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India has signed a contract to purchase 26 Rafale fighter jets from France, New Delhi’s defence ministry said Monday, with the multi-billion-dollar deal to include both single and twin-seat planes.When delivered, the jets would join 36 French-made Rafale fighters already acquired by New Delhi as part of its efforts to rapidly modernise its military hardware.”The governments of India and France have signed an inter-governmental agreement for the procurement of 26 Rafale Aircraft,” the defence ministry said in a statement.The jets made by French aerospace company Dassault Aviation are expected to operate from Indian-made aircraft carriers, replacing the Russian MiG-29K jets.”It includes training, simulator, associated equipment, weapons and performance-based logistics” as well as 22 single-seater and four twin-seater jets, said India’s defence ministry.”It also includes additional equipment for the existing Rafale fleet of the Indian Air Force (IAF).”The Indian government announced its intention to procure 26 Rafales in 2023, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited France for the Bastille Day celebrations.Despite historical ties with Russia as its key supplier for military equipment, India has diversified in recent years with key purchases including from France as well as from the United States and Israel.Dassault said that the jets will provide India with “state-of-the-art capabilities” and an “active role in guaranteeing national sovereignty and consolidating India’s role as a major international player”.India’s navy is the first user outside France of the Rafale Marine jet, the company said.- Tensions with Pakistan -Monday’s deal comes as India’s relations with arch-rival Pakistan plummet to fresh lows.New Delhi has accused Pakistan of backing the deadliest attack on civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir since 2000 — claims Islamabad denies.The two countries have exchanged gunfire, diplomatic barbs, expelled each other’s citizens and shut border since the April 22 attack, in which 26 men were killed.Analysts say there is also a serious risk of the crisis turning into a military escalation.The earlier contract for 36 Rafale aircraft, agreed in 2016, was worth about $9.4 billion. Many global arms suppliers see the world’s most populous nation — and fifth-largest economy — a key market.India has become the world’s largest arms importer with purchases steadily rising to account for nearly 10 percent of all imports globally in 2019-23, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said last year.India has also eyed with worry its northern neighbour China, especially since a deadly 2020 clash between their troops.That sparked a wave of defence reforms in the country, with both a push for fresh contracts from foreign suppliers and simplified laws to push domestic manufacturing and co-production of critical military hardware.This decade India has opened an expansive new helicopter factory, launched its first homemade aircraft carrier, and conducted a successful long-range hypersonic missile test.That in turn has fostered a growing arms export market which saw sales last year worth $2.63 billion — still a tiny amount compared to established players, but a 30-fold increase in a decade.India has deepened defence cooperation with Western countries in recent years, including the Quad alliance with the United States, Japan and Australia.

Anger in Indian-run Kashmir escalated on Monday over sweeping detentions in the hunt for the gunmen who carried out a deadly attack last week that New Delhi blames on arch-rival Pakistan.New Delhi has accused Pakistan of supporting “cross-border terrorism” after gunmen killed 26 people on April 22, the worst attack on civilians in contested Muslim-majority Kashmir for a quarter of a century.Islamabad has denied any role, calling attempts to link Pakistan to the attack “frivolous” and vowing to respond to Indian action.Relations between the nuclear-armed rivals have plunged to their lowest level in years, sparking worries by analysts of possible military action.The attack also sparked a huge manhunt for the gunmen in Kashmir, with Indian security forces blowing up nine homes of suspected rebels, as well as detaining nearly 2,000 people for questioning, a senior police official told AFP.”Punish the guilty, show them no mercy, but don’t let innocent people become collateral damage,” Jammu and Kashmir’s Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said in a statement.Aga Ruhullah, a federal lawmaker from Kashmir, said: “Kashmir and Kashmiris are being given a collective punishment.”Security operations in the search for the gunmen come as India and Pakistani forces have exchanged fire across the de facto border in the rugged and remote high-altitude Himalayan outposts.- ‘Revolving door’ -India’s army said on Monday its troops and Pakistani forces had fired at each other for a fourth night in a row.There were no reported casualties. Islamabad did not immediately confirm the gunfire from Pakistan.”During the night of April 27-28… Pakistan Army posts initiated unprovoked small arms fire across the Line of Control,” the Indian army said in a statement, referring to the de facto border in contested Kashmir.”Indian troops responded swiftly and effectively,” it said.Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947.Both claim the territory in full.Rebels in the Indian-run area have waged an insurgency since 1989, seeking independence or a merger with Pakistan.Indian police have issued wanted posters for three men — two Pakistanis and an Indian — who they say are members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group, a UN-designated terrorist organisation.They have announced a two million rupee ($23,500) bounty for information leading to each man’s arrest.India is also hunting several of its own citizens in connection to the killings, sweeping up those they suspect may have information on the attackers.”It’s a revolving door in police stations as part of the ongoing investigation,” said a senior police official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.”Some have already been let go, and more are being summoned to police stations,” the officer said.The homes of men suspected of having links to the attackers have also been blown up at night.Yasmeena, the sister of fugitive accused Ashif Sheikh, said her family was being punished, with their home demolished even though they had not seen her brother for three years.”If my brother is involved, how is it the family’s sin?” she said.”This house doesn’t belong to him alone.”- ‘Exercise restraint’ -New Delhi has downgraded diplomatic ties since the attack, withdrawn visas for Pakistanis, suspended a water-sharing treaty, and announced the closure of the main land border crossing with Pakistan.In response, Islamabad ordered the expulsion of Indian diplomats and military advisers, cancelled visas for Indian nationals and barred its airspace to Indian airplanes.India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday after warning last week that those responsible for the attack in Kashmir would see a response “loud and clear”. The United Nations has urged the arch-rivals to show “maximum restraint” so that issues can be “resolved peacefully through meaningful mutual engagement”.China, which shares a border with both India and Pakistan, urged both sides on Monday to “exercise restraint, meet each other halfway” and “properly handle relevant differences through dialogue”, foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said.Iran has already offered to mediate, and Saudi Arabia has said Riyadh was trying to “prevent an escalation”.

An Austrian climber has died while descending Nepal’s Ama Dablam after a successful summit, the country’s tourism department said Monday. Nepal named the climber as Martin Hornegger, 64, who went missing during his descent on Saturday morning after reaching the summit of the Himalayan peak.”It is learnt that he fell down while descending, and his body was found on the foot of the peak,” said Himal Gautam, director at the Mountaineering and Adventure Tourism Section of the tourism department.Hornegger had been climbing the 6,812-metre (22,349-foot) Ama Dablam with his daughter and son-in-law through a local agency, officials said.His body has been taken to the capital Kathmandu.”The tourism department is consulting with agencies to take the dead body back to his country,” Gautam added.Nepal is home to eight of the world’s 10 highest peaks, including Mount Everest, and welcomes hundreds of climbers every year during the spring and autumn climbing seasons.  But the dangerous terrain and extreme weather mean that accidents are common, particularly during the harsh winter. Scientists have said that climate change spurred by humans burning fossil fuels is making weather events more severe, super-charged by warmer oceans. Ama Dablam, located in the Khumbu region of eastern Nepal, is a popular training peak for mountaineers preparing for Everest. 

Lucknow Super Giants have given their backing to skipper Rishabh Pant to lead them to glory in the Indian Premier League despite the swashbuckling left-hander’s struggles with the bat.Pant’s Lucknow went down to Mumbai Indians on Sunday for their fifth defeat in this edition of the T20 tournament, with 46 out of 74 matches played.Wicketkeeper-batsman Pant was snapped up by Lucknow for a record price of $3.21 million in the November auction and later appointed captain ahead of the 18th season.But Pant has managed just 110 runs from nine innings.His poor batting form coincides with Lucknow’s patchy run in the league as they are placed sixth after 10 matches.However, team mentor Zaheer Khan praised Pant’s leadership in the 10-team tournament, where top four teams will move into the play-offs.”He’s been fantastic as a leader, that’s something which I can vouch for,” Zaheer said after the team’s 54-run loss to Mumbai.”The kind of efforts he’s been taking to make sure that each individual in that group is comfortable, is heard, and the planning to do everything which goes around in IPL, he’s being spot on.”Former India pace bowler Zaheer added that the team’s middle order is “dependent on Rishabh”, and remained sure he will provide the runs that are needed.”I’m very confident that the impact, which we want from him, will come,” he added. “It’s just about something clicking — so I wouldn’t relate it to pressure.”Pant’s batting flop extended to Lucknow’s 10th match when he attempted a reverse sweep off England spinner Will Jacks and got caught out at short thirdman for four.Lucknow were bowled out for 161 in their chase of 216.Pant said he had been “keeping it very simple”, but was trying to remain focused on the matches ahead and “not thinking” about his past form. “In a season like this, where things are not going your way, you’re going to start questioning yourself as a player — and that is something you don’t want to do,” he said.India’s spin great Anil Kumble said pressure of Pant’s price tag was weighing heavy on the flamboyant batsman.”There’s a lot of expectations on him as a captain, as a leader, and he was bought at the maximum price at the auction,” said Kumble.”All of these are probably going through his mind,” he added. “The last thing that you want is all of this — you want to shut all of that out, focus on the white ball that’s coming out at him, and that’s all he needs to do.”

