Death of cow vigilante sparks violent protests in Uttar Pradesh
Protesters on Saturday blocked the Delhi-Agra Highway in western Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura district following the death of a cow vigilante.
According to Indian media reports, Chandrashekhar — a self-styled spiritual guru known as “Farsa Wale Baba” and a cow vigilante — had stopped a vehicle in the early hours of Saturday on suspicion of cows being transported, when another truck hit him, killing him on the spot.
Rumors soon spread that Chandrashekhar had been deliberately killed by “cattle smugglers.”
Within hours,a large crowd of his supporters, mostly cow vigilantes, gathered and blocked the road, leading to a traffic snarl.
The situation turned violent with the mob pelting stones, injuring policemen, and vandalizing police vehicles.
Police used tear gas to disperse the crowd, reports said.
Authorities said that several people have been detained and those involved in the violence are being identified.
The Mathura police released a statement saying that Chandrashekhar’s death was a road accident and has no connection to cattle smuggling.
“Due to dense fog, a truck approaching from behind collided with them, resulting in his unfortunate death,” the police said.
The police statement added that the truck stopped by Chandrashekhar was found to contain grocery items, while the truck that came from behind was loaded with wires.
Slaughtering of cows, which are considered sacred to Hindus, is illegal in a number of states in India.
The so-called “Cow vigilantes” are Hindu men, who take it upon themselves to protect cows from slaughter and illegal transport.
India has seen a spate of vigilante killings with hard-line Hindu groups often targeting Dalit and Muslim individuals accused of slaughtering cattle or consuming beef.
The Cost of a Dream: Indian Students in Germany
Germany is a popular dream for young Indian students seeking a better life. But high tuition fees can push students into financial hardship.
What begins as hope, for some, becomes a vicious cycle of debt and exhaustion.
Follow the story of Chirag Esrani, an Indian student who went to Berlin to pursue a master’s degree in International Management and now works as a delivery driver to pay off his loan.
Air India to introduce strict fitness policy for cabin crew
Air India is expected to roll out a more stringent health and fitness compliance policy for its cabin crew members, starting from May 1, that would see those found underweight, overweight or obese facing derostering and loss of pay, Indian media reported on Sunday.
The assessment will be based on the crew members’ Body Mass Index (BMI).
A BMI range between 18 and 24.9 is categorized as “normal” and will be considered fully acceptable by the airline.
A BMI below 18 is categorised as “underweight” and “overweight” in the between 25 and 29.9.
Both categories are acceptable for the airline only after clearance from particular medical and functional assessments, news agency PTI reported citing access to the policy.
Cabin crew members will be removed from active flying rosters if they are either “underweight” or “overweight” and will be required to pass the functional assessment, the report said.
Crew members who failed to clear the assessment, would be placed on loss of pay till a clearance takes place, reports added.
The policy is stricter for those with a BMI of over 30, categorized as “Obese.” The airline would consider it unacceptable under any circumstances and personnel falling in the category will be immediately grounded and face loss of pay..
They will have to achieve the acceptable BMI within a stipulated number of days.
Air India is the country’s flag carrier.
It was founded in 1932 as Tata Airlines by Indian business magnate JRD Tata.
The airline was taken over and nationalized by the Indian government in 1953.
In January 2022, the airline returned to the Tata Group — India’s oldest conglomerate — after being bought for roughly $2.4 billion (€2.1 billion approx).
Welcome back to our coverage
It’s a slow Sunday morning in India.
This is Dharvi from DW’s Studio in New Delhi and I am back with your daily news capsule of all the topics making headlines in India.
Speaking of capsules, health, particularly weight loss, seemed to be a talking point in the country this week.
The pharmaceutical sector here is witnessing a weight-loss drug scramble after semaglutide — the active ingredient in Ozempic — lost patent protection in India.
Indian drugmakers have rolled out cheaper semaglutide within just a day of Friday’s patent expiry,
At a family dinner last night, I found myself in the middle of a debate on the use of weight-loss drugs.
“Wouldn’t it be great to be able to eat whatever you want and not worry about weight gain — because there would be a pill to pop?” an uncle quipped.
Weight could also now be a cause of concern for airline personnel as Air India rolls out a strict health and fitness compliance policy for its cabin crew.
Crew members classified as obese will be immediately grounded and face a pay cut according to the new standards..
Stay with us as we bring you more developments, on-ground reports and analysis from India.
We have paused our coverage
Dharvi in Delhi will be back on Sunday morning to bring you more of the latest from and about India.
See you then!
Modi calls for ‘peace’ on call with Iran’s Pezeshkian
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for “peace, stability and prosperity” in West Asia during a call with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, as the US-Israel war with Iran entered its 22nd day.
In a post on X, Modi said he had “condemned attacks on critical infrastructure in the region, which threaten regional stability and disrupt global supply chains.”
