Indian

Indian police have used batons, tear gas and water cannons against protesters in Jharkhand. They were marching to the state assembly to demand an overhaul of ‌the state’s examination system after alleged irregularities in government recruitment tests.

Aug. 5 (UPI) — An Indian cargo ship has sunk after being struck by a projectile off Yemen, officials said, raising concerns that the Middle East war’s maritime front is expanding.

It was unclear who launched the projectile, but the vessel, identified as the MSV Faize Noore Oliya, was hit in the Red Sea off Hodeidah, a port controlled by the Iran-backed Houthis.

The attack occurred amid a Houthi-declared maritime blockade targeting Saudi Arabia and Saudi-linked shipping in the Red Sea.

All 14 sailors on the ship were safely rescued by the Yemeni Coast Guard and transported to the Port of Mokha, India’s minister of ports, shipping and waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal, said in a statement Tuesday.

Of the 14 sailors rescued, 13 were Indian. Their condition was not known.

“India strongly condemns this unprovoked attack on the defenseless mechanized sailing vessel,” he said, adding that he instructed the director general of the Maritime Administration to coordinate with all relevant agencies to ensure the “absolute security of Indian seafarers in the region and provide all necessary assistance to the rescued crew.”

India’s Ministry of External Affairs said in a separate statement that its embassy in Riyadh was closely monitoring the situation and coordinating with the Yemeni authorities concerning the safety and security of the crew.

While no group has yet claimed responsibility, the Yemen government-aligned National Resistance Forces has blamed the Houthis.

“The Houthis targeting today of the Indian ship is an extension of their terrorist behavior directed against the Yemeni people,” Maj. Gen. Sadiq Dwaid, spokesperson for the National Resistance Forces, said in an online statement.

“They have previously targeted oil export ports — the main source of salaries for state employees — and Yemeni ports in general, as well as commercial ships, and their support and management of piracy operations in collaboration with the pirates of the African Horn.”

The Houthis, who are locked in a civil war against the internationally recognized Yemeni government, imposed their blockade on July 20, specifically preventing Saudi Arabian ships from transiting the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

The Iran-backed militia accuses Saudi Arabia of laying an “unjust and oppressive siege” against it by supporting the Yemeni government in the civil war.

The Houthis have struck at least two Saudi tankers since. If the Houthis are confirmed to have carried out the attack, it would be the first known strike on a non-Saudi vessel since they declared their maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia on July 20.

It also comes as Iran has been enforcing a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which is on the northeastern side of Saudi Arabia.

An Indian student from Bihar says he has been charged over ‘Cockroach’ protests despite being in Russia for the last four months. Hundreds of students across India have faced arrest for participating in the youth-led demonstrations.

July 24 (UPI) — SpaceX on Friday had a successful 13th flight test of Starship, the space vessel and rocket duo that is expected to help NASA return humans to the moon.

Starship lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase in Texas around 6:45 p.m. on a suborbital trajectory — just barely getting to space while performing a number of key maneuvers — before a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

Both SpaceX and its owner, Elon Musk, said in posts on X that the test was a success, most notably because of the significant improvement in performance for the ship’s heat shield during reentry.

They also said it was notable that after mimicking the way Starship will eventually land upright, the vessel did not explode upon landing in the Indian Ocean and was still transmitting telemetry data and video.

The test of Starship’s third iteration had been pushed back several times because of weather concerns, which would have interfered in parts of the SpaceX team’s test goals.

The flight was the second for the third version of Starship and its Super Heavy V3 booster, and accomplished — with updated systems — a similar set of test objectives as the 12th flight, SpaceX said.

“A key objective for the flight test is to get clear imagery from the ground of Starship’s heatshield as it flies at a higher dynamic pressure during ascent, which won’t be possible with today’s weather conditions,” SpaceX said in an update on X after scrubbing Thursday’s launch attempt.

“Visibility is forecast to be ideal for a Friday attempt,” the company said.

SpaceX said that upgrades to Starship for the 13th flight test have included changes to the vessel’s startup sequence and adjustments to Raptor engines on both its booster section and the ship itself.

The upgrades were meant to address issues with a small number of engines during boost back and relighting in space during the 12th flight test.

Starship also will be carrying 20 Starlink V3 satellites into space during the test flight, which SpaceX said “aim to greatly expand the network’s capacity and user speeds.”