When a massive earthquake hit Myanmar last month, centuries of sacred history tumbled down — towering Buddha idols, sky-scraping stupas and the pure-white pagoda where 83-year-old Khin Sein has prayed for most of her life.The magnitude-7.7 tremor razed Nagayon Pagoda in the central city of Mandalay, Myanmar’s last royal capital where ancient heritage was decimated in the disaster which claimed more than 3,700 lives.For around 200 years, the temple was adorned with a carving of a sacred serpent said to have shielded the Buddha from the elements after his enlightenment.The quake that struck one month ago on Monday reduced it to a heap of shapeless masonry, half burying the snake’s bowing head.”I cried out to pray that Nagayon Pagoda would save me when the quake started,” said Khin Sein. “But my son told me that the pagoda was already gone.””I don’t think any bricklayer or architect could rebuild it the same as it once was,” she told AFP, her eyes welling with tears as she paced the perimeter of the temple where she had prayed for 51 years.”I want the original back but I know it’s not possible.”- ‘Old things are most valuable’  – The March 28 quake has left more than 60,000 people living in tent encampments, according to the United Nations, and pushed two million people into “critical need” in a country already devastated by civil war since a 2021 coup.As the ground sheared up to six metres (20 feet), more than 3,000 monasteries and nunneries were destroyed alongside more than 5,000 pagodas, the ruling junta says.Myanmar’s second city of Mandalay and the adjacent cities of Sagaing and Inwa, dotted around the quake’s epicentre, are all ancient seats of power, steeped in history and now pockmarked with ruins.Cultural capital Mandalay was where the British captured the country’s last king in 1885, beginning colonial rule of the whole nation.The Royal Palace’s crenellations have crumbled in places with ornate bastions collapsed askew.A one-kilometre colonial-era bridge has collapsed into the Irrawaddy River towards Sagaing, where the horizon was once prickled with pinnacles of pagodas and stupas now contorted or simply gone.Inwa served as capital for nearly 360 years until it was abandoned after a magnitude-8.2 quake struck in 1839.Three quarters of the historic buildings inside its ancient cultural heritage zone were damaged in this year’s jolt, officials say.Thu Nanda has come to visit what remains of Me Nu Brick Monastery.Built in 1818, entire portions of its gleaming north and west wings have been devastated, its gold filigree exterior cracked with terracotta-colour innards spilling out.”The old things are the most valuable,” said Thu Nanda, a 49-year-old monk. “The loss of historic heritage is breaking our hearts.””Even if we are able to repair it, people will not be able to feel it in its original form. Old is just old. It cannot be restored,” he said.”I think the loss of our heritage affects not only our country but also the world.”- Blessed by survival – Myanmar is still grappling with the recovery of human remains from the ruins and the oncoming summer monsoon season. Heavy rains are already forecast this week as thousands mark one month camped outside.While surveyors have investigated damage to historic buildings, reconstruction efforts are focused on aiding the living victims with little thought yet for the restoration of heritage landmarks.Myanmar has seen more than its fair share of destruction. The four-year war has made air strikes and sieges of urban centres commonplace.Thousands have been killed, 3.5 million are displaced and half the population now live in poverty.Nonetheless Thein Myint Ko, surveying the three-centuries-old Lawka Tharaphu Pagoda, says: “I have never experienced such tragedy in my 65 years alive”.He serves on the board of trustees of a building largely ruined by the force of the quake.Its gold stupa was cracked like eggshells, and now volunteer workers from a nearby village spade at the dusty remnants beneath.”I feel devastated,” said Thein Myint Ko.But what was left unscathed has become more precious to the annals of Myanmar. Somehow a monumental eight-metre marble statue of the Buddha is largely undamaged — its gold halo shattered and a crack at its base, but its serene expression unperturbed.”No one was injured and the Buddha image survived,” said one man clearing rubble at the feet of the statue. “It is such a blessed pagoda.”

