Asia

Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar face double-digit declines in GDP amid the fallout from the US-Israel war on Iran.

The economy of the Middle East and Central Asia is set to shrink in 2026 amid the fallout of the US-Israel war on Iran, with countries such as Kuwait and Qatar facing double-digit contractions, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The region’s gross domestic product (GDP) is forecast to contract by 0.3 percent this year, a sharp downgrade from the 1.9 percent expansion projected in April, the IMF said in its latest economic outlook on Tuesday.

The IMF cited the prolonged disruption to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a conduit for one-fifth of global oil supplies in peacetime, for the downgraded outlook.

Kuwait, Iraq and Qatar are forecast to have the most severe economic contractions, with their GDPs expected to shrink by 16.7 percent, 16 percent and 15.6 percent, respectively.

Bahrain’s GDP is forecast to contract by 11.3 percent, while Iran’s economy is projected to shrink by 7.6 percent.

Saudi Arabia, which has partially offset the hit to its energy sector by boosting oil exports through the East-West pipeline, is projected to record negative growth of 3.3 percent.

Kyrgyzstan is expected to have the strongest growth in the region, with GDP forecast to expand 9 percent.

The Middle East and Central Asia is the only region that is expected to experience negative growth in 2026.

Emerging and developing Asia’s GDP is forecast to grow 5.1 percent, while the economies of Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean are projected to expand 4.5 percent and 2.3 percent, respectively.

The United States and China, the world’s two largest economies, are forecast to register growth of 2.3 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively, while the eurozone’s GDP is estimated to grow 1.1 percent.

The IMF said it expected global GDP to grow 3.1 percent, up from 3 percent in its previous outlook.

The Washington, DC-based institution said while economic activity had proved resilient this year, the global economy faced multiple risks.

“Further escalation in conflicts, a reassessment of expectations surrounding artificial intelligence (AI), renewed trade tensions, and fiscal vulnerabilities could weaken growth,” it said.

“On the upside, stronger momentum in AI investment and productivity gains from AI or a sustained easing of geopolitical and trade tensions could strengthen growth.”

Rescue operation underway after flash floods swept away home, bridges and parts of the Manaslu trekking trail.

More than 100 foreign trekkers have been stranded in central Nepal, according to a local official, a day after flash floods in the Gorkha district washed away bridges, hiking trails and hundreds of homes.

Bhuwan Raj Ojha, an official of the Manaslu Conservation Area Project, told the Reuters news agency on Monday that the trekkers were stranded in different areas of the popular Manaslu trekking trail because part of the route had been swept away.

“Those hikers who want to return because of the flood need to be rescued. Those who ⁠want to continue their trekking can do so from locations that are safe,” he told Reuters from Gorkha.

“There are ⁠restaurants and tea houses along the route. They are ⁠safe”.

The flash floods hit on Sunday, when a predawn landslide blocked the Budhi Gandaki River in the Gorkha district, about 100km (62 miles) west of the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu.

Authorities ⁠rescued 321 people, including 12 foreigners, on Monday, and the army said the rescue operation would continue on Tuesday, even as the water level in the river receded.

The river is a tributary of the Trishuli River, downstream from another tributary where a ‌glacier collapse caused a catastrophic flood in August that killed 1,457 people, with thousands still missing.

There were no reports of deaths in the latest flood, but five villagers were out of contact after black muddy sludge and debris washed away more than 200 homes and damaged infrastructure, including three hydroelectric plants, national disaster authorities said.

Md Shahadat Hossain, a Bangladeshi trekker stranded in Jagat village, told the Anadolu news agency that nine Bangladeshis were waiting for a possible evacuation by helicopter.

“We have been stranded in Jagat since yesterday. A flash flood came down from above the village and flowed through its lower part,” he said.

“We are safe, but there has been no electricity since yesterday, communication with the outside world has been disrupted, and food supplies are gradually running short,” he added.

Gorkha district authorities have asked villagers living along the riverbanks downstream to evacuate.

National disaster authorities had also alerted people living along the river in the Gorkha, Tanahun, Chitwan, East Nawalparasi and West Nawalparasi districts about the flood.

New Delhi, India — India’s main opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has returned to the streets of central New Delhi, leading dozens of members of parliament demanding the election chief’s resignation, as protests gather momentum.

Gandhi, heir to India’s most influential political dynasty, is seeking to turn a summer youth uprising into a broader challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decade-long dominance of Indian politics, putting the Hindu nationalist government under growing pressure.

In a press briefing on Monday, Gandhi said the Modi government had put the capital city “in jail”.

The youth-led “Cockroach” movement that forced out the education minister in July has also threatened to protest on Tuesday if it is not allowed to rally at Jantar Mantar in central Delhi, which was the focus of summer demonstrations.

Joining Gandhi’s Congress party, other opposition forces and the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) are thousands of students from left-wing organisations. As the government braces for further protests, security forces have been detaining thousands of students every day, with allegations of custodial violence casting a climate of fear over the capital.

‘No constraints on Modi’

India’s Election Commission, a supposedly autonomous body tasked with overseeing the world’s largest electorate, has been criticised after revelations that its chief, Gyanesh Kumar, frequently overruled concerns raised by the other two election commissioners about the integrity of changes to the voter database.

For months, India’s opposition parties have argued that the election commission is compromised, sabotaging elections at the behest of Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for its electoral benefit. The BJP denies the allegations.

Since June last year, the commission has been revising and updating statewide voter lists. It has since removed more than 130 million names, which critics say has disproportionately deprived minorities and other vulnerable groups in India of the right to vote.

