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India's most populous state of Uttar Pradesh began voting on Thursday in the first of a series of local elections that will be a key test of the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling party.

With a population almost as big as that of Brazil, keeping power in the bellwether state would give the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a boost in its bid for a third successive victory at nationwide parliamentary polls due by 2024.

Television footage from polling stations showed queues of people bundled up against the winter cold as they waited to cast their votes.

Defeat in Uttar Pradesh, or in any of the other three states it holds that also stage elections this month, would add to pressure on the Hindu nationalist party amid criticism of high unemployment and its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"If the BJP loses, especially in UP, that will be a big setback," said Rahul Verma, a fellow at New Delhi-based think-tank Centre for Policy Research. "But you can call this a semi-final. The game in 2024 will be very, very different."

For the main opposition Congress party, led by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, the calculation appears more bleak. Of the five states where voting begins this month, it holds only Punjab in the northwest.

"Congress desperately needs to win states, even if it's smaller states, just to get back in the habit of winning. Otherwise they are in trouble," Verma added.

Failure to do so would lead to more questions over the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, whose father, grandmother and great-grandfather have all served as prime ministers but who has struggled to dent Modi's high ratings.

RELIGIOUS LINES

During campaigning, the BJP has appealed to large Hindu majorities in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Both are home to important holy sites, some of which are disputed by Hindus and minority Muslims.

Opinion polls suggest the party will win the vote in both states, despite some opposition parties seeking to mirror its Hindu-first agenda and appeal to its support base.

"We have seen all political parties playing within the same field of the BJP," said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, author of a biography of Modi, on the campaign so far. "That is one of their biggest successes."

Congress and activists have criticised the approach, saying that it risks stoking communal tensions that have flared up into deadly violence in the past.

Yogi Adityanath, a hardline Hindu monk who is seeking re-election as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, touted his record on fighting crime, and said that law and order took precedence over religion.

"My government dealt with the issues of corruption," he told a small group of reporters on Monday.

"Law and order has improved markedly and police action during my rule was taken against gangsters and mafia groups without discriminating on the basis of their caste or religion."

Uttar Pradesh, home to around 200 million people, votes in seven phases ending on March 7, while most other states begin polling in the coming days. Counting in the five states begins on March 10, with the results expected soon after.

The BJP faces a challenge from Congress in the northeastern state of Manipur, while in the western state of Goa, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is trying to expand its reach beyond its traditional base of India's capital New Delhi.

The fifth state, Punjab, looks like a close contest between the ruling Congress, AAP and several regional parties.

Query

I'm a 35-year-old male who has been a migraine patient for about five years now. I have heard that migraine also brings many mental health problems in its wake including memory-loss. Recently I have been struggling even to recall familiar names. This didn't happen before and I think it is because of migraine. I want to know if it is something I need to worry about. And what can I do to improve things? -KB

Answer by Dr. Rishav Koirala, Psychiatrist at Grande Hospital 

First, for proper diagnosis and treatment, it is important to know the intensity and frequency of headaches. In rare cases migraine is associated with forgetfulness, which is known as transient global amnesia, but it is not as specific as you have mentioned, i.e. only forgetting familiar names. Forgetfulness is common in anxiety disorders as well as in depression. Over 50 percent of migraine patients have depression and anxiety and more than 80 percent of migraine episodes are precipitated by stress. So we need to explore it to properly address migraine as well as to find the cause of forgetfulness you suffer from. This can be done by visiting a psychiatrist who will treat both. 

As you have had migraine for a long time, it is even more important to address it. Migraine is a major cause of disability as it hampers with your work as well as social life. It must also have hampered your life both directly and indirectly. Being aware of what is really going on will help you with the fear and worry you’re experiencing, and you might be reassured once you know you are being treated.

On a personal level, you can try mindfulness meditation. You can find plenty of 10-30 minute meditation guides on YouTube. Taking some time out to meditate will do wonders for your mental health. 

