disdain for Israel, and empathy for Palestine, but not to an extent that mobilizes more than just the most ardent Islamic organizations to demonstrate or protest."

Since the October 7 terror attacks, Malaysians and Indonesians have boycotted a number of companies associated with Israel and the West.

The West's image problem in Southeast Asia

Europe's image in Southeast Asia has worsened over the past 12 months, according to the latest State of Southeast Asia report, a survey of "elite" opinion in the region produced by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

As DW reported last month, many analysts in the region put the EU's declining reputation in the region down to the backlash over the war in Gaza, which Southeast Asian elites reckon is the most important geopolitical issue of the moment, the State of Southeast Asia survey fund.

But Bridget Welsh, an honorary research associate at the University of Nottingham's Asia Research Institute Malaysia, reckons that the anti-Western sentiment pervading Southeast Asia is about much more than Gaza.

She said that, with the exception of the Philippines, many countries in the region are tilting towards China, while viewing the West as suffering democratic and moral crises.

A narrative has taken hold that many of the EU's policies, including its deforestation regulations, are masquerading moral concern for the environment as a pretext for blatant economic protectionism.

Indonesia's economy minister has accused the EU of "regulatory imperialism" for its environmental policies, which will hamper local producers across Southeast Asia.

Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief, was heavily criticized in 2022 when he described Europe as geopolitically a "garden" and most of the rest of the world as a "jungle," a statement that some people construed as having colonial undertones.

Although he apologized "if some felt offended" by his remarks, he denied they were racist.

Is the West's image going from bad to worse?

It remains to be seen whether Europe and the West's image in part of Southeast Asia can improve. 

"The situation can improve if the Gaza situation improves, but it is likely that there are different visions on what improvement means, so any prospects of improvement will be slow and limited at least until the medium term," Welsh said. 

Some analysts reckon that a victory for Donald Trump in the US presidential election in November and gains by far-right parties in the EU elections next month would escalate Southeast Asian perceptions of the West's moral decline.

Another variable is Iran. If the West was involved in an Israeli attack on Iran, "the Indonesian government would have no choice but to take a stronger stance, while public outrage would escalate," said O'Rourke.    

On April 15, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar said he supported Iran's decision to launch a drone attack on Israel, describing it as a "legitimate act."

On the other hand, European officials contend they are engaging in dialogue with Southeast Asian partners to mitigate the potentially harmful impacts of EU legislation and that European governments are directly supporting the region's development. 

"The EU and ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) share a common ambition to strengthen the EU's Strategic Partnership with ASEAN, as both of our organizations remain devoted to promoting international law, a rules-based order, multilateralism and stability," Peter Stano, an EU spokesperson, told DW last month.

The EU is now negotiating free trade deals with Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia, having already signed arrangements with Singapore and Vietnam. Malaysia is reportedly interested in restarting talks.

European aid and economic assistance to Southeast Asian states has grown in recent years, while some campaigners allege that the EU has toned down its criticism of human rights violations in countries like Vietnam and Cambodia in recent years.

It's also likely that France and the Philippines will ink a security deal next month that will allow French troops to use Philippines military bases, the latest development in a more concerted effort by European states to help defend Manila against the Chinese navy's movements in the South China Sea.

Edited by: John Silk

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has drawn criticism recently for invoking anti-Muslim rhetoric in mobilizing Hindu voters with India in the throes of a general election.

At a huge election rally in late April in Banswara, a city in the western state of Rajasthan, Modi delivered a polarizing speech in more ways than one, targeting the main opposition party, Congress.

Modi claimed that, if they came to power, the opposition would distribute India's wealth among "infiltrators" — provocative remarks widely seen as intended to shore up support from the party's majority Hindu voter base.

Hindu-Muslim tension as a campaign tool

"When they (Congress) were in power, they said Muslims have first right over the country's wealth," Modi said during his speech.

"They will take all your wealth and distribute it among those who have more children ... among infiltrators.

"Do you think your hard-earned money should be given to infiltrators? Would you accept this?"

Despite the outrage his remarks prompted, Modi doubled down on his statements a few days later at campaign rallies in Malda, West Bengal and Araria in Bihar, pulling the political discourse back to the divisive Hindu-Muslim line.

Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is expected to remain in power.

But many were shocked by Modi's ramped-up rhetoric that Congress was going to redistribute social goods to Muslims.

