Theme: South Asia

Bangladesh’s garment wage board, set up by the government on Sunday, agreed to raise workers’ pay, without specifying the size of the increase. Workers are demanding a minimum monthly wage of 30,000 taka (about $240), a 140 percent increase on the current 12,500 taka, citing rising food, housing, transport and healthcare costs in a country with eight percent inflation. Babul Akter, the workers’ representative on the board, said the board will conclude its work by December so that revised salaries can be paid in January, and that the factory owners’ representative agreed on this point. Protests continued on Wednesday morning in industrial hubs including Gazipur, Mirpur, Narayanganj and Savar, with reports of factories being vandalized. According to the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), the unrest has forced 529 garment factories to shut down and left 987,190 workers out of work.

Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) Director General Shatrujeet Kapur said Indian and Chinese troops confronted each other at several locations along the de facto border in Arunachal Pradesh and that the standoff continues, in remarks to reporters last month. “In the past few days, a situation arose where a face-off happened” with Chinese troops at various locations in Arunachal, he said. Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu acknowledged the transgressions but downplayed the episode, saying such incidents were not new and the situation along the border was normal. External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal attributed the incidents to Chinese actions.

Police said on Sunday that five people were killed in two separate incidents in India’s northeastern state of Manipur, as fresh ethnic violence erupted in the conflict-hit region. Officials said on Monday that the deaths occurred in the Kangpokpi and Noney districts.

Protesters in New Delhi carried a one-kilometer banner bearing the names of people removed from India’s voter rolls, in a fresh opposition rally against the deletion of nearly 130 million names, according to Al Jazeera. In Karnataka, the final list released on October 27, 2026, recorded 4.54 crore electors (about 45.4 million), against 5.54 crore before the revision (55.4 million), a reduction of nearly 99.76 lakh voters (9.98 million), according to the Times of India.

Garment factory workers in Dhaka and Gazipur protested on Sunday for better wages and blocked the Dhaka-Tangail highway to demand a monthly minimum wage of 30,000 takas, according to the Hindustan Times. In Dhaka’s Mirpur area, protesters torched a police vehicle after a clash with police, and at least 80 factories were shut in the two cities during the unrest, according to Prothom Alo, cited by the Hindustan Times. Nineteen people were detained in Dhaka in connection with the violence, according to the Daily Star, also cited by the Indian newspaper.

Five people were killed in two separate incidents in India’s northeastern state of Manipur, police said on Sunday, as fresh ethnic violence erupted in the conflict-hit region. Three men from the Kuki tribal group were killed in an exchange of gunfire between “unidentified armed miscreants” in Noney district on Saturday, according to a police statement.

Thousands of people took to the streets of New Delhi on Sunday to demand the resignation of the country’s election chief, Gyanesh Kumar, over changes to voter lists that opposition parties say favor Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party. The demonstration was led by Rahul Gandhi and is the latest in more than a month of protests against the revision of the electoral rolls. Opposition parties allege the exercise removed more than 130 million names and disproportionately affected Muslims and other minorities, according to Al Jazeera.

Pakistan warned Afghanistan that it reserves the right to take all necessary measures to eliminate cross-border terror threats and said terrorism is a “red line”. Pakistan’s information ministry accused the Afghan Taliban of a “persistent refusal to address terrorism” and warned Kabul that it reserves the right to take “all necessary measures” to eliminate threats to its security “wherever they originate”, according to The Hindu and Independent Pakistan.

Opposition parties in India led by Rahul Gandhi announced a march of nearly 1.5 km through central New Delhi to Ramlila Maidan for Sunday, a ground designated for their rally, to demand the resignation of election chief Gyanesh Kumar. Delhi police surrounded the site with officers carrying batons and shields, accompanied by riot-control vehicles, and announced traffic diversions, according to Reuters. The opposition parties have held near-daily demonstrations since last month against Kumar over the voter list revision that critics say favors the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), according to The Guardian.

