India

Analysis by BBC Cricket Correspondent Stephan Shemilt

In 2013, the Women’s World Cup was barely an afterthought. Played only in Mumbai, often on tiny grounds.

At one England game, in a group of travelling supporters, a lady explained that she was Tammy Beaumont’s mum. Beaumont, then only 21, did not play a game in a disappointing England campaign.

Her international career was at risk of tailing off.

Four years later, women’s cricket hit the big time and Beaumont was at the vanguard.

After having life breathed into her batting by the arrival of Mark Robinson as England coach, Beaumont was a star of the 2017 World Cup. What bigger honour can there be than being named player of the tournament in a home World Cup triumph?

Beaumont will go down as a great of English women’s cricket, not only for her runs, but for her longevity as the game moved into the professional era.

One of a handful of players, man or woman, to make centuries in all three formats for England, another career high would come with a double hundred in a home Ashes Test in 2023.

Perhaps the writing was on the wall when Beaumont was left out of the one-day squad earlier this summer, but she will get a fitting farewell in the first women’s Test at Lord’s. Don’t rule out one more big score.

Jos Buttler stumps India’s Tilak Varma but only just, after managing to hang onto the ball for just enough time to hit the stumps, before dropping it, much to the delight of the home crowd at Trent Bridge.

FOLLOW LIVE: Third T20 – England vs India

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At least five people were killed after a massive landslide buried a tunnel construction site in Kerala during heavy monsoon rain. CCTV footage captured the dramatic collapse as rescuers search for several people feared trapped beneath the debris.

One solo traveller who often shares tips and clips from his overseas adventures with his online followers has named the five cities he’d ‘never go back to if his life depended on it’

Many people are often looking for new places to explore if they’re planning to go travelling, whether that be alone or in a group. However, one solo traveller who says he’s been to 60 countries has advised against the places you definitely shouldn’t go – according to him.

Lucas Brancatisano, who is known as @alocalguide_ on Instagram, often shares travel tips, experiences and clips from his overseas adventures with his 6,300 followers on the site. In one of his latest reels, he named the five cities he’s visited during his travels that he’d ‘never go back to if his life depended on it’.

1. New Delhi, India

Lucas described the Indian capital as a ‘whole new level of overstimulation’, saying that there’s pollution, noise, busses, horns and cows on the road, and claims that the sky is ‘filled with smog’.

He exclaimed: “It’s not for me, I don’t think I’ll ever go back.

“The rest of India in parts is absolutely lovely, but New Delhi… not for me.”

2. León, Nicaragua

The solo traveller described León as “sweaty and dangerous at night”. Lucas said Nicaragua itself is fantastic and he had a “great time” there in 2024, but that he just didn’t enjoy going to León. “I’ll never go back,” he said.

3. Oia, Santorini

Lucas exclaimed: “This place is my definition of hell,” as he describe the holiday spot.

He added: “In summer, getting sunburnt, 1,000 selfie sticks with everyone getting the same sunset photo.

“You can just look at it online, you don’t have to go and get a photo of it.

“Don’t go there, you’ll have a really bad time.”

4. Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Lucas said he went to Phnom Penh in Cambodia “a long time ago”, but said that when he went there, all he remembers is a very built up city with lots of tyre shops and “not much going on”.

He added: “I could be wrong, and please let me know in the comment if I am wrong, because Phnom Penh maybe I would go back to.

5. Benidorm, Spain

The traveller descried Benidorm as “hell”, adding: “If you find yourself there and you’re not British, you’re in hell.

Lucas said there’s English breakfasts on every single menu there and loads of British people “rolling around”, as well as “pasty skin everywhere”, saying that it’s just “not a very nice place”.

He added: “If you’re in Spain and you’re going to Benidorm, you need tor rethink all the life choices you’ve made up to that point, because your’e in the wrong spot.”

Concluding his reel, Lucas exclaimed: “That’s my list, there’s not many I wouldn’t go back to, but they are five of them.”

Despite the post racking up more than 6,000 likes, some people had differing views.

One person wrote: “Will definitely go back to León in Nicaragua.”

While another added: “I was in Phnom Penh last year. It was very cool. Great riverside markets, river cruise, pubs and restaurants, temples. Beauty everywhere.”

A third chimed in: “I loved Oia!”

While a fourth added: “Benidorm to Brits is Cancun to Americans.”

A fifth chimed in: “Went to India, New Delhi, 10 years ago; the taxi just dropped me off in the city centre and left. I was so overwhelmed with everything going on that I sat down on the footpath and started to cry, a cow came out of nowhere and started to eat a cardboard box beside me.

“Locals stopped and started pointing at me and taking photos. Weirdest and best travel story I think I have, would I do it again? Hell ya haha.”

England have named an unchanged side for the third T20 against India at Trent Bridge on Tuesday.

England lead the five-match series 1-0 after the first T20 at Chester-le-Street was abandoned before they earned a thrilling four-wicket win at Old Trafford.