Political analysts believe the rhetoric against Muslims is part of a strategy to mobilize Hindu voters, as the BJP leadership is troubled by signs of low to moderate turnout in the first two phases of voting and anti-incumbency sentiment.

The elections, which got underway on April 19, are being held across India in seven phases and will run until June 1. The results are due three days later. Modi is eyeing a third consecutive term as prime minister.

Veteran political commentator Neerja Chowdhury told DW that she believes Modi's speeches are a sign of concern from the BJP over potentially losing voters. 

"From my travels, I find that this is not a Hindu-Muslim election. But given the polling percentages, the BJP has upped the ante. To enthuse voters, they thought something had to be done so that the central discourse becomes this," she said.

Did the speeches break any election rules?

The growing response from opposition leaders and civil society to Modi's speeches has drawn attention to the rules laid out by the Election Commission of India (ECI). However, the monitor has so far declined to comment or act.

The ECI's code of conduct specifies that politicians cannot appeal to voters based on "caste" and "communal feelings," nor can they run campaigns that "aggravate differences or create mutual hatred or cause tension" between communities.

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge has described Modi's comments as "hate speech" and "a well-thought-out ploy to divert attention."

"I urge the ECI to take cognizance of this latest complaint and immediately launch proceedings against Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury called for an official complaint to be lodged against Modi for "inciting communal passions and hatred."

More than 90 former bureaucrats have also sent in a complaint to the ECI to take action against Modi for his communal speeches as provoking enmity against minorities, warning that further rhetoric will affect the environment for a free and fair poll.

The BJP's Hindu nationalist agenda

Since the BJP came to power in 2014, the party's pursuit of a Hindu nationalist agenda has alienated religious minorities, along with ushering a marked increase in hate speech and violence targeting the nation's 210 million Muslims.

The defining credo of Modi's BJP since 1989 has been "Hindutva," a political ideology that promotes the "values" of the Hindu religion as being the cornerstone of Indian society and culture. However, critics say the BJP's aggressive Hindutva policies treat religious minorities as "second-class citizens."

"Anti-Muslim rhetoric is part of the BJP's journey, but during the current election campaign [things have] hit a new low," journalist and author Saba Naqvi told DW. "Once the campaign began, Modi turned to making the most loaded Hindu-Muslim speeches of his prime ministerial career."

"On June 4, when votes are counted, we will learn whether the escalation of communal rhetoric will help or hurt the BJP," added Naqvi.

Others like Salil Tripathi, a political commentator and New York-based writer who has been following the election closely, said the BJP's "desperation" has driven it to try an old formula of Hindu polarization by generating the fear of a Muslim takeover of India.

"This is not dog-whistle politics. Its meaning is audible to all Indians. It feeds into Hindu fears and is intended to arouse Hindus. It was dangerous and blatantly divisive," Tripathi told DW.

Another five phases of polling remain in this marathon election, and it is still unclear if the rhetoric will emotionally influence the electorate.

In the past, attempts at polarization have not brought electoral rewards for the BJP.

"The vehemence of Modi's speech suggests that after 10 years in power, his government is running out of tricks and wants to ensure that the BJP's core voters ― angry, fundamentalist Hindus — won't desert him," said Tripathi.

Edited by: John Silk

For the first time in history, Uzbekistan will compete in a team sport at the Olympics.

Victory over Indonesia in a wild under-23 Asian Cup semifinal saw Indonesia have a goal disallowed and a man sent off, Uzbekistan fire off 28 shots and hit the woodwork four times, before running out 2-0 winners to secure their spot in Paris this summer.

"I dedicate this victory to our President, our people and our supporters," said head coach Timur Kapadze.

"It's true we dominated this game, my players were better physically and tactically. It was a game where we felt the pressure because we wanted to go to the Olympics."

Olympic regulations state that men's squads are restricted to under 23 players (born on or after 1 January 2001) with a maximum of three over-age players allowed in the 18-player squad.

Olympic history long in the making

In the current team is the first ever Uzbek player to play in France's top flight, 20-year-old Lens defender, Abdukodir Khusanov, and 21-year-old holding midfielder and captain Abdurauf Buriev, who plays his club football for Olympic Tashkent in the Uzbekistan Super League. Buriev has been a star in this tournament, but it's the collective power of this Uzbekistan team that made their historic run possible.

In Qatar, the team scored 14 goals, equaling the record for the most goals by a team in a single tournament, and conceded just one, in the final. They are first team since Saudi Arabia to make two straight — and three overall — finals. An injury time loss in the final to Japan prevented the Uzbeks from being first ever side to win this competition twice.

