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Indian court orders release of two leaders of Cockroach movement

Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka spent a week in jail after defying restrictions on protests in Delhi amid government crackdown

An Indian court has ordered the release of two leaders of India’s Cockroach movement who were jailed last week amid a mounting state crackdown on youth-led protests.

The two leaders of the Cockroach Janta party (CJP) movement, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, had spent a week in Delhi’s Tihar jail after being arrested by Delhi police last week.

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© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

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Billionaire Mukesh Ambani launches India’s biggest-ever IPO

Low-cost broadband provider Jio Platforms aims for £81bn valuation when it floats on the stock market on Wednesday

India’s second-richest man, Mukesh Ambani, is launching what could be the country’s biggest-ever initial public offering (IPO), despite a stock market downturn.

Mumbai-based Jio Platforms, a telecoms company backed by Meta Platforms and Google, is hoping to raise up to 302bn rupees (£2.4bn) and is targeting a 10.3tn rupees valuation when it floats on the stock market from Wednesday.

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© Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters

© Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters

© Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters

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She was harassed for crude remarks about Modi at a Cockroach protest. Now she can’t leave home

​After a protest clip went viral, a teenager’s life was torn apart by threats that sent her and her family into hiding. Plus, a book on citizen journalism

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Before 24 July, a person I will call R was preoccupied with the ordinary routines of teenage life: experimenting with makeup, grumbling over mathematics homework and hanging out with friends at a tea stall.

That month, as the fever of student protests spread across the country, the 15-year-old watched on her phone as young people poured into Jantar Mantar, the designated protest site in Delhi, demanding education reform. She went too. But an 11-second video clip from the protest site, in which she made crude and profane remarks about the prime minister, Narendra Modi, upended her life.

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© Photograph: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images

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Myanmar’s ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi seen in rare photos after receiving gift from King Charles

Critics said images of detained former leader were a stunt by the military to end country’s diplomatic isolation

Myanmar has delivered presents from Britain’s ​King Charles to Aung San Suu Kyi, releasing rare photos of the imprisoned former leader in what critics said was a stunt by the country’s military to end diplomatic isolation.

A presidential spokesperson said on social media that home ministry officials handed over two gardening books on soil, “along with one sealed envelope and a sealed diplomatic pouch”, from King Charles, who is known to have an interest in planting and the environment.

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© Photograph: Myanmar President Spokesperson Office/AP

© Photograph: Myanmar President Spokesperson Office/AP

© Photograph: Myanmar President Spokesperson Office/AP

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India’s Cockroach Janta party leader arrested amid crackdown on protests

Abhijeet Dipke was detained before planned anti-government demonstrations in Delhi

The leader of the Cockroach Janta party (CJP) youth movement, Abhijeet Dipke, was detained by police on Friday and then later formally arrested as authorities cracked down on fresh anti-government protests in the Indian capital.

Dipke was detained before a planned Friday evening demonstration he had called in central Delhi, urging supporters of the movement to come out and hold up the Indian flag.

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© Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

© Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

© Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters

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Flash floods destroy villages in central Nepal

Landslide blocks river and triggers downstream flooding, while summer temperatures persist in Portugal

Flash floods have swept through Nepal’s central Gorkha district after a pre-dawn landslide on 11 October blocked the Budhi Gandaki River, triggering severe downstream flooding. Two villages in the worst-affected Chumanubri rural municipality were reportedly destroyed, with homes, roads and bridges washed away. Part of a hydropower station was also damaged.

After river levels surged from 2 metres to nearly 8.5 metres within hours, the national disaster risk reduction and management authority reported that 204 homes were damaged, and more than 650 people had been affected. More than 100 foreign trekkers were stranded in the popular hiking region. The floods come just two months after catastrophic flooding and landslides devastated parts of the country on the border with Tibet, leaving thousands dead or missing.

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© Photograph: Nepal Army/EPA

© Photograph: Nepal Army/EPA

© Photograph: Nepal Army/EPA

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