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Non-fossil fuels now account for half of India’s installed energy capacity — years ahead of schedule — but the third-largest greenhouse gas polluter remains deeply reliant on coal for electricity generation.”A landmark in India’s energy transition journey,” Minister of Renewable Energy Pralhad Joshi proclaimed after the world’s most populous nation released figures in July.”Five years early,” he added, referring to India’s 2030 target under the Paris Agreement, and marking a step to the country’s stated goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2070.But while the 50 percent milestone is significant, climate expert Avantika Goswami says the figures — which refer only to potential energy production — tell just part of the story.”Overall, actual generation from renewable sources is still quite low,” Goswami told AFP from the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).The reason is stark: nearly three-quarters of electricity continues to come from heavily polluting coal-burning power plants.- Coal paradox -The challenge becomes even more apparent when examining India’s continued dependence on coal. Far from decreasing its usage, the globe’s second-largest consumer of coal pushed up production of the dirty fossil fuel by five percent last year, mining one billion tonnes, according to the coal ministry.”Coal remains crucial,” the ministry said.The stance highlights the practical challenges of India’s energy transition. Coal is needed to fulfil power demands while storage capacity lags behind the surge in renewable sources of power.”The coal sector remains a crucial contributor to India’s energy mix, powering over 74 percent of the country’s electricity and sustaining key industries like steel and cement,” the coal ministry said, celebrating what it dubbed “India’s coal boom”.This reliance places India in a challenging position globally. The country ranks behind only China and the United States for carbon emissions overall.But analysts point out that in a country of 1.4 billion people, per capita emissions are only one-third of the global average, according to official figures.”Looking at India’s per capita emissions, the effort it is making, India is doing pretty well,” said activist Harjeet Singh, head of the Satat Sampada Climate Foundation.India has set itself the daunting challenge of reducing emissions by 45 percent by 2030.At the same time, electricity needs are expected to more than double by 2047, according to the country’s Center for Science and Environment.Supplying some of that demand “is likely to be met by the addition of renewables”, Goswami said.- ‘Waste that energy’ -Half of India’s 484.8 GW installed capacity is from non-fossil fuel sources.The majority comes from solar, totalling 119 GW — the third-largest level globally.India is building one of the world’s largest solar and wind energy farms, spread over a desert the size of Singapore.It is followed by hydro and wind, and also nuclear power — which makes up less than two percent of the total mix.But solar and wind create steady power only when the conditions are right, and India’s storage capacity is a meagre 505 MWh — far lower than it can generate.The storage bottleneck was not lost on the renewable energy minister.Speaking at the inauguration of a battery storage systems plant in June, Joshi said India’s renewable energy potential was “growing fast” and “adding 25–30 GW every year”. He added: “But without storage, we will either waste that energy or fall back on coal when renewables dip.”Building storage based on batteries requires rare earth metals, with rival and neighbour China controlling 70 percent of the world’s supplies.”We still remain dependent on China,” said Harjeet Singh, the climate activist. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was in New Delhi for talks on Tuesday, with the supply of rare earth metals on the agenda.One solution India is considering is pump-hydro energy storage projects. When wind and solar plants produce excess energy, water is pumped into high reservoirs. That stored energy can then be released to generate power when demand surges.But Goswami believes the transition to cleaner power requires a multi-pronged approach.The transition to cleaner power must come from “emission intensity reduction” of often inefficient coal plants, combined with better integrated renewable energy in the grid that “will actually make the shift happen”.

