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From a gated community for her Zoroastrian faith in Pakistan’s megacity Karachi, 22-year-old Elisha Amra has waved goodbye to many friends migrating abroad as the ancient Parsi community dwindles.Soon the film student hopes to join them — becoming one more loss to Pakistan’s ageing Zoroastrian Parsi people, a community who trace their roots back to Persian refugees from today’s Iran more than a millennium ago.”My plan is to go abroad,” Amra said, saying she wants to study for a master’s degree in a country without the restrictions of a conservative Muslim-majority society.”I want to be able to freely express myself”, she added.Zoroastrianism, founded by the prophet Zarathustra, was the predominant religion of the ancient Persian empire, until the rise of Islam with the Arab conquests of the seventh century.Once the Parsi community in Pakistan had as many as 15,000-20,000 people, said Dinshaw Behram Avari, the head of one of the most prominent Parsi families.Today, numbers hover around 900 people in Karachi and a few dozen more elsewhere in Pakistan, according to community leaders, many staying together in compounds like where Amra lives.She acknowledges her life is more comfortable than many in Pakistan — the Parsis are in general an affluent and highly educated community.But says she wants to escape the daily challenges that beset the city of some 20 million people — ranging from power cuts, water shortages and patchy internet to violent street crime.”I’d rather have a life where I feel safe, and I feel happy and satisfied,” she said. Zubin Patel, 27, a Parsi working in e-commerce in Karachi, has seen more than two dozen Parsi friends leave Karachi for abroad in the past three years.”More than 20-25 of my friends were living in Karachi, they all started migrating”, he said.- Derelict homes -That is not unique to Parsis — many young and skilled Pakistanis want to find jobs abroad to escape a country wracked with political uncertainty and security challenges, a struggling economy and woeful infrastructure.The number of highly skilled Pakistanis who left for jobs abroad more than doubled according to the latest figures from the Pakistan Economic Survey — from 20,865 in 2022, to 45,687 in 2023.Parsis are struggling to adjust in a fast-changing world.The religion, considered among the oldest in the world, forbids conversion and mixed marriages are frowned upon.”There is a better chance to find a Zoroastrian partner in Canada, Australia, UK and America than in Pakistan,” said Avari, who heads of a chain of hotels.He points out that Parsi population of Toronto is some 10 times greater than Karachi.Avari, 57, said that a wave of Parsis left Pakistan during the hardline military rule of Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s, who enforced a programme of Islamisation.Since then, Islamist violence has targeted religious minorities, and while Parsis say they have not been targeted, they remain wary.He suggested the community’s high levels of education and Western outlook to life meant many eyed a future abroad, while for those who do stay, family size is shrinking.”Couples are more interested today in looking after their career; they are not interested in family,” he said.”When they do get married, they will have one child — and one child is not enough to make a positive impact on the population.”Parsi members were among the pioneers of the shipping and hospitality industries in Karachi, and the city’s colonial-era historic district is dotted with Parsi buildings including hospitals and schools.But as the community declines, many buildings have crumbled, with as many as half the homes in elegant tree-lined streets of the century-old Sohrab Katrak Parsi Colony lying abandoned.- ‘Difficult decision’ -For many among the younger generation, the only pull left keeping them in Pakistan is their ageing relatives.Patel, the e-commerce worker, said he would leave if he could.”It would be a difficult decision,” he said. “But if I have an opportunity which would give my parents … a healthy lifestyle, then I’d obviously go for it”.Amra, who visits her 76-year-old grandfather almost daily, worries that her parents will be alone when she leaves. “You have to figure out a way, eventually, to either bring them to you or come back,” she said.