"It is a very big moment in my career [to qualify for the Olympics] but I cannot say anything because it was a very emotional match," Buriev said after the semifinal win.

Uzbekistan's history in this tournament has actually been unlucky, even before the cruel late blow on Friday. The year they won in 2018 was a non-Olympic year and in 2020, when the tournament served as a qualifier for the Tokyo Olympics, they missed out on an Olympic spot after losing the third-place playoff. In 2022, they lost in the final. This Olympic dream has been a long time in the making.

Indeed, qualifying for the Olympics is perhaps the greatest achievement in the country's football history. Both the men's and women's teams have not only never been to an Olympics before, but have also never competed at a World Cup. Other than the under-23's victory in 2018, the only notable success so far is the men's first team's fourth-placed finish at the 2011 Asian Cup.

Once a week, Chitra Jayaraju and her children get up early in the morning to wait in line at a community water tap near a housing complex in the southern tech hub of Bengaluru.

"Earlier we used to get water twice a week, now we only get it once," she said. "In the past three to four months, the price of drinking water has also doubled," she told DW.

Bengaluru, one of India's most populous cities, primarily sources its water from the Kavery river and borewells. However, the wells are drying up as groundwater levels drop amid persistent droughts.

Many residents are now dependent on water from expensive tankers. One local resident, who asked not to be named, told DW that groundwater in his neighborhood had been depleted by too many wells.

He said a private water supply business in his locality dug several borewells to extract water, impacting the underground supply of the area. He said he was then forced to buy water from the same company.

In recent months, the price of tanker water has risen drastically. Water price inflation reached a point where the government had to step in and cap water tanker prices.

In March 2024, Karnataka state Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said that the state capital Bengaluru, a city of more than 13 million people, was facing a daily water deficit of 500 million liters (roughly 132 million gallons) — almost 20% of its total demand.

Climate change gets political in India

Environmental topics rarely play a central role in Indian elections. However, as Bengaluru went to the polls on April 26 in the second phase of a mammoth general election, water shortages were a key issue.

The contest is centered on India's two top parties, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, and the Indian National Congress, or Congress for short.

The political landscape in Karnataka is dynamic, with shifts between the Congress and the BJP in recent elections. The Congress is currently running Karnataka.

As India experiences more negative effects of climate change, issues that affect voters directly, like water shortages, are set to be weaponized politically.

The BJP has already criticized the incumbent Congress for allegedly mismanaging the water shortages in Bengaluru.

Malavika Avinash, BJP spokesperson in Karnataka, told DW that the water crisis will swing votes away from Congress.

"The failure of the Congress government in handling the water crisis will only increase the anti-Congress emotion in Bengaluru," she said.

She called the water situation "a making of the Siddaramaiah government," adding that the government was "completely ill-prepared to handle the [lack] of rains this summer."

Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, of the Congress party, has placed blame with India's central BJP government led by Modi.

Shivakumar has alleged that the Modi government had a hand in exacerbating the crisis by stalling the Mahadayi and Mekedatu projects, which are planned river diversion and water sharing schemes that are meant to provide more water to Karnataka.

"There is no such scarcity of water in Bengaluru, it is the BJP that has created the scarcity," Shivakumar told Indian media in March.

Malini Ranganathan, an associate professor at American University in Washington, DC, who specializes in health and development, told DW it is "possible that the news media in India, largely captured by the BJP, is focusing on the water crisis because Karnataka is currently a Congress-run state."

"It is also undoubtedly true that the city and the state of Karnataka are periodically flung into a water crisis regardless of who is in political power at the state level," she added.

Still, according to Ranganathan, Bengaluru's water crisis "is political, not primarily ecological," and exacerbated by unchecked real estate development and corrupt practices.

Wealthy Indians have better access to water

Ranganathan also highlighted class politics behind water distribution in Bengaluru.

"Water is not only geographically differentiated, but also highly class- and caste-stratified in the city," she said.

Members of the upper and middle classes, which tend to be predominantly upper caste, live in approved residential areas, and receive water supply from the Kavery river. Other areas depend almost entirely on groundwater and tankers, Ranganathan said.

And left in the lurch are people like Chitra Jayaraju, who say the water issues will persist regardless of who is in charge.

"My neighbors and I have approached the local politicians of both the BJP and Congress party," she said, "but haven't been able to get our water woes addressed."

