New Delhi

At least 12 people were killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan by a strong earthquake felt across thousands of kilometres, but the region appeared Wednesday to have dodged the mass casualties usually associated with a tremor of such scale.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida began a surprise visit to Ukraine early Tuesday, hours after Chinese President Xi Jinping arriving in neighboring Russia for a three-day visit. The dueling summits come as the longtime rivals are on diplomatic offensives.

Kishida will meet President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Ukrainian capital.

India will be hosting a global conference at New Delhi on 18 March 2023 to popularize millets as super foods which could enhance health as well as protect the environment. The conference is being organized by the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare In the context of the United Nations declaring year 2023 as the International Year of Millets 2023.

While James Cameron's ecological sci-fi fable "Avatar: The Way of Water" is vying for best picture at the Oscars, his fellow nominees in the documentary categories have been busy chronicling very real threats to our own planet.

Hotels and restaurants across South Asia have had to adapt and reimagine dining out since the pandemic ripped through the region, forcing many out of business.

Those that have survived are tapping local sources and going online.

Assailants sprayed bullets toward a row of civilian homes in a remote village in Indian-controlled Kashmir, leaving at least four civilians dead and five others injured, police said Monday.

Police in India's capital New Delhi arrested a Muslim journalist Monday evening for allegedly hurting religious sentiments in what many have slammed as the latest example of shrinking press freedoms under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.

They were called because of the insulting comments made against Islam and the Prophet Muhammad by the officials of the ruling People's Party (BJP - The Bharatiya Janata Party) in India, Anatolia reports.

Indian author Geetanjali Shree and US translator Daisy Rockwell have won the International Booker Prize for Hindi novel "Tomb of Sand," a first for a book in an Indian language.

The prestigious £50,000 ($63,000, 59,000-euro) prize is awarded to fiction from around the world that has been translated into English and is shared between the author and translator.

The fifth International Mardin Biennial, featuring works by 40 artists from 24 countries, opened in the eastern province of Mardin on May 20 and will host its visitors until June 20.