Indian activist Sonam Wangchuk says he will end his hunger strike if the government guarantees that police will not use force against student protesters or take punitive action against them. Demonstrators are calling for the education minister to resign over a medical exam scandal.

Anonymous donors are using food delivery apps to send food to student protesters in New Delhi, where demonstrations over alleged medical exam paper leaks continue. The youth-led movement has expanded into wider calls for educational reform and accountability.

Chaibasa, India – As the world celebrates Spain winning its second FIFA World Cup and the “GOATS” of football who headlined the month-long tournament, a remote Indian village has also joined in – albeit with an indigenous touch.

To coincide with the FIFA event, residents of Tirilbasa village in Chaibasa, a tribal-dominated district in eastern India’s Jharkhand state, organised a football tournament from July 14 to July 17, featuring teams from 64 nearby villages.

But the star attraction at the Rangila Star Tirilbasa tournament (“rangila” means “colourful” in Hindi), besides relatively handsome prize money, was a herd of goats to be handed as trophies to the best-performing teams.

The finals were played on Friday, with NCS Maudi beating Kumbaram 1-0, a dramatic prediction of what happened between Spain and Argentina two days later in New York.

NCS Maudi carried home prize money of 15,000 rupees ($156) and three male goats (locally known as “khassi” for their castration at a young age). Runners-up Kumbaram won 12,000 rupees ($125) and two khassis, while Kobra FC Nimdhi and Galubasa FC, the third and fourth rankers, won 9,000 rupees ($93) and one khassi each. There are also cash prizes for the man of the match, man of the series and the best goalkeeper, but they don’t get any khassi.

NCS Maudi’s captain Sachin Devam, whose team arrived on two-wheelers to play the game, told Al Jazeera he would have to arrange for an autorickshaw to carry the goats home, 10km (6 miles) away.

“It’s the first win for our team, and we are going to celebrate it with everyone in the village,” he said with a beaming smile. “It’s going to be a khassi picnic.”

‘Khassi important part of our culture’

This year was the fifth edition of the Rangila Star Tirilbasa tournament.

The organisers say they follow the FIFA rulebook and invite popular commentators and referees certified by the state football association to ensure compliance with the guidelines and “avoid fights as players can get aggressive on the field”.

But the rest of the setup is markedly different from the conventional game. Rather, it is adapted to the ancient tribal traditions of the Ho community, which is native to the Chaibasa region.

The Ho people, numbering a little more than a million across India, genetically belong to the Austroasiatic group and identify themselves as tribal (“aadivasi” in Hindi) people inhabiting the forests. The word “ho” in their language means “human” or “people” of the Kolhan region in Jharkhand, one of India’s poorest states despite being home to some of India’s biggest coal and mineral mines.

The Austroasiatic tribes such as Santhals, Ho and Munda organise their traditional, religious and sporting activities like a close-knit community. Football events are an opportunity to invite fellow tribal kin to celebrate their bond.

For the Ho people, no celebration is complete without the khassi. The animals are used for ceremonial sacrifices during religious events and rituals, and their meat is shared among the community members.

“Khassis are part of the prize as they are an important part of our culture. Their meat is tasty, and everyone loves good mutton. Most teams slaughter the goats, but some also keep them as livestock and trophy prize,” Manish Kudada, an 18-year-old player and one of the organisers of the tournament from Tirilbasa, told Al Jazeera.

Kudada has preserved the black khassi he won in another football tournament in February, but his friends joke that the goat is being fattened up for a feast. The khassi goats are prized for their meat quality. In Chaibasa, the goats can be spotted everywhere, especially during the weekly Tuesday markets, where a baby goat costs up to 8,000 rupees ($83).

“Without khassi, our celebrations are half-hearted. At weddings, even if the hosts serve double the amount of chicken and no khassi meat, it will upset the villagers,” Raj Keshri, goalkeeper for the Tirilbasa team and one of the organisers of the tournament, told Al Jazeera.

“We therefore decided to offer cash and goats as the prize. Players get to keep their money, but with the khassis, they also get to celebrate the victory with the entire village.”

The Ho practice what they call the Munda-Manki governance system, under which the hereditary head of a village upholds all social, legal and customary rights of the people. Their tribal codes and customs take precedence over the Indian government’s panchayat (village administration) and police systems.