Another thing you can do is maintain a headache diary. After you have a migraine episode, write down what you did in the 24 hours before the episode: list all your activities and events of the day as well as your food intake. After doing this six or seven times, you may observe common activities that trigger your migraine. An empty stomach, disrupted sleep, and high coffee and alcohol intake can also trigger migraine. But most importantly, you need to talk to an expert before jumping to conclusions.

CPN (Maoist Centre) Chairman Pushap Kamal Dahal and Nepali Congress leader Shekhar Koirala held a meeting on Thursday.

During the meeting, the duo discussed Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and local level elections among other issues.

On the occasion, Dahal proposed to forge an alliance for the local level elections.

In response, leader Koirala said that he is not in favour of forging the alliance.  

According to a source, Koirala urged Dahal to take a concrete decision on the MCC at the earliest.

Leader Koirala had held a meeting with the main opposition CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma Oli two days ago.

The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation has scrapped the license of Hotel Yak and Yeti to operate the casino.

Issuing a statement, Mohan Bahadur GC, Director at the Tourism Department, said that the ministry has also scrapped the 5-star rating certificate of the hotel.

Hotel Yak and Yeti has been accused of not paying royalty despite issuing the notice over and over again in the past.

According to the department, the hotel owes Rs 422.586 royalty to the Nepal government.

The ministry had issued a license in the name of the hotel to operate the casino on January 6,1992. 

"The government decided to scrap the license as per the casino regulation 2070 (14) after the hotel failed to clear outstanding payments owed to the government," the statement read.

The government has also decided to hold the immovable asset and freeze all the bank accounts until the hotel pays the amount.

The government has urged not to operate the casino and hotel.

KATHMANDU: Chairperson of Media Action Nepal (MAN) Laxman Datt Pant has been elected to co-lead a key global network to defend and promote press freedom across the world.

Elections of the Media Freedom Coalition-Consultative Network (MFC-CN), consisting of 22 organizations from different countries, held to elect a vacant co-chair yesterday (February 8, 2022) elected Pant to the influential global post. The MFC-CN is a group of national, regional and international organizations that provides advice to the Media Freedom Coalition (MFC), a partnership of countries working together to advocate for media freedom and safety of journalists and hold to account those who harm journalists for doing their job.

With this, MAN Chairperson Pant, an internationally acclaimed media scholar and trainer as well as a fighter for press freedom, joins two other co-chairs Silvia Chocarro of Article 19 and Rachael Kay of IFEX to coordinate MFC-CN activities globally and represent the network in global meetings that MFC organizes to defend media freedom. 

Commenting on his elections, Pant said, “Being the new-chair comes with great responsibility. At a time when press freedom is under increasing attack in many countries including Nepal, we must collectively do everything we can to defend it.” “We need bold actions to promote media freedom where it is under attack. For that, I will work together with other co-chairs and members MFC-CN as well as with other like-minded organizations and individuals to better coordinate our actions and increase effectiveness.”

Members of MFC-CN are ARTICLE 19, International Federation of Journalists, International Press Institute, Reporters sans Frontières, Association of International Broadcasting, World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, The Guardian, International Media Support, Committee to Protect Journalists, Public Media Alliance, Internews Europe, IFEX, South East European Network for Professionalization of Media and Media Monitoring Africa. The other eight members are MAN, Free Press Unlimited, Cambodian Center for Human Rights, Pakistan Press Foundation, Comité por la Libre Expresión, DW Akademie, Fundación para la Libertad de Prensa and Maharat Foundation.

Last month, MAN, a media rights advocate and research organization working across Nepal and also in South Asia, was selected as a member of MFC-CN. “This new global responsibility has made me personally and MAN further committed to work everything in our capacity to promote press freedom and improve safety of journalists,” Pant said.

SpaceX has lost dozens of satellites after they were hit by a geomagnetic storm a day after launch, causing them to fall from orbit and burn up.

Such solar "storms" are caused by powerful explosions on the sun's surface, which spit out plasma and magnetic fields that can hit the Earth.

The company, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, said up to 40 of 49 satellites from last week's launch were hit.