Jasprit Bumrah returned figures of 4-22 to help Mumbai Indians defeat Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL on Sunday, while Krunal Pandya steered Royal Challengers Bengaluru to the top of the table in a victory over Delhi Capitals.India pace bowler Bumrah led five-time champions Mumbai to their fifth successive win with a 54-run hammering of LSG at the Wankhede Stadium.In the second match of the day, Krunal’s unbeaten 73 helped RCB beat Delhi Capitals by six wickets to move above Gujarat Titans at the summit.Chasing 163 for victory, Bengaluru slipped to 26-3 before Virat Kohli and Pandya put together a fourth wicket partnership of 119.Tim David smashed 19 not out off five deliveries to secure the win with nine balls to spare at Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla ground.”He (Pandya) can make that impact and we were just waiting for him to come into this tournament with the bat as well,” Kohli said of player of the match Pandya, who also took 1-28 with his left-arm spin.”And today was his day completely and he was absolutely brilliant.”Kohli compiled a measured 51, while Pandya struck five fours and four sixes in an innings which took the game away from Delhi.It was Bengaluru’s sixth successive away win as they and Kohli search for their first IPL title since the league’s inception in 2008.Bhuvneshwar Kumar and fellow pace bowler Josh Hazlewood shared five wickets between them to restrict Delhi to 162-8.In the chase, Delhi skipper Axar Patel opened the bowling with his left-arm spin and struck two early blows to send back England’s IPL debutant Jacob Bethell, out for 12, and Devdutt Padikkal, for a duck, two balls later.Bengaluru skipper Rajat Patidar was run out for six but Kohli and Pandya put Delhi under pressure with occasional boundaries mixed with quick running between the wickets.Once set, Pandya unleashed his power and reached his fifty off 38 balls with a four off Axar.Kohli completed his sixth half-century of the season as he edged past Mumbai Indians batter Suryakumar Yadav (427) as the leading run-scorer with 443.He finally fell to Sri Lanka fast bowler Dushmantha Chameera before Pandya and Australian international David took the team over the line.- Jacks of all trades -In the first match, Mumbai posted 215-7 after South Africa’s Ryan Rickleton hit 58 and Suryakumar Yadav hammered 54.All the bowlers contributed, including England’s Will Jacks who took two wickets in one over, as Mumbai bowled out Lucknow for 161.”I will always be a batter who bowls, my bowling is important,” said player of the match Jacks, who also made 29 with the bat.”I have worked hard on my bowling, doesn’t matter what others say. There are still improvements to be made.”It was Mumbai’s record-extending 150th IPL victory.Bumrah dismissed Aiden Markram to go past former quick Lasith Malinga’s record of 170 IPL wickets to become Mumbai’s all-time leading bowler.Bumrah, who recently returned from a back injury that forced him to miss India’s Champions Trophy title win in Dubai last month, now has 174 IPL wickets.Jacks got Nicholas Pooran out for 27 with his off-spin and struck two balls later to send back Lucknow skipper Rishabh Pant, caught out for four while attempting a reverse sweep.New Zealand left-arm quick Trent Boult took down Australia’s Mitchell Marsh for 34 and later dismissed Ayush Badoni for 35 to derail the chase, returning figures of 3-20.