Gandhi has called for the Chief Election Commissioner to be tried for treason. “We will not spare you,” he said, referring to Kumar, at his Monday press briefing.

Opposition politicians allege that protest rallies by leaders including Gandhi have been met with violent and brutal force, as seen in videos showing them being detained.

“[The protesters] came with love in their hearts, not hatred or anger,” Gandhi said, referring to a  protest on Saturday. “They were beaten, both by cops and BJP goons.”

“Narendra Modi … cannot silence India’s voice. These cowards cannot intimidate us. They will have to step aside,” he wrote on X, calling on people from all walks of life to join the protest on Monday.

Analysts say circumstances this time around are starkly different to the summer protests, when CJP-led demonstrators demanded the resignation of then-Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Asim Ali, a political analyst in New Delhi, told Al Jazeera that the mobilisation of the wider opposition would not stop, but the Modi government was unlikely to back down.

“The crackdown this time on students is making it apparent that it would be tougher for young protesters this time, and students can’t get beaten up and dragged violently daily,” he said. “Going forward, the opposition parties stand to be the front face of the protests, and they need to lead from the front.”

Since 1975, when then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed a state of national emergency suspending civil liberties, “India saw more civil politics grow into mainstream, where opposition parties were allowed space,” Ali said.

He added that after five decades, “those democratic gains have vanished – and there are no constraints on this government by independent institutions.”

Rasheed Kidwai, a political analyst, said he has seen New Delhi at the centre of “several big opposition political rallies, held in areas near the parliament, hosting hundreds of thousands of people,” when the police did not interfere, unlike the crackdowns this year.

Kidwai said that the violent detention of members of parliament, in particular, was worrying.

“We are seeing a big change from when politicians were more tolerant of dissent,” he added.

Cat-and-mouse chases

With an unprecedented security deployment in central New Delhi designed to prevent protest, youth leaders are turning to new tactics.

Neha Bora, the president of All India Students’ Association (AISA), a left-wing group affiliated with the Communist Party of India, has often tricked Delhi police in order to stage protests.

Bora, a post-doctoral student of theatre, came to national prominence for her fiery speeches in the July protests, becoming a leading face of the Gen Z movement challenging Modi’s Hindu nationalist politics.

Aditi Thakur, a 23-year-old student in the capital, has turned on notifications for all of Bora’s posts on social media. “A call to protest can come anytime, anywhere,” she told Al Jazeera.

Bora does not reveal when or where she is going to stage a protest until just 30 minutes before, to avoid detentions by the police. Her supporters are alerted via social media to join her at a given location in the capital.

On Sunday, she picked a congested street near central Delhi — and was able to jump several barricades to reach the heavily secured Parliament Street, before being chased down and dragged into a police van.

Even Thakur couldn’t catch her, she told Al Jazeera, laughing. “These are guerrilla times, but peacefully. If the government cracks down on us, we also need to adapt,” she said. “It is a fun cat-and-mouse chase every day. I’m hooked on it.”

The Gandhi-led Congress is also adopting similar measures, holding flash rallies at unannounced venues, then running away from police.

The mood is changing

A defining feature of the July protests – a watershed moment for wrestling concessions from the government – was Gen Z’s humour in the face of police brutality.

Now, protesters are prepared for a more serious confrontation, even if demonstrations remain peaceful, say analysts.

“We are seeing that humour changing more into anger this time,” Asim Ali said.

The biggest challenge for the government is disruption in central New Delhi, which, Ali said, the government cannot allow on a daily basis. The area is home to most federal government offices, as well as being a major business hub.

Protesters know that too, and that gives them leverage.

“We are seeing this movement grow into a bigger anti-government, anti-Modi movement,” Ali said.

Main opposition Congress party announces rally to the top court to demand removal of the chief election commissioner.

Authorities urge villagers to move to safer places after a river bursts its banks in the central part of the country.

Flash floods have hit central Nepal, sweeping away houses and leaving at least five people missing, according to officials, weeks after devastating flooding in the country that killed hundreds.

A landslide in Chumnubri village in Gorkha district, about 100km (62 miles) west of Kathmandu, blocked the Budhi Gandaki River on Saturday, leading to downstream flooding, authorities said.

Two women and three men were unaccounted for, and there are no reports of casualties, said the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA).

According to the agency, at least 82 people, including nine foreigners, have been rescued from the affected areas.

The flood swept away about a dozen houses and two suspension bridges and damaged a hydroelectric project camp, carrying some of the construction equipment away, authorities said.

A muddy torrent washed away a highway bridge connecting Gorkha with the neighbouring Dhading district, said NDRRMA Chief Executive Dharam Raj Uprety.

Evacuation order

The Budhi Gandaki is a tributary of the Trishuli River, downstream from another tributary where a glacier collapse caused a catastrophic flood in August that killed 1,457 people, with thousands still missing.

“We have asked villagers living along the riverbanks downstream to evacuate and remain safe,” said Dharmendra Kumar Mishra, Gorkha district’s most senior bureaucrat.

National disaster authorities alerted people living along the river in the Gorkha, Tanahun, Chitwan, East Nawalparasi and West Nawalparasi districts about the flood.

“Please help ensure that people in at-risk areas are moved to safe locations in time and assist search and rescue operations as needed,” the NDRRMA said in a social media post.

Officials said army and police rescue personnel had reached the area and were also monitoring the situation from a helicopter.

“The flood looked similar… It was very scary, and it still feels like a nightmare for us,” said local official Laxmi Gurung of Chumnubri rural municipality.

“Our house is gone, we have no electricity… but there have been no casualties.”

