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A powerful earthquake struck a rugged, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, flattening stone and mud-brick homes and killing at least 1,000 people, Associated Press reported.

The disaster posed a new test for Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers and relief agencies already struggling with the country’s multiple humanitarian crises.

The quake was Afghanistan’s deadliest in two decades, and officials said the toll could rise. An estimated 1,500 others were reported injured, the state-run news agency said. 

The disaster inflicted by the 6.1-magnitude quake heaps more misery on a country where millions face increasing hunger and povertyand the health system has been crumbling since the Taliban retook power nearly 10 months ago amid the U.S. and NATO withdrawal. The takeover led to a cutoff of vital international financing, and most of the world has shunned the Taliban government. 

In a rare move, the Taliban’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzadah, who almost never appears in public, pleaded with the international community and humanitarian organizations “to help the Afghan people affected by this great tragedy and to spare no effort.”

Residents in the remote area near the Pakistani border searched for victims dead or alive by digging with their bare hands through the rubble, according to footage shown by the Bakhtar news agency. It was not immediately clear if heavy rescue equipment was being sent, or if it could even reach the area.

At least 2,000 homes were destroyed in the region, where on average every household has seven or eight people living in it, said Ramiz Alakbarov, the UN deputy special representative to Afghanistan, according to Associated Press.

The full extent of the destruction among the villages tucked in the mountains was slow in coming to light. The roads, which are rutted and difficult to travel in the best of circumstances, may have been badly damaged, and landslides from recent rains made access even more difficult. 

Rescuers rushed in by helicopter, but the relief effort could be hindered by the exodus of many international aid agencies from Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover last August. Moreover, most governments are wary of dealing directly with the Taliban.

In a sign of the muddled workings between the Taliban and the rest of the world, Alakbarov said the Taliban had not formally requested that the UN mobilize international search-and-rescue teams or obtain equipment from neighboring countries to supplement the few dozen ambulances and several helicopters sent in by Afghan authorities. Still, officials from multiple UN agencies said the Taliban were giving them full access to the area.

The quake was centered in Paktika province, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) southwest of the city of Khost, according to neighboring Pakistan’s Meteorological Department. Experts put its depth at just 10 kilometers (6 miles). Shallow earthquakes tend to cause more damage, Associated Press reported.

The CPN (Unified Socialist) piled pressure on Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to reshuffle the ministers as per the decision of the party immediately.

A Secretariat meeting of the party held on Wednesday decided to mount pressure on the Prime Minister to implement the decision to reshuffle the ministers promptly, party senior leader Jhalanath Khanal said.

The party had decided to recall ministers Ram Kumari Jhankri, Birodh Khatiwada, Prem Ale and Krishna Kumar Shrestha and send Jeevan Ram Shrestha, Metmani Chaudhary, Sher Bahadur Kunwar and Hira KC to the Cabinet.

Similarly, the party had decided to make State Minister for Health Bhawani Khapung as the Health Minister.

Nepal reported 31 new Covid-19 cases on Wednesday.

According to the Ministry of Health and Population, 1, 557 swab samples were tested in the RT-PCR method, of which 28 returned positive. Likewise, 850 people underwent antigen tests, of which three were tested positive.

The Ministry said that no one died of virus in the last 24 hours. The Ministry said that 10 infected people recovered from the disease.

As of today, there are 142  active cases in the country.

Nepal-India Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NICCI) welcomed the start of “Bharat Gaurav Tourist Train” connecting Safdarjung, New Delhi along with other religious sites related to Ramayan circuit of India to Janakpur Dham, Nepal.

For the promotion of Nepal-India religious tourism with different religious pilgrimage circuits, NICCI had proposed the agenda for the development of religious circuits connecting both the countries during the Joint Working Group meeting for the promotion of Bilateral Tourism held in Kathmandu on 8th July 2018, read a statement issued by the Nepal-India Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

The agenda was endorsed by both the delegation of Nepal and India during the JWG meeting and now NICCI has been working on the final stage of development of Coffee Table Book and website including 5 Religious circuits namely; Shiva-shakti Circuit, Mahabharat Circuit, Ramayan Circuit, Buddhist Circuit and Sikh Circuit.

Flagged off on Tuesday, “Bharat Gaurav Tourist Train” initiation of Indian Railways and Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTA) has the capacity of 600 religious’/pilgrimage tourist to carry from Safdarjung, New Delhi along with different Ramayan circuit sites in India to Jahakpur Dham, Nepal.

It will help promote bilateral religious tourism as well as strengthen the sentiments of the people of both the countries.

Ideology is to a political party what capital city is to a country: the center from which authority and structure emanate. Kathmandu no longer calls all the shots in the new federal setup. Yet if there were to be no common federal capital, the federal project would unravel amid chaos and anarchy. Kathmandu sets broad contours for the country’s governance, offering a framework within which individual provinces and local units operate. Likewise, a political party is established around a central ideology around which other party structures and personnel coalesce.