Bangladesh will set up a wage board on Sunday to review garment workers’ pay after protests shut dozens of factories and triggered clashes with police, Reuters reported. Workers are demanding a minimum monthly wage of 30,000 taka ($245), more than double the current 12,500 taka.

National Citizen Party (NCP) convener Nahid Islam accused Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s government at a rally in Dhaka of seeking to facilitate an Indian transit corridor through the country and threatened fresh protests if the Ganges water-sharing agreement is not renewed on terms that protect Bangladesh’s share, according to The Hindu, citing the newspapers Prothom Alo and bdnews24. Signed on December 12, 1996, the 30-year treaty expires on December 12 and governs the sharing of the Ganges waters at the Farakka Barrage in West Bengal during the lean season, from January to May.

A special tribunal in Bangladesh sentenced Awami League Joint General Secretary Mahbubul Alam Hanif to death for the killing of six people in Kushtia during the July Uprising, according to The Hindu. Hanif is the 23rd leader of the now-disbanded Awami League to receive the death penalty since Sheikh Hasina's ouster.

A Pakistani anti-terrorism court sentenced the human rights lawyers Imaan Mazari and Hadi Ali Chattha, a married couple, to 10 years in prison on Thursday in a security breach case, her family said, according to the Hindustan Times. The couple was accused of endangering an international cricket team's security plans by staging a protest and blocking a road in a 2024 case.

Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan more than quadrupled this year compared with 2025 to an estimated 43,300 hectares, according to Reuters, based on satellite imagery analyzed by the UN, and rose to more than 43,000 hectares in 2026, with traders’ income from opium estimated at around 525 million dollars, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

The 1996 treaty governing dry-season water sharing of the Ganges at India's Farakka Barrage, 20 km upstream of Bangladesh, expires on December 12, according to AFP. Bangladesh needs a new deal based on “mutual benefit and respect”, Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir, a prime ministerial adviser who heads a technical committee on water-sharing, told AFP.

Cyclone Arnab made landfall on India's southeastern coast, forcing nearly 100,000 people to leave their homes in two states, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), hitting Andhra Pradesh as a very severe cyclonic storm, with winds of 125–135 km/h and gusts of 150 km/h, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

Thousands of people were evacuated along India’s eastern coast, with some train services cancelled, on Tuesday, one day before the expected landfall of Cyclone Arnab, which is expected to reach the coastal state of Andhra Pradesh by Wednesday morning, bringing strong winds and intense showers to parts of the state as well as Odisha, according to authorities. Two states along India’s eastern coast were preparing to evacuate thousands of people ahead of the expected Wednesday landfall.

Pakistan urged Afghanistan’s Taliban government to stop militants from carrying out cross-border attacks, according to the Associated Press (AP).

Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu called in Pakistan for an early convening of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit, according to The Times of India. The Maldives and Pakistan signed 20 memoranda in areas including health, education, defence and maritime cooperation, according to the Presidency of the Maldives.

US President Donald Trump said in Washington that the US and India are “pretty close” to making a trade deal that will be “much different” from the earlier pacts, according to The Hindu. The remarks came while Secretary of State Marco Rubio was visiting India and discussed trade, energy, technology, defence and people-to-people ties.

Pakistani security forces on Saturday (October 17, 2026) killed several Afghan Taliban personnel in retaliatory action after alleged unprovoked firing along the border in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to Pakistani security officials cited by The Hindu. The same outlet reported that in the Upper Kurram sector Pakistani forces targeted the Afghan Taliban’s Topsar post and Shipola base camp, and that the Shipola base camp was completely destroyed in the retaliatory action.

The death toll in Saturday’s stampede in Kolkata, in eastern India, rose to 19, with 25 injured people receiving treatment in different hospitals and one in critical condition, according to Xinhua. Around 10 people, including organizers and private security personnel, were detained by Kolkata Police for questioning, according to the same agency.