Heavy rainfall in late September also triggered floods and landslides, killing at least 21 people, according to the disaster agency.

India’s capital is bracing for a second day of protests after thousands of people, including the leaders of the “cockroach” youth movement and opposition politicians, were detained amid a major crackdown on demonstrators.

Abhijeet Dipke, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) leader, called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a “bully” shortly after he was released on Sunday. Thousands of other protesters, some of whom are members of left-wing student groups, were released on Sunday after the Supreme Court called their detention “illegal”.

“Modi, as PM, is an embarrassment to India. Never has this country seen a bigger coward and bully,” Dipke said in a post on X.

The protesters are demanding that Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar resign over a revision of voter lists that they say disproportionately benefits Prime Minister Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Millions of voters, including Muslims, have been deleted from the rolls in a process marred by technical errors and a perceived lack of transparency.

The protests erupted across several Indian cities after an investigation by the Indian Express newspaper found that two election commissioners objected to many of Kumar’s decisions. India’s Election Commission is a constitutional body with three members, and decisions are taken by majority.

What was the scale of the government crackdown?

Ahead of Saturday’s protests, the capital, New Delhi, was turned into a fortress with tens of thousands of police and paramilitary forces deployed, trains and metros suspended, and markets and major roads blocked, to prevent protesters from reaching Jantar Mantar – a designated protest site close to India’s parliament. Jantar Mantar was sealed off.

Jantar Mantar was the site of the July protest that led to the resignation of Education Minister Dharmesh Pradhan. That protest, also led by the CJP, was triggered by a string of exam paper leaks.

Security forces also set ⁠up checkpoints on major roads and entry points across the city of 20 million people, checked buses and inspected vehicles searching for protesters.

Barricades and concrete blocks disrupted traffic, while anti-riot vehicles equipped with tear-gas launchers guarded key routes.

More than 30,000 police and paramilitary personnel were deployed across the ⁠city, according to local media, and mobile internet services were suspended across several areas of the capital to stop people from online mobilisation efforts by the CJP and other youth groups.

Police detained CJP founder Dipke, as well as his associates, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, from an airplane upon arrival in New Delhi from Mumbai.

Dipke shared a video on his Instagram channel, showing a team of police officers entering the Air India plane after it landed. As they came closer, he said: “I have come to get arrested. I am not afraid of you guys.”

In another video shared by Ranka, Dipke said: “This is dictatorship”.

Delhi police also detained YouTuber Dhruv Rathee and Neha Bora, the national president of the All India Students’ Association (AISA), a leftist group affiliated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).

Some opposition politicians, as well as former chief ministers – Mamata Banerjee of West Bengal, Arvind Kejriwal of Delhi, and Pinarayi Vijayan of Kerala – were also detained, television channels showed.

Despite the unprecedented crackdown, small protests took place elsewhere in the city, including at the popular crafts market “Dilli Haat”. But police also ended up quashing these protests and detaining journalists trying to cover the demonstrations.

Besides New Delhi, some 600 people were also arrested in Mumbai, India’s financial hub, over the protests, according to the ANI news agency.

Have protesters been released?

On Sunday, police officials said all detainees had been released.

The CJP leaders were released on the condition that there would be ‘no breach of peace’ for a year.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference in New Delhi on Sunday afternoon after their release, Saurav Das, the group’s co-convenor, slammed the police for “arriving like mafia dons” and “abducting” them on their plane.

After his release, Rathee said he was “KIDNAPPED.”

Several journalists from news outlets, including Scroll.in, Newslaundry and others were detained. They have all since been released, but Newslaundry said some of their reporters’ media equipment was seized during the detention.

The Committee to Protect Journalists told Al Jazeera on Saturday that it was deeply concerned by reports of journalists being temporarily detained.

“Just as police personnel are doing their jobs, journalists are also doing theirs. A free and independent press is essential to democracy,” Kunal Majumder, the CPJ’s Asia Pacific programme coordinator, said.

How were detainees treated?

Aban Raza, a 37-year old visual artist based in New Delhi who was detained on Saturday, said the “entire experience has left her shocked and angry”.

“We are protesting for the right to vote. It affects all of us. So why is the police suspicious of us and treating us with so much aggression? This makes me angry,” she told Al Jazeera.

Together with three other protesters, including economist Jean Dreze, Raza managed to get close to Jantar Mantar on Saturday morning.

“As soon as we reached close enough to the protest site, we started unfurling our banners which called for the resignation of Election Commission chief Gyanesh Kumar and for free and fair elections. But within minutes, police officials approached us, began tearing our banners and dragging us towards a bus to detain us,” she told Al Jazeera.

“We tried to resist as the police dragged us inside the bus. Both my arms feel very sore today,” she said.

Raza says that some of those detained were not even protesters.

“They were people who had just been picked up whilst they were going about their day. One person was going to the Gurudwara, another was going to meet his wife and they got detained. Most of these people were working class people,” she said.

Raza, who was released on Saturday night, said she is going back to protest on Sunday.

Will the protests continue?

Youth leaders have struck a defiant note, pledging to keep up protests in New Delhi. Some members were detained on Sunday.

The group’s co-convenor Saurav Das, who was released from detention on Sunday, said in a post on X: “After Modi-Shah [Amit Shah, India’s home minister] turned Delhi into a fortress and unleashed what can only be described as a war against their own citizens, one thing has become abundantly clear: Gyanesh Kumar is at the very heart of this government’s survival.”

“But we the young generation will continue to demand accountability. We shall neither be intimidated nor silenced. We are not backing down. We are returning with full strength!” he added.

The CJP has also announced protests in other Indian cities including Mumbai for Sunday evening.