Grinding charcoal with a few drops of goat’s milk, 60-year-old Basran Jogi peers at the faces of two small Pakistani sisters preparing for their first tattoos.The practice of elder women needling delicate shapes onto the faces, hands, and arms of younger generations stretches back centuries in the Hindu villages that dot the southern border with India.”First draw two straight lines between the eyebrows,” Jogi instructs her friend poised with a sewing needle.”Now insert the needle along the lines – but slowly, until it bleeds.”Six-year-old Pooja barely winces as dotted circles and triangles are tattooed onto her chin and forehead.On the outskirts of the rural town of Umerkot in Sindh province, her seven-year-old sister Champa declares eagerly beside her that “I am ready too”.In recent years, however, as rural Hindu communities in Muslim-majority Pakistan become more connected to nearby cities, many young women have opted out of the “old ways”.”These signs set us apart from others,” said 20-year-old Durga Prem, a computer science student who grew up in the nearby city of Badin.”Our generation doesn’t like them anymore. In the age of social media, young girls avoid facial tattoos because they think these marks will make them look different or unattractive.”Her sister Mumta has also refused to accept the tattoos that mark their mother and grandmothers.”But if we were still in the village, we might have had these marks on our faces or arms,” she reflects.- Ward off evil spirits -Just two percent of Pakistan’s 240 million people are Hindu, and the majority live in rural areas of southern Sindh province.Discrimination against minorities runs deep and Hindu activist Mukesh Meghwar, a prominent voice for religious harmony, believes younger generations do not want to be instantly identified as Hindu in public.Many Muslims believe tattoos are not permissible in Islam, and even those who have them rarely display them in public.”We can’t force our girls to continue this practice,” Meghwar told AFP. “It’s their choice. But unfortunately, we may be the last generation to see tattoos on our women’s faces, necks, hands, and arms,” he said.Few Hindus that AFP spoke with recalled the meaning behind the practice of tattoos or when it began, but anthropologists believe it has been part of their cultural heritage for hundreds of years.”These symbols are part of the culture of people who trace their roots to the Indus civilisation,” anthropologist Zulfiqar Ali Kalhoro told AFP, referring to a Bronze Age period that pre-dates modern religion.”These ‘marks’ were traditionally used to identify members of a community” and to “ward off evil spirits”, he adds. Admiring the work on the grinning faces of the two little sisters, elder Jogi agreed that it was an ancestral tradition that enhanced the beauty of women. “We don’t make them for any specific reason – it’s a practice that has continued for years. This is our passion,” she told AFP.The marks that begin dark black quickly fade to a deep green colour, but last a lifetime. “They belong to us,” said Jamna Kolhi, who received her first tattoos as a young girl alongside Jogi. “These were drawn by my childhood friend –- she passed away a few years ago,” 40-year-old Jamna Kolhi told AFP.”Whenever I see these tattoos, I remember her and those old days. It’s a lifelong remembrance.”

A record 383 aid workers were killed last year, the United Nations said Tuesday, branding the figures and lack of accountability a “shameful indictment” of international apathy, and warning that this year’s toll was equally grim.The 2024 figure was up 31 percent on the year before, the UN said on World Humanitarian Day, “driven by the relentless conflicts in Gaza, where 181 humanitarian workers were killed, and in Sudan, where 60 lost their lives”.It said state actors were the most common perpetrators of the killings last year, and most of the victims were local staff attacked in the line of duty or in their homes.Besides those killed, 308 aid workers were wounded, 125 kidnapped and 45 detained.”Humanitarians must be respected and protected. They can never be targeted,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement.”This rule is non-negotiable and is binding on all parties to conflict, always and everywhere. Yet red lines are crossed with impunity,” he said, calling for perpetrators to be brought to justice.- ‘Life-saving work’ -Provisional figures from the Aid Worker Security Database show that 265 aid workers have been killed this year to August 14.”Attacks on this scale, with zero accountability, are a shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy,” said UN aid chief Tom Fletcher, head of its humanitarian agency OCHA.”Violence against aid workers is not inevitable. It must end.”OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said “very, very few” people had “ever been brought to justice for any of these attacks”.The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement said 18 of its staff and volunteers had been killed so far this year “while carrying out their life-saving work”.”Each killing sends a dangerous message that their lives were expendable. They were not,” the group said.Meanwhile the UN’s World Health Organization said 1,121 health workers and patients had been killed and hundreds injured in attacks across 16 territories —  with most deaths in Sudan.”Each attack inflicts lasting harm, deprives entire communities of life-saving care when they need it the most, endangers health care providers, and weakens already strained health systems,” the WHO said.- Frustration with impunity -World Humanitarian Day marks the day in 2003 when UN rights chief Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 other humanitarians were killed in the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad.Current UN deputy human rights chief Nada al-Nashif — who survived that blast — urged countries to use the principle of universal jurisdiction to go after the perpetrators of such attacks.”It’s supreme frustration with impunity,” she told AFP.”Where the pursuit in national jurisdictions is not coming through — then we have to resort to universal jurisdiction.”Speaking of the Baghdad attack, she said: “I lost a finger, I was badly hurt, I had about six surgeries over four years, but it is nothing, it pales in comparison to what we lost that day.”I am really saddened that we are in the same place now, where the United Nations is being undermined.”We are being manipulated again, attacked, directly, and find ourselves prey to misinformation and disinformation at a time when more than ever we need a robust, vivid and dynamic UN.”