They had been due to join its Starlink satellite internet project.

Starlink is Mr Musk's bid to provide high-speed internet using thousands of orbiting satellites.

The system is relatively expensive, but can be used in places where wired connections cannot. For example, in Tonga, where January's earthquake severed the island's nation's undersea data cable, a Starlink station is being built in nearby Fiji to help restore access.

The latest 49 satellites were deployed about 210km (130 miles) above the Earth's surface. SpaceX said "each satellite achieved controlled flight" after being sent up on 3 February.

However, a day later, the geomagnetic storm hit the Earth. It is the same kind of mechanism that creates aurorae like the Northern Lights, but it can have dangerous effects too.

This storm warmed up the atmosphere and made it much more dense than expected.

"Onboard GPS suggests the escalation speed and severity of the storm caused atmospheric drag to increase up to 50% higher than during previous launches," SpaceX said.

SpaceX tried to put the satellites into a "safe mode", turning them to fly edge-on to minimise drag.

The drag was strong enough to stop the satellites ever getting out of that "safe mode" and back into the orbit they needed to reach to be stable. Instead, "up to 40" will fall back into the Earth's atmosphere and burn up.

Jacob Geer, the UK Space Agency's Head of Space Surveillance, said he does not expect "any part" of the satellites to hit the ground.

"Events like this are a reminder that space is challenging - getting satellites or astronauts into orbit is still not easy," he said.

The European Central Bank is preparing banks for a possible Russian-sponsored cyber attack as tensions with Ukraine mount, two people with knowledge of the matter said, as the region braces for the financial fallout of any conflict, Reuters reported.

The stand-off between Russia and Ukraine has rattled Europe’s political and business leaders, who fear an invasion that would inflict damage on the entire region.

Earlier this week, French President Emmanuel Macron shuttled from Moscow to Kyiv in a bid to act as a mediator after Russia massed troops near Ukraine.

Now the European Central Bank, led by former French minister Christine Lagarde and which has oversight of Europe’s biggest lenders, is on alert for the threat of cyber attacks on banks launched from Russia, the people said.

While the regulator had been focused on ordinary scams that boomed during the pandemic, the Ukraine crisis has diverted its attention to cyber attacks launched from Russia, said one of the people, adding that the ECB has questioned banks about their defences.

Banks were conducting cyber war games to test their ability to fend off an attack, the person said.

The ECB, which has singled out addressing cybersecurity vulnerability as one of its priorities, declined to comment.

Its concerns are mirrored around the world.

The New York Department of Financial Services issued an alert to financial institutions in late January, warning of retaliatory cyber attacks should Russia invade Ukraine and trigger US sanctions, according to Thomson Reuters’ Regulatory Intelligence.

HIGH ALERT

The United States, the European Union and Britain have repeatedly warned Putin against attacking Ukraine after Russia deployed around 100,000 troops near the border with its former Soviet neighbour.

Earlier this year, multiple Ukrainian websites were hit by a cyber strike that left a warning to “be afraid and expect the worst”, as Russia had amassed troops near Ukraine’s borders.

Ukraine’s state security service SBU said it saw signs the attack was linked to hacker groups associated with Russian intelligence services.

Russian officials say the West is gripped by Russophobia and has no right to lecture Moscow on how to act after it expanded the NATO military alliance eastwards since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.

The Kremlin has also repeatedly denied the Russian state has anything to do with hacking around the world and said it is ready to cooperate with the United States and others to crack down on cyber crime.

Nonetheless, regulators in Europe are on high alert.

Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre warned large organisations to bolster their cyber security resilience amid the deepening tensions over Ukraine.

On Tuesday, Mark Branson, the head of German supervisor BaFin, told an online conference that cyberwarfare was interconnected with geopolitics and security.

The White House has also blamed Russia for the devastating ‘NotPetya’ cyber attack in 2017, when a virus crippled parts of Ukraine’s infrastructure, taking down thousands of computers in dozens of countries.

