Modi inaugurates ambitious rail project connecting Kashmir to Indian plains

Modi inaugurates ambitious rail project connecting Kashmir to Indian plains
This photograph taken and released by the Indian Press Information Bureau (PIB) on June 6, 2025, shows India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding national flag during the inauguration of the Chenab Rail Bridge as a part of the Kashmir rail link, in Reasi, in Indian adminitered Jammu and Kashmir region. (PIB India)
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Updated 06 June 2025
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Modi inaugurates ambitious rail project connecting Kashmir to Indian plains

Modi inaugurates ambitious rail project connecting Kashmir to Indian plains
  • 272-kilometer line begins in garrison city of Udhampur in Jammu, runs through Indian-administered Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar
  • The line travels through 36 tunnels and over 943 bridges, Indian government has pegged the total project cost at around $5 billion

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday inaugurated one of the most ambitious railway projects ever built in India, which will connect the Kashmir Valley to the vast Indian plains by train for the first time.

Dubbed by government-operated Indian Railways as one of the most challenging tracks in the world, the 272-kilometer (169-mile) line begins in the garrison city of Udhampur in Jammu region and runs through Indian-administered Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar. The line ends in Baramulla, a town near the highly militarized Line of Control dividing the Himalayan region between India and Pakistan.

The line travels through 36 tunnels and over 943 bridges. The Indian government pegged the total project cost at around $5 billion.

One of the project’s highlights is a 1,315-meter-long (4,314-foot) steel and concrete bridge above the Chenab River connecting two mountains with an arch 359 meters (1,177 feet) above the water. Indian Railways compared the height to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which stands 330 meters (1,082 feet), and said the bridge is built to last 120 years and endure extreme weather, including wind speeds up to 260 kph (161 mph).

Modi visited the Chenab bridge with tight security, waving an Indian tri-color flag before boarding a test train that passed through picturesque mountains and tunnels to reach an inauguration ceremony for another high-elevation bridge named Anji.

The prime minister also helped launch a pair of new trains called “Vande Bharat” that will halve the travel time between Srinagar and the town of Katra in Jammu to about three hours from the usual six to seven hours by road.

Modi traveled to Indian-administered Kashmir on Friday for the first time since a military conflict between India and Pakistan brought the nuclear-armed rivals to the brink of their third war over the region last month, when the countries fired missiles and drones at each other.

The conflict began with a gun massacre in late April that left 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists, dead in Indian-administered Kashmir. India blamed Pakistan for supporting the attackers, a charge Islamabad denied.

Addressing a public rally in Katra, Modi lashed out at Pakistan and alleged Islamabad was behind the massacre. He said the attack was primarily aimed at Kashmir’s flourishing tourism industry and meant to fuel communal violence.

“I promise you, I won’t let developmental activities stop in Kashmir,” Modi said, adding that local industries and businesses will get a boost from the new rail connectivity.

The railway project is considered crucial to boosting tourism and bringing development to a region that has been marred by militancy and protests over the years. 

The line is expected to ease the movement of Indian troops and the public to the disputed region, which is currently connected by flights and mountain roads that are prone to landslides.

India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. Militants in the Indian-administered portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, a charge Islamabad denies. 

Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.


Niger army says it killed a senior Boko Haram leader in a targeted airstrike

Niger army says it killed a senior Boko Haram leader in a targeted airstrike
Updated 22 August 2025
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Niger army says it killed a senior Boko Haram leader in a targeted airstrike