Edited by: Wesley Rahn 

Japan is dramatically ramping up its support for the semiconductor industry. Between the financial years 2021 and 2023, which ended on March 31, the country invested 3.9 trillion yen (€23.17 billion, $24.8 billion) in the sector.

That is a higher proportion of its GDP than that invested by the US, Germany, France or the UK over the same period.

Analysts say the Japanese government has been stung into action as a consequence of significant geopolitical changes involving tech in recent years, as well as lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of a worldwide crisis on supply chains that were previously considered to be adequate.

Tokyo has also been motivated to get back into the semiconductor manufacturing business to support domestic industries that consume vast numbers of chips and protect its economy more generally.

Japan's semiconductor investment push

"Semiconductors are one of the most capital-intensive investments, and Japan, after dominating in the 1990s, gradually got out of the sector and left it largely to South Korea and Taiwan," Martin Schulz, chief policy economist for Fujitsu's Global Market Intelligence Unit, told DW.

"But in more recent years, there has been a push from the government because they realized that semiconductors had been neglected and were critically important."

Schulz pointed out that while Japan produced around 50% of all chips in the 1990s, that has now contracted to a mere 9%.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Finance, the Japanese government's funds sunk into the sector accounted for 0.71% of GDP between 2021 and 2023, surpassing the corresponding figures for countries like Germany, which stood at 0.41%, the US, at 0.21% and France, at 0.20%.

And that financial support is expected to continue to grow.

With government financial support amounting to 476 billion yen (€2.81 billion), around one-third of the total cost, industry giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) completed a fabrication plant in Kumamoto, southern Japan, in February. Production is expected to commence at the end of the year.

Similarly, Kioxia and Western Digital have jointly built a plant in Yokkaichi, in Mie Prefecture, to produce 3D NAND Flash memory products, with the government contributing 92.9 billion yen in subsidies. The same companies are also building a plant in Iwate Prefecture, in the northeast, which should be operational by the end of the year.

The Trade and Industry Ministry is also supporting domestic chip firm Rapidus to the tune of 590 billion yen to construct a manufacturing facility in Hokkaido in partnership with IBM. The plant is due to start production in 2027.

Japan's sudden but necessary change toward semiconductors

The Japanese government's change in direction has been sudden but necessary, said Kazuto Suzuki, a professor of science and technology policy at Tokyo University.

"The primary reason is the rising competition in the semiconductor sector, with the government really starting to pay attention to problems in global supply chains during the pandemic," he said.

Industries around the world suddenly found themselves short of chips for everything from cars to microwave ovens, and it dawned on policymakers that as a large percentage of the world's semiconductors are manufactured in Taiwan, any emergency in the Taiwan Strait would make Japanese users "vulnerable," he said.

"A shortage in chips would be extremely serious to Tokyo, which moved to attract foreign firms and reshore production to meet the needs of domestic firms."

Japan is also supportive of the US policy of restricting China's access to the most advanced technology, including state-of-the-art microchips, out of concern that it will give its economic rival an edge in AI and other emerging technologies and potentially enable Beijing to develop more advanced weapons.

Japan's history with semiconductors

Japan used to be a world leader in manufacturing chips but opted to focus on the more lucrative development of next-generation semiconductors and the machinery required to make them, leaving the actual fabrication to companies in other countries, Suzuki said.

In 1989, six Japanese electronics companies, including Toshiba, Hitachi, NEC and Fujitsu, were in the top 10 in the world for chip sales before gradually opting to shift away from production.

Some companies attempted to recapture their heyday — NEC and Hitachi set up Elpida Memory in 1999, but it went bankrupt in 2012.

Significantly, the government was not willing to invest to a degree that would guarantee the venture's success.

"But things have changed now, and the government here sees this as perhaps their last opportunity to use the know-how and experience of engineers to revitalize the industry before they retire," Suzuki added.

Rebuilding the sector will require more than fabrication plants, however.

In an editorial published on April 22, the Yomiuri newspaper emphasized the need to educate a new generation of skilled workers to produce even more advanced semiconductors, declaring that stable procurement of the components is "essential to the nation's economic security."

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Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru

Myanmar is now four years into a civil war that shows no sign of abating. Following an October 2023 offensive in the north-eastern state Shan, the military junta, known as the State Administrative Council (SAC), lost control over swathes of territory on the border with China.