Pakistan’s federal government imposed temporary federal rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, after an emergency cabinet meeting, citing the “provincial government’s deliberate disengagement from the fight against terrorism”, according to the South China Morning Post. The provincial administration, led by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, had refused to support intensified military operations against Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will hold talks on Monday with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Mumbai, India’s financial hub, and will then visit an oil refinery in Jamnagar in the western state of Gujarat, according to a statement from the US Department of State. Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal appeared to confirm the agenda, saying the Mumbai talks would cover energy, trade and investment, defense, and critical and emerging technologies. Rubio is arriving from Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where he has been meeting with five Central Asian states at the C5+1 summit.

Pakistani forces and Afghan Taliban personnel exchanged fire at several locations along Pakistan’s northwestern border on Saturday, with Pakistani security officials and state-run media saying troops backed by artillery destroyed Taliban posts, according to the Associated Press (AP). TASS said Pakistan’s armed forces gave an efficient response with heavy weaponry to an unprovoked fire opened by Afghan Taliban members in the Kurram sector, and that Afghan broadcaster TOLO News had earlier reported clashes on the border with at least seven Pakistani servicemen killed and six wounded, citing a security source.

At least 17 people were killed in a crush at an event in the Indian city of Kolkata to mark the Hindu festival of Durga Puja, according to the BBC; West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendhu Adhikari said 25 people were being treated for injuries and that a seven-year-old girl was among the dead. The incident occurred during sudden rainfall, which witnesses say prompted a surge of people to try to seek shelter.

Street protests in India this year are likely to be higher than at any time in the past decade, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (ACLED), cited by the South China Morning Post (SCMP). Analysts cited by the newspaper say the youth protests and growing support for the opposition form the worst crisis for Modi since 2014, with people under 30 making up nearly one quarter of the country’s 1 billion voters.

Pakistan was named chair of the Boards of Governors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank for 2027, returning to the position for the first time since 1953, according to the country’s Ministry of Economic Affairs. Minister for Economic Affairs Ahad Khan Cheema, who is also Pakistan’s governor to the World Bank, was formally announced as the incoming chair during the plenary session of the 2026 World Bank Group (WBG)-IMF Annual Meetings in Bangkok.

Pakistan parliament on Thursday endorsed the federal government decision to impose emergency and governor rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to The Hindu. The measure had been imposed on October 11 by the Shehbaz Sharif government, which cited the provincial government alleged disengagement from counterterrorism efforts, and was promulgated by the president, on the advice of the prime minister, under Articles 232 and 234 of the Constitution, according to Radio Pakistan.

Russia is in discussions with Bangladesh to build a new phase of high-capacity units at the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, Rosatom CEO Aleksey Likhachev said, according to RT. Its first unit is on track to be connected to the national power grid by the end of November. The plant comprises two Russian-designed reactors with a combined capacity of 2,400 megawatts, and Moscow is financing $11.9 billion in state loans for the project.

The roof of a school in Peshawar collapsed on Thursday, killing 27 pupils and a teacher and leaving more than 30 injured, six in critical condition, according to Lady Reading Hospital, cited by France 24. The Jerusalem Post reported at least 17 students and a teacher killed, citing a local hospital spokesperson.

The Taliban suspended the BBC’s FM radio services in Afghanistan, alleging “repeated violations” by the broadcaster, without detailing them, according to Khubib Ghufran, spokesperson for the Taliban government’s information and culture ministry, who spoke to Reuters. The BBC confirmed the suspension and said it is working with the Afghan authorities to address the situation, noting that millions of people across the country rely on it for accurate news and information.

Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, announced on Sunday emergency rule in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, on a proposal by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, effectively removing Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party from regional power, as thousands of Khan supporters continue anti-government protests and demand the former leader be released from jail. The province was run by the PTI, whose provincial government was suspended after the state of emergency was declared.

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari declared an emergency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on October 11, 2026, bringing the provincial government led by jailed former prime minister Imran Khan’s party to an end, according to The Hindu.