Rescuers and residents resumed searching on Tuesday for survivors as the death toll from five days of torrential rain rose to almost 400, with authorities warning monsoon downpours would continue until the weekend.Torrential rains across Pakistan’s north have caused flooding and landslides that have swept away entire villages, leaving many residents trapped in the rubble and scores missing.The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said 356 people were killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a mountainous province in Pakistan’s northwest bordering Afghanistan, since Thursday evening.Dozens more were killed in surrounding regions, taking the toll in the past five days to almost 400.Rescuers dug through mud and stone in hard-hit Dalori village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the hope of finding survivors and the bodies of people missing.Villagers stood watching and praying as the rescuers worked, a day after the search was halted by more intense rain.Umar Islam, a 31-year-old labourer, struggled to hold back his tears as he spoke about his father, who was killed on Monday.”Our misery is beyond explanation,” Islam told AFP as neighbours tried to console him. “In a matter of minutes, we lost everything we had,” he said.”Our lives are ruined.”Fazal Akbar, 37, another villager, described the aftermath of the floods as “terrifying”.”It happened so suddenly that no one even had a minute to react. Announcements were made from the mosque, and villagers rushed to begin the rescue themselves,” said Akbar.”In less than 20 minutes, our village was reduced to ruins.”- More rain -Many roads have been damaged, making it hard for rescuers to reach areas damaged by the floods.Communication also remains difficult, with phone networks hit in flood-affected areas. Heavy rain also began falling on Tuesday in southern parts of Pakistan that had so far been spared the worst of the monsoon downpours.Amir Hyder Laghari, chief meteorologist of the southern Sindh province, said he feared urban flooding in big cities such as the financial capital Karachi “due to weak infrastructure”.As Karachi’s crumbling pipes and sewer system struggled to cope with the downpours, rush hour drivers were caught in rising waters and multiple neighbourhoods were hit with power cuts.It has also been raining in 15 districts in neighbouring Balochistan province, and the main highway connecting it with Sindh has been blocked for heavy vehicles, said provincial disaster official Muhammad Younis.Between 40 and 50 houses had been damaged in two districts, he said.The rain was expected to continue until Saturday, and “another spell is to start by the end of the month”, said NDMA chairman Lieutenant General Inam Haider Malik.More than 700 people have been killed in the monsoon rains since June 26, the NDMA said, with close to 1,000 injured. The monsoon is expected to last until mid-September.Landslides and flash floods are common during the monsoon season, which typically begins in June and lasts until the end of September.Pakistan is among the world’s most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change and is increasingly facing extreme weather events.Monsoon floods submerged one-third of Pakistan in 2022, resulting in approximately 1,700 deaths.

Rescuers and residents resumed searching on Tuesday for survivors as the death toll from five days of torrential rain rose to almost 400, with authorities warning monsoon downpours would continue until the weekend. Torrential rains across Pakistan’s north have caused flooding and landslides that have swept away entire villages, leaving many residents trapped in the rubble and scores missing.The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said 356 people were killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a mountainous province in Pakistan’s northwest bordering Afghanistan, since Thursday evening.Dozens more were killed in surrounding regions, taking the toll in the past five days to almost 400.Rescuers dug through mud and stone in hard-hit Dalori village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the hope of finding survivors and the bodies of people missing.Villagers stood watching and praying as the rescuers worked, a day after the search was halted by more intense rain.Umar Islam, a 31-year-old labourer, struggled to hold back his tears as he spoke about his father, who was killed on Monday.”Our misery is beyond explanation,” Islam told AFP as neighbours tried to console him. “In a matter of minutes, we lost everything we had,” he said.”Our lives are ruined.”Fazal Akbar, 37, another villager, described the aftermath of the floods as “terrifying”.”It happened so suddenly that no one even had a minute to react. Announcements were made from the mosque, and villagers rushed to begin the rescue themselves,” said Akbar.”In less than 20 minutes, our village was reduced to ruins.”- More rain -Many roads have been damaged, making it hard for rescuers to reach areas damaged by the floods.Communication also remains difficult, with phone networks hit in flood-affected areas. Heavy rain also began falling on Tuesday in southern parts of Pakistan that had so far been spared the worst of the monsoon downpours.The rain was expected to continue until Saturday, and “another spell is to start by the end of the month”, said NDMA chairman Lieutenant General Inam Haider Malik.More than 700 people have been killed in the monsoon rains since June 26, the NDMA said, with close to 1,000 injured. The monsoon is expected to last until mid-September.Authorities also warned of urban flooding in big cities in coastal areas of Sindh province, including the financial capital Karachi, “due to weak infrastructure”.It has also been raining in 15 districts in neighbouring Balochistan province, and the main highway connecting it with Sindh has been blocked for heavy vehicles, said provincial disaster official Muhammad Younis.Between 40 and 50 houses had been damaged in two districts, he said.Landslides and flash floods are common during the monsoon season, which typically begins in June and lasts until the end of September.Pakistan is among the world’s most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change and is increasingly facing extreme weather events.Monsoon floods submerged one-third of Pakistan in 2022, resulting in approximately 1,700 deaths.