In early April the border town Myawaddy, an important transit point for the flow of goods between Thailand and Myanmar, fell under the control of the Karen people, an ethnic minority group that has been battling the central government for decades. As of late April, Myawaddy was back under SAC control. The situation remains volatile.

On the other side of Myanmar, on the western border with Bangladesh, an armed ethnic group named the Arakan Army is giving the SAC military a hard time.

The governing junta is on the backfoot and under immense pressure in Myanmar's border regions, only able to launch retaliatory attacks from the air or with long-range artillery.

"The Civil War is going on and it won't stop any time soon," an expert from Yangon, who cannot be named for security reasons, told DW. The military isn't on the brink of defeat either, the source stressed.

History repeating itself

The current situation, while dramatic, isn't totally new. Today's Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has never been a fully functioning nation state since gaining independence in 1948.

No central government has ever succeeded in ruling the entire country. And certainly no common national identity has ever emerged in this land of many ethnicities. The intensity of the conflict between them all has ebbed and flowed over the course of the past 76 years as has the extent of central government control.

Nonetheless the military coup against the government of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 ushered in a whole new phase of fragmentation.

The main difference now is that these divisions are more obvious, according to the anonymous Yangon source. "The country used to be fragmented but it wasn't as visible. Today people can see it with their own eyes because of social media and interconnectedness," they said. Talk of the country's possible disintegration is on the rise, they added.

A patchwork of armed groups

The already complicated landscape of Myanmar's conflict has only become more complex. Before the military coup in 2021, there were around 24 armed ethnic groups in Myanmar and hundreds of militias. The number of troops in each group varied from several hundred up to an estimated 30,000 fighters in, for example, the United Wa State Army (USWA) and the Arakan Army.

Since the coup, another 250 to 300 of the so-called People's Defense Forces (PDF) have been added to this list. These are thought to total around 65,000 fighters. Some of the PDFs are under the control of the opposition National Unity Government, some act independently, and others are in close coordination with larger ethnic armed groups.

In addition there are many criminal cartels that have gained influence during the last four years. These also overlap with the military as well as some ethnic groups.

Conflicts between ethnic groups persist, although the focus is currently on fighting the military junta. "The conflict is not simply one against many, but many against many. It's not just the military against the rest," the Yangon expert explains.

Could Myanmar fall apart?

The question of whether the country could definitively fall apart is being taken more seriously, including at the United Nations and among diplomats, Charles Petrie, former UN coordinator for Myanmar, told DW.

Richard Horsey, an analyst from the think tank Crisis Group International and a long-time Myanmar observer, told DW that there was no doubt fragmentation was on the rise. Nonetheless, Horsey doesn't believe Myanmar would collapse entirely and end up in violent chaos like Libya or Somalia.

"Because Myanmar isn't a well-functioning, centralized state that has suddenly fallen into atomization. It's a country that was pretty fragmented. It's always been fragmented to some extent or another," he said.

Federalism in the future

In the past, discussions on Myanmar's long-term future have repeatedly focused on how to build a political structure in which all ethnic groups are represented. The buzzword has always been federalism. Even today, there are efforts to build a federal democratic constitution, but the process is difficult. Some groups keep breaking off negotiations, others decline to take part.

In the meantime, neighboring countries fear the effects of Myanmar's continued disintegration. India is building a fence on the border. Thailand is preparing for another influx of refugees. China held military maneuvers on the border with Myanmar in April. And Bangladesh will have to provide for the persecuted Rohingya people for the foreseeable future.

Among neighboring countries, there is a "self-serving and cynical" foreign policy approach that keeps all options open, Criss Group's Horsey said. "They understand the coup was bad. They understand very bad things are happening in Myanmar. But for their own interest, they've maintained close relations with the regime."

This article was translated from the original German.

There is a reason mountaineers on Everest call the passage through the Khumbu Icefall from the western slope the "ballroom of death." A mighty glacier hangs like a sword of Damocles, threatening the route and making for tricky climbing.

Acidents there are frequent. Ten years ago, on 18 April 2014, an ice avalanche broke loose there. Sixteen Nepalese mountaineers, who were carrying equipment for commercial expeditions to the high camps, died in the accident.

Since then, the "Icefall Doctors" — a group of Sherpas who specialize in icefall — have been trying to place the route to Everest's summit as far away from the western slope as possible. This spring, however, climate change forced them back into the "ballroom of death."

There was simply no alternative. Two attempts to find a less risky route had failed. The snowless winter in Nepal had led to unstable ice towers and snow bridges in the icy labyrinth. In addition, crevasses had formed that were so wide that they could not be crossed with ladders.

