A prominent rebel group in eastern Myanmar yesterday appealed to other ethnic armies to unite against the military, as the country enters its fourth month under a junta regime.

For the first time, media organisations in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal are coming together to report about the killings, attacks, harassment, and intimidation of journalists in these South Asian countries. It is the first such collaboration by media outlets in the region.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee this evening and assured that the Centre will continue to extend all possible support to the West Bengal Government to fulfil people's aspirations and also to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Eta Banglar joi. Banglar manusher joi. Bangla gota Bharat-ke Baanchiyechey,” West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee declared today after her party’s landslide victory in the state assembly elections.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik of the eastern Indian state of Odisha today announced working journalists of the state as “frontline Covid-19 warriors”.

West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee looks set to win a third term, the DMK is heading for victory in Tamil Nadu, the BJP is leading in Assam and the LDF in Kerala in the counting of votes for state polls, according to NDTV.

A sense of anguish, hopelessness and anger has settled over India, which is going through a second wave that has devastated families and is overwhelming the health infrastructure around the country.

India has received 150,000 Sputnik-V vaccine doses from Russia, a spokesman for India's foreign ministry said on Saturday.

India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has discussed cooperation in emergency medical supplies with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi yesterday.

At least 18 Covid-19 patients were killed as a fire ravaged a hospital in Bharuch in the western Indian state of Gujarat early today, police officials said.

US President Joe Biden is expected to impose new travel restrictions on India starting Tuesday in light of the COVID-19 epidemic, barring most non-US citizens from entering the United States, a White House official told Reuters.

President Joe Biden marked his 100th day in office Thursday with a trip to the crucial electoral state of Georgia to promote multi-trillion dollar spending plans that he says can transform the United States.

Iran welcomed a “change of tone” from Saudi Arabia that could clear the way to a new era of cooperation between the rival regional powers.

Half of Myanmar’s population could be living in poverty next year, driven by the combination of the pandemic and the political crisis sparked by the military coup, the UN said yesterday.

Russia yesterday added Alexei Navalny’s political network to its database of terrorist and extremist organisations, as Moscow moves closer to shutting down the jailed opposition politician’s movement against President Vladimir Putin.

Nearly three-quarters of female journalists say they have been victims of harassment online and for 20 percent this has transferred into offline attacks, according to a UNESCO study published yesterday.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday postponed planned parliamentary elections amid a dispute over voting in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem and splits in his Fatah party.

A massive stampede at a densely packed Jewish pilgrimage site killed at least 44 people in Israel yesterday, blackening the country’s largest Covid-era gathering.

Thousands of ethnic Karen villagers in Myanmar are poised to cross into Thailand if, as expected, fighting intensifies between the Myanmar army and Karen insurgents, joining those who have already escaped the turmoil that followed a February 1 coup.

At least 44 people were crushed to death at an over-crowded religious bonfire festival in Israel on Friday, medics said, in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as a "heavy disaster".