Jharkhand | Pakistan

Police in eastern India used tear gas, batons and water cannon to disperse thousands of youth protesters as they marched on the state legislature in Jharkhand state on Monday over alleged wrongdoing in civil service examinations, TV footage showed. Students and unemployed youth in Jharkhand, one of India’s poorer states, launched the protests late last month over the alleged wrongdoing, including recruitment test paper leaks. The protest follows weeks-long youth-led demonstrations in the capital, Delhi, also linked to exam paper leaks, which led to the resignation of the country’s Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan last month. Police and paramilitary forces used tear gas, pellet guns and batons in Delhi to scatter some 50,000 youth protesters, some of whom clashed with police. The demonstrations were seen as a reflection of their anger over corruption in education, a lack of opportunities and unemployment. The demands of protesters in Jharkhand include an overhaul of the state’s examination system, cancell...

Indian students marched towards the state assembly in Jharkhand on Monday, escalating protests over alleged irregularities in government recruitment examinations, with several students also on hunger strike. Protests in Ranchi, capital of the eastern state home to more than 33 million people, began on July 29, days after a youth-led “cockroach” movement in New Delhi forced the resignation of the national education minister. At least six protesters are on hunger strike, including student leader Devendra Nath Mahto, 33, who has been fasting for more than a week. “We want the whole system to change,” Mahto said, as quoted by Indian media, demanding an end to the use of a private company that conducts tests for state civil service. On Monday, hundreds of police guarded the assembly behind barbed-wire barricades, after repeated talks between the protesters and the state government failed to reach an agreement. Large crowds of students chanting slogans marched towards the state assembly. The protesters are demandin...

All seven people on board a Beechcraft air ambulance that crashed in the Indian state of Jharkhand on Monday were killed, officials said on Tuesday, including two crew members, the patient and his relatives. The Beechcraft C90 plane, operated by Redbird Airways, took off from state capital Ranchi but requested a change to its flight path due to weather, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation said on Monday. The aircraft subsequently lost communication and radar contact, the regulator said. Rescue and medical teams rushed to the site of the crash, which local media said was deep inside a difficult-to-access forest. “The team of doctors found them, and declared them dead,” local administrative official Keerthishree G told reporters, adding that two of the seven people killed were crew members. “We have pulled out the bodies and sent them for post-mortem and further investigation,” the official said. Keerthishree G is the deputy commissioner of Chatra district, where the crash occurred during a thunderstorm. ...

At least 18 people were killed in eastern India on Tuesday after a bus ferrying Hindu pilgrims collided with a truck loaded with cooking gas cylinders, officials said. Visuals from the site in Jharkhand state showed the mangled wreckage of the bus, with its rear portion almost entirely burnt. Local lawmaker Nishikant Dubey said the pilgrims were travelling to a Hindu shrine to celebrate the sacred month of Shravan, coinciding with the onset of the monsoons in the subcontinent. “Eighteen devotees lost their lives due to a bus and truck accident,” Dubey said on social media. The pilgrims were carrying holy water from the Ganges to offer to the Hindu god of destruction, Lord Shiva. Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his “deepest condolences to the families of the devotees who lost their lives”. “The road accident in Jharkhand’s Deoghar is extremely tragic,” his office said on social media. Tens of thousands of people die in road accidents in India every year, according to official data. More than 172,000 die...