Meanwhile, Neha Bora, the national president of the All India Students’ Association, began a protest on Sunday afternoon in central Delhi.

“Our peaceful protest has started at RK Ashram. Join us here and stand with us!” she said on X.

But shortly afterwards, Bora and several others were detained.

Are India’s opposition parties backing the protests?

The INDIA Bloc – India’s opposition alliance led by the Indian National Congress – has participated in protests alongside the youth-led groups, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Kumar.

The Bloc is expected to hold a protest on Monday in the capital.

“Yesterday, we held a comprehensive meeting with various leaders to prepare for this march,” Congress general secretary K C Venugopal told reporters on Saturday.

“Gyanesh must go. There will be no backing down,” he added.

Congress party leader and the leader of the opposition in parliament, Rahul Gandhi, has been spearheading a campaign against the election commissioner for months. He was briefly arrested last week over the election protest in New Delhi.

“Modi government has turned the ‘Mother of Democracy’ into a ‘Muzzled Democracy’!” Congress party president Mallikarjun Kharge posted on X.

“Detentions, arrests, jails, lathis [batons] and pellets cannot deter the people of India. Since the days of our freedom struggle, the youth have been at the forefront of shaping the nation’s destiny.”

Why is India’s government refusing to talk to the protesters?

The protests intensified after the Indian Express reported last month that two election commissioners had ⁠questioned Kumar’s revisions that removed roughly 130 million names from voter lists.

The BJP says that of the 130 million names deleted from voter lists, 28 million are dead, 63 million have relocated, 10 million are duplicates and 30 million could not be traced by officials.

The ruling party has also said its electoral success reflects Modi’s popularity and India’s economic growth, and accuses opposition parties of spreading misinformation.

But these protests have become a larger question of democracy and the right to dissent under the Modi government.

While the government had briefly engaged in talks with the youth groups during the July 2026 protests, it has taken a much more hardline stance against demands targeting constitutional and electoral authorities.

The BJP’s officials have also characterised the protests and online opposition as a concerted political effort to destabilise the government rather than highlight legitimate public grievances.

On Saturday, BJP spokesman Sambit Patra dismissed the demonstrators as “anarchic elements” and said that “their flop show has been completely demolished”.

“What is happening at Jantar Mantar, what you can see on TV and a few social media handles, is not India’s story. India is calm and going ahead under good governance,” he told reporters.

Critics and analysts interviewed by Al Jazeera argue that conceding to demands for the election chief’s resignation would validate opposition accusations of vote theft and project weakness for a prime minister sensitive to his political aura.

But Sanjay Kapoor, editor of Hard News Magazine and a political analyst, told Al Jazeera on Saturday that most people coming to the protests do not want Modi’s BJP to continue to govern.

“Modi’s government has begun to lose a lot of credibility at the moment,” he said.

“BJP is afraid that the ground has shifted dramatically against them and they would find it very difficult to come back to power.”

What has been the global reactions to the protests?

On Saturday, the United Nations Human Rights Office expressed concerns over mass detentions before and during the protests.

“We call on the authorities to ensure that the right to peaceful assembly is fully respected and fulfilled,” UN Human Rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said in a statement.

He also urged authorities to engage in “meaningful dialogue” to address the “broadly ‌held” concerns expressed.

Amnesty International told Al Jazeera that the detentions signal the Indian government’s desperate attempts to “suppress critical voices”, while Human Rights Watch said that “instead of addressing legitimate citizen concerns, institutions expected to uphold rights appear to be under the stranglehold of rising authoritarianism.”

The Indian mission to the UN in Geneva, however, called the global concerns “misplaced” and said they constitute “an unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of India”.

It stressed that the right to peaceful assembly was guaranteed by India’s Constitution.

“As in every democracy, Indian citizens exercise this right subject to reasonable restrictions in the interest of public order.”

Elon Musk’s latest comments come days before Mukesh Ambani’s low-cost Reliance Jio’s parent launches India’s largest-ever initial public offering.

‌Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has said he would price his Starlink satellite internet service affordably ⁠in India to take ⁠on Mukesh Ambani’s low-cost Reliance Jio, escalating his attacks on the rival tycoon days before Jio’s parent launches the country’s largest-ever initial public offering (IPO).

Jio Platforms, ⁠which owns the telecom arm, is targeting a valuation of $106bn in the offering. Much like SpaceX-owned Starlink, Jio’s satellite venture is also awaiting final ⁠security clearance to launch.

Cheap data is the playbook that built Jio in India, and the one Musk has used in markets like Kenya to unsettle local telecom players. SpaceX now plans to enter the mobile carrier market itself, starting in ‌the United States.

Musk did not specify prices for India, where mobile data costs about rupees 7.74 ($0.08) per gigabyte, among the lowest in the world.

“Obviously, if Starlink is too expensive in India, no one will buy it, so SpaceX will need to make pricing affordable,” he said in a post on his social media platform X on Saturday.

“The reality is that ⁠competition would greatly benefit the average citizen in India by ⁠giving them more choices, as it always does. Ambani’s profits will be lower, but he is not going out of business,” Musk added.

‘Prime Minister Ambani’

Musk’s remarks were the latest in ⁠a series of X posts in which he accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and Ambani of stalling Starlink’s entry ⁠into one of the world’s biggest internet markets to ⁠favour market leader Jio.

The posts have marked a sharp turn for Musk, who has long enjoyed a warm public rapport with Modi.

India’s government has denied any bias in its approval process, ‌noting that the three satellite ventures seeking to launch, including Starlink’s and Jio’s, are all awaiting final security clearance.