Pakistan demoted former captains Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan on Tuesday in a contract review that scrapped the top category after a string of poor recent results.There are now no players in the top category A for the first time since the system of central contracts was introduced 21 years ago.Azam and Rizwan have both been demoted to category B contracts, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said.”We have awarded central contracts to 30 players with 10 each placed in B, C and D. Notably, no player has been selected in category A in this cycle,” the PCB said in a media release, without giving any reason.Azam and Rizwan are the biggest names in Pakistan cricket but poor performances in the past 12 months saw them lose their places in the Twenty20 international squads announced for a tri-series and the Asia Cup.Joining Rizwan and Azam in category B are T20I captain Salman Agha, Fakhar Zaman, Abrar Ahmed, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Saim Ayub, Shadab Khan and Shaheen Shah Afridi.The national team’s recent performances in all three formats of the game have fallen badly.Pakistan beat England in a home Test series 2-1 last year but then lost 2-0 in South Africa and drew 1-1 at home against a lowly West Indies, finishing 10th and last in the World Test Championship.The slump has also resulted in Pakistan Test captain Shan Masood being demoted from category B to D.Pakistan won their first one-day international series in Australia for 22 years in November and routed South Africa 3-0 but then crashed out in the first round of the Champions trophy, an event they co-hosted with Dubai.They also crashed out of last year’s Twenty20 World Cup in the first round and lost a recent Twenty20 international series in Bangladesh 2-1.The tri-series, also involving Afghanistan and the United Arab Emirates, starts from August 29 in Sharjah, followed by the Asia Cup in Dubai.

In the middle of the night, by the glow of their mobile phones, rescuers and villagers dug through the concrete remains of flattened houses after massive rocks crashed down on a remote Pakistani village following a cloudburst.Using hammers, shovels, and in many cases their bare hands to clear the rubble and open blocked pathways, they searched through the debris in darkness, with no electricity in the area.In just minutes, a torrent of water and rocks swept down on the village of Dalori on Monday, destroying at least 15 houses, damaging several others and killing nine people.Around 20 villagers are still trapped under the debris.”A huge bang came from the top of the mountain, and then dark smoke billowed into the sky,” Lal Khan, a 46-year-old local labourer, told AFP.”A massive surge of water gushed down with the sliding mountain,” he added.The cloudburst above Dalori came a few days into heavy monsoon rains that have already killed more than 350 people across mountainous Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, along the northwest border with Afghanistan.Torrential rains in northern Pakistan since Thursday have caused flooding and landslides that have swept away entire villages, with around 200 people still missing.And authorities have warned of fresh flash floods in the coming days.Khan recalled seeing the hand of his neighbour sticking out of the rubble, where rescuers later retrieved her body along with those of her four children.”We are absolutely helpless. We don’t have the means to tackle this calamity that nature has sent upon us,” Khan added.- ‘Like an apocalyptic movie’ -Fellow resident Gul Hazir said not one but several cloudbursts from two sides of the village struck the remote valley.”It was like an apocalyptic movie. I still can’t believe what I saw,” Hazir said.”It was not the water that struck first, but a massive amount of rocks and stones that smashed into the houses,” Hazir told AFP.Local administration official Usman Khan told AFP at the site that many of the houses had been built in the middle of the stream bed, which worsened the scale of destruction.”There was no way for the water to recede after the cloudburst struck at least 11 separate locations in the area,” he said.”It is immensely challenging to carry out operations here, as heavy machinery cannot pass through the narrow alleys.”Saqib Ghani, a student who lost his father and was searching for other relatives, tried to claw through the concrete with his bare hands before rescuers pulled him away and villagers gave him water.The single road leading to the village was demolished at several points, while gravel was scattered across the settlement.Despite the challenging conditions, excavators were working at several sites to remove debris that had clogged the drainage channels and blocked the flow of water.Dalori has already held funerals for five victims, while women mourned in darkened homes with no electricity since the disaster.In the village’s narrow alleys, unattended cattle wandered freely amid the devastation.”I will not live here anymore,” said a grieving woman, draped in a large shawl, as she followed a coffin being carried through the street.Over the past few days, the villagers had been collecting money to help people in neighbouring flood-hit areas, until they too were overwhelmed by disaster and lost everything.”We didn’t know we would be needing help ourselves,” Hazir added.