Jacob Bethell top scored in that game with an unbeaten 76 off 46 balls as the hosts chased own 191 to win with an over to spare.

Harry Brook is captaining England in the five T20 matches despite being overlooked to lead the Test side against New Zealand.

Teenage sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi opened for India in Manchester as he became the youngest man to play for his country but managed just 14 runs from 10 balls.

England XI to face India in third T20: Jos Buttler, Phil Salt, Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook (capt), Tom Banton, Sam Curran, Will Jacks, Liam Dawson, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Josh Tongue

Fixtures:

Wednesday, 1 July – Banks Homes Riverside, Chester-le-Street – Match abandoned

Saturday, 4 July – Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester – England win

Tuesday, 7 July – Trent Bridge, Nottingham

Thursday, 9 July – Seat Unique Stadium, Bristol

Saturday, 11 July – Utilita Bowl, Southampton

Jacob Bethell hits an unbeaten 76 as England recover from 1-2 to chase down 191 to beat India by four wickets in the second T20 at Old Trafford and take a 1-0 lead in the five match series.

MATCH REPORT: Sooryavanshi, 15, debuts in India loss to England

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England’s run chase gets off to a dreadful start, as they lose openers Phil Salt and Jos Buttler in the opening over from Arshdeep Singh, as England fall to 1-2, chasing 191 to win the second T20 international at Old Trafford.

LIVE NOW: England v India, Second T20 – Old Trafford

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India’s 15-year-old sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi wastes no time in his ODI debut against England as he smashes Hofra Archer and Josh Tongue for two sixes early on in India’s innings at Old Trafford.

LIVE NOW: England v India, Second T20 – Old Trafford

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England and India are both left frustrated as the first T20 in their five match series is abandoned because of rain during the innings break, after India had set England 190 to win at Chester-le-Street.

MATCH REPORT: First England-India T20 abandoned because of rain

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For years, India’s Muslim women have been subject to online abuse.
Now researchers warn that generative AI is taking that harassment to a new level, making it easier to create fake sexualised imagery and propaganda targeting Muslim women.

Heinrich Malan has stood down as head coach of Ireland’s men’s cricket team, less than 24 hours after the historic Twenty20 series win over world champions India.

The South African will leave as part of what Cricket Ireland says as a “planned transition”, and a new head coach is set to be in place for a five-game one-day international series with Afghanistan in August.

The 45-year-old has been in charge of Ireland since 2022 and his final game was a dramatic one-run victory over India to clinch the T20 series on Sunday in Belfast, which followed a first-ever victory over the world champions in any format on Friday.

More to follow.

New Delhi, India – Brajesh Kumar climbs three floors every evening to sit in solitude on the rooftop terrace of his house overlooking the Ram Temple in Ayodhya in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh.

Over decades, the 65-year-old has seen the once-sleepy town metamorphose into the biggest flashpoint of the Hindu majoritarian movement, championed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Where the temple stands used to be the site of the 16th-century Babri Mosque, but in 1992 a Hindu mob tore it down, sparking religious riots that killed nearly 2,000 people across the country, mostly Muslims.

Two and a half years ago, Modi presided over the consecration ceremony of the new temple, devoted to the Hindu god Ram. Many Hindus believe Ram, the god worshipped as an epitome of righteousness, was born there.

To Hindu devotees like Kumar, the temple – despite the controversy and deaths that defined its birth – brought a sense of serenity.

Until recently.

For the past month, the temple has been embroiled in allegations that those entrusted with its management have instead embezzled donations worth potentially millions of dollars that the site attracted from devotees.

“We have been betrayed [by the management], who have looted our faith, nothing less,” Kumar told Al Jazeera. “Left to them, they will sell us all one day in the name of religion and stuff their own pockets.”

The allegations have led to police investigations, arrests and political fallout that could shape elections in India’s most populous state that are only months away.

Ayodhya’s can of worms

Since its inauguration, the Ram Temple has been among the top religious sites in India, attracting millions of Hindu devotees.

An independent trust, the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, manages the shrine. Although it is outside the purview of the government, its executive members wield political influence, and some of them come from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological wellspring of the BJP.

The corruption allegations first surfaced this month after Mahipal Singh, a former supervisor of the trust’s accounting team, publicly called out irregularities. Al Jazeera could not reach him for comment.

After a public uproar, Akhilesh Yadav, a former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh from the opposition Samajwadi Party, picked up the issue, alleging that millions of rupees in donations had gone missing.

The mounting pressure pushed the state government, ruled by the BJP, to form a three-member investigation team, which has submitted a report on the alleged misappropriation of donations.

Although the content of the report has not been made public, the state police registered a criminal case and have arrested at least eight people, including those involved in counting cash and valuable offerings at the temple.

More devotees have come forward since, seeking the whereabouts of their valuables, including silver bricks and gold jewellery and artefacts, that they had handed over to the trust’s executives.

On Friday, the trust’s longstanding general secretary, Champat Rai, stepped down with other high-profile trustees. The allegations have been particularly damning for Rai, who has been a central figure in the movement for the Ram Temple.