Late on Friday, Musk taunted Ambani directly, addressing ‌him as “Prime ‌Minister Ambani” and asking whether he would “consider allowing Starlink to compete”.

Reliance has not responded to Musk’s remarks.

War-driven price rises

Prices for precious metals actually began rising with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine back in early 2022, but economists say prices surged significantly with the US and Israeli attacks on Iran.

In 2023, silver prices in India largely fluctuated between $725 (70,000 rupees) and $830 (80,000 rupees) per kilogramme, rising to around $985 (98,000 rupees) in 2024. But this year, amid the conflict with Iran, silver prices briefly soared as high as $4,670 (450,000 rupees) per kg before easing after the ceasefire. Even now, after some decline, prices are hovering around $2,600 (250,000 rupees) per kg, more than three times their levels just a few years ago.

Dr. Salahuddin Ayyub, an economist and international trade expert with India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry, said geopolitical conflicts have triggered unprecedented volatility in global commodity markets.

“When stock markets become volatile, investors move their money into safer assets, such as gold and silver,” Ayyub explained. “This sudden surge in demand pushes the prices of precious metals sharply upwards.”

The consequences have been particularly severe in India, he said, because gold and silver remain deeply intertwined with weddings, other cultural traditions and family savings. As prices continue to rise, many households are increasingly opting for lower-cost alternatives, such as artificial jewellery.

He warned that while consumers may find substitutes, those whose livelihoods depend on the precious metals industry, including artisans, silversmiths, jewellery shopkeepers and traditional craftsmen, have far fewer options.

“The impact extends well beyond consumers,” Ayyub said. “Entire communities whose incomes depend on these metals are now facing shrinking demand and growing economic uncertainty.”

The surge in silver prices has had another consequence that is often overlooked by the government and policymakers. According to Ayyub, when a country witnesses a sharp rise in demand for imported precious metals, governments often intervene to curb imports and protect their foreign exchange reserves.

“India depends heavily on imported silver. A sudden spike in imports puts pressure on the country’s foreign exchange reserves, so the government tries to discourage excessive imports through tariffs and other restrictions,” Ayyub said.

These import duties are eventually passed on to consumers. “As tariffs increase, the landed cost of silver rises. That is one of the reasons why silver prices in India are currently trading above global prices,” he said.

Globally, silver currently costs $2,100 (201,000 rupees) per kg, but in India, it’s more than 20 percent higher because of heavy government import taxes and strict licensing that chokes off supply. India depends on imports to meet more than 80% of its domestic silver demand and its purchases account for over 20 percent of the global trade in refined silver.

India more than doubled its effective import taxes on gold and silver in May. That saw silver imports plunge by 87 percent to just $75.6 million that month, down from $566.2 million the previous year, the country’s lowest level in over three years.

High silver prices are now forcing Lucknow’s brides to make tough, sometimes devastating, decisions.

Cockroach Janta ​Party founder Abhijeet Dipke and other leaders detained before ​protest to demand election chief’s resignation.

The Cockroach Janta Party wants Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to quit over changes to voter lists.

India has deployed thousands of police and paramilitary personnel in central Delhi and restricted transport in and around the capital ahead of a youth-led protest demanding the resignation of Gyanesh Kumar, the country’s chief election commissioner.

Saturday’s rally, called by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a youth-based political movement, is expected to be the biggest yet in a wave of near-daily protests over a revision of voter lists that critics say favours Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Organisers have billed it as a protest to “Save Democracy”.

Shutdown of central Delhi

Police have not authorised a rally at Jantar Mantar in central Delhi, which authorities usually designate for protests, because they said the request was not made on time and that the CJP had violated undertakings given during earlier protests.

Police have also warned that protesters will face a forceful law enforcement response if they violate the ban.

Roads to the site are blocked with multiple layers of metal barricades, as authorities shut 57 metro stations from Friday night, cancelled several long-distance trains and suspended mobile internet within 4km (2.5 miles) of the protest area until Saturday night, the Indian news agency ANI reported.

India’s Supreme Court said on Friday that some trains must still run and that blanket closure of metro stations is unlikely.

“The dictator would rather shut down the entire national capital and inconvenience millions of citizens than allow a peaceful protest at a designated protest site,” CJP chief Abhijeet Dipke said on X.

The CJP says at least 10,000 people, including protesters travelling to Delhi by train, have been detained across the country.

“You can detain the people, you cannot detain the movement,” said Neha Bora, national president of the All India Students’ Association, who has emerged as a leading face of the protests.

What kicked off the protests

Protesters want Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar to quit over a voter list revision that has removed more than 130 million names.

The Election Commission says the exercise removes duplicate and ineligible voters and aims to prevent “foreign illegal immigrants” from voting.

Critics say it has disproportionately affected marginalised and minority communities.

The protests escalated after the Indian Express reported that Kumar’s two deputies had formally raised concerns at least 14 times in the past 10 months over the revisions.

The Election Commission and the BJP have denied the allegations. The BJP says the opposition is misleading the country because it cannot win elections.

The CJP began online as political satire in May after Chief Justice Surya Kant called unemployed youth “cockroaches”, sparking nationwide outrage. Since then, the CJP has garnered a large following among India’s youth.

The July protests led Modi’s education minister to resign over exam paper leaks. The latest demonstrations come months before a series of state elections in early 2027, including in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, which the BJP governs.

New Delhi, India – Stand-up comic Brijesh Jha posted a parody video on Instagram last week to protest the removal of his name, along with his father’s and sister’s, from a voter list in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal.

The video, which alleged that India’s Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar had disenfranchised millions of voters at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), garnered 1.7 million views after it was posted on September 29.