A New Delhi court ordered on Sunday the release of three leaders of the “cockroach” movement, including its founder, Abhijeet Dipke, their lawyer said, a day after they were detained. The trio had been detained on Saturday, ahead of a major protest against the country’s election commissioner, according to AFP, in a text republished by France 24.

Mail/Express trains due to reach New Delhi and Hazrat Nizamuddin between 4:00 and 14:00 on October 10 were cancelled at source, and Delhi police asked the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to shut 57 metro stations to scupper the movement of youths to the protest, according to PTI, in a text republished by Rediff. The Cockroach Janata Party called the protest at Jantar Mantar for Saturday, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the revision of the electoral rolls.

Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi was detained for the third time in two days during a protest demanding the resignation of the election chief over a controversial revision of voter lists, according to Al Jazeera, in a report citing AP and Reuters. India’s Election Commission has removed more than 130 million names from voter lists, with millions appealing the removals.

Former First Lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa was arrested over suspected misuse of donations to the Siriliya Saviya foundation meant for a children’s hospital, according to the Agence France-Presse (AFP), in a text republished by The Hindu. Investigators told a court that the scanner had already been donated by the Chinese government, but that the charity kept soliciting donations and misused the funds.

Delhi police detained opposition leaders, including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, on Tuesday, October 6, after blocking their protest march, according to RT India. The protest demanded the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, according to The Quint. Gandhi and other lawmakers were released shortly after, according to AFP, in a text republished by Geo TV.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif invited the PTI, Imran Khan's party, for talks on Tuesday and urged it to call off its long march to Islamabad. The PTI launched the march two days earlier from Lakki Marwat in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to demand Khan's release; he has been in jail since August 2023. A second round of talks had collapsed on October 4 over the impasse on access to Khan.

India’s voter-roll revision cut 130 million voters from the rolls, fueling protests against Modi, and the country’s 200 million Muslims appear to have been disproportionately targeted, according to The New York Times.

Nepal suspended all non-essential search and rescue operations 40 days after the August 26 Bhotekoshi-Trishuli floods, according to the Times of India, and is shifting to reconstruction. The official toll is 1,455 dead and 5,285 missing, including 189 Indians. The council recommended that the finance ministry approve 559 billion Nepalese rupees for 504 reconstruction and rehabilitation programmes.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) unsealed warrants against four Taliban leaders for gender persecution, issued in July and September last year, according to The Hindu. Among the targets are the Taliban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, and the head of Afghanistan’s Supreme Court, Abdul Hakim Haqqani. The court sees reasonable grounds to hold them criminally responsible for persecution, a crime against humanity under article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid rejected the decision.

Participants in the Moscow Format called on Kabul and Islamabad to refrain from military action, according to TASS, and said they were ready to help find political and diplomatic solutions. The October 5 meeting is expected to bring together Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and Pakistan's special representative for Afghanistan, with Russia ready to mediate, according to Ariana News.

More than 5,000 people began the march of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party on Sunday. The march was originally scheduled for September 27 but was postponed until October 4 to allow talks between the government and the PTI leadership to take place, according to Al Jazeera.

The government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) failed to reach an agreement in the talks, according to the Hindustan Times. PTI decided to keep the march to Islamabad on Sunday, according to The Hindu. The government insisted that PTI first announce the cancellation of the protest, and the meeting with the jailed leader would be decided later, according to India Today.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of Imran Khan begins on Sunday a multi-day march from Lakki Marwat to Islamabad against the federal government and the military establishment, according to the Hindustan Times, in a text by ANI. The march is led by the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sohail Afridi, and demands the release of Imran Khan and other jailed PTI leaders.

India summoned Pakistan’s chargé d’affaires to protest the “continued facilitation of illegal cross-border infiltration” and rejected as unfounded Pakistan’s accusations over the October 2 incident in the Ferozepur sector, according to NDTV, citing a statement from India’s Ministry of External Affairs. Pakistan summoned India’s chargé d’affaires to protest the killing of two Pakistani civilians by Indian Border Security Force (BSF) personnel in the Bedian sector along the international border, according to Dawn. The two countries summoned each other’s diplomats over Friday’s incident, in which New Delhi rejects Islamabad’s account of the killing of two unarmed Pakistani civilians, according to Al Jazeera.