A record 383 aid workers were killed in 2024, the United Nations said Tuesday, branding the figures and lack of accountability a “shameful indictment” of international apathy — and warned this year’s toll was equally disturbing.The 2024 figure was up 31 percent on the year before, the UN said on World Humanitarian Day, “driven by the relentless conflicts in Gaza, where 181 humanitarian workers were killed, and in Sudan, where 60 lost their lives”.It said state actors were the most common perpetrators of the killings in 2024.The UN said most of those killed were local staff, and were either attacked in the line of duty or in their homes.Besides those killed, 308 aid workers were wounded, 125 kidnapped and 45 detained last year.”Even one attack against a humanitarian colleague is an attack on all of us and on the people we serve,” said UN aid chief Tom Fletcher.”Attacks on this scale, with zero accountability, are a shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy. “As the humanitarian community, we demand — again — that those with power and influence act for humanity, protect civilians and aid workers and hold perpetrators to account.”Provisional figures from the Aid Worker Security Database show that 265 aid workers have been killed this year, as of August 14.The UN reiterated that attacks on aid workers and operations violate international humanitarian law and damage the lifelines sustaining millions of people trapped in war and disaster zones.”Violence against aid workers is not inevitable. It must end,” said Fletcher, the UN emergency relief coordinator and under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs.Meanwhile the UN’s World Health Organization said it had verified more than 800 attacks on health care in 16 territories so far this year, with more than 1,110 health workers and patients killed and hundreds injured.”Each attack inflicts lasting harm, deprives entire communities of life-saving care when they need it the most, endangers health care providers, and weakens already strained health systems,” the WHO said.World Humanitarian Day marks the day in 2003 when UN rights chief Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 other humanitarians were killed in the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad.

Fresh torrential rains in northern Pakistan killed at least 20 people on Monday, local officials said, as the region is ravaged by an unusually intense monsoon season that has left more than 300 people dead in recent days.Torrential rains across the country’s north have caused flooding and landslides that have swept away entire villages, leaving many residents trapped in the rubble and around 200 still missing.”A cloudburst in Swabi completely destroyed several houses, killing more than 20 people,” an official in the district, located in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told AFP on Monday.Several villages were wiped out by the huge amount of rain falling in a short period of time, a second local official said, confirming the death toll.Since the first heavy rains on Thursday most of the deaths — more than 340 — were reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to the provincial disaster agency, which warned of new flash floods over the next few days.The latest heavy rains halted the ongoing search efforts for the missing, with volunteers and rescue workers racing to find possible survivors and retrieve bodies.”This morning fresh rains forced a halt to relief operations,” said Nisar Ahmad, 31, a volunteer in worst-hit Buner district, adding that 12 villages had been destroyed and 219 bodies recovered.”Dozens of bodies are still buried under the mud and rocks, which can only be recovered with heavy machinery. However the makeshift tracks built to access the area have once again been destroyed by the new rains.”- ‘We feel scared’ -Many people fled to seek shelter under damaged infrastructure and in the mountains in Buner, an area with difficult terrain.”Even if it rains a little now, we feel scared because there was light rain that day. And then the unsuspecting people were swept away by the storm,” said Buner resident Ghulam Hussain, 35.”Children and women are running and screaming up the mountains to escape,” Hazrat Ullah, 18, told AFP.Volunteer Ahmad said there were also fears for the future due to a lack of food supplies and clean water.”Many livestock have also perished in the cloudburst, and their decomposing bodies are spreading a foul odour in several places. Right now, our most urgent need is clean drinking water, and I appeal to the government to provide it,” he said.The monsoon season brings about three-quarters of South Asia’s annual rainfall, which is vital for agriculture and food security but also causes widespread destruction.