Niger army says it killed a senior Boko Haram leader in a targeted airstrike
  • Boko Haram began its insurgency in Nigeria in 2009, causing around 35,000 civilian deaths and displacing more than 2 million people
DAKAR, Senegal: The army in Niger says it used a targeted airstrike to kill a senior leader of the Boko Haram jihadi group, which has killed thousands of people in West Africa.
Ibrahim Bakoura was killed in an Aug. 15 strike in the Lake Chad region that killed “dozens of terrorists” and Boko Haram senior leaders, the army claimed in a state television broadcast Thursday. Bakoura, who was in his mid-40s, was “tracked for several weeks” before the strike, the army said.
Boko Haram, a homegrown group of jihadis from neighboring Nigeria that is considered one of the world’s deadliest armed groups, took up arms in 2009 to fight Western education and impose their radical version of Islamic law.
The conflict has spilled into Nigeria’s northern neighbors, including Niger, and resulted in the death of around 35,000 civilians and the displacement of more than 2 million others, according to the United Nations.
There should be skepticism about reports of senior militant deaths, said Wassim Nasr, a Sahel specialist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center security think tank. He noted Bakoura has been reported dead at least three times in the past and governments have limited capacity to verify remote airstrikes.
Boko Haram split into two factions in the ensuing power struggle after the 2021 death of the group’s longtime leader, Abubakar Shekau, who was falsely reported dead several times. Bakoura came to power in 2022.
One faction is backed by the Daesh group and is known as the Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP. It has become notorious for targeting military positions and has overrun the military in Nigeria on at least 15 occasions in 2025, killing soldiers and stealing weapons, according to an Associated Press count, experts and security reports.
The other faction, Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (JAS), also known as Boko Haram, has increasingly resorted to attacking civilians and perceived collaborators and thrives on robberies and abductions for ransom.
Bakoura’s killing is the latest blow to the network of armed groups in the region in recent weeks following the arrests of top Al-Qaeda affiliated leaders in Nigeria and the son of Boko Haram’s founder in Chad.
Experts say there is a renewed response from intelligence agencies in west and central African countries whose security leaderships have suffered embarrassing loses to armed groups this year.
“What the constant attacks did was cause military and security leaders embarrassment because it got to a point soldiers were running away on sighting ISWAP advances. The attacks inspired renewed response by militaries across the region,” said Taiwo Adebayo, a security researcher at the Institute of Security Studies.
The arrest and killing of top leaders will translate to material gains in the regional fight against insecurity if the government in Niger ensures the groups do not carry out retaliatory attacks or rejuvenate elsewhere, Adebayo said.

NATO chief calls for ‘robust security guarantees’ on Ukraine visit

NATO chief calls for ‘robust security guarantees’ on Ukraine visit
Updated 22 August 2025
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NATO chief calls for ‘robust security guarantees’ on Ukraine visit

NATO chief calls for ‘robust security guarantees’ on Ukraine visit
  • Mark Rutte: ‘Robust security guarantees will be essential and this is what we are now working to define’

KYIV: The head of NATO on Friday called for “robust” security guarantees for Ukraine to ensure Russia will uphold any potential peace deal and “will never again attempt to take one square kilometer of Ukraine.”

“Robust security guarantees will be essential and this is what we are now working to define,” Mark Rutte said during a visit to Kyiv, speaking alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.


Complaint lodged with UK regulator against ‘vexatious’ pro-Israel legal group

Complaint lodged with UK regulator against ‘vexatious’ pro-Israel legal group
Updated 22 August 2025
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Complaint lodged with UK regulator against ‘vexatious’ pro-Israel legal group

Complaint lodged with UK regulator against ‘vexatious’ pro-Israel legal group
  • UK Lawyers for Israel accused of using ‘abusive litigation’ to silence pro-Palestine voices
  • Public Interest Law Centre: ‘We will not allow legal threats to shut down the public’s right to speak out’

LONDON: A group of pro-Israel lawyers is under investigation in the UK over claims that it has threatened Palestine supporters with “vexatious” legal action.

The Public Interest Law Centre and the European Legal Support Center complained to the Solicitors Regulation Authority that UK Lawyers for Israel committed “serious breaches” of the SRA’s code of conduct, and had demonstrated “a seeming pattern of vexatious and legally baseless correspondence aimed at silencing and intimidating Palestine solidarity efforts.”

They added that UKLFI used “strategic lawsuits against public participation (Slapps), which are lawsuits intended to limit freedom of expression on matters of public interest.”

Slapps are described by the SRA on its website as “abusive litigation” that “undermine freedom of expression, the rule of law and amount to a misuse of the legal system.”

PILC and ELSC acted after a number of complainants said they were contacted by UKLFI.

