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"There was water everywhere, but not a single drop to drink."

That is how Ronju Chowdhary described the scene outside her house on Saturday. She lives in Udiana, a remote village in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam, which has been hit by severe floods.

It had been raining incessantly, she remembers. The water rose so quickly that the streets were completely submerged within hours. When the water entered their home, she says the family huddled together in darkness trying to keep themselves safe.

Two days on, the family is still marooned in their house - now resembling a lonely island - amid a sea of water.

"We are surrounded by flood water from all sides. There's hardly any water to drink. Food is running short too. And now I hear that the water levels are further rising," Ms Chowdhary says. "What will happen to us?"

Unprecedented rainfall and flooding has left behind a trail of destruction in Assam, submerging villages, destroying crops, and wrecking homes. Authorities say that 33 of its 35 districts have been affected, killing at least 34 people and displacing more than 4.2 million, BBC reported.

Heavy rains have also lashed neighbouring Meghalaya state, where 18 people have died over the last week. In Assam, the government has opened 1,147 relief camps for the displaced, but authorities say their job has been complicated by the sheer intensity of the disaster. Even the rescue camps are in a dismal state. 

"There is no drinking water in the camp. My son has a fever but I am unable to take him to the doctor," says Husna Begum, also a resident of Udiana. When water reached her home on Wednesday, the 28-year-old swam through the torrent in search of help. She is now sheltering in a rickety plastic tent with her two children.

"I have not seen something like this before. I've never seen such huge floods in my life," she says.

Floods routinely wreak havoc on the lives and livelihoods of millions living near the fertile riverbanks of the mighty Brahmaputra river, often called the lifeline of Assam. But experts say that factors like climate change, unchecked construction activities and rapid industrialisation have increased the frequency of extreme weather events.

This is the second time this year that Assam is grappling with such fierce floods - at least 39 people were killed in May. The state has already recorded rainfall 109% above average levels this month, according to the weather department. And the Brahmaputra is flowing above the danger mark at many places. 

Residents and authorities the BBC spoke to describe the latest deluge as one of "biblical proportions" - one that has altered the social and economical fabric of the state. 

"The situation is particularly alarming this time. Apart from the team of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), we have also deployed the army to aid the rescue operations," says Javir Rahul Suresh, a sub-divisional officer in Rangiya city, according to BBC.

"At this point, our priority is to save lives."

Entire settlements have been engulfed by rushing waters, almost resembling a huge river that had formed overnight.

In Guwahati, the main economic centre of Assam, neighbourhoods have been reduced to rubble. Lush fields where rice and paddy normally grew have turned into vast swamps of mud and debris. 

Back in Udiana, there are no schools, hospitals, temples or mosques in sight - just water. People travel by boats made of banana leaves and bamboo sticks. Others just swim through the brown, green brackish waters despondently, their eyes lighting up at the sight of rescuers, whose bright orange uniforms are visible from a distance.

The damage is particularly alarming in Kamrup district, where hundreds of people are still reportedly trapped in their houses.

Siraj Ali, 64, says that when the water swept into his village and destroyed everything, he was scared for his life. Yet he stayed on, in a house which is now partly submerged under water, to guard his belongings and "a life-time of memories". 

He said he sent his children to a roadside shelter camp, while he waited for help to reach him. But no one has come so far.

"I am surrounded by water but I have no water to drink. I don't have food. I have been starving for three days. What to do and where do I go?" he asks, his eyes welling up with tears, BBC reported.

As Colombia’s voters put aside a longtime antipathy to leftists and chose one as their new president, they also carved out another milestone — electing the country’s first Black Vice President, Associated Press reported.

When former leftist rebel Gustavo Petro takes office as president on Aug. 7, a key player in his administration will be Francia Marquez, his running mate in Sunday’s runoff election.

Marquez is an environmental activist from La Toma, a remote village surrounded by mountains where she first organized campaigns against a hydroelectric project and then challenged wildcat gold miners who were invading collectively owned Afro-Colombian lands.

The politician has faced numerous death threats for her environmental work and has emerged as a powerful spokeswoman for Black Colombians and other marginalized communities.