Two days later, Meta, the United States-based company that owns Instagram, took the video down, citing “local laws” without giving further explanation.

“I felt very helpless that day. I have only one thing in this country – that I can vote. If you take that away from me, then I have nothing left. So I didn’t know what to do. As an artist, I can just make art, or I can protest,” the Mumbai-based artist told Al Jazeera.

Jha said his parody song was removed because the Modi government is “scared” after an investigation by the Indian Express newspaper last month revealed that two of the election commission’s three members had raised serious concerns over a controversial revision of voter rolls being conducted by the poll panel across the country.

The exercise, known as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), was launched in June last year to identify deceased, duplicate or dubious voters and remove them from the rolls. So far, the process has deleted more than 130 million voters – nearly 14 percent of India’s total voters, an overwhelming number of them Muslims who do not usually vote for Modi’s Hindu nationalist party.

The Indian Express investigation found that two of Kumar’s fellow election commissioners had formally objected at least 14 times to key decisions linked to the SIR exercise taken by their chief.

Opposition politicians and critics accused Kumar, a Modi government appointee, of acting at the behest of the BJP and demanded an independent inquiry into the decisions taken by the election commission during his tenure.

The revelations have led to street protests across India, demanding Kumar’s resignation.

On Tuesday, police in the capital New Delhi briefly detained the main opposition leader, Rahul Gandhi, and other leaders of his Congress party as they tried to march to the election commission office.

“The country has been hijacked by Narendra Modi through vote theft,” Gandhi told reporters. “What has been done to our country is called treason. Nobody is going to escape.”

In response, the BJP accused the opposition parties of “making a concerted effort to change the government”.

“They are deliberately attacking India’s democracy and constitutional institutions,” a BJP spokesman told reporters on Tuesday.

The Congress protesters and their political allies were back on the streets on Wednesday. Their demonstrations followed a series of protests by the satirical Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) and a group of left-wing students in Mumbai and New Delhi since October 2. The CJP has planned another demonstration in New Delhi on October 10 if Kumar does not resign by then.

‘Question the people in power’

What stood out in these protests was an increasingly inventive language of dissent, driven by humour, art and music, with much of it existing online alongside the demonstrations on the streets.

But a crackdown on such memes and jokes has also been simultaneous.

According to the Indian Express newspaper, the government issued nearly 195,000 content-blocking orders to Instagram, Facebook and YouTube between March and July this year – an average of one blocking order every 68 seconds.

Rejecting the newspaper report, the government said in a statement, “With 600 million users in India posting up to 78,703 items every 68 seconds, it is reasonable to expect that on average, one of these items may not be lawful.”

The crackdown came after the Modi government tightened rules governing online content in February. According to the new rules, social media platforms must remove content that a government authority or court has declared “unlawful” within three hours of receiving the order, down from 36 hours previously.

Among those whose works were taken down was political cartoonist Satish Acharya.

Several of Acharya’s cartoons, some up to three years old, were removed and his Instagram account was blocked in India from September 28 until late on October 5, he told Al Jazeera.

“At different phases of history, people used cartoons as a tool to express their protest and question the people in power. With the advanced use of social media, cartoons appear in different forms now, sometimes memes and reels,” the 55-year-old said.

“I have a lot of hope in Gen Z. They are fearless, they are creative and they care for the country. Our politicians can learn a lot from them.”

Stand-up comic Jha, who attended the CJP’s protest in Mumbai, agrees. “The more cruel the power is, the softer, more humorous and more artistic the protest becomes,” he told Al Jazeera.

But Jha has refused to apply for a reinstatement of his name in the voters’ list.

“I think they will see this interview and probably I will be in some detention centre. I just want to see what will happen. I’ll not register my name again,” he said.

However, he had a satirical message for Modi as he urged the Indian leader to stop the crackdown on online content.

“Please give back my right to vote. You are a great leader with a 56-inch chest. You shouldn’t be scared of one video,” he said, invoking a long-held right-wing boast about Modi’s famous bust.

Award-winning filmmaker, who was detained last month, released on bond with next hearing set for October 27, campaign says.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency in the United States has released Kashmiri filmmaker Arfat Sheikh from custody after he was detained on September 24.

The award-winning filmmaker was released on Thursday, two days after he was granted bond, according to a statement by a campaign of his friends and relatives to free him.

However, ICE’s deportation case against Sheikh continues with the next hearing set for October 27, the campaign said.

Sheikh, whose work has explored conflict in his native India-administered Kashmir, was detained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as he disembarked from a plane at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, DC, after arriving from California.

The 42-year-old, who lives in Alexandria, Virginia, entered the US on a student visa in 2019 to pursue graduate studies in film at Georgia State University and filed for asylum in 2020.

The campaign said he had a pending asylum application and was authorised to work and live in the US.

The DHS confirmed on Wednesday that Sheikh had been arrested on September 24 and said he “legally entered the US on a temporary basis and illegally overstayed his lawful admittance”.

A pending application does not confer legal status in the US, the DHS said, adding he ⁠will receive due process.

Sheikh’s first feature film, Saffron Kingdom, garnered multiple honours, notably best feature film at the Chicago Filmmakers Awards, Los Angeles Film and Documentary Awards, Melbourne Independent Film Festival, Wake Forest Film Festival and Anatolian International Film Awards.

In 2025, Sheikh was also recognised with the emerging filmmaker activist award at the Teaneck International Film Festival.

His detention came amid a surge in the number of ICE arrests across the US, which hit record levels over the summer. About 50,000 arrests were recorded in July and August.