Indian all-rounder Krunal Pandya starred with bat and ball as Royal Challengers Bengaluru beat Delhi Capitals by six wickets to top the Indian Premier League table on Sunday.Chasing 163 for victory, Bengaluru slipped to 26-3 before Virat Kohli and Pandya put together 119 runs to achieve their target with nine balls to spare at Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla ground.Delhi-born Kohli hit 51. The left-handed Pandya smashed an unbeaten 73 off 47 balls after he returned 1-28 with his left-arm spin in Bengaluru’s seventh win of this season from 10 matches to reach the top of the 10-team table.It was Bengaluru’s sixth successive away win as they and Kohli search for their first IPL title since the league’s inception in 2008.Bowlers set up victory after Bhuvneshwar Kumar and fellow pace bowler Josh Hazlewood shared five wickets between them to restrict Delhi to 162-8.Delhi skipper Axar Patel opened the bowling and struck two early blows to send back IPL debutant Jacob Bethel, out for 12, and Devdutt Padikkal, for a duck, two balls later.Bengaluru skipper Rajat Patidar was then run out for six, but Kohli and Pandya waded through the overs with caution and quick running between the wickets.Once set, Pandya unleashed his power with boundaries and reached his fifty off 38 balls with a four off Axar.Kohli hit his sixth half-ton as he went past Mumbai Indians batter Suryakumar Yadav (427) as the leading batsman of this season with 443 runs.He finally fell to Sri Lanka fast bowler Dushmantha Chameera before Pandya and Tim David, who hit an unbeaten 19 off five balls, took the team over the line.Earlier, Bengaluru’s Australian import Hazlewood struck first, taking the wicket of Abishek Porel in the fourth over after the opener had got Delhi off to a flying start with his 11-ball 28.Delhi lost another wicket in the next over before Faf du Plessis, who hit 22 on his return from a groin injury he suffered earlier this month, and KL Rahul (41) steadied the innings.Pandya cut short Du Plessis’ knock but Rahul stood firm on a sluggish pitch, putting on stands with Axar and then with Tristan Stubbs.Axar was bowled by Hazlewood and Kumar got Rahul, but Stubbs kept up the charge as he smashed 34 off 18 balls.Kumar gave away just nine runs off his last two overs and took three wickets to return figures of 3-33.Hazlewood, who starred in his team’s previous win with figures of 4-33, leads this season’s bowling chart with 18 wickets in 10 matches.

Troops from Pakistan and India exchanged fire in disputed Kashmir for a third night in a row, officials said Sunday, as relations between the nuclear-armed rivals plunged to their lowest level in years.India has accused Pakistan of supporting “cross-border terrorism” after gunmen killed 26 people in the worst attack on civilians in contested Muslim-majority Kashmir for a quarter of a century.Islamabad has denied any involvement, calling attempts to link Pakistan to the attack “frivolous” and vowing to respond to any Indian action.Pakistan’s army, meanwhile, claimed Sunday that it had killed 54 militants who tried to enter the country through its northwestern border with Afghanistan — suggesting the incursion was orchestrated by New Delhi.”Such actions by (jihadists), at a time when India is leveling baseless accusations against Pakistan, clearly implies on whose cues (the jihadists are) operating,” the army said in a statement.The Indian military earlier Sunday held naval drills — releasing images of warships firing missiles — while the country’s security forces pressed on with their hunt for those behind the April 22 attack at a tourist hotspot in Pahalgam in Kashmir.The military blamed Pakistan for the “unprovoked” firing of small arms along Kashmir’s Line of Control that separates the two countries.”(Our) own troops responded effectively with appropriate small arms fire,” it said of the latest incident.Speaking to reporters on Sunday in Islamabad, Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, said there was “no official confirmation” of any clashes at the border with India.Indian police have issued wanted posters for three suspects in the Pahalgam attack — two Pakistani men and an Indian — who they say are members of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group, a UN-designated terrorist organisation.India’s federal home ministry has handed over the attack probe to the National Investigation Agency, which focuses on counter-terrorism.”The eyewitnesses are being questioned in minute detail to piece together the sequence of events that led to one of the worst terror attacks in Kashmir,” an agency statement said Sunday.Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday said the country was “open to participating in any neutral, transparent and credible investigation” into the attack.- Indian naval exercises -India’s navy meanwhile said it carried out exercises to “revalidate and demonstrate readiness of platforms, systems and crew for long range precision offensive strike”, without detailing where the drills took place.The Indian Express newspaper on Sunday quoted a top government source as saying “there will be military retaliation” and officials “are discussing the nature of the strike”.Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence in 1947. Both claim the territory in full but govern separate portions of it.Rebel groups have waged an insurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir since 1989, demanding independence or a merger with Pakistan.India’s Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday reiterated his pledge that the Pahalgam victims “will get justice”.”Terrorists and their patrons want Kashmir to be destroyed again, that is why such a big conspiracy was hatched,” he said in his monthly radio address to the nation.On Saturday, soldiers in Indian-administered Kashmir bombed the family home of one of the Pahalgam suspects.The house of Farooq Ahmad Tadwa was destroyed by authorities in Kupwara district, one of a series of demolitions targeting houses of alleged militants.So far nine houses belonging to militants have been bombed since the Pahalgam attack, a police official told AFP on Sunday on condition of anonymity.In the aftermath of the attack, New Delhi suspended a water-sharing treaty, announced the closure of the main land border crossing with Pakistan, downgraded diplomatic ties, and withdrew visas for Pakistanis.In response, Islamabad has ordered the expulsion of Indian diplomats and military advisers, cancelling visas for Indian nationals — with the exception of Sikh pilgrims — and closing the main border crossing from its side.The United Nations has urged the arch-rivals to show “maximum restraint” so that issues can be “resolved peacefully through meaningful mutual engagement”.Pahalgam marks a dramatic shift in recent Kashmiri rebel attacks, which typically target Indian security forces.In 2019, a suicide attack killed 41 Indian troops in Kashmir and triggered Indian air strikes inside Pakistan, bringing the countries to the brink of all-out war.

With swaggering soldiers giving high kicks set to booming patriotic music cheered on by crowds, it was the usual daily border ceremony between nuclear-armed arch-rivals India and Pakistan.But there was one key thing at the show that was missing — the usual symbol of cooperation, a handshake between the opposing soldiers, did not take place.Relations have plummeted after New Delhi accused Islamabad of backing an attack targeting tourists on April 22 — the deadliest attack on civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir for years.Islamabad rejects the claims, and the countries have since exchanged gunfire, diplomatic barbs, expelled citizens — and ordered the border to be shut.The iron gates that separate the two sides remain locked.”It just fills you with passion and patriotic pride”, said Simarjeet Singh, 17, from the nearby Indian city of Amritsar, his face painted with the national tricolour flag.Many fear the risk of a military escalation in the coming days.- ‘Cheering’ -For years, the Attari-Wagah border in Punjab has been a hugely popular tourist attraction.Visitors from both sides come to cheer on soldiers goose-stepping in a chest-puffing theatrical show of pageantry.Numbers were muted at the sunset show on Saturday, but thousands of Indians still came to show their loyalty to their nation.”There were people from all over who looked and dressed different but were cheering and screaming at the same time — for our country and the soldiers,” Singh said, who came with his friends from college.Cheering crowds still filled the stadium-like space around the gates with noise, at least on the Indian side, where on Saturday some 5,000 people — about a fifth of full capacity —  watched.There was only a small fraction of the support on the Pakistani side.Enthusiastic spectators sang in chorus, waving flags and chanting “India Zindabad”, or “Long live India”.The frontier was a colonial creation at the violent end of British rule in 1947 which sliced the sub-continent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.The daily border ritual has largely endured over the decades, surviving innumerable diplomatic flare-ups and military skirmishes.Reena Devi, 54, and PK Nath, 70, tourists from Tezpur in India’s northeastern state of Assam, are part of a tour of the country.”We are just so excited to be here”, Devi said. “We just wanted to see this ceremony and experience being at the border with Pakistan.”Nath said she and her group planned to visit a Hindu site in Jammu and Kashmir.”Some of us are now a little apprehensive about the security there”, she said.Nath said he “totally supported” New Delhi’s decision to expel Pakistani citizens and to shut down the border.”You can’t send people to kill here and still not expect any response,” Nath said.”We don’t know what will happen next but we are sure that the government would do the right thing,” he added. As the energetic masters of the ceremony goaded the crowd, the Indian soldiers in red-fanned hats stomped up to the locked gate, kicking their legs up — with Pakistanis doing the same on the other side.- ‘Anger’ -Aside from the ceremony, Indian and Pakistani citizens have been crossing the border since both sides cancelled visas before India’s April 29 deadline to leave — tearing apart families with relations in both nations.”There is obvious anxiety right now”, said Harpal Singh, an Amritsar-based taxi driver who regularly brings visitors to the ceremony, insisting the spectacle was still worth coming to see.”There was no one who didn’t come back impressed and excited”, he said.KT Ramesh, 57, from Kozhikode in the southern state of Kerala, said that even the scaled-down ceremony “was worth it”.”There was no shortage of passion among our people,” Ramesh said.He said that he’d “seen anger” about the attack in Kashmir “in whoever I spoke with, from our hotel staff to the taxi driver and other tourists here”.”Everyone was talking about it,” he said. “We don’t like a war but this time we must teach them a lesson”. 