South Africa’s Quinton de Kock struck an unbeaten 97 as holders Kolkata Knight Riders registered their first win of the IPL season with an eight-wicket hammering of Rajasthan Royals on Wednesday.Spinners Moeen Ali and Varun Chakravarthy combined to help restrict Rajasthan to 151-9 after KKR elected to field first in Guwahati.De Kock bossed the chase with his 61-ball innings laced with eight fours and six sixes as Kolkata achieved their target with 15 balls to spare.De Kock, who has retired from Tests and one-day international cricket for South Africa and whose T20 international future remains uncertain, showed no signs of rustiness.”To be fair, haven’t felt any challenges yet,” De Kock said.”Have had three months off which felt nice. Had about a 10-day build-up to this season. Only my second game here, just taking it as I see it.”Kolkata signed De Kock in November’s auction after he was released by Lucknow Super Giants.He handed his team a quick start, hitting two fours but then lost opening partner Moeen, run out for five.Skipper Ajinkya Rahane fell after a brisk 18 but De Kock stood firm and along with impact substitute Angkrish Raghuvanshi, who made 22, steered the team home in an unbeaten stand of 83.De Kock finished with a six off Jofra Archer as Kolkata bounced back from their opening loss to Royal Challengers Bengaluru.Rajasthan suffered their second straight loss.Earlier, Kolkata fast bowler Vaibhav Arora dismissed Sanju Samson, bowled for 13, and Chakravarthy and Moeen soon took two wickets each.Wicketkeeper Samson is Rajasthan’s regular captain but has been forced to play only as a batter in the first three matches due to an injury.Chakravarthy, who starred in India’s recent Champions Trophy triumph, got stand-in-skipper Riyan Parag out caught behind for 25.Former England all-rounder Moeen, in for the unwell Sunil Narine, stifled the opposition with his off-spin and was rewarded with the wicket of Yashasvi Jaiswal for 29.The 37-year-old and Chakravarthy both struck again as Rajasthan slipped to 82-5 in 11 overs.Wickets kept tumbling for Rajasthan and despite wicketkeeper-batsman Dhruv Jurel’s 33 and 16 from Archer, they settled for a below-par total.”I think 170 was a reasonable score but we fell short by 20 runs,” said Parag. “The plan was to get Quinny out early but he didn’t so we shifted to containing them in the middle overs.”Arora and fellow quick Harshit Rana also took two wickets each.Kolkata, under Shreyas Iyer who is now Punjab Kings captain after a $3.17 million move in the auction, won their third IPL title last year.

Former Bangladesh captain Tamim Iqbal has thanked fans for their support as he recovers from a serious heart attack he suffered during a match earlier this week.The 36-year-old was leading Mohammedan Sporting Club in a match of the 50-over Dhaka Premier Division Cricket League when he was rushed to a nearby hospital complaining of severe chest pain on Monday. He has since been relocated to a larger medical facility in the capital where he remains under observation.  “It’s the heartbeat that keeps us alive, but we often forget that this beat can stop at any moment, without any warning,” Tamim wrote on social media on Tuesday.”I offer my heartfelt gratitude and love to all of you. Please keep me and my family in your prayers. Without your love, I am nothing.”Elder brother and former Bangladeshi international Nafees Iqbal was by Tamim’s bedside along with other family members. Tamim was in critical condition when he was rushed to hospital, Razeeb Hasan, the medical director at the facility where Tamim received treatment, told reporters on Monday.He also said Tamim had to undergo surgery to implant stents to clear an artery blockage.Tamim scored more than 15,000 runs for Bangladesh in a career spanning 15 years and remains the only Bangladeshi to score hundreds in all formats of international cricket.

