Let’s rewind the past week.
Seven months into Iraq’s war against ISIS, is anyone counting Mosul’s thousands of dead?
Seven months after an operation to retake the city from the Islamic State, 500,000 people remain stranded in western Mosul as food and water run scarce and bodies pile up. Their relatives elsewhere say they can only “cry with them”. Read more here.
Also read: ‘Let the dogs eat them’: In war-torn Mosul in Iraq, people are living among the dead
‘They don’t fear the law, they don’t care for their lives’: Despair over Kashmir’s young offenders
The corridors of courts are filled with boys arrested for stone-pelting. They complain of being picked up on their way to class, jailed and tortured, and of spending nights in lock-up idolising “the mujahideen who have the guts to kill these evil policemen”. The police deny these charges. Read more here.
Also read: Kashmir: How a relationship went from cheerless to dysfunctional to abusive
A scooter-riding bookseller has served Kolkata better than Amazon could ever hope to
If a book has been printed and is in circulation in even the remotest corner of the world, chances are, Tarun Kumar Shaw will get it for you. The 53-year-old is a familiar sight making deliveries on his trusted scooter to the city’s media and corporate houses, libraries and homes. Read more here.
The Indian woman who sat for a notable American portrait in the ’60s and forgot about it – until now
Ujjaini Khanderia was a university student when she sat for the portrait Woman by Alice Neel in New York. She remembers being lonely and homesick and consenting to the artist’s request as “this was a good opportunity to be left alone”. Read more here.
The new oil? The global battle for sand is getting ugly
In Mumbai, the sand mafia mostly gets a free run though its activities impact the environment and endanger people. In Singapore, it is sometimes more costly than oil. And the desert city of Dubai needs to import sand from Australia for its ambitious islands project. Read more here.
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