Every year, the Icefall Doctors set up the route through the dangerous icefall, secure it with ropes and maintain it during the climbing season until the end of May. Only when the route up to Camp Two at 6,400 meters (21,000 feet) has been completed can the commercial teams ascend. Time was of the essence. Around ten days later than planned, the eight Sherpas finally announced that they were ready. However, the Icefall Doctors warned that there were at least five dangerous spots that should be passed as quickly as possible. The whole endeavor is reminiscent of Russian roulette.

Mountain is 'more dynamic'

Last winter, two passes over 5,800 meters high in the Everest region were completely snow-free. This is "worrying," says Nepalese glaciologist Tenzing Chogyal Sherpa.

"The data shows that the number of snow days, the amount of snow and the snow cover are decreasing — a negative trend. These 'naked' passes and mountains illustrate what is happening," said Sherpa.

The glaciers are melting faster and faster, becoming thinner and shorter. Larger glacial lakes are forming and their natural dams are threatening to burst. That happened this week on Manaslu, the eighth largest mountain in the world. The subsequent tidal wave, however, caused only material damage.

More and more pools of meltwater are also forming in the valley at the foot of Everest. Up to the summit at 8,849 meters, snow and ice are retreating. The result: Increased risk of falling rocks and, because it is getting warmer, a higher chance of avalanches. "Many people lose their lives in avalanches. The mountain is becoming more and more dynamic," warns glaciologist Sherpa.

20% fewer permits

"The current difficulties at the Khumbu Icefall to get to the higher camps could have an impact on the entire season and could possibly be the harbinger of a major disaster on Everest," fears Norrdine Nouar.

The German mountaineer from the Allgäu region has just climbed — without bottled oxygen — the 8,091 meter Annapurna in western Nepal, his second eight-thousander. Now he wants to attempt the highest mountain on earth without a breathing mask.

"I really hope that we don't break last year's sad record of deaths on Everest again," the 36-year-old told the blog "Abenteuer Berg" ("Mountain Adventure").

In spring 2023, 18 people — six Nepalese and 12 clients of commercial teams — lost their lives on Mount Everest, more than ever before in one season. However, the Nepalese government had also never issued so many permits for Everest: 478. This year, the number of permits is a good 20% lower compared to the same time in 2023.

This may or may not indicate a decline in interest in Everest. On the one hand, it could be due to the fact that many Everest candidates are now pre-acclimatising at home in hypoxia tents and therefore arriving later. On the other hand, the fact that the highest mountain on earth can be climbed from the Tibetan north side for the first time in four years may also play a role.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Chinese authorities had closed Tibet's mountains to foreign expeditions. Teams that want to climb Everest from the north this spring are still waiting for their entry permits into Tibet. According to reports, the border will not be opened until May 7. The Everest season on the north side ends on 1 June. Chinese authorities have capped the number of permits at 300. Climbs without bottled oxygen are prohibited above an altitude of 7,000 meters.

Tracking chips and poo bags

There are also new regulations on the southern Nepalese side. All mountaineers must now have electronic tracking chips sewn into their down jackets. These are intended to facilitate rescue searches should someone go missing on the mountain. The system has proven its worth in avalanche searches in the Alps. However, experts doubt that it can also increase safety in the summit area of Mount Everest. According to Lukas Furtenbach, head of the Austrian expedition provider Furtenbach Adventures, the range of the system is significantly reduced in the event of ice avalanches.

"It would be better if the [mountain] guides didn't leave their clients alone," says Furtenbach. "Then the problem would be solved."

This year, for the first time, it is also compulsory for climbers to take excrement bags up the mountain, use them and bring them back down again. The poo bags have been specially developed for outdoor use and can be sealed tightly. Their inside is coated with a mixture of gelling agents, enzymes and odour-neutralizing substances. These ensure that feces are sealed in the bag and odor is reduced.

The Nepalese environmental protection organization Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), which is responsible for the managment of the Everest base camp and also employs the Icefall Doctors, is tasked with ensuring that the rule is adhered to. The SPCC estimates that between Camp One at 6,100 meters and Camp Four on the South Col at just under 8,000 meters, there is a total of around three tons of human excrement — half of it at the South Col, the last camp before the summit of Mount Everest. As the snow cover is increasingly disappearing, it literally stinks to high heaven, threatening to turn the South Col into a "ballroom of feces."

This article was originally published in German.