But it has done little to cool down the tensions in the state, where thousands of devotees, including some BJP supporters, feel cheated.

‘Cunning thieves running Ram Temple’

Santosh Dubey was among those tried for tearing down the Babri Mosque in 1992. He has never shied away from his role and instead has flaunted it.

After the mosque’s demolition, Dubey waited for a final verdict about what was to happen to the site from the courts, where both sides fought bitterly for decades. In 2019, the Supreme Court awarded the site to Hindus – even though it deemed the destruction of the mosque illegal. The top court gave a piece of land to Muslims outside Ayodhya to build a new mosque. In 2020, Dubey and others accused of roles in demolishing the mosque were acquitted — the court cited a lack of adequate evidence.

If those verdicts felt like vindication to Dubey, the alleged embezzlement at the temple has enraged him.

“This corruption causes me deep anguish, a pain that words cannot express,” Dubey told Al Jazeera, speaking from Ayodhya. “All I can say is that nothing less than the death penalty would suffice for them.”

“Cunning, dishonest and ruthless thieves are running the Ram Temple, and they have created such an atmosphere of fear that no one is willing to speak out against them,” he said.

Dubey said the government will struggle to ignore the anger among devotees because the episode batters the BJP’s narrative that it is a saviour of the Hindu faith.

This is not the first time that the temple trust has been the subject of controversy. In 2021, the trust allegedly bought land at highly inflated prices using public donations.

BJP spokespeople refused to comment on the recent allegations when Al Jazeera reached them.

‘Impact on upcoming election’

Devotees of the temple and critics of the government are accusing authorities of attempting a cover-up.

Opposition leader Yadav described the state government’s initial handling of the case as “suspicious”. “The government is arresting the counting staff while shielding the big fish who orchestrated the structural rot,” Yadav said while demanding transparency in the investigation.

Karpatri Maharaj, a prominent Hindu seer associated with the Ram Temple movement, told Al Jazeera that the government is using junior employees as scapegoats and arresting them.

Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, is led by the firebrand Hindu monk-turned-politician Yogi Adityanath, who is often seen as a potential successor to Modi within the RSS-led Hindu majoritarian movement known as Hindutva.

Modi’s party lost a significant base in the state in the 2024 national elections when the BJP fell short of a majority, forcing it to rely on allies’ support to stay in power.

For the BJP, which has long used the campaign for the Ram Temple as a central political plank, the new controversy could prove a challenge before elections in Uttar Pradesh scheduled for early next year, political analyst Rasheed Kidwai said.

“It would have a massive negative impact on the BJP if more religious leaders came forward to speak on this,” Kidwai told Al Jazeera. “This is not something that would be forgotten because it is a matter of faith, and the state chief comes from a religious order himself.”

The episode carries broader lessons, he said: Pandering to religious emotions and fanning divisions can bite back. “What has been benefitting the BJP in these years can also cause immense damage,” Kidwai said.

Ireland won the second T20 by one run over India, who did not hand a debut to teen sensation Sooryavanshi.

Ireland have secured a landmark series win over T20 world champions India in Belfast with a tense one-run victory after India again denied teenage sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi a debut.

Harry Tector marked his 100th T20 international appearance with a fine 50, as Ireland recovered from a slow start to post 154-8 at Stormont.

India-born Jai Moondra, who struck with his first ball in international cricket on Friday, had Sanju Samson lbw off the first ball of India’s chase.

He also dismissed Abhishek Sharma in the same over, before soon removing India captain Shreyas Iyer.

India regrouped after a rain delay, with Tilak Varma making 55 and Harshit Rana 21 late on, but that was not enough, as they finished on 153-9.

India’s 15-year-old batting prodigy Sooryavanshi forced his way into the squad for the white-ball tours of Ireland and England following several stunning displays in the 20-overs-per-side Indian Premier League.

Sooryavanshi emerged as the leading run-scorer in this season’s edition after amassing 776 runs for the Rajasthan Royals, a tally that included one century and five fifties.

But as had been the case in the first of the two-match series on Friday, when Ireland won by 34 runs for their first international men’s win over India in any format, the rising star was left out.

Sooryavanshi’s next chance to make an international debut will come in Wednesday’s first T20 against England at Chester-le-Street, the headquarters of county side Durham.

T20 World Cup, Group 1, Lord’s

Bangladesh 117-5 (20 overs): Mostary 42 (48); Mlaba 2-22

South Africa 118-6 (19.2 overs): Dercksen 45 (45); Nahida 2-24

South Africa won by four wickets

Scorecard. Tables

South Africa stuttered but ultimately applied the pressure to India in the race for the T20 World Cup semi-finals by beating Bangladesh by four wickets in their final group match at Lord’s.

After coming through an edgy chase of 118, the Proteas will progress to play England, who they beat in last year’s 50-over World Cup semi-final, on Thursday unless India beat unbeaten Australia later on Sunday (14:30 BST).

South Africa still fail to convince at this tournament, however.