“She’s completely different than any another person that’s ever had a vice presidency in Colombia,” said Gimena Sanchez, the Andes director for the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group.

“She comes from a rural area, she comes from the perspective of a campesino woman and from the perspective of areas of Colombia that have been affected by armed conflict for many years. Most politicians in Colombia who have held the presidency have not lived in the way she has,” Sanchez said.

She said Marquez will likely be given the mandate to work on gender issues as well as policies affecting the nation’s Afro-Colombian population, according to Associated Press.

In several interviews. Petro has discussed creating a Ministry of Equality, which would be headed by Marquez and would work across several sectors of the economy on issues like reducing gender inequalities and tackling disparities faced by ethnic minorities.

Marquez said Sunday that part of her mission as vice president will be to reduce inequality.

“This will be a government for those with calluses on their hands. We are here to promote social justice and to help women eradicate the patriarchy,” she said on stage while celebrating the election results with thousands of supporters at a popular concert venue.

Marquez grew up in a small home built by her family and had a daughter when she was 16, whom she raised on her own. To support her daughter, Marquez cleaned homes in the nearby city of Cali and also worked at a restaurant while studying for a law degree.

She was awarded the 2018 Goldman Environmental Prize for her successful efforts to remove gold miners from the collectively owned Afro-Colombian lands around her village. 

Marquez entered the presidential race last year as a candidate for the Democratic Pole party, though she lost out in an inter-party consultation in March to Gustavo Petro. But she gained national recognition during the primaries and received 700,000 votes, topping most veteran politicians, Associated Press reported.

In speeches calling for Colombia to confront racism and gender inequalities and to ensure basic rights for the poor, Marquez energized rural voters who have suffered from the country’s long armed conflict as well as young people and women in urban areas.

“All of us who work with her now believe in the power of women,” said Vivian Tibaque, a community leader in Bogota who worked on Marquez’s campaign. “We believe we can also defend out rights like Francia has defended hers.”

Political analysts said Marquez contributed to Petro’s campaign by reaching out to voters who felt excluded by the political system but did not trust the leftist parties that Petro, a former member of a rebel group, has been a part of throughout much of his career.

They said her presence on Petro’s ticket also motivated Afro-Colombian voters along the Pacific coast, where Petro won by big margins Sunday even as he barely won the contest by three percentage points. 

“I don’t think Petro could’ve won the presidency without her.” Sanchez said. “There is a lot of distrust and suspicion towards the left in Colombia, partly because a lot of the left has been armed at some point in time.”

The Nobel Peace Prize auctioned off by Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov to raise money for Ukrainian child refugees sold Monday night for $103.5 million, shattering the old record for a Nobel, Associated Press reported.

A spokesperson for Heritage Auctions, which handled the sale, could not confirm the identity of the buyer but said the winning bid was made by proxy. The $103.5 million sale translates to $100 million Swiss francs, hinting that the buyer is from overseas.

“I was hoping that there was going to be an enormous amount of solidarity, but I was not expecting this to be such a huge amount,” Muratov said in an interview after bidding in the nearly 3-week auction ended on World Refugee Day.

Previously, the most ever paid for a Nobel Prize medal was $4.76 million in 2014, when James Watson, whose co-discovery of the structure of DNA earned him a Nobel Prize in 1962, sold his. Three years later, the family of his co-recipient, Francis Crick, received $2.27 million in bidding also run by Heritage Auctions.

Muratov, who was awarded the gold medal in October 2021, helped found the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta and was the publication’s editor-in-chief when it shut down in March amid the Kremlin’s clampdown on journalists and public dissent in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to Associated Press.

It was Muratov’s idea to auction off his prize, having already announced he was donating the accompanying $500,000 cash award to charity. 

Muratov has said the proceeds will go directly to UNICEF in its efforts to help children displaced by the war in Ukraine. Just minutes after bidding ended, UNICEF told the auction house it had already received the funds.

Online bids had begun June 1 to coincide with the International Children’s Day observance. Many bids came by telephone or online. The winning bid, tendered by telephone, catapulted the bidding from the low millions to astronomical levels.