Bangladeshi leader Muhammad Yunus flew to Beijing on Wednesday for his first state visit as frosty relations with neighbouring India spur his caretaker administration to court new friends.The 84-year-old Nobel laureate will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday before returning Saturday after several other high-level meetings. Yunus took charge of Bangladesh last August after the toppling of autocratic ex-premier Sheikh Hasina, who fled to New Delhi after a student-led uprising. India was the biggest benefactor of Hasina’s government and her overthrow sent cross-border relations into a tailspin. “Muhammad Yunus has chosen China for his first state visit and with this Bangladesh is sending a message,” Dhaka’s top foreign ministry bureaucrat Mohammad Jashim Uddin told reporters on Tuesday.Several agreements are expected to be signed on economic and technical assistance, cultural and sports cooperation, and media collaboration between the two countries.”We are expecting declarations on key issues including the economy, investment and economic zones,” Jashim Uddin said.Talks are also expected to touch on Bangladesh’s immense population of Rohingya refugees, most of whom fled a violent military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar in 2017. China has acted as a mediator between Bangladesh and Myanmar in the past to broker the repatriation of the persecuted minority, although efforts stalled because of Myanmar’s unwillingness to have them returned. “Rohingya repatriation will be a point of discussion as we all know China previously attempted to broker a deal,” Jashim Uddin said.Yunus will also attend the Investment Dialogue with Chinese Business Leaders and is set to receive an honorary doctorate from Peking University. Tensions between India and Bangladesh have prompted a number of tit-for-tat barbs between senior figures from both governments. They have also almost entirely halted the flow of medical tourism to India by Bangladeshis, thousands of whom crossed the border each year to seek care in their larger neighbour. Jashim Uddin said talks in Beijing would touch on the establishment of a Chinese “Friendship Hospital” in Bangladesh. Yunus’s caretaker administration has the unenviable task of bedding down democratic reforms ahead of fresh elections expected by mid-2026. It has requested India allow Hasina’s extradition to face crimes against humanity charges for the killing of hundreds of protesters during the unrest that toppled her government, to no avail. Yunus has also sought a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a bid to reset relations, with both expected to be at the same regional summit in Bangkok next month. His government has yet to receive a response, with Indian foreign minister S. Jaishankar saying the request was “under review”. 

A Buddhist monastery in Bangladesh has found renown for opening its doors to the needy during Ramadan — a beacon of interfaith harmony in a time of religious tension.For more than a decade, the Dharmarajika Buddhist Monastery in Dhaka has provided free meals for hundreds of the capital’s poorest residents to break their fast each evening during the Muslim holy month.Its work has assumed a new resonance this year after political upheaval that last summer ousted autocratic leader Sheikh Hasina, leaving many religious minorities in the Muslim-majority nation fearful of persecution. “I live nearby and earn very little from my job. This meal is a relief,” said Moushumi Begum, who joined around 200 others at the fast-breaking meal known as iftar. “I am grateful for their kindness and pray to God for their wellbeing.” The monastery’s abbot, Buddha Priya Mahathero, said the annual tradition began in 2013 with the simple principle that no one fasting should be turned away hungry.”We have fostered a culture of harmony,” he told AFP.”We saw people struggling for food during Ramadan. That’s when we decided to step in,” he added.”What began as a small effort has continued, and we hope to keep doing our part.”The monastery was founded in 1960, more than a decade before Bangladesh became an independent nation, and has long been known as a paragon of interfaith philosophy. One of its biggest early initiatives was the establishment of an interfaith orphanage for children whose parents were killed during the country’s 1971 liberation war.Buddhists make up around three percent of Bangladesh’s population of 170 million, the second-largest religious minority after its substantial Hindu community.- ‘Pledged to protect us’ -Hasina’s ouster in last year’s student-led revolution saw several reprisal attacks against Hindu households. The interim administration that took office after her toppling came down strongly on such attacks, arresting dozens of people in the months that followed. It has also insisted that some of those attacks were motivated by political vengeance rather than religious animosity, and blamed organised disinformation from neighbouring India for exaggerating the magnitude of the problem.Non-Muslim Bangladeshis have nonetheless voiced unease at developments since the fall of Hasina’s government, which despite a litany of rights abuses was seen as a steadfast protector of minority religious communities. Numerous shrines to Sufi saints were vandalised after Hasina’s overthrow, with suspicion falling on Islamist hardliners who consider that branch of the Muslim faith heretical. Several attacks on Hindu temples were also reported in the chaotic hours after Hasina went into exile in India.The Dharmarajika Buddhist Monastery has not suffered a similar fate, and its custodians say that leaders from several political parties had paid visits to offer their respect and support. “All of them pledged to protect us,” Swarupananda Bhikkhu, a monk at the monastery, told AFP.”Our gates have always been open, regardless of religious identity.”