President Donald Trump’s administration said in August that it was ‌working “to identify ⁠and revoke the non-immigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the US claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently”.

Afghan miners endure harsh conditions, relying on basic tools to extract precious emeralds in Panjshir’s steep valleys.

Panjshir, Afghanistan — At a packed hall in the offices of the Panjshir provincial government, an auction is under way and the bidding is brisk.

The buyers, many from Kabul and some from overseas, have already closely examined the small piles of roughly cut green stones, shining their phone flashlights through them to check their quality.

Bidding for the best stones is competitive.

“Panjshir emeralds have many buyers around the world because of their very high quality,” gem merchant Ghulam Mustafa Habibi told Al Jazeera. “This is why their price is higher compared with other emeralds around the world.”

By the end of the auction, nearly 3,000 carats of the precious stones were sold – the 23rd sale of its kind so far this year. The value of emeralds sold to date in Afghanistan is estimated to be nearly 400m Afghanis ($6.12m), a steep rise compared with last year.

For a country impoverished by years of war and burdened by international sanctions, the trade in precious minerals is a valuable resource, especially in the remote corner of northeastern Afghanistan.

“Thankfully, more than 15,000 people are currently employed in Panjshir’s mining sector,” says Muhammad Aman Rezaii, a mining official responsible for overseeing the operation of many small artisanal mining operations dotting the Panjshir valley.

On the valley’s steep hillsides, miners toil for hours underground to make a living. In the otherwise barren and rocky landscape, which yields little, the precious stones are a lifeline.

“There are hardly any companies or manufacturing factories here. The main source of employment is the mining sector,” said Rezaii, adding that they have identified more than 2,000 other mining sites which could be developed.

Since taking power in 2021, the Taliban say they have signed deals with dozens of investors, mainly Chinese, Russian and Iranian, to mine gemstones and other valuable minerals.

According to the World Bank, state revenues rose 22 percent year-on-year in April and May, boosted by the auction of mines and other resources such as oil and precious minerals.

But Afghanistan’s gemstone mining sector is still lacking in international investment and expertise.

“There have been various proposals to establish an international market for Afghanistan’s precious minerals, particularly in Kabul,” Hafiz Muhammad Agha Hakim, the Governor of Panjshir province, told Al Jazeera.

“Processing machinery could be brought in so that these minerals can be processed and standardised here before being exported to markets around the world. At the moment, there is no standardised centre or proper processing facility.”

Back in the dusty confines of his mine, working in near-total darkness, miner Mahdi wields a crowbar while his friend beside him hits the surface with a hammer. He bemoans their lack of modern equipment.

“There are many challenges because we don’t have advanced equipment,” he says, taking a break from the digging. “We work only with basic tools such as shovels, pickaxes, drills and similar equipment.”

Rezaii said the miners need proper equipment that can make their work easier and safer, while also allowing the minerals to be extracted in a more professional manner. This would benefit the people of Afghanistan and particularly the miners,” he said.

“The area is vulnerable to landslides, avalanches, flooding and falling rocks. People here are working under extremely difficult and demanding conditions.”

Ukraine says it has received proposals from India, Turkiye, Egypt and the United States to broker talks with Russia. The offers come as the two adversaries escalate attacks on each other’s energy and port infrastructure with their war now in its fifth year.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha revealed the four proposals at a briefing in Kyiv on Friday and singled out New Delhi’s. “The most comprehensive is India’s proposal,” he said, adding that India had signalled a willingness to play a role for the first time.

None of the proposals aims to end the war. Each seeks a narrower truce, covering energy facilities, ports or commercial shipping in the Black Sea.

Here’s what we know:

What is India proposing?

India has not made its plan public. Quoting unnamed sources, however, Indian media have reported it has three parts. According to the Hindustan Times, it would aim to protect infrastructure, keep grain and energy supplies moving through Black Sea ports, and ensure the safety of commercial shipping.

The first part – mutually halting strikes on energy facilities and ports – matches what Kyiv has been demanding. Sybiha said any deal must be a complete energy truce that covers port infrastructure as well.

The second part builds on the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which Turkiye and the United Nations mediated in 2022 but Russia abandoned in 2023.

The third part, protecting merchant ships and their crews, is particularly important to India because Indian sailors have been killed or harmed on Black Sea routes.

The sources were quoted as saying India’s plan goes further than the other three proposals because it covers infrastructure and shipping together. A Ukrainian official told the Kyiv Independent that it incorporates elements of the Turkish, Egyptian and US initiatives. The Kyiv Post reported that Sybiha also described the plan as addressing a possible ceasefire along the front lines, although other accounts said he gave no specifics.

The proposal likely took shape during Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s first visit to Ukraine last month and in a later meeting with Sybiha at the UN General Assembly in New York, also in September. Jaishankar said New Delhi was “trying to be helpful, starting with the Black Sea safety of shipping issue”.

What do we know about the Turkish and Egyptian proposals?

Very little. Neither Ankara nor Cairo has published details. Both reportedly focus on keeping Black Sea grain supplies moving by suspending attacks on commercial shipping. Some reports said the two countries proposed a grain truce jointly while others described two separate plans.

Turkiye has done this before. With the UN, it steered the 2022 grain deal, one of the few narrow truces of the war to hold for any length of time. Ankara and the UN are now organising new Black Sea talks with a round planned for October.

Beyond its Black Sea focus, almost nothing is known about Egypt’s proposal. Its interest, however, is clear: Egypt relies on Ukraine for nearly one-third of its grain supplies.

What is the US pitching?

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Washington has proposed three steps: a mutual halt to energy strikes, a reopening of the grain corridor and a trilateral meeting with Ukraine and Russia, possibly in Abu Dhabi.