The Rangila Star Tirilbasa tournament is conducted at the “ek munda” (“ek” means “one” in Hindi) level, which means that a team’s members must belong to the same village. Instead of 11 players, each team has nine, of which at least six must belong to the same village to qualify for the tournament. Organisers say the rule is strictly followed to reinforce a sense of unity among the players.

The rules of the game have also been modified. There is no offside, and players are free to score from anywhere on the field.

“This kind of match setup provides an opportunity for players like us from small villages who never get a chance to qualify in open tournaments which are dominated by seasoned players,” Sudarshan Tiu, who plays for Galubasa FC, told Al Jazeera.

Suvir Kumar Tanti, the commentator for the tournament, travels widely across the Kolhan region during the monsoon football season, when most male members return home for cultivation and agricultural festivals.

At the finals at Tirilbasa on Friday, his high-pitched, lyrical play-by-play commentary boomed through the loudspeaker, helping the spectators keep track of the fast-paced action on the football field.

“The Rangila Star tournament reflects the culture of the Ho community. And khassi goats as prizes make it even more unique. Very few tournaments in the region follow this and prefer to conduct events in a professional manner, with trophies and medals as rewards,” he told Al Jazeera.

The tournament offers entertainment for the villagers, who pour in and out of the grounds through the day, squatting by the sides of the field or finding a place on the trees.

Nearby, food stalls sell fried dough balls, potato chops, yellow peas, and hooch. Men sit in circles, taking a break in between the matches to drink “madia”, a fermented rice beer that locals say helps them stay cool in the hot and humid weather.

In the evenings after the matches, men also play a rooster-catching game, which spectators can bet their money on.

Keshri, goalkeeper for the Tirilbasa team, explains the spirit behind the tournament’s eccentric name: Rangila Star Tirilbasa.

“The name was chosen because it embodies the identity of our village. ‘Rangila’ [colourful] signifies our enthusiasm to do something unique while ‘Star’ represents talent. Through our football tournament, we hope Tirilbasa will become the ground for local talent.”

The tribal-dominated state of Jharkhand has been a sports powerhouse for decades. It has produced globally-awarded field hockey players and athletes, the most famous being India’s former cricket captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

The state government helps local football and hockey clubs like Rangila Star with financial grants, resulting in the rise of some of football’s next generation of players. Many such clubs, including Rangila, also hold tournaments for female teams.

But until over a decade ago, Chaibasa was not on the sporting map.

Located among remote forests and hills, the district was cut off from mainland India due to the Maoist insurgency – a tribal-led armed revolt against the Indian state over large-scale felling of forests and selling of lands to private corporates for mining and related activities.

The government regained control of Chaibasa from Maoists only in 2011. Still, until last year, private vehicles avoided taking roads crossing the district at night. Commercial buses operated from 4am to 4pm, and the region remained on the government’s list of “sensitive areas”.

In March this year, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah declared the end of the armed Maoist rebellion after a series of top commanders were killed or arrested by the security forces in Jharkhand and the surrounding states, mainly Chhattisgarh.

As violence ebbed, Chaibasa turned into a busy town. Shops selling pizza, burgers and laptops, alongside offices and warehouses of mining companies extracting coal and iron ore, have come up. Christian missionary schools and colleges are dotted across the region, providing educational opportunities to tribal people.

Sporting activities are also thriving, with Chaibasa fast emerging as a football hot spot, producing players like female midfielder and forward Malati Munda.

Munda, who found national fame through local tournaments, ended up playing in league matches in Kolkata, the capital of neighbouring West Bengal state, where football is extremely popular.

“I had no coach to guide me or provide training. No one had even heard about me. After coming to Chaibasa town for higher studies, I met several brothers and sisters who taught me and improved my game,” Munda told Al Jazeera.

The weekly local tournaments gave Munda experience and skills to improve her game. They also brought rewards. “I have played at several such games where we won cash, and yes, khassi as well,” she said with a laugh.

Munda currently plays for the Home Guard paramilitary in Jharkhand’s capital city of Ranchi – a route many players from poorer families take to secure a government job in India.

Harish Hembram from Chaibasa began his career as a football content creator by covering local matches and uploading their videos on social media. His YouTube channel today has more than 211,000 subscribers, and livestreams key matches across Jharkhand.