Muratov had left Russia on Thursday to begin his trip to New York City, where live bidding began Monday evening. 

Early Monday, the high bid was only $550,000. The purchase price had been expected to spiral upward — but not over $100 million.

“I can’t believe it. I’m awestruck. Personally, I’m flabbergasted. I’m stunned. I don’t really know what happened in there,” said Joshua Benesh, the chief strategy officer for Heritage Auctions, Associates Presa reported.

“We knew that there was a tremendous groundswell of interest in the last couple of days by people who were moved by Dimitry’s story, by Dimitry’s act of generosity, that the global audience was listening tonight,” he said.

Muratov and Heritage officials said even those out of the bidding can still help by donating directly to UNICEF.

Muratov shared the Nobel Peace Prize last year with journalist Maria Ressa of the Philippines.

The two journalists, who each received their own medals, were honored for their battles to preserve free speech in their respective countries, despite coming under attack by harassment, their governments and even death threats.

Melted down, the 175 grams of 23-karat gold contained in Muratov’s medal would be worth about $10,000, according Associated Press.

The CPN-UML affiliated student wing, All Nepal National Free Students Union (ANNFSU), staged a demonstration in the Capital against the fuel price hike on Monday.

They staged the demonstration outside the Jamal-based Tri Chandra Multiple Campus.

Traffic went haywire in various places of the Capital due to the protest.

Kathmandu police said that they had to use the force to disperse the mob.

The government has decided to suspend Yuvaraj Adhikari, Chairman of the Nepal Airlines Corporation.

A Cabinet meeting held on Monday decided to suspend Adhikari, Minister for Labor, Employment and Social Security Krishna Kumar Shrestha said.

The government has decided to suspend Nepal Airlines Corporation Chairman Yuvaraj Adhikari. There were demands to remove him from the post," he said.

The Annapurna Post, the sister publication of the Annapurna Express, had recently made public an audio conversation between Tourism Minister Prem Ale and Adhikari where Ale is found abusing Adhikari on telephone.

According to a source, there was a tussle between Minister Ale and Adhikari.

The government had even formed a probe committee to investigate the matter of Adhikari.

The government has decided not to participate in the State Partnership Program (SPP) of the United States.

A Cabinet meeting held on Monday made the decision to this effect, Minister for Labor, Employment and Social Security Krishna Kumar Shrestha said.

"The Cabinet has decided not to implement the State Partnership Program," he said, adding, " The United States will be informed about the decision."

At a time when the preparations for the Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba's US visit was going on in full swing, the US State Partnership Program took the center stage in the Parliament after its documents were made public.

The then Chief of Army Staff had written a letter to the United States for participation in the SPP.

But the SPP was not taken ahead after it was placed under the Indo Pacific Strategy.

Earlier, the US embassy in Kathmandu had said that the SPP could be revoked if the government wrote a letter to the United States  asking to scrap the agreement.

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) index plunged by 49. 31 points to close at 1,884.81 points on Monday. 

Similarly, the sensitive index fell 7. 66 points to reach 366. 19 points.

A total of 6,186,941 units of shares of 230 companies were traded for Rs 1.75 billion.

Likewise, all sub-indices saw red in today’s market with Non Life Insurance on the top of the table. 

Meanwhile, Adhikhola Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha Limited was the top gainer today with its price surging by 10 percent. Likewise, Terhathum Power Company Limited was the top loser with its price dropped by 10 percent. 

At the end of the day, total market civilization stands at Rs 2. 68 trillion.

Minister for Industry, Commerce and Supplies Dilendra Prasad Badu said that it was the compulsion of the government to jack up the prices of petroleum products.

Speaking at a meeting of the Industry Committee under the House of Representatives on Monday, Minister Badu said that the government has reduced the tax levied on petroleum products by Rs 10 and cannot slash more than that.

Despite the increase in fuel prices, the Nepal Oil Corporation is still facing the loss, leader Badu further said.

He said that the government did not increase the price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) so as not to give further stress to the people.