Indian women explain why they are buying guns for protection, in response to rising rates of sexual harassment and robbery. Link to this video When Dr Harveen Kaur Sidhu travels from her home in an upmarket neighbourhood of the north-western Indian city of Chandigarh, she always slips her lightweight .22 revolver in her bag. The gun is a new purchase – Sidhu got her licence only a year ago – but now the 33-year-old dentist won't travel without it."I don't have faith in the police to protect me. There are so many attacks on women these days. It's everybody's right to defend themselves. I think all women who are vulnerable should be carrying guns," Sidhu said. She is not alone. A growing number of well-off, ... Continue reading →

An Afghan man extracts some of the weaker poppy plants on his farm, 10 miles east of Jalalabad. Photograph: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images Taliban fighters have destroyed fields of opium poppies in eastern Afghanistan this spring, the first time since 2001 the hardline Islamist group is known to have clamped down on the cultivation of a drug that provides a big part of its funding.While the insurgents appear to have dug up a relatively small area of poppies in a remote area near the border with Pakistan, the move was so unusual it won a chorus of praise from the Afghan government and international organisations, whom the Taliban consider their enemy, as well as senior clerics."They just did what the constitution ordered," said Wasifullah Wasifi, a ... Continue reading →

BY YAROSLAV TROFIMOV KANDAHAR, Afghanistan—Afghanistan's poppy crop—the source of most of the world's illicit opiates—appears to have suffered a devastating failure this year, U.S. and Afghan officials say, in a development that is likely to affect the course of the war as U.S.-led forces withdraw. U.S. commanders and Afghan officials, who ascribe the poor harvest to blight, expect the Taliban to reel as opium revenues dry up in coming months. "It's a blow to the insurgency," says Kandahar provincial Gov. Tooryalai Wesa. The provincial government of Helmand—which accounts for half of the country's opium cultivation—has hailed the blight as a "divine decree" by ...BY YAROSLAV TROFIMOV KANDAHAR, Afghanistan—Afghanistan's poppy crop—the source of most of the world's illicit opiates—appears to have suffered a devastating failure this ... Continue reading →

After police have stopped the traffic on Harish Chatterjee Street and pushed back curious onlookers, from her home emerges a convoy of vehicles that resembles the cavalcade of no other Indian chief minister. It consists of just three cars – two police vehicles following behind a small, black hatch-back, perched on the front passenger seat of which sits Ms Banerjee.“I see myself as a commoner and will remain a commoner the rest of my life. I have risen from the grass roots level and must remain deeply connected to the grass roots,” Ms Banerjee told The Independent. “I cannot alienate myself from the poor, the disadvantaged and the deprived. I feel that I must continue to stay in my humble home and drive in a ... Continue reading →

Afghan security officials inspect the site of a suicide bomb attack in Kabul on 1 May that killed at least six people, hours after Barack Obama left the country. Photograph: S. Sabawoon/EPA The conflict in Afghanistan has always been a war of perceptions as much as ground reality. Frontlines have often been invisible. The power of any protagonist to project an image of dominance is as important as any genuine grip on territory.So it's no surprise that with the new summer fighting season declared open by the insurgents, and a major Nato summit coming up in Chicago on 20 May, the efforts to gain the upper hand in this battle of spin are intensive.President Obama flew to Kabul and declared that the US forces in ... Continue reading →

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- One of the most powerful men on the Taliban council, Agha Jan Motasim, nearly lost his life in a hail of bullets for advocating a negotiated settlement that would bring a broad-based government to his beleaguered homeland of Afghanistan. In an exclusive and rare interview by a member of the so-called Quetta Shura, Motasim told The Associated Press Sunday that a majority of Taliban wants a peace settlement and that there are only "a few" hard-liners in the movement. "There are two kinds of Taliban. The one type of Taliban who believes that the foreigners want to solve the problem but there is another group and they don't believe, and they are thinking that the foreigners only want to fight," he ... Continue reading →

But the improved relationship hasn’t made Allen’s job any easier. His to-do list over the next several months is more complex than any previous commander in Kabul: He has to remove 23,000 troops — shuttering bases and reallocating supplies — during the peak summertime fighting season, while also accelerating the training of Afghan forces, deploying new teams of U.S. advisers to assist Afghan troops, and negotiating the terms of an enduring U.S. military presence with President Hamid Karzai’s government.“John Allen faces an unprecedented challenge,” said retired lieutenant general David Barno, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005. “He’s fighting a full-up insurgency at the same time he’s withdrawing forces and changing the mission. It’s an immense task.”Allen’s predicament has no equivalent in ... Continue reading →