- ‘Lies in ruins’ -According to the National Disaster Agency, the intensity of this year’s monsoon is about 50 to 60 percent higher than last year. Preliminary government estimates put the cost of flood damage to government and private property at around $445,000, the prime minister’s office said in a statement Monday.A senior official from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) told AFP that hundreds of houses, dozens of schools, and at least 23 buildings were damaged by the heavy rains.Sharif Khan, a 47-year-old flour dealer from Buner, lost his house and moved into his cousin’s home with his wife and four children.”Nothing compares to one’s own home. I had built that house over six years… and now it lies in ruins,” Khan said. “Since most houses in my area have been destroyed, it seems likely I will have to move outside the area.”Landslides and flash floods are common during the monsoon season, which typically begins in June and lasts until the end of September.The heavy rains that have battered Pakistan since the start of the summer monsoon have claimed the lives of more than 650 people, with over 920 injured.Pakistan is among the world’s most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change and is increasingly facing extreme weather events.In 2022, monsoon floods submerged one-third of the country and resulted in approximately 1,700 deaths.

Myanmar’s junta said Monday that long-promised elections will start on December 28, despite a raging civil war that has put much of the country out of its control, and international monitors slating the poll as a charade.Myanmar has been consumed by conflict since the military deposed the government of democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, making unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud.Swathes of the country are beyond military control — administered by a myriad of pro-democracy guerrillas and powerful ethnic armed organisations which have pledged to block polls in their enclaves.Analysts say the election will likely see junta chief Min Aung Hlaing maintain his power over any new government — either as president, military leader or some new office where he will consolidate control.”I think this election is only being held to give power to military dictators until the world ends,” said one Myanmar citizen in the western state of Rakhine.”I don’t think the election will hold any significance for the people,” added the 63-year-old, declining to be named for security reasons.Myanmar’s civil war has killed thousands, left more than half the nation in poverty, and more than 3.5 million people living displaced.The junta has touted elections as a way to end the conflict and offered cash rewards to opposition fighters willing to lay down their arms ahead of the vote.”We want stability back in the country,” said one displaced woman in the central city of Mandalay. “If the country will be made more stable and peaceful because of the election, we want to participate.”Suu Kyi remains jailed and many opposition lawmakers ousted by the coup are boycotting the polls, which a UN expert has branded a “fraud” designed to rebrand continuing military rule.”These elections are not a process of ending the political crisis in Myanmar, but placing a fake democratic veneer over continued repressive rule,” said independent analyst David Scott Mathieson.”All the supposedly credible moving parts” including party registrations, updated election laws and constituency announcements “are all simply special effects in an elaborate but squalid sham”, he added.- ‘Security constraints’ -Myanmar’s Union Election Commission said in a statement that the first votes will be cast on December 28 and “dates for the subsequent phases will be announced later”.Conflict monitors predict the period will see an uptick in violence and unrest as the military seeks to expand the scope of the vote and opposition groups lash back.Last month, the junta introduced new laws dictating prison sentences of up to 10 years for critics or protesters of the election.The legislation also outlawed damaging ballot papers and polling stations, as well as the intimidation or harm of voters, candidates and election workers — with a maximum punishment of 20 years in prison.Min Aung Hlaing is currently ruling Myanmar as acting president, also serving as the chief of the armed forces which has ruled the country for most of its post-independence history.Analysts predict the vote may split the factions opposing him, as they weigh whether to participate.Myanmar’s disparate opposition fighters initially struggled to make headway against the junta, before a combined offensive starting in late 2023 won a series of nationwide territorial victories.In response the junta has waged a withering campaign of air strikes and enacted conscription, swelling its ranks with thousands of new troops and clawing back some key settlements in recent weeks.A census held last year as preparation for the election estimated it failed to collect data from 19 million of the country’s 51 million people, according to provisional findings.The results cited “significant security constraints” as one reason for the shortfall — giving a sign of how limited the reach of the election may be amid the civil war.