Pakistan’s security forces killed five Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants in an intelligence-based operation on Saturday, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to an official cited by the Times of India. The operation took place in South Waziristan district, based on intelligence about hideouts, with weapons and ammunition seized. On Friday, seven militants from the same group were killed in North Waziristan district.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry summoned India’s chargé d’affaires to protest the killing of two Pakistani civilians by Indian border troops, according to Al Jazeera. Islamabad urged India to conduct an “immediate, transparent and credible” investigation, with disciplinary and legal action against those responsible. The Indian side says the Border Security Force (BSF) shot dead two suspected Pakistani infiltrators in Tarn Taran, in Punjab, on Friday, according to officials cited by ETV Bharat.

Pakistan’s federal government and leaders of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan held talks on October 2, 2026 to defuse tensions ahead of the march to Islamabad, according to The Hindu. The PTI march to Islamabad is set to start on October 4, after being postponed by a week. The negotiations are taking place in the chamber of National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, who is facilitating the dialogue between the two sides.

British Sikh activist Jagtar Singh Johal has been released from a Delhi prison after nine years in detention, after the Indian high court warned the government it would be found in contempt of court if it continued to attempt to keep him in jail despite a September 18 order releasing him on bail, according to The Guardian. The nine-year detention on alleged terrorist offences has been a cause of diplomatic tension between the United Kingdom and India, and campaigners say the British government has not been active enough to secure his release or a full trial.

Pakistan said it had killed an estimated 22 fighters in airstrikes on camps in Kunar and Helmand; Kabul says the strikes killed at least nine people and destroyed three houses, according to Al Jazeera.

The Pakistani military struck the Kunar and Helmand provinces in Afghanistan, killing civilians and destroying three buildings, according to TASS. At least nine people died and 11 others were injured in the strikes, according to Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.

Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said in New York that cross-border terrorism from the neighboring country is one of Indiaʼs primary concerns and that partnersʼ failure to appreciate this affects bilateral ties, according to The Hindu. He spoke at an Asia Society conversation at the end of the high-level week of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly on September 28, and said there is a broad understanding on a trade agreement with the US, but changes in American tariff policy complicate when to conclude it.

At least 21 people have died, five are missing and five others have been injured in Nepal after four days of torrential rain triggered floods and landslides, according to authorities. The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) attributed 14 of the deaths to landslides, four to floods and three to continuous heavy rainfall. Around 3,000 people were moved from high-risk areas, 260 homes were completely destroyed and another 80 partially damaged.

The Afghan Defense Ministry said its forces had killed 28 fighters and wounded 32 in the eastern province of Nuristan, after a group it said included Islamic State militants crossed from Pakistan. Kabul alleges that Pakistani intelligence trained and sent former Afghan security personnel across the border, an allegation Islamabad has not responded to. Reuters said it could not independently verify the ministry’s account or its casualty figures, in text published by The Hindu.

On September 27, 2026, a vehicle laden with explosives rammed into a roadside checkpoint in Dera Ismail Khan, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing at least 12 people and wounding 30, according to Al Jazeera. Most of the victims are security personnel, Al Jazeera reported.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) postponed to October 4 the march that would set out from Peshawar toward Islamabad, previously scheduled for September 27. The announcement was made by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, who said the party’s political committee “unanimously agreed” to the new date. The march presses for the release of Imran Khan, jailed since 2023, according to Reuters.

On the night of Friday, September 25, 2026, India exercised its Right of Reply at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), after Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif addressed the podium. Indian diplomat Petal Gahlot accused Islamabad of pursuing a policy of cross-border terrorism and warned that such acts will have consequences. According to India Today, Gahlot called Pakistan a “puppet” regime and accused it of spreading “falsehoods” and “deceit”.