India batsman Shreyas Iyer led from the front with an unbeaten 97 to set up an 11-run win for Punjab Kings in a big-hitting IPL clash with Gujarat Titans on Tuesday.Iyer’s 42-ball knock steered the team to 243-5 after being invited to bat first at the world’s biggest cricket stadium in Ahmedabad.Gujarat finished on 232-5 despite a valiant 41-ball 74 by opener Sai Sudharsan who set up a blazing start to the run chase, featuring a 84-run second wicket stand with England’s Jos Buttler (54).Both sides walloped 16 sixes each across the two innings on the fourth day of the cash-rich Indian Premier League T20 tournament.Iyer, who led Kolkata Knight Riders to a title win last year, has already gone some way to justifying his top price tag, after Punjab paid a whopping 3.17 million dollars for him in the November auction.”Ecstatic, to be honest,” said Iyer. “Getting 97 not out in the first match is always the icing on the cake. No better feeling to be honest”The top-order batter started with a boundary off Gujarat’s South African import Kagiso Rabada and three balls later smashed a six.”It was important for me to go ahead and adapt. I got four off the first ball, and that gave an immense boost. That flicked six off Rabada — I think the momentum changed.Iyer allowed attacking opener Priyansh Arya to take charge as the Indian young left-hander hammered 47 off 23 deliveries before being denied his fifty by Afghanistan spin wizard Rashid Khan.Gujarat’s Sai Kishore joined the bowling charge to strike twice in two balls, including trapping Australia’s Glenn Maxwell lbw for a first-ball duck, but Marcus Stoinis avoided the hat-trick.- ‘Got our chances’ -Maxwell walked back without a review but tracking technology later revealed the ball would have gone over the stumps as a dejected Punjab coach Ricky Ponting looked upset.Iyer stood strong as he took on the attack with sixes and fours and found support from Australian hard-hitter Stoinis, who smashed a 15-ball 20 before becoming Kishore’s third wicket.Iyer reached his fifty in 27 balls and kept up the charge as he struck three sixes and a four in a 24-run over off seam bowler Prasidh Krishna. Iyer went past his previous IPL best of 96 but missed out on his century as partner Shashank Singh dominated the strike in the latter stages and finished on an unbeaten 16-ball 44.Iyer and Shashank hammered 81 runs between them in 28 balls to finish with a flourish.”We got our chances when we were bowling and batting,” said Gujarat skipper Shubman Gill. “Too many runs we conceded in the back end of the innings.”In reply, the left-handed Sudharsan and Gill, who hit 33 off 14 balls, handed Gujarat a blazing start but the ever-increasing run-rate made the home team fall behind the chase despite having wickets in hand.Sudharsan fell to left-arm pace bowler Arshdeep Singh and Buttler, after reaching his fifty, was bowled by South African left-arm quick Marco Jansen.Impact player Sherfane Rutherford, a left-handed West Indian hard-hitter, made a desperate effort to pull off a miracle with his 28-ball 46 before falling to Arshdeep in the final over.

Until Taliban authorities took power in Afghanistan, women like Fatima were able to freely sell their hair to be made into wigs, bringing in crucial cash.But a ban last year has forced the 28-year-old and others to covertly trade hair — collected from shower drains or the salon floor — braving the risk of punishment one strand at a time.”I need this money,” said Fatima, 28, one of the few women still in paid private employment in Kabul after the Taliban regained control in 2021.”I can treat myself to something or buy things for the house.”The woman, who withholds her last name for security reasons, sells every 100 grams of hair for little more than $3, a small addition to her monthly salary of $100.Buyers who want to export the locks for wig production abroad “would knock on our doors to collect” the hair, she said.One of those buyers is a man, who also requested anonymity, sending the manes to Pakistan and China from Afghanistan, one of the world’s poorest countries.Taliban authorities have cracked down on the rights of women, imposing what the UN calls a “gender apartheid”.They banned women and girls from universities and schools, effectively strangling their employment hopes.Women have also been barred from parks and gyms, while beauty salons have been shut down.