“Football has always been popular in the villages, and many like me would attend matches at different venues. I started uploading the videos for fun for those fans who couldn’t attend. But soon the videos clocked high viewership, and I started my YouTube channel. Now organisers call me to cover their tournaments,” he told Al Jazeera.

Hembram said he earns about 20,000 rupees ($208) a month through his YouTube channel alone. He has moved to Ranchi, where he has also opened a sports shop selling football, jerseys, shoes and other accessories. Many players from Chaibasa visit his shop.

The grassroots football culture in Chaibasa defies the stereotype that India is not a football country.

Sandeep Menon, author of Sacred Grounds: A Journey Through People’s Football in India, says he has discovered and documented a football subculture across the country. He said while India does not figure prominently on the global football map, the love for the sport in the country is “unparalleled”.

“At the grassroots level, football is played with great interest across the country. And everyone has their own version of the game, to make it palatable and adaptable depending upon the availability of space, local geographical surroundings, weather and social conditions,” Menon told Al Jazeera.

Menon said hyper-local village tournaments like the Rangila Star Tirilbasa attract young players and provide them an opportunity for overnight fame. “There is a high emotional investment in playing for a village and representing it,” he said. “For some players, football becomes their identity and pride.”

New Delhi, India – Blood spots on the walls, overturned barricades, shattered mirrors and sandals strewn across the road. A scarf here, broken glasses and a torn shirt there lie as remnants of the chaos that took over the Indian capital.

The heart of New Delhi – Parliament Street and Connaught Place, a colonial-era square – bears the imprint of Monday’s police crackdown on thousands of protesters, most of them students, who had shut down the capital, demanding that Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resign.

A swarm of protesters reached parliament’s doorstep before retreating as the police tear-gassed them. More than 100 students were injured.

“I still cannot believe my eyes that I’m in Delhi,” said Anshul Dev, an 18-year-old who grew up in the capital. “Part of it is because tear gas still stings,” he added, bursting into laughter with his group of friends. One of them had both legs bandaged.

“This government, whom our elders voted to power, is treating us like terrorists and criminals,” Dev said. “This is our country, and we are reclaiming it from their hateful politics. We are here to break the spell.”

Anger among India’s youth, the world’s largest Gen Z cohort, has been simmering for the past two months over a string of compromised entrance exams that affected millions of students. In some cases, exam papers were leaked; in others, students who sought copies of their answer scripts found that they had been wrongly graded. More than 20 students died by suicide, many citing the paper leaks.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not addressed the protests, even as he appeared smiling on Monday in parliament, barely metres away from demonstrators at one point.

Analysts said the student protests face formidable obstacles before they can extract concessions from Modi’s government. Yet the protests, the government’s refusal to hold any of its own accountable and the crackdown have also embellished a charge that the prime minister has long faced from critics and opposition parties – that although he is elected democratically, he behaves like an autocrat.

‘Protests will continue’

After dark on Monday, Abhijeet Dipke – the leader of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), a political pressure group that called the march – returned to a torn-down stage at the CJP’s main protest site near Jantar Mantar, an 18th-century observatory that is now an important location for protests.

“This barbaric Delhi police has beaten up our students and comrades. We are heartbroken,” he said, addressing about 2,000 protesters who stayed back after the crackdown. “We will continue to resist and demand accountability from the government. We will not back down until Dharmendra Pradhan resigns.”

Dipke told the protesters that the Delhi police “brutally cracked down to crush our hopes” that Pradhan would resign. “It was only our first call to march,” he said. “There will be more. Do not lose hope.”

Volunteers began to pick up rubbish, tie a tent together and sweep the road at the Jantar Mantar site. This is where more than 100 protesters from student unions have been sleeping for nearly a month to join Sonam Wangchuk, a prominent activist, on a hunger strike to seek the minister’s resignation.

The police also rampaged through these student unions’ tarpaulin tents and belongings on Monday.

The movement gained momentum last week after the police forcibly removed Wangchuk from the protest site and restricted him to a government-run hospital, where he remains. His family and the CJP have called it “illegal detention”, but the Delhi High Court has refused immediate relief.

Wangchuk, 59, broke his hunger strike before the march on Monday; however, later he said he would be at it again after “seeing the brutality” against “peacefully protesting students”.

The Delhi police have filed at least five criminal cases against protesters related to violence, stone-throwing and vandalism during the march.