Having beaten India and piled up 208-1 against Netherlands in their previous two games, they put in an indifferent batting performance reminiscent of their opening two games.

Captain Laura Wolvaardt fell to the first ball of the chase, her off stump knocked back by a Marufa Aktar inswinger, and when Dane van Niekerk was trapped lbw for three the Proteas were 59-3 at the halfway stage.

Annerie Dercksen threatened to take them home but she edged behind for 45 in the 15th over after which the boundaries dried up and the tension rose.

Marizanne Kapp was run out for 16 and Nadine de Klerk was caught at deep mid-wicket with five runs still needed before Chloe Tryon edged a four and cleared the off side to secure victory with four balls to spare.

South Africa were at least better with the ball.

Kapp bowled Juairiya Ferdous with the first ball of the match and, despite some middle-order resistance through a careful 42 by Sobhana Mostary and the late flurry of captain Nigar Sultana’s 32 not out, Bangladesh still only made 117-5.

But, after an affair far more tense than it should have been, they face a nervy wait to see if Australia can beat India to send them through.

Shafali Verma’s half-century helps the 50-over world champions reach the target inside 17 overs at Old Trafford.

India beat Bangladesh by five wickets in Manchester to bolster their hopes of a semifinal place at the Women’s T20 World Cup.

Chasing a modest target of 137 at Old Trafford, opener Shafali Verma struck 53 from 34 balls as India reached their target inside 17 overs on Thursday.

South Africa, meanwhile, capitalised on a maiden T20 international century from Tazmin Brits to overwhelm the Netherlands by 88 runs.

That means India and South Africa are now effectively involved in a shootout for the second semifinal spot behind unbeaten Group A leaders Australia.

They both have six points, two behind the Australians and two ahead of Bangladesh, who still have a slim mathematical chance of qualifying for the knockout stages, with their last pool match against South Africa at Lord’s on Sunday.

India have the better run rate but face the daunting task of toppling Australia in their game on Sunday, which is also at Lord’s.

The Indians will likely need to improve their fielding against six-time champions Australia after dropping four catches on Thursday, although Bangladesh were too weak to capitalise as they slumped to 136-8.

Spin again provided the bulk of India’s wickets, with Radha Yadav taking 3-28 and Shree Charani 2-21.

South Africa were never in danger once Brits and Laura Wolvaardt put on 121 for the first wicket.

When Wolvaardt departed for 45, Brits continued to cane the Dutch bowlers with Annerie Dercksen, who made 37 not out off 16 balls.

Brits finished with 114 not out from 69 balls with 15 fours and three sixes as South Africa finished on 208-1.

The Dutch also made a good start with openers Phebe Molkenboer (41) and Sanya Khurana (36) adding 58 for the first wicket. Sterre Kalis kept the momentum going with a 28-ball 26, but once those three were gone, the innings folded.

Medium-pacer Ayabonga Khaka was the most successful of the bowlers with 3-19 while slow left-armer Chloe Tryon took 2-16 from her four overs.

ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, Group 2, Old Trafford

Bangladesh 136-8 (20 overs): Ferdous 33 (31); Yadav 3-28

India 139-5 (16.5 overs): Shafali 53 (34); Ritu 2-29

India won by five wickets

Scorecard, Table

Wins for India and South Africa at the Women’s T20 World Cup ensured the fight for semi-final qualification will go to the final day of the group stage.

India beat Bangladesh by five wickets and face Australia, who are top of Group Two, in the final fixture at Lord’s on Sunday knowing they will likely need to beat the six-time champions to qualify.

South Africa thrashed winless Netherlands by 88 runs and will need to beat Bangladesh in their final game and hope that India lose, otherwise it will go down to net run-rate. Bangladesh also retain a slim chance of progression.

In Thursday’s first game, India chased a below-par 137 at Old Trafford as opener Shafali Verma struck 53 from 34 balls, and they reached their target in 16.5 overs.

But if they are to overcome the unbeaten Australians, India’s fielding will need to improve significantly. A sloppy performance saw them drop four catches in the first five overs and the innings was littered with misfields.

Despite that, there was a glaring difference in quality between the teams as Bangladesh were unable to punish the mistakes as they scraped to 136-8.

Juairiya Ferdous top-scored with 33 while captain Nigar Sultana Joty added 32, but India’s spin-heavy approach prevailed once more as Radha Yadav took 3-28 and Sree Charani 2-21.

India lost Smriti Mandhana early before Shafali took charge and the chase slowed after her dismissal in the ninth over, but Jemimah Rodrigues’ 26 from 15 helped them over the line.