Pakistan’s security forces foiled an attempt by Afghan Taliban fighters to carry out an attack in the Gulistan sector, on the border between the two countries, and killed several of them in a retaliatory operation, according to The News, which cited security sources. An attempted Afghan incursion was repelled and several Afghan Taliban members were killed, Pakistani security sources told Reuters, which reported intermittent exchanges of fire and border forces on alert. Hours earlier, Pakistan had carried out precision air and drone strikes on 10 targets in Afghanistan in response to attempted drone attacks it attributed to the Taliban government, and shot down 8 drones entering from Afghan airspace, according to Information Minister Attaullah Tarar, as quoted by The News.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was confronted at United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York with questions about Hafiz Saeed and the alleged harbouring of terrorists and gave no answer; on his way in, a reporter asked when he would stop harbouring terrorists and, on his way out, when he would prosecute Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) chief Hafiz Saeed, receiving no reply.

Sri Lanka’s High Court convicted 14 of the 24 defendants tried for direct involvement in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, and found a 15th guilty on some of the charges while acquitting nine others, according to Al Jazeera and The Hindu. The convictions include murder, conspiracy to commit terrorism, and the possession of firearms and explosives under the Prevention of Terrorism Act; the three-judge bench said sentencing would be delivered later on Tuesday. Six near-simultaneous bombings struck three churches and three luxury hotels on April 21, 2019, killing 279 people, 45 of them foreign nationals — the deadliest attack in the country since the end of its civil war in 2009. The verdict runs alongside the investigation into Suresh Sallay, the former head of the State Intelligence Service (SIS), arrested in February 2026 on accusations of orchestrating the attacks, which he denies.

Ratings agency Fitch upgraded Sri Lanka’s long-term sovereign credit rating from ‘CCC+’ to ‘B-’ on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, with a stable outlook, citing macro-stabilization policies and structural reforms that eased external financing risks, according to Reuters and the Xinhua news agency. Fitch cautions that the country’s credit profile remains constrained by high government debt-to-GDP and modest foreign exchange reserves. Sri Lanka defaulted on its external debt in 2022.

Sri Lanka’s High Court on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, convicted 15 of the 24 defendants in the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings and ordered the acquittal and release of the other nine, according to the BBC and the Xinhua news agency. Among those convicted is Naufer Moulavi, whom prosecutors named as the organiser of the attacks that killed 270 people and injured more than 500 on April 21, 2019, at three churches and three luxury hotels. The trial ran on 23,270 charges and lasted nearly five years. The convicted men have yet to be sentenced.

Sri Lanka is expected to learn on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, the verdict in the trial of 24 defendants over the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, the deadliest attack on civilians in the country’s history. The hearing at the Colombo High Court was due to open at 9:30 am local time (0400 GMT), with heavy security around the court complex, according to Agence France-Presse. Prosecutors filed 23,270 charges against the 24 defendants, the highest number ever brought in a single case in Sri Lanka, including murder, conspiracy to commit terrorism and possession of firearms and explosives under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Each defendant faces hundreds of counts because the indictment lists a separate charge for every person killed or wounded. All have denied involvement, and some could face the death penalty, which Sri Lanka has not carried out since 1976 and which is usually commuted to life imprisonment. Prosecutors identify Mohamed Naufar (Naufer Moulavi) as the ringleader who provided support to the eight-member suicide squad that struck three churches and three luxury hotels on April 21, 2019, killing 279 people including 45 foreigners, according to AFP; BBC News puts the toll at 270. The trial runs alongside a separate investigation into former intelligence chief Suresh Sallay, in custody and accused of orchestrating the attacks, which he denies; in July 2026, two former security officials were sentenced to death for failing to prevent the bombings despite intelligence warnings.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi met in Tehran on Monday, September 21, 2026, with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and with his Iranian counterpart, Eskandar Momeni, in a visit during which Tehran thanked Pakistan for its regional mediation efforts. According to Pakistan’s interior ministry, the two discussed “Pakistan-Iran bilateral relations and the latest situation in the region,” and Momeni thanked Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the chief of army staff, Field Marshal Asim Munir, for their efforts toward regional peace. Iranian state television Press TV reported that Pezeshkian said the two countries can meet much of their needs by tapping “domestic and regional capacities” and that US pressure has produced greater convergence among Muslim countries; in the account published by The Express Tribune and UrduPoint, Naqvi said bilateral relations “will become even stronger.” It is the minister’s sixth trip to Tehran since the United States and Israel went to war with Iran in February 2026, and it comes as Islamabad tries to keep alive the memorandum of understanding signed in July between the United States and Iran to end the conflict. Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said on September 19, 2026, that the visit would focus on bilateral relations and that there was no plan to exchange messages on mediation, according to Pakistan’s Dawn. Al Jazeera reported that the meeting takes place amid escalating tensions between Tehran and Washington, and Pakistani government sources told Anadolu that the agenda included Houthi attacks on Saudi oil facilities.