The latest effort began in early September when US President Donald Trump’s envoys visited Kyiv and Moscow and secured an agreement in principle for a trilateral meeting. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on September 5 while Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev visited the US twice in September.

The trilateral meeting has since been pushed back. It had been expected to take place in the United Arab Emirates in early October. Washington now wants it in late October, and people close to the talks blamed the delay on Russia.

Washington has also invited Putin to the Group of 20 summit in Miami, Florida, in December. “We hope that’s an invitation he’ll accept,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said. The Kremlin said no decision has been made.

At the same time, the US is applying pressure to try to end the war. Trump recently signed a law giving him sweeping powers to sanction buyers of Russian energy.

He has also called on Ukraine to stop targeting Russian diesel facilities amid a diesel prices crisis in the US, where Trump faces tricky midterm elections next month. “Mr Zelenskyy has to do one thing,” he said on September 13. “He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia.” This drew much criticism that Trump instead should focus his comments on Russia, which began the war with its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

He is reportedly sceptical about his own government’s latest diplomatic initiative. People familiar with his thinking have told US media that he doubted Putin would agree to an energy truce before winter.

How have Russia and Ukraine responded?

Sybiha said Ukraine would agree to a truce but with conditions. It would accept an energy and Black Sea shipping ceasefire, but only as a combined package, he said.

He added that Kyiv is also open to an unconditional ceasefire along the current front lines. Zelenskyy backs the US-proposed meeting but stressed it needs “not only Ukraine but also the Russian side” to support it.

Moscow has been warm in tone but has committed to nothing. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia would welcome India’s peace efforts while Putin said Modi has “very good ideas aimed at finding mutually acceptable solutions”, but he did not elaborate.

In private, Moscow appears to have said no. A Ukrainian official told the Kyiv Independent that Russia has rejected India’s proposal although this has not been confirmed publicly. Ukraine’s agriculture minister said Russia had rejected every Black Sea ceasefire option the mediators have presented.

Why are Global South countries becoming more involved?

Food supplies, the lives of their citizens and fuel prices are all at stake.

“I think it’s clear to many countries that this war is not a localised war, but it’s a war that has these global consequences,” Fredrik Wesslau, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Al Jazeera.

Russia and Ukraine account for more than a quarter of global wheat shipments, and their attacks on each other’s ports helped push wheat futures to a three-year high in August.

Sailors from countries with no links to the war are being killed. At least five Indian seafarers have died in strikes on Black Sea shipping in recent months along with seven Azerbaijani crew members since June. On Saturday, a Russian strike on a Liberian-flagged ship in a port in the Odesa region killed a crew member. Ukraine, for its part, has targeted tankers it links to Russia’s shadow fleet since July.

The energy war is also being felt in global markets. Ukraine reported more than 194 drone attacks on Russian refineries this year, hitting all 11 of the largest. Bloomberg News estimated that Russia’s fuel output has fallen by more than 30 percent. With Middle East supply already down as a result of the US-Israel war on Iran, global diesel markets are more exposed to the loss of Russian supplies.

Maximilian Hess, a nonresident senior fellow in the Eurasia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said energy is at least as important as grain in driving the diplomatic efforts. He pointed to a “clear frustration” among many countries over high oil prices, which reflect both the Russia-Ukraine war and the crisis in the Middle East.

“Of course, Ukrainian grain is important for them, but the oil-price factor is important there as well,” he told Al Jazeera. “I think it is those commodity-shock concerns that are pushing them to re-embrace this rhetoric, rather than anything else.”

What are the challenges ahead?

Every previous attempt at diplomacy has failed to end the Russia-Ukraine war. A US-brokered, 30-day energy truce in early 2025 collapsed amid accusations of violations on both sides. At talks in Istanbul in May 2025, Zelenskyy complained that Russia had sent a junior delegation with no authority to sign a ceasefire.

In August 2025, a meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska yielded no results despite Trump claiming to be close to a deal ahead of it.

Wesslau said Washington’s efforts have faltered partly because Trump – who had boasted he would end the war within 24 hours of taking office in January 2025 – has appeared unwilling to put real pressure on Moscow. “The Russians see this, and they conclude that they can continue this war,” he said.

Deep distrust remains. Oleksandr Merezhko, head of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said: “Putin never keeps agreements.”

Moscow’s actions on the ground suggest it is in no hurry, Wesslau said  “They’re trying to strangle Ukraine, strangle the economy, and make it unliveable ahead of the winter,” he said. He added that Moscow’s occasionally softer rhetoric was aimed mainly at the Trump administration and “has always proved to be a bluff”.

Russia’s terms are another obstacle. Hess said Moscow’s demands have not softened at any point since it launched the war and at times have grown. Putin has demanded all of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, including territory Russian forces have never controlled, as well as a buffer zone in northern Ukraine. Moscow is also seeking sanctions relief and military concessions for any Black Sea deal.

“I don’t think it’s a question of who actually mediates. I think it’s really a question of the calculation in Moscow,” Wesslau said. “Fundamentally, the problem is that Putin doesn’t want a ceasefire or a peace agreement. He wants to continue the war. He believes that he can win.”

Analysts said only greater economic pressure is likely to change that calculation.

Wesslau said if Europe can close down Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers, “this would be a massive blow to Russia’s war economy.” Hess said the country best placed to shift things quickly is China, rather than the US, by cutting its purchases of Russian oil. However, he added: “I don’t think Beijing is interested in doing so.”

Hess said that unless there is an outside shock, the war “is much more likely to last another four years than another four months”.