Pope Francis smashed the stereotypical profile for a pontiff, becoming the Catholic Church’s first leader from the Americas and the first non-European since the eighth century.Some hope his successor, to be chosen in a conclave of cardinals in the coming days or weeks, could come from Africa or Asia.The late Argentine pontiff championed far-flung regions long overlooked by the Church, whether in his cardinal appointments or in his travels that strayed off the beaten path, from Mongolia to Papua New Guinea.A non-European pope would make sense, given that Catholicism is growing in Africa and Asia, while church attendance is dropping and growth near-stagnant in Europe.But in today’s increasingly complex world, analysts say an inclusive outlook and diplomatic skills will be key factors in the choice of the next pope, rather than a particular passport.The Church’s first pope, Saint Peter, came from Galilee, in today’s Israel, yet the long line of pontiffs in his wake have been chiefly Italian.Directly after being made pope on March 13, 2013, Francis joked that fellow cardinals had come “almost to the ends of the Earth” to find him.During his papacy, the former archbishop of Buenos Aires pushed the Church to be more inclusive of those from the so-called “peripheries”, whether geographical areas far from Rome, or long-ignored populations.Through his trips abroad and outspoken advocacy of excluded groups like migrants and the poor, Francis sought to bring new voices into the over 2,000-year-old institution.He actively sought out those “overlooked or under-represented in the universal Church”, R. Scott Appleby, a US historian of global religion, told AFP.But he warned “that doesn’t guarantee, of course, that the next pope will be from the margins, from a country that’s not as well-known, or is not Europe”.Appleby called it a “fool’s game” to try to predict the next pope’s nationality.- Political ‘counterpoint’ -Those betting on a non-European pope point to the fact that Francis has named the majority of the cardinals who will choose his successor, with many from under-represented regions.But Europe still has the largest voting bloc, with 53 cardinals, compared to 27 cardinal-electors from Asia and Oceania, 21 from South and Central America, 16 from North America and 18 from Africa, according to the Vatican.Some of those touted to succeed Francis also hail from outside the Church’s traditional bastions of power — notably Manila’s Luis Antonio Tagle or Ghana’s cardinal, Peter Turkson.Cardinals from Myanmar and the Democratic Republic of Congo are also cited as contenders, in an admittedly wide field.A pope from a poorer country brings a different perspective that would stand out in a world of strong and vocal Western leaders.Such a pontiff would have “a first-hand experience of the poor… a country in a region that is not ‘in the game'”, Appleby said.”And that lends a counterpoint to what have been the power centres on the political front. It’s important for the Church to not simply replicate the power centres of the world.”The conclave will be looking “for a cardinal capable of being a point of reference for many, according to different sensitivities”, added Roberto Regoli, an Italian historian at the Pontifical Gregorian University.- ‘World on fire’ -But experts agree that a papal contender’s ability to unite the Church in an increasingly fractious geopolitical context may be the central deciding point.”The new pope will have to redesign the Church in a world on fire,” Alberto Melloni, an Italian professor of the history of Christianity, told the Corriere di Bologna newspaper this week.Francois Mabille, director of France’s Geopolitical Observatory of Religion (IRIS), said if cardinals decide geopolitics is the “criterion of choice”, the Vatican’s current chief diplomat, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, “may fit the bill perfectly, even if European and Italian”.Appleby concurred: “It’s hard to imagine that the next pope can ignore the tumult and the challenges in the world.”They’ll be thinking: ‘Boy, the world’s in crisis… Who among us can emerge as someone of the proper charisma and talent to lead the Church at this point?'”