In a reference to the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran has effectively shut, leaving hundreds of oil and gas tankers stranded, Modi said he had “reiterated the importance of safeguarding freedom of navigation and ensuring that shipping lanes remain open and secure,”
India relies on Hormuz for a third of its crude oil and nearly two-thirds of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports and is scrambling to find alternative supplies.
The Indian Navy is also escorting stranded Indian-flagged vessels through the disrupted strait, which Tehran approves on a case-by-case basis.
The two leaders also exchanged greetings for Eid al-Fitr (the “Festival of Breaking the Fast), which for Muslims on Friday marked the end of Ramadan, Modi wrote.
Trapped at sea: Indian seafarers are caught in Strait of Hormuz standoff
Thousands of Indian seafarers are trapped aboard vessels unable to move through the Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s most volatile waterways — as the tensions in the Iran war escalate.
Indian seafarers make up about 12% of the global maritime workforce. Recent estimates put the total number of Indian seafarers at over 300.000.
At least 22 Indian-flagged vessels have been stranded near the Strait of Hormuz for weeks caught between rising geopolitical tensions and growing maritime risk.
DW spoke to Captain Virendra Vishwakarma sailing on an LPG tanker in the Mina Saqr area. He has been stuck at sea for over two weeks. The ongoing Iran war has changed a routine journey for him into a daily struggle to stay safe.
“Right now the situation is bad,” Vishwakarma told DW.
He said the sailors on board his ship are facing missiles and drones everyday.
“It is very dangerous in the present scenario to sail on LPG ships within a war zone area, carrying 46 thousand metric tons of LPG. If something happened to the ship, you can understand the scenario. It will be chaotic,” he said, stressing that it would be a “big disaster”.
Some crews have reported dwindling supplies of food, fresh water, and fuel, with no clear timeline for safe passage. While back at home, their families wait anxiously, relying on patchy communication as the crisis deepens at sea.
“Every day my wife and my children come on the video call. I see their faces and they see my face. Every day they ask how are you father. How are you doing?…I don’t have an answer to these questions,” Vishwakarma told DW in an interview that kept cutting off due to the wobbly internet connection at sea.
Earlier this week, DW asked the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi what India was doing to support the seafarers.
This is what foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in response:
“We are also trying our best how best we can support them in terms of essentials, so on and so forth. Several seafarers have also come back. For example, the 15 seafarers, some of whom were injured, who were housed in Basra, they have come back to India or will be arriving in India shortly. Similarly, seafarers from other parts of that region have also been coming back. We have a dedicated control room in the Ministry of Shipping where all these questions of the families and all their concerns are being addressed.”
Indian man dies on ship near Strait of Hormuz, family seeks repatriation of body
An Indian merchant navy captain died of a heart attack on a vessel carrying oil near the Strait of Hormuz and the family of the seafarer is now seeking government assistance to bring his body home, Indian media has reported.
Rakesh Ranjan Singh died on March 18 due to cardiac arrest, news agency PTI cited his family as saying on Friday.
The family claimed that Singh’s ship — ‘ASP Avana- RPSL-MUM-172’, owned by a private company — had been stranded about 14 nautical miles off the Strait of Hormuz since February 28, PTI reported, after movement was paralyzed in the region because of the Iran war.
According to Indian media reports, the vessel has remained anchored about 25 to 30 kilometers off the Dubai coast for the last 18 days.
The Indian Express reported that crew members on board the fuel tanker sought an air ambulance after Singh suffered a sudden medical emergency.
The air assistance was reportedly not allowed to fly due to restrictions linked to the security situation in the region.
“He was later taken by boat to Port Rashid in Dubai, where he was declared dead,” Ranjan’s brother Umesh Singh told PTI.
The 47-year-old sailor came from the eastern state of Jharkhand.
Umesh Singh told PTI that the family has written to the state’s Chief Minister Hemant Soren to help bring back his brother’s body.
The Indian Express reported that Singh’s son has also written a letter to the Minister of State for Defence. seeking the government to help in expediting the repatriation of his father’s body.
“My father passed away on board the ship… The procedures are taking considerable time, causing great distress to our family. I humbly request you to direct the concerned authorities to expedite the process,” the Indian Express cited the letter from Pravar Singh as saying.
Delhi wakes up to rare fog in March
A rare March fog blanketed the Indian capital of New Delhi and the surrounding suburbs of Ghaziabad and Noida on Saturday morning after rainfall the previous evening.
The unusual weather conditions were also marked by low temperatures and an improved air quality index (AQI).
On Friday, New Delhi witnessed its coldest March day in six years with a maximum temperature of 21.7 degrees Celsius, official weather data showed .
People in the city also breathed the cleanest air in five months with the AQI in the ‘moderate’ category.
Heavy rainfall has been soaking New Delhi over the last few days.
The rainfall accompanied with gusty winds and thunderstorms also disrupted flight operations in the capital earlier this week.
I, for one, certainly held my breath as I made my way back to New Delhi last evening on a very turbulent flight from Chennai.
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/india-news-new-delhi-sends-medical-aid-to-afghanistan/live-76462474