Business-minded Nepali Congress leaders often make a mockery of the party’s governing ideology of ‘democratic socialism’. Similarly, CPN-UML’s power-grabbing top-brass often give a lie to ‘people’s multiparty democracy’, the party’s unique brand of communism. Yet even when their leaders and cadres go astray, they can always rally around the unifying ideology. Such ideology gives political parties unity and coherence, the glue with which to bind the loose organization. In its absence, political parties can quickly lose direction and unravel, as we saw with Rabindra Mishra’s Sajha Party or other Nepali outfits that have been formed around themes like anti-corruption and good governance.

When the popular TV presenter Rabi Lamichhane announced his new Rastriya Swatantra Party on June 21, he too promised to root out corruption and give the country the kind of politics it needs. But he outlined no governing ideology for his party. Catchy slogans and personality cults might be able to amass votes in the short run but for the party’s sustainability it must have an underlying political ideology.

What do the new party’s adherents believe in, for instance, that those of Congress or UML don’t? In the party unveiling ceremony, Lamichhane only outlined its functioning and structure, promising to work out the nitty-gritty later. We earnestly hope that the party can in the near future also settle on its core ideology. The country desperately needs alternative political forces. It would be a tragedy if Lamichanne’s new outfit, unmoored by lack of political ideology, too veers fatally off-course.

Authorities in Pakistan's Punjab province have decided to declare an "emergency" following a spike in cases of sexual abuse against women and children, the media reported on Monday, India Today reported.

Punjab Home Minister Atta Tarar on Sunday said the administration was forced to "declare an emergency to deal with rape cases".

The minister said the rapid increase in cases of sexual abuse against women and children in the province was a serious issue for the society and government officials.

"Four to five cases of rape are being reported daily in Punjab due to which the government is considering special measures to deal with cases of sexual harassment, abuse and coercion,” the Dawn newspaper quoted the provincial minister as saying in a press conference at the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) headquarters.

The minister, in the presence of Law Minister Malik Muhammad Ahmed Khan, stressed that all cases will be reviewed by the Cabinet Committee on Rape and Law and Order, and that civil society, women rights organisations, teachers, and attorneys will also be consulted to keep a check on such incidents.

Tarar also urged parents to teach their children about the importance of safety and that youngsters should not be left alone in their homes without supervision, according to India Today.

Tarar stated that the accused in a number of cases had been detained, the government had launched an anti-rape campaign, and that students would be sensatised about sexual harassment in schools.

The home minister also said the role of Punjab Forensic Science Agency would be improved for sampling of DNA on a fast track basis and a meeting with the lab authorities was scheduled for later Monday.

The minister in a response to a query also regretted that taking drugs had become a fashion in elite schools and colleges, which was contributing to the rise in the crime graph, India Today reported.

A powerful earthquake has killed at least 920 people and left hundreds more injured in Afghanistan, Taliban officials say, BBC reported.

Pictures show landslides and ruined mud-built homes in eastern Paktika province, where rescuers are scrambling to treat the injured.

In remote areas, helicopters have been ferrying victims to hospitals.

Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada said hundreds of houses were destroyed and the death toll was likely to rise.

His deputy minister for disaster management Sharafuddin Muslim told a news conference that at least 920 people had been killed and a further 600 injured.

The quake struck about 44km (27 miles) from the south-eastern city of Khost shortly after 01:30 local time (21:00 Tuesday GMT), when many people were at home, asleep in their beds.

Earthquakes tend to cause significant damage in Afghanistan, where there are many rural areas where dwellings are unstable or poorly built.

Taliban officials called for aid agencies to rush to the affected areas in the nation’s east.

Decades of conflict have made it difficult for the impoverished country to improve its protections against earthquakes and other natural disasters – despite efforts by aid agencies to reinforce some buildings over the years, according to BBC.

Even before the Taliban takeover, Afghanistan’s emergency services were stretched to deal with natural disasters – with few aircraft and helicopters available to rescuers.

Most of the casualties so far were in the Gayan and Barmal districts in Paktika, a local doctor told the BBC. Local media site Etilaat-e Roz reported a whole village in Gayan had been destroyed.

Tremors were felt across more than 500km of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Witnesses reported feeling the quake in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, as well as Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad.

However, there have been no immediate reports of casualties, and the earthquake caused little damage in Pakistan, according to BBC Urdu.

Afghanistan is prone to quakes, as it’s located in a tectonically active region, over a number of fault lines including the Chaman fault, the Hari Rud fault, the Central Badakhshan fault and the Darvaz fault.

The earthquake was magnitude 6.1 at a depth of some 51km, according to seismologists.

In the past 10 years, more than 7,000 people have been killed in earthquakes in the country, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports. There are an average of 560 deaths a year from earthquakes, BBC reported.

The Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) index plunged by 31. 21 points to close at 1,893.53 points on Wednesday. 

Similarly, the sensitive index fell 5. 94 points to reach 369. 15 points.

A total of 3,034,483 units of shares of 229 companies were traded for Rs 8. 43 billion.

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

Meanwhile, Global IME Samunnat Scheme was the top gainer today with its price surging by 10. 05 percent. Likewise, United IDI Mardi RB Hydropower Limited was the top loser with its price dropped by 6. 48 percent. 

At the end of the day, total market civilization stands at Rs 2.69 trillion.