Authors: Dr Soumyodeep Deb & Aung Kyaw*

Myanmar’s president Min Aung Hlaing is currently on a 5-day state visit to India on the invitation of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. This is his first foreign visit after the recent election where he was elected as the new president of Myanmar. However, the elections that brought him to power were not democratic in nature. Therefore, “Min Aung Hlaing is not Myanmar’s legitimate president,” as noted by Mercy Chriesty Barends, a member of the Indonesian Parliament and chairperson of the ASEAN Parliamentarian on Human Rights. He oversaw a campaign of widespread crimes against his own people after masterminding a bloody coup that toppled a democratically elected government. As a result, APHR has asked India to condemn Min Aung’s government as undemocratic and illegal. Thus, the question of why India, which claims to be the largest democracy in the world, is dealing with an undemocratic administration that is accused of violating its own citizens’ human rights emerges.

The idea of democracy and human right violation had been India’s central position during the 1988 military coup in Myanmar. The Indian government had cut ties with the then military junta. India’s idealistic position had sidetracked India-Myanmar relations and led China to occupy the strategic sphere in India’s immediate neighborhood. Chinese investment and trade with Myanmar grew exponentially with the junta purchasing military hardware worth $1 billion from Beijing in 1989 one of the largest weapons deals in Myanmar’s history. This had led China to exert its influence on Myanmar. For Beijing the geo-strategic location of Myanmar having access to the Indian Ocean was of strategic interest. Enhancement of Chinese influence in Myanmar had a security implication for India as China used Myanmar to train major northeastern Indian insurgent groups like NSCN, ULFA etc. Thus, India’s rupturing of relationship with Myanmar after 1989 on idealistic grounds led China to exploit major gain at India’s immediate neighborhood.

This had led India to recalibrate its strategy towards Myanmar post the 2021 coup when India took a more pragmatic stand. The Indian ministry of external affairs had categorically pointed that any development in Myanmar has implications for India so India’s policy must serve its strategic interest. Therefore, we have seen India engaging both the military junta and the ethnic armed groups trying to balance its ties with both the parties. Since the coup India has been providing steady military assistant to the junta in form of military hardware and spares. It has also engaged the various ethnic armed groups by sending officials across the border and by inviting some of the groups to New Delhi for a conference. This makes it very evident that rather than maintaining the moral superiority of democracy, India is striving to further its strategic interests. The support to the rebel groups like the Arakan Army (AA) which controls a major part of strategic Rakhine state. After seizing control of majority of the state the Arakan Army pushed the initiative to have dialogue with the military junta. The AA had always held the ambition of having greater strategic autonomy in the Rakhine state. Thus, India’s engagement with the AA by sending government officials over to Myanmar signals that it wants to have strategic relation with the AA as that would enhance its influence and uphold India’s economic and trade ambitions. 

For India, the geographical location of Myanmar holds a great strategic significance. It shares a 1,693 kms of border and is seen as India’s gateway to the ASEAN. This had led India to invest heavily on major infrastructure projects in Myanmar. The Kaladan Multimodal Transit Corridor and Sittwe Port are two of India’s largest projects in Rakhine and Chin state of Myanmar. This project is seen to give India’s landlocked northeastern states access to Myanmar’s Sittwe port. This project is also seen as a counter to China’s Kyaukphyu Port at the Rakhine state. This has made the relation with Arakan Army of geo-strategic importance. The other major project that India is working on is to physically connect itself ASEAN via the India-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral highway. This project would give India land access to the two ASEAN states which can further be expanded to other nations like Vietnam. Although the projects are currently stalled due to the civil war, India is working with both the ethnic armed groups and the government to safeguard and fast-track the projects.

Thus, the recent visit of Min Aung Hlaing to India shows that India has chosen pragmatism over idealism. New Delhi has kept itself away from the nature of democracy in Myanmar and is trying to engage based on strategic interest. During the press briefing the Indian foreign sectary had pointed that India’s engagement with Myanmar is not based on Myanmar’s internal political arrangement. India does not want to disengage based on internal political dynamics as history has shown that other powers which has no interest in democracy would eventually take the advantage. This statement although has not mentioned China but was directed towards it. Therefore, the visit led to the signing of various agreements and MOUs between both the states. Myanmar has also reiterated that it won’t allow its territory to be used against anti-India activities. The recent advancement by the Myanmar Army is further leading it to consolidate its power and capture grounds. With the new conscript law, it can funnel additional troops to keep its advancement. Further being supported by Russia, China and India the firepower of the junta is superior to the rebel forces. This has also led India to recalibrate its Myanmar policy by engaging the current powerful junta and strategic rebel forces like the AA in Rakhine state.

Therefore, it can be argued that the growing India-China competition has made India move its Myanmar strategy towards pragmatism from idealism. Unlike in 1988 when India lost its strategic foothold to China in Myanmar due to its idealistic stand, the situation has now altered as the competition grows. But as a democracy, India must tread carefully on this fine line and bring up important issues of human rights and democracy in Myanmar.

Bio: Aung Kyaw is a recent graduate from Lingnan University majoring in Global Development and Sustainability and minor in Sociology. His research interests are politics of southeast asia, peace and conflict studies, social development, social issues in southeast asia. kyawkyawaung@ln.hk

Women’s T20 World Cup, Group 1, Manchester

India 158-7 (20 overs): Verma 31 (15); Kapp 2-27, Ismail 2-28

South Africa 161-4 (19.1 overs): Kapp 81 (45); Charani 3-24

South Africa won by six wickets

Scorecard, Table

Marizanne Kapp struck a powerful unbeaten 81 as South Africa beat India by six wickets to keep their World Cup hopes alive.