- ‘Not allowed’ -Last year, Taliban authorities imposed vice and virtue laws regulating everyday life for men and women, including banning sales of “any part of the human body” including hair.They have not said what the punishment for violations would be.”We must respect the appearance that God has given to humans and preserve their dignity,” Ministry for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (PVPV) spokesman Saiful Islam Khyber told AFP.He said the trading of hair had become “normalised” in the country and that now “selling body parts is not allowed.”Hair sales are so sensitive that the ministry which handles morality issues burned nearly a ton of human strands in Kabul province in January.The PVPV said in a statement it burned the batch “to protect Islamic values and human dignity”.The restrictions have not deterred Fatima, however.During prayer times, when Taliban officials and forces attend the mosque, Fatima sneaks to a Kabul waste site to hand over her cache of tresses.The few extra dollars are significant, with 85 percent of Afghans living on less than a dollar a day, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).- Secret salon -At a secret salon in Kabul, two worn-out leather chairs sit in a small, cold room where hairdresser Narges now only receives about four customers a week.Before the 2021 takeover, the 43-year-old widowed hairdresser used to give crop cuts to five to six clients every day.Now, only the wealthiest of her customers brave visiting the salon, and even they sometimes ask if they can take valuable spare hair home with them.”They’re the only ones who can still care about beauty,” she said.For others, the threat of a Taliban punishment is too much to risk.Wahida, a 33-year-old widow whose husband was a soldier killed in 2021, has a constant worry about how she will feed her three children.She still collects hair that has fallen from her eight-year-old daughter’s head and her own, with strands from the root more valuable than those cut with scissors.The unemployed Afghan woman, who now relies almost entirely on charity, stuffs them in a plastic bag to keep them for a potential sale later.”I had a glimmer of hope when I used to sell my hair. Now that it’s banned, I’m devastated. I’m hoping buyers will come back to my door,” she said, sitting in her home.”I know there are places to sell. But I am afraid of getting caught there.”

The leaders of 22 Indigenous peoples from five continents held prayers for nature in Chile on Sunday at the end of a 46-day pilgrimage around the world.The “Indigenous sages” carried out an ancestral ceremony of the Anasazi people, who lived in the Chaco Canyon before European settlement in what was to become the US state of New Mexico.It was a ritual that, for the first time, brought together peoples from all over the planet — travelling together on a journey that began in Italy and passed through India, Australia, and Zimbabwe before concluding in Chile. During their closing ceremony, representatives of peoples such as the Khalkha of Mongolia, the Noke Koi of Brazil, and the Kallawaya of Bolivia sang, danced, and prayed to the rhythm of drums, around an altar where they lit a sacred fire. “The feathers represent the continents, and today, for the first time, we have the five continents,” said Heriberto Villasenor, director of Raices de la Tierra, an NGO dedicated to the preservation of Indigenous cultures. At the end of the event, the leaders embraced and shared a message, urging greater care for the environment. “We are part of nature. We are not separate from it. We are at a critical moment when so much destruction has taken place, much of it at human hands,” Rutendo Ngara, 49, a representative of the South African group Oba Umbuntu, told AFP. The leaders also shared their concerns about what is happening in their own home regions.”Unfortunately, they are trying to extract uranium in Mongolia. It is an important element that is supposed to remain underground,” Tsegi Batmunkh said. In January 2025, the French nuclear group Orano signed an agreement with Mongolia to exploit a large uranium deposit in the southwest of the country. The leader of Brazil’s Noke Koi people, Yama Nomanawa, called for an end to the “destruction of the Earth” — particularly in the Amazon basin. According to a 2024 study published in the journal Nature, scientists estimated that between 10 and 47 percent of the Amazon region will be exposed to forest loss by 2050, which could lead to widespread ecosystem change. “The Earth is crying out very loudly, but no one is listening. The jungle is screaming; it is not being respected by humans. Let’s protect life, save life here on the planet,” the 37-year-old Brazilian Indigenous leader said.