Among them are the Scottish Storytelling Centre, which said it was contacted by Caroline Turner, a UKLFI director, who claimed that plans by the center to hold a Palestinian film festival in May in Edinburgh, in association Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland, included events that were “inherently antisemitic and anti-Zionist in nature.”

Turner, who requested that the film festival be canceled and warned that failure to do so could see the center referred to the Scottish charity regulator, also wrote on behalf of UKLFI to the Cornelius Cardew Concerts Trust after it arranged a concert, “The World Stands With Palestine,” in London in November 2024.

Her letter alleged that flyers advertising the event, which featured the words “Stand with Palestine” and “Stand with the Resistance,” were a possible breach of the Terrorism Act as they were “siding with the viewpoint” of Hamas.

The letter added that the concert’s flyers were “designed to stir up racial hatred against Jews and Israelis, and to sympathise with the aims of the Hamas terrorist organisation.” The concert was canceled.

UKLFI states on its website that it employs “advocacy, legal research and campaigning to support Israel, Israeli organisations, Israelis, and/or supporters of Israel against BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) and other attempts to undermine, attack or delegitimise them.”

But Paul Heron, founder of PILC, said: “UKLFI are acting in a manner that chills public participation and intimidates those who stand in solidarity with Palestine … We will not allow legal threats to shut down the public’s right to speak out on Palestine.

“The SRA has a duty to step in, to uphold professional standards, and to protect civil society from intimidation dressed up as law.”

A spokesperson for the SRA said: “We have had a complaint and are investigating before deciding on next steps.”


Pakistan floods: Wedding celebrations turned into 24 funerals

Pakistan floods: Wedding celebrations turned into 24 funerals
Updated 22 August 2025
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Pakistan floods: Wedding celebrations turned into 24 funerals

Pakistan floods: Wedding celebrations turned into 24 funerals
  • The flash floods in Pakistan was triggered by the worst of this year’s monsoon and cloudburst
  • Overall death toll across the country in the monsoon rains which began in late June stood at 776

QADIR NAGAR, Pakistan: Two days before his wedding, Noor Muhammad had a long phone call with his mother, just hours before devastating floods in Pakistan killed her along with 23 family members and relatives.

“I cannot explain how happy she was,” he said standing by the rubble of his family’s large 36-room house, perched on the bank of a flood water channel in Qadir Nagar village.

The village in mountainous Buner district has been the worst hit by recent massive rain in the country, accounting for over 200 deaths out of nearly 400 in floods in the northwest since August 15.

Buner is a three-and-a-half-hour drive from the capital Islamabad.

“Everything was finished,” sobbed Muhammad, 25, as mourners sat at his damaged house to offer condolences, saying there was nothing left when he got home except for rubble and heavy rocks, which swept down from the mountains along with mud and raging flood waters, smashing into houses, markets and buildings.

“The flood came, a huge flood came, it swept away everything, home, mother, sister, brother, my uncle, my grandfather and children.”

Muhammad works as a laborer in Malaysia. He arrived at the Islamabad airport on August 15 to drive home where his wedding preparations were in full swing for two days later.

Instead, he attended 24 funerals.

They included his mother, a brother and a sister, he said, adding that his father and another brother survived because they had gone to pick him up at the airport.

The rest of the fatalities were among his uncles’ families who shared the house built by his grandfather, and relatives who are attending his marriage.

His fiance survived. Her home was away from the worst of the damage.

Devastating flash floods

The flash floods triggered by the worst of this year’s monsoon and cloudbursts, which started in the mountainous northwest have spread to other parts of the country of 240 million, bringing death and destruction at a large scale.

Authorities have said the longer spell of heavy rain and rare cloudbursts were rooted in climate change due to global warming, fearing the intensity will increase in the coming years.

“We and our elders have never seen a storm like this in our lives,” said Muhammad Zeb, 28, a resident in Buner. It was a complete chaos, and massive disaster, he added.

“You can see for yourself, this was a beautiful place with homes. But now, as you can see, the flood and storm have swept everything away.”

An unknown number of people remain missing, with dead bodies still being recovered, officials said.

The overall death toll across the country in the monsoon rains which began in late June stood at 776, according to the National Disaster Management Authority, which said more than 25,000 people had been rescued in the northwest.