Having taken 2-27 with the ball, the all-rounder struck seven fours and four sixes in a 45-ball innings as the Proteas chased down a target of 159 with five balls to spare.

Kapp joined Tazmin Brits at the crease at 25-2 in the final over of the powerplay and the pair began slowly, only reaching 59 at the halfway mark, before steadily beginning to accumulate.

With their partnership three short of a century Brits departed for a 36-ball 40, caught in the deep off Shafali Verma, while Kapp survived a drop by Radha Yadav later in the over.

She took advantage, hammering two sixes in Deepti Sharma’s penultimate over, before Chloe Tyron edged a winning four off Nandni Sharma.

India captain Harmanpreet Kaur – playing a record 200th T20 international – had chosen to bat and Shafali Verma got her side off to a strong start, striking three fours and a six in a 15-ball 31.

Her innings helped India reach 59-2 at the end of the powerplay, but by that point both openers were back in the dugout, with Smriti Mandhana bowled having missed a scoop shot and Verma gloving a short ball behind.

India were unable to press on from their platform, with none of their subsequent batters managing to outscore Shafali.

Deepti threatened for a time, striking 29 from 21 deliveries, but both she and Richa Ghosh chipped tamely to short fine leg as India closed on 158-7.

South Africa now join their opponents on four points, behind group leaders Australia on six.

They have fixtures with Bangladesh and the Netherlands to play, while the result likely makes India’s match against Australia at Lord’s on 28 June crucial to the outcome of the group.

New Delhi, India – On a searing hot afternoon in a dense working class neighbourhood of the Indian capital, Shehnaz Bano sits on the dilapidated floor of her one-room home, deftly stitching pieces for a new leather jacket.

To make each piece – a sleeve, a front or back panel or a shoulder yoke – the 38-year-old mother of two teenage sons spends hours, but is paid a mere 100 rupees (about $1) for each piece.

“Imagine if I was a regular employee and I did the same work for the same hours, but on a factory floor. I would have been paid more, right?” Bano asked.

“Just because I work from home, I don’t get equal pay or rights.”

That is because Bano, like nearly 260 million others across the world, is a home-based worker (HBW) – people employed to produce goods or services in or near their homes. The HBWs are part of what is referred to as the global informal economy. Such a form of employment is characterised by low wages, denial of workers’ rights, lack of social security or established hours of work, or paid leave.

The HBWs are also a highly-feminised workforce, with nearly 57 percent being women, according to a 2024 estimate by Women in Informal Employment: Globalising and Organising (WIEGO), a United Kingdom-based global research organisation focused on improving conditions for the working poor, especially women, in the informal economy.

On this day 30 years ago, however, an effort was made to change the condition of the HBWs – with little success so far.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO), a United Nations’ body, during a conference at its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, adopted the landmark “Convention 177”, or the Home Work Convention on June 20, 1996, recognising HBWs at the same level as traditional wage earners.

It was the first comprehensive call to set an international standard for the HBWs. The convention called upon ILO members to adopt and implement policies that promote equality of treatment between HBWs and other wage earners.

Convention 177 officially came into force on April 22, 2000.

However, only 13 countries have ratified it so far and none from South Asia. That is despite Asia and the Asia-Pacific regions accounting for the largest concentration of HBWs, as well as being the hub of global fashion and manufacturing supply chains.

Renana Jhabvala was in the room in Geneva – along with hundreds of government and non-government delegates – when the home-based worker Convention was adopted.

As a member of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), a prominent Indian trade union of women workers, the 73-year-old activist was at the ILO’s International Labour Conference (ILC), and still remembers the exhilaration and optimism in the room.

“Discussions had gone on for nearly 21 days, but none of us knew whether the Convention would get adopted or not. We were all in a really big hall at the ILC… There was a majority in the final vote and the Convention got passed,” she told Al Jazeera.

But labour rights activists, experts and labour economists say a lack of recognition of the HBWs despite three decades of adopting the ILO convention has deepened structural inequalities among the workers, especially in a developing country like India.

According to them, the HBWs, especially women, remain largely “invisible” to the policymakers, while they are forced to work for inadequate wages under unsafe and exploitative working conditions.

“Convention 177 has been instrumental in recognising home work as ‘real work’ and home workers as workers entitled to labour rights,” Deepa Bharathi, a senior specialist of gender and non-discrimination at ILO’s Bangkok-based Decent Work Team, emailed Al Jazeera.

“In South Asia, home-based work is often embedded in complex subcontracting arrangements, making employment relationships difficult to identify and regulate. Challenges in labour inspection, gaps in data and the invisibility of home workers in policy frameworks have also slowed progress,” Bharathi said in response to a question on the low ratification of the Convention, particularly in South Asia.