The vulnerability was underscored again last year, when one of the globe’s largest-yet hacking campaigns used a US tech company as a springboard to compromise a raft of US government agencies, an attack the White House blamed on Russia’s foreign intelligence services.

The attack breached software made by SolarWinds Corp, giving hackers access to thousands of companies using its products, rippling through Europe, where Denmark’s central bank said that the country’s “financial infrastructure” had been hit.

Some, however, believe the Ukraine crisis has been blown out of proportion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused Washington and media of fuelling panic.

Canadians say they are concerned political strife in the United States will undermine security and economic growth at home, according to a new poll, as an anti-vaccine mandate protest praised by former US President Donald Trump gripped the capital and affected the border, Reuters reported.

The anxiety captured in the Angus Reid Institute survey provides a backdrop to protests across the country, at the international border, and especially in Ottawa, the capital, where police say Americans have provided a “significant” amount of money and organizational support.

The Ottawa protest, now in its 13th day, has been marred by the appearance of hateful symbols, like the Confederate flag, associated with the aggressive populism embraced by Trump supporters and some protesters say their goal is not only to roll back vaccine mandates, but also to overthrow the government.

“The success or failure of the United States will have a profound impact on Canada,” said Bruce Heyman, former American ambassador to Canada from 2014-2017. “Part of the more extreme nature of our politics over the last few years has now moved to occupy some part of Canada today.”

In the poll, 78% of Canadians said they were worried America’s democratic discord will affect their country’s economy and security. The survey of 1,620 Canadians was conducted between Jan. 27 and Jan. 31, the days in which the Ottawa protest began.

Two-thirds of Canada’s 38 million people live within 100 km (62 miles) of the US border, and the two countries are each other’s top trading partners.

The trade relationship with the United States is of existential importance to Canada, with 75% of all exports going to the southern neighbor. Half of Canada’s imports come from the United States, including 60% of all imported fresh vegetables.

The Jan. 6 anniversary of the storming of Capitol Hill in Washington last year led to a series of articles in Canadian newspapers that sounded an alarm about the resiliency of American democracy in coming years, and in particular after the 2024 election.

Until recently, politics in Canada has been less polarized than in the United States. One example is the adoption of vaccines with nearly 80% of Canadians having had two shots of a COVID-19 vaccine in contrast to 64% in the United States.

However, last week’s ouster of Conservative opposition leader Erin O’Toole in part for failing to embrace the protest suggests the political landscape is shifting.

“Canadians have generally looked to the United States and felt like, ‘Whatever is going on there, it’s not as bad in Canada,'” said Shachi Kurl, Angus Reid president.

“We like to think of ourselves as… a country of circumspection and compromise and friendliness, yet two in five people don’t feel that way anymore,” she said. Some 37% of Canadians say there is no room for political compromise in their country, the poll shows.

Ottawa police said on Tuesday they had worked with Ohio police to track down and arrest a man there for calling in fake threats “designed to deceive and distract our emergency resources,” deputy police chief Steve Bell told reporters.

On Monday, Canada’s federal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said the government would be “very vigilant about external forces, about foreign interference”.

‘A WAKE UP CALL’

Trump last weekend spoke out in support of the truckers and called Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “far-left lunatic”.

According to Angus Reid poll, 68% of Canadians believe U.S. democracy cannot survive another Trump presidency, and 47% said the United States is on its way to becoming an authoritarian state.

“The United States used to be a beacon of democracy, and now it’s exporting right-wing sedition to other democratic countries,” said Roland Paris, Trudeau’s former foreign policy adviser and professor of international affairs at University of Ottawa.

“The worse things get in the United States, the more dangerous it will be for Canada,” Paris said, calling the Ottawa protest a “wake-up call”.

Gerry Butts, Vice Chairman of Eurasia Group and formerly Trudeau’s top advisor, says “Canadians are astute observers of what’s happening in the United States, and they’re rightly anxious about it”.

“In the long term, Canada will be like everyone else… badly damaged if the United States becomes a democracy in name only,” he said.