Meeting with government a ‘waste of time’

Before the march, CJP leaders said the government reached out for talks.

As thousands of demonstrators assembled in New Delhi, two CJP spokespeople met JP Nadda, India’s health minister, to convey the movement’s three demands: Pradhan’s immediate resignation, Wangchuk’s discharge from hospital and compensation of nearly $105,000 for the families of those students who died by suicide.

However, they were disillusioned by sunset. “It was a waste of our time,” said Ashutosh Ranka, a CJP spokesperson. “We were made to wait for four hours, and the minister met us for 10 minutes.”

Nadda said he met with the spokespeople “in a cordial atmosphere”, adding that he “requested all the protesters to end their sit-in and assist the administration in restoring normalcy”.

Some students have been calling for the decentralisation of the protests, so they could move beyond the CJP to demand accountability from the government.

And political analysts who spoke with Al Jazeera said maintaining the credibility of the CJP’s leadership remains one of the biggest immediate hurdles for the movement in the face of an unprecedented crowd turnout for the march.

Confronting a ‘strong man’

Since the police forcibly removed Wangchuk from the protest site, the movement and demonstrators have called on Modi to resign. Slogans targeting the prime minister reverberated through central New Delhi on Monday.

The large number of protesters “is itself a big challenge to the prime minister”, said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, an author and Modi biographer.

As of now, he told Al Jazeera, “Modi has decided to continue with his instinctive response of not giving any concessions to protesters and continuing to project himself as a strong man with completely unshakeable will.”

The biographer added that the prime minister, who has been in power since 2014, “does not care before crushing a protest or using brute force until it cuts through his voting constituencies”.

“They will go by their gut response of a crackdown. Modi would not want to emerge from this with a bloody nose,” he added, “despite a lot of anger among youth, which shows the undercurrent of anti-incumbency.”

The simmering anger found a vent as Gen Z rallied behind a joke, the Cockroach Janta Party, after India’s chief justice equated government critics and unemployed youth to “cockroaches” and “parasites”.

Memes, online rants and students taking photos in front of police have flooded the internet in India, where they expressed anguish and took digs at the police crackdown.

Meghnad S, a YouTuber, was among the crowd of thousands in front of the Indian Parliament on Monday.

“It was insanity, and the crowd was really riled up due to police actions. It was cruel,” he told Al Jazeera from the protest site on Monday night. “But movements are always messy. This is very difficult to control. We are all cockroaches, after all. And we are still swarming here.”

By Tuesday morning, the crowd had packed the site yet again. The cockroaches had returned.

Police used batons and tear gas to disperse protesters as tens of thousands of people joined the Cockroach Janta Party’s march on parliament in New Delhi. Protesters have been demanding the resignation of India’s Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan following exam scandals that have triggered nationwide outrage.

India slumped to a nine-wicket defeat in the fourth T20 against England, following a 2-0 series whitewash in Ireland.

India’s cricket board will review the T20 team’s performance after a dismal run that saw the world champions lose successive series in Ireland and England, a top official said.

India slumped to a nine-wicket defeat in the fourth T20 against England on Thursday, handing the hosts an unassailable 3-0 lead with one match remaining after the opener was washed out.

The loss was India’s fifth straight defeat, following a 2-0 series whitewash in Ireland last month.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will meet to discuss the reasons for the team’s performance after the England tour ends on July 19, secretary Devajit Saikia said on Friday.

“The BCCI is currently observing the performance of the Indian T20 team which has not been up to the mark in the ongoing series against England,” Saikia, who is in Edinburgh for the annual conference of the International Cricket Council, told the news agency AFP in a phone interview.

“We will have a review meeting with the core members of the team to discuss what went wrong in England.”

India, who lifted the T20 World Cup in March, have endured a dramatic dip in form. On Thursday, they managed 158-7 in Bristol, a target England chased down with nine wickets and more than six overs to spare.

The defeat came days after India were dismissed for just 76 in Nottingham, suffering their heaviest T20 loss by a margin of 125 runs.

Saikia described the slump as a temporary setback.

“This is not something abnormal and can happen in international cricket. We consider it as a purely bad phase,” he said.

India, coached by Gautam Gambhir, has been without pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah and all-rounder Hardik Pandya because of workload and injury-management concerns.