With most home-based workers in the region being women, their work is often seen as an extension of household responsibility, Bharathi said. “This undervaluation, combined with broader gender inequalities, has been a significant barrier to ratification and implementation,” she added.

When asked about the ILO’s priorities for strengthening the Convention’s implementation, Bharathi said: “For women home-based workers in particular, the focus must remain on visibility, fair pay, social protection, safe working conditions, access to training and childcare and a stronger collective voice.”

‘I cannot go out and work’

Bano lives in New Delhi’s Kapashera area, a settlement of mainly migrant workers on the city’s southwestern edge whose name literally translates to a “cotton settlement” in English. The area is known for its cotton and leather garment manufacturing units.

In its congested alleys lie buildings that rent out single room units to informal worker families. In one such room lives Bano with her sons and her husband who works as a lift operator in an upscale mall in Gurugram, a business district housing several Fortune 500 companies on the outskirts of New Delhi.

Bano epitomises the arc of a typical HBW in India. She began working as a beedi (a tiny, hand-rolled cigarette) roller in her village in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh state’s Azamgarh district. After marriage, she joined her husband in New Delhi and took to stitching leather jacket pieces from home.

The move from her rural employment as a beedi roller to a piece-rate worker in the city did not change her continuing precarious situation: long hours, irregular work, low wages and work that leaves her eyes strained and fingers aching.

She is paid barely one dollar for her work on each piece of a leather jacket that is sold in a foreign market for $200 or more – more than double Bano’s average monthly income. Moreover, to cut costs and maximise profit, the contractors often split such work among several workers.

“Only those who are in distress do this kind of work. We have rent, bills, grocery and school fees to pay. How much will my husband do alone?” Bano told Al Jazeera.

The HBWs fall into two categories: own account workers with direct access to markets and piece rate workers who are usually employed through intermediaries. Bano belongs to the latter, which is considered more vulnerable due to low and arbitrary piece rate payments.

In another corner of Kapashera, Sangeeta Devi, 30, puts the final touches – buttoning, repairing, finishing – before the garments she makes return to the factories.

She is doing all this inside an 8×8 foot (2.4m) room, where her family of six, including four schoolchildren sleep, eat, work and study. She cooks, cleans and even bathes in the same room.

“I cannot go out and work because then who will take care of my children?”

“On any given day, there are 100 pieces of clothing in this tiny room. Each time, I have to keep them aside while doing household chores,” the migrant worker from Bihar, one of India’s poorest states, told Al Jazeera.

Sangeeta Devi gets a dollar for every 100 garment pieces she completes.

“I really want to do a job where I can work easily from home, take care of my children and get paid well. I don’t know if that’s even possible,” she told Al Jazeera.

Her neighbour, Putul Devi, does similar work and earns about $20 a month.

“I have been cooking on firewood because of high fuel costs. And when it rains, I don’t know what to save from spoiling – the firewood or the cloth pieces that I bring home,” she told Al Jazeera.

Shalini Sinha, home-based work sector specialist at WIEGO, said female HBWs in India face “continued invisibility” even after three decades of recognition of their work.

“Home continues to be seen as a place of habitat and not as a place of work,” Sinha told Al Jazeera.

“There is also the broader issue of women’s economic work not being adequately recognised in labour discourse when it is done from home. It is often seen as an extension of her care work,” she added.

From an Indian perspective, said Sinha, there is an “urgent need for better statistics and a dedicated policy or law for home-based workers, which still does not exist”.

Elizabeth Khumallambam, who works for Community for Social Change and Development (CSCD), an NGO that works with women HBWs in Kapashera, said a social security code introduced in India in 2020 mentions HBWs, but “no one knows” how it will be implemented on the ground.

Introduced as part of India’s labour reform laws, the code consolidated nine social security-related laws into a single framework to ensure social security protection for all workers, including those in the unorganised sector.

“Frankly, for us the challenge begins at making workers understand the value of their own work. Many don’t consider this as work and so they do not think it needs due rights and protection,” Khumallambam told Al Jazeera.

Alakh N Sharma, a labour economist and director at New Delhi-based non-profit, the Institute for Human Development, said there is a “bias in the system”, due to which women’s work is being left behind in statistics and official counting.

According to him, technology-aided counting, probing questions and sensitivity among investigators, could help in addressing the statistical blind spot.

“Safety concerns, mobility constraints and social norms – all these factors stop women from joining formal workplace-based employment. But the single biggest reason is often care work responsibility, particularly childcare,” Sharma told Al Jazeera.

In 2022, Sandosh Kumar P, a Communist Party of India (CPI) parliamentarian moved a legislation aimed at the welfare of the BHWs, but the parliament did not take it up for discussion.

In December 2024, India’s ministry of labour and employment was again asked in parliament whether it has an official assessment of the HBWs, and if it was proposing to enact a law on them. It replied that the Code on Social Security 2020 provides social security to the unorganised workers, including the HBWs. It also said the government has created a national database of such workers.