The army and air force have joined the rescue and relief efforts.

Officials have warned of more storms ahead with another two spells of monsoon rain expected until September 10.

Buner received more than 150 mm (5.91 inches) of rain within an hour triggered by a cloudburst in the single most destructive event in this monsoon season.

A cloudburst is a rare phenomenon where more than 100mm (3.9 inches) of rainfall within an hour in a small area.

Only four people of the 28 in his house survived, Muhammad said.

“What else can we say? It’s God’s will,” he said.


Palestine Action supporters in UK will refuse to cooperate with police at upcoming protests

Palestine Action supporters in UK will refuse to cooperate with police at upcoming protests
Updated 22 August 2025
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Palestine Action supporters in UK will refuse to cooperate with police at upcoming protests

Palestine Action supporters in UK will refuse to cooperate with police at upcoming protests
  • Refusal to reveal personal details part of efforts to make it ‘practically impossible’ to make mass arrests
  • Poll finds 70% of members of governing Labour Party oppose ban

LONDON: Protesters supporting the group Palestine Action, which is banned in the UK, will withhold personal details from police officers, The Guardian reported on Friday.

Defend Our Juries, the group organizing demonstrations in support of Palestine Action in the UK, on Friday said the move will be part of a broader strategy to disrupt police stations and make it “practically impossible” to arrest everyone at the protests.

Showing support for a proscribed group in the UK is a criminal offense and can carry a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

Palestine Action was banned earlier this year under terrorism laws following several incidents, including one where activists broke into a Royal Air Force base and sprayed red paint on military planes.

Earlier this month, 532 people were arrested in Parliament Square for showing support for the group, with 212 refusing to give their details to police.

Defend Our Juries said a protest in London on Sept. 6 will go ahead if it can find 1,000 people to attend. It added that 2,500 people have expressed interest.

Those who sign up will be asked to sign a pledge saying: “I am committed to attending the mass-participation sign-holding action on 6 September 2025,” and “I understand that joining this action comes with risk of arrest and other legal consequences.”

They will also be asked not to comply with the “charade” of street bail, which requires them to give their details to the police, and instead insist on being “taken to a police station, which ensures the provision of immediate legal advice,” hindering the ability of officers to arrest people quickly.

Tim Crosland, a spokesperson for Defend Our Juries, said: “The police were only able to arrest as many people as they did (in Parliament Square) because of their trick of using ‘street bail’ on a mass scale, meaning people arrested of terrorism offences were denied the free legal advice they are entitled to when taken to a police station.

“If 1,000 people sign the pledge to take part on 6 September, ensuring we have the critical mass we need for the action, and hundreds of them insist on their right to receive immediate free legal advice at a police station, the charade will be exposed.

“It will be practically impossible for the police to arrest 1,000 people taking part. Any law that is so obviously wrong that it meets mass public opposition quickly becomes unenforceable, as it was with the poll tax in 1990, and the government will have to scrap it.”

It comes after a man said he was dragged from his bed in the town of Hinckley and arrested on suspicion of supporting Palestine Action after posting about the group on social media.

Matt Cobb, 52, said he was handcuffed and taken to a police station on Wednesday despite having never attended a protest.

He was held for six hours and questioned over posts he made on Facebook, before being released under investigation.

“This is a matter of human rights — not just the right to free speech but the rights of Palestinians as they are being murdered,” Cobb told The Independent.

“For the government to respond to this protest by banning the group that’s protesting is a terrifying development.

“If they are going to proscribe non-violent people for protesting against mass murder, they are tyrants.”

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper continues to insist the ban on Palestine Action is necessary, saying she has seen evidence of “ideas for further attacks” and the group is “not a non-violent organisation.”

But the ban is unpopular with supporters of the Labour government, with a Survation poll on Monday finding 70 percent of members oppose it.

Crosland said: “The government’s monumental waste of policing resources to criminalise cardboard sign-holding against genocide has already been widely condemned by politicians and public figures across the political spectrum.

“Now the Labour Party has turned against the ban, with more than 70 percent of its members opposed to it, and MPs are claiming to have been tricked by Cooper.”