Ishan Kishan hit an unbeaten 106 and Rachin Ravindra anchored a tense chase as Sunrisers Hyderabad and Chennai Super Kings began their Indian Premier league season with victories on Sunday.Kishan struck his first century in the world’s most lucrative T20 tournament to lead hosts Hyderabad to 286-6 and a 44-run win over Rajasthan Royals in the first match of the day.In the second game, left-handed New Zealand batsman Ravindra hit an unbeaten 65 as Chennai beat Mumbai Indians by four wickets at the Chepauk Stadium.Hyderabad posted the second highest total in tournament history after being just one run short of their own best of 287.Kishan hammered a ton in 45 balls to pummel the opposition attack after Travis Head smashed 67 off 31 deliveries in the second match of the league that began Saturday.”To be very honest, the nervousness was there,” said player of the match Kishan.”The environment (in the team) is so calm and composed, you know you just have to go in and believe in yourself like what’s supposed to be done at that point of time.”Rajasthan finished on 242-6 after half-centuries from Sanju Samson and Dhruv Jurel. Shimron Hetmyer hit 42 off 23 balls.Batting first, Hyderabad’s Australian import Head came out roaring with opening partner Abhishek Sharma and the two gave the team a blazing start.Head hammered fast bowler Jofra Archer for 23 runs in one over to set the pace for the onslaught.Archer went on to concede 76 runs in four overs for the most expensive spell in the IPL.Head and Kishan, playing his first match for Hyderabad, put on 85 runs off 39 balls for the second wicket to lay the foundations for the total.The Hyderabad innings included a remarkable 34 fours and 12 sixes.Last year, Hyderabad posted the highest-ever IPL total of 287-3 against Royal Challengers Bengaluru.Rajasthan ended on 242-6 in their 20 overs.- ‘X-factor’ Noor -Later Sunday, Chennai won with five balls to spare after Ravindra hit the winning six.Afghanistan spinner Noor Ahmad returned figures of 4-18 to help Chennai restrict Mumbai to 155-9.Ravindra anchored the chase, after skipper Ruturaj Gaikwad smashed 53 off 26 deliveries.Former India captain and 43-year-old Chennai icon M.S. Dhoni, playing in his 18th straight IPL season, walked out to bat for the final few balls.Chennai and Mumbai share an old rivalry, with both teams winning five titles each in the T20 tournament that began in 2008.The hosts fielded first and their bowlers justified Gaikwad’s decision as seamer Khaleel Ahmed rattled the Mumbai top-order, including getting former skipper Rohit Sharma out for a duck in the first over.Left-arm quick Khaleel bowled South African Ryan Rickelton for 13 as he under-edged a delivery onto his stumps.Ahmad took over from Khaleel and turned on the heat with his left-arm wrist spin as he dismissed Mumbai captain Suryakumar Yadav stumped for 29, with Dhoni taking the bails off in seconds to display glimpses of his old glovesmanship.”Noor is an X-factor and good to have him in the team,” said Gaikwad.On Dhoni, the skipper said: “He is still the same, he’s fitter this year and hitting more sixes in the nets this year.”

Pakistan on Sunday charged a Baloch rights activist with terrorism, sedition and murder after she led a demonstration which ended in the death of three protesters, according to police documents.Mahrang Baloch, one of Pakistan’s most prominent human rights advocates, has long campaigned for the Baloch ethnic group, which claims it has been targeted by Islamabad with harassment and extrajudicial killings.Pakistan has been battling a separatist insurgency in Balochistan for decades, where militants target state forces and foreign nationals in the mineral-rich southwestern province bordering Afghanistan and Iran.On Friday, she and other activists took part in a sit-in protest outside the University of Balochistan in the provincial capital of Quetta.They demanded the release of members of their support group, whom they allege had been detained by security agencies.Police launched a pre-dawn raid on Saturday, arresting Baloch and other activists, during which at least three protestors died. Both sides blamed each other for the deaths.Mary Lawlor, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights defenders, said she was “very concerned” at Baloch’s arrest.Baloch and other protesters have been charged with terrorism, sedition and murder, according to the police charge sheet seen by AFP.Hamza Shafqaat, a senior administrative official in Quetta, said that Baloch and other activists were held under public order laws.Her lawyer, Imran Baloch, confirmed she was detained in a jail in Quetta.Baloch was barred from travelling to the United States last year to attend a TIME magazine awards gala of “rising leaders”.Protests among the Baloch are often led by women. Baloch, now in her 30s, began her activist career aged 16 when her father went missing in what his supporters said was an alleged “enforced disappearance”. His body was found two years later.Earlier in March, the separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) — which accuses outsiders of plundering the province’s natural resources — launched a dramatic train siege that officials said ended in around 60 deaths, half of whom were separatists behind the assault.