Teenage batting sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, handed his long-awaited debut aged 15, has struggled to make an impact, with scores of 14, 13 and 15 in his three innings.

The teams meet in the fifth and final T20 in Southampton on Saturday before a three-match ODI series.

June 13 (UPI) — Five Indian Air Force personnel are dead after a transport plane crashed during training in Assam, officials said Saturday.

“The Indian Air Force deeply regrets the loss of five personnel in the An-32 accident at Jorhat, Assam. Sqn Ldr Prashant Singh, Flt Lt Shubham Kumar, Sgt Jitendra Sharma, Agniveervayu Khemaram Kumawat and Agniveervayu Danish Alam made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty. IAF extends its deepest condolences to the bereaved families and stands firmly with them in this hour of grief,” the Indian Air Force posted on X.

Assam is in the northeastern part of the country.

“Crash site management and initial enquiries are on at this time,” the Air Force said. It added that an investigation to find the cause of the crash is underway.

India’s air force operates a fleet of about 105 AN-32 aircraft, Al Jazeera reported.

A US strike on an oil tanker accused of transporting Iranian oil has killed three Indian sailors. It was the second attack in three days on a ship carrying crew members from India.

India says it will continue engaging with Myanmar after Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke with Min Aung Hlaing, the leader of the country’s military government, in New Delhi.

Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told reporters on Monday that India’s policy is “not intended to be a commentary on the internal political arrangements” in Myanmar and that New Delhi believes engagement is the best way forward.

Western nations have sought to isolate Myanmar’s military rulers since they overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in a 2021 coup that triggered a crackdown on opponents and a brutal civil war.

The conflict began when the country’s army leader, Min Aung Hlaing, ousted the government and detained civilian leaders, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Some critics and human rights groups have said Min Aung Hlaing’s visit to India risks lending legitimacy to the military-backed government.

“We have always proceeded on the principle that sustained dialogue is what is important,” Misri said, adding that isolating Myanmar would be counterproductive.

“History has shown that disengagement doesn’t give us any results that are better than engagement.”

The visit is Min Aung Hlaing’s first to India since he was sworn in as president in April following an election that critics say was designed to cement his hold on power. His last visit to India was in 2019, when he served as Myanmar’s military chief.

He arrived in India on Saturday, first in the eastern state of Bihar, with a visit to the Buddhist pilgrimage site of Bodh Gaya, where believers say that the Buddha attained enlightenment.

India shares a 1,643-kilometre (1,020-mile) border with Myanmar and a maritime boundary in the Bay of Bengal.

Strategic partnership

Myanmar is also strategically important to India’s security interests. The two countries have cooperated on border security and intelligence sharing to combat armed rebel groups.

Modi and Min Aung Hlaing did not address the media after their meeting, as usually occurs after most bilateral talks involving visiting heads of state or government in New Delhi.

But Misri said the two leaders discussed trade, defence and security cooperation, border management, and regional issues, with talks also focusing on expanding economic and technology ties. He said both sides agreed to deepen collaboration across sectors, including trade, energy and critical minerals, and to accelerate major connectivity projects.

Min Aung Hlaing is expected to hold talks with business representatives during his five-day visit, and will travel to the financial hub, Mumbai.

Bilateral trade was $1.95bn in 2025-2026, according to New Delhi.

The leaders also discussed cooperation against cybercrime and human trafficking, issues that have affected thousands of Indians lured to scam centres in the region.

Misri said India and Myanmar have worked together to rescue more than 2,400 Indian nationals over the past 18 months.

Resistance groups formed after the 2021 coup have captured swaths of Myanmar. Others sought out and fought under the leadership of ethnic armies in exchange for training and weapons with which to fight the military.

These resistance groups, known as the People’s Defence Force (PDF), nominally operate under the leadership of the National Unity Government (NUG), a shadow government formed by Myanmar lawmakers removed by the military coup.

Zin Mar Aung, the foreign minister of the NUG, wrote a letter to Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the minister of external affairs for India, on May 28, expressing concern about the visit.

“Since the military coup of 2021, which overturned the democratic will of the people, Myanmar has endured prolonged conflict, instability, and immense humanitarian suffering,” she said.

“India has long championed democratic governance, the rule of law, and regional stability. We therefore urge the Government of India to weigh carefully the broader implications of formal engagement that may normalise or legitimise military rule in Myanmar.”