Nearly four weeks after Nepal’s August 26, 2026 floods, more than 1,000 children remained in temporary shelters, according to an assessment by Nepal’s National Child Rights Council and the nonprofit Save the Children, with data from September 4: 102 children were unaccompanied by any relative and 439 were separated from their parents and in the care of relatives. More than 500 are living in those shelters with their parents dead or missing, and Nepali law requires a person to be missing for 12 years before they can be declared dead, with an exemption during disasters when relatives must seek a judicial declaration. A Nepal Police bulletin released on September 16 put the death toll at 1,404 with about 6,150 people still missing from the disaster, triggered by a glacier and rock collapse near the border with Tibet. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates 32,000 children were displaced and said 18 schools were destroyed and 20 others damaged, leaving about 10,000 school-age children without classes.

Abu Dhabi developer Eagle Hills signed a commercial terms agreement with the Maldives government in Dubai on Monday for the Maldives Waterfront and Marina project in Ras Malé, with an investment envisioned at about $20 billion across phases, according to the Maldives’ SunOnline and Plus and the newspaper The National. The figure is the project’s total estimate; the company has not disclosed how much it will invest or on what timetable. The Maldives government estimates more than 54,000 jobs, and the project follows the $8.8 billion financial centre agreed with Dubai’s MBS Global Investments in May 2025.

Pakistani jet fighters struck what security officials described as suspected militant hideouts in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, and two Pakistani security officials said 28 suspected militants were killed, according to the Associated Press (AP). Afghanistan’s government said the strikes killed three civilians and wounded four. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said it had confirmed that “at least three civilians, including a man, a woman and a girl, were killed and four injured in apparent airstrikes” in Kunar province, and that it had documented more than 1,100 civilian deaths and injuries in Afghanistan from cross-border violence so far this year. The strikes came after Pakistan warned it could target militants inside Afghanistan following two deadly attacks on its security forces near the border, including Friday’s bombing at a mosque in Kohat that killed at least 21 people, most of them police officers.

Police in Lahore arrested all three sisters of former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan on Monday — Aleema Khan, Uzma Khan and Noreen Niazi — for 30 days under the Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) law, according to The Hindu, citing AFP, and ETV Bharat, citing the Indian news agency Press Trust of India (PTI). Lahore’s deputy commissioner issued two separate detention orders on Sunday, and the three were taken to Kot Lakhpat jail. The arrests come ahead of a nationwide march by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party on September 27 demanding his release. Khan’s party called the detentions a “blatant abuse of authority”.

Pakistani police arrested two sisters of former prime minister Imran Khan, according to France24, and his son said relatives and children were “abducted” ahead of the PTI protest march, the Hindustan Times reports.

Pakistan struck what it calls militant hideouts in Afghanistan and says it killed 28 people; Kabul says the strikes killed three, according to AP, Hindustan Times and Mehr News. There has been no independent confirmation of the death toll.