Looking back at the 30 years since the historic recognition of HBWs, Jhabvala said she did not view such Conventions or laws from the lens of success or failure.

“It is like a weapon, a tool of change. If we want to fight, this option is available,” she said.

For decades, historian’s discussion about colonialism has revolved around large armies, territorial conquests and vast empires. Yet, they often fail to focus on the fact that one of the most powerful empires did not begin with soldiers – it emerged because of corporations. The British East India Company, in 1600 started its commercial activities in the sub-continent, initially as a trading merchandise seeking profit in foreign markets. Within the period of two centuries, it acquired its own military, expanded its territorial influence, and started acting as a ruling government that ultimately blurred the difference between private capitalist enterprises and sovereign national authority. More than two hundred years later, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the latest incarnation of that colonial legacy. Unlike previous forms of colonialism of territory and resources, this control is primarily centered around data, algorithmic decision-making systems, and automated computation. Their territories are not like land, it is the dominance over data ecosystems; their currency is not raw materials, it is ‘data’, and their empires are not built on castles, but are gigantic ‘data-centers’. Instead of emancipation for the marginalized, this technology creates new forms of dependency known as ‘digital dependency’.  

The 21^st century is witnessing a growth of an imperial empire that is built on establishing control over datasets, computational power, and algorithmic sovereignty. Where a few Chinese and American tech giants such as NVIDIA, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure are controlling the digital markets through complete ownership of cloud platforms, chip production, and algorithmic intelligence. These hegemonic corporations act as imperial powers that perpetuate similar inequalities to traditional colonists, in which the global south risks becoming a resource for the tech giants. The comparison might seem like an exaggeration, but in reality AI colonialism follows similar patterns. Historically great economies were built on extraction; they extracted raw materials from peripheries, and then the industrial base at the center transformed into a worthy product, geopolitical influence, innovation, and wealth. Cotton flowed from subcontinent to Britain; rubber moved from southeast Asia to European countries, while minerals obtained from Africa were sent to imperial empires.

Today, the AI economy adopts an akin model where “data” is the vital material for digital functioning.  Millions of people from the south utilize these platforms; every search, GPS location, digital personal profile, and digital transaction becomes part of the data ecosystem that is required for its training, but their economic value is located elsewhere. It is particularly evident in African countries, where millions of people rely on these foreign platforms for information. Their data from search engines, digital databases, and social media, is then used to train the AI models, whilst the African community receives little economic benefit or no influence over how these technologies are deployed in their region. By controlling these giant data ecosystems, these tech conglomerates also gain leverage over their political, social, cultural, and economic affairs. Even though having a digital footprint is a sign of progress, when it is foreign owned or funded by external actors, it can be manipulated as imperialistic power that not only controls the data system, but also significantly affects the local traders and businesses.

Similar to east India companies, these tech corporations operate across national jurisdictions, shape economic trajectories and influence domestic governments to sustain their digital dominance. They shape information systems, and their regimes of truth. They decide which technology should be introduced in the market, at what cost, what conditions, and for whom. The east India company governed India not through military conquests but because the local leaders became dependent on the commercial and political networks controlled by the corporation. Their economic dependency paved the way for the east India company’s takeover. Today, the danger is not that the tech corporations will rule the state directly, rather it is the fear that the national governments will become so dependent that the exercises of their sovereign autonomy will be meaningless. AI colonialism is at the front, recreating the colonial dependency traps.

Another manifestation of ‘digital colonialism’ in the global south is the extraction of data through coercive bundles of consent forms. Most people from third-world countries click ‘accept all’ to install an app or to log into a website without reading its full contents. It is an illusion of ‘choice’ created by these companies, but in actuality, these people have no choice. If they ‘refuse’ to click they might lose their access to digital accounts, bank apps, or mobile services. Colonial powers used a similar tactic of ‘terra nullius’ ­to lay claim on foreign land and resources. The new digital ecosystems are now integrating modern forms of terra nullius to govern the global data and algorithmic infrastructures. In addition to controlling the databases, the new AI colonial world order exploits the cheap labor services of the global south to maximize their profits. During Venezuela’s economic crisis, the prime educated force was readily exploited as ‘cheap labor’ by the Silicon Valley. In exchange for survival income, they were exposed to precarious working conditions, pay-cuts, unstable contracts. This reflects that the AI colonialism is following the legacy of historical empires step-by-step; controlling foreign ecosystems, exploiting cheap labor, and profiting over their raw materials.

The digital hegemony in the global south extends beyond economical matrix; it is the struggle over political influence, power, and raw materials that will ultimately determine who will produce the knowledge, who controls the technology, and who profits off the wealth generated by AI ecosystems. Colonial history should not be merely viewed as the ancient past, but as a lesson to reject the ‘modern empires’. In order to do so, the global south must invest in indigenous technology companies, data systems and regulatory digital frameworks to protect the local’s data. Unless the global south acts collectively against AI colonialism, it may again serve as a colony supplying critical resources that enrich others whilst itself remains excluded from the global power centers.