https://www.scmp.com/rss/507149/feed Sowmiya Ashok is an independent journalist based in Chennai, India. She writes about politics, environment, migration, tech and China. She was previously based in Beijing and Delhi en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com For the past two years, Naim has been seeking study support from medical students in his hometown in Bangladesh’s Mymensingh province. The fifth-year medical student at China’s Zhengzhou University has been struggling to get on top of his lessons since the Covid-19 pandemic forced all international students back to their home countries in January 2020. While classes have been reduced to lengthy online videos, they have continued to pay full tuition fees, which Naim says is around 35,000 yuan... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3154191/south-asian-medical-students-left-limbo-chinas-border-remains-shut?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3154191/south-asian-medical-students-left-limbo-chinas-border-remains-shut?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 31 Oct 2021 04:30:21 +0000 Fabrics, zippers, buttons, lapel pins, chemicals for dyes and even sewing machines. As M.P. Muthu Rathinam puts it, “All accessories that make a garment look good are imported from China.” Rathinam is the president of the Tiruppur Exporters and Manufacturers Association (Teama), a group of 900 manufacturers in the city of Tiruppur, India’s major textile and knitwear hub, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. Garment manufacturing is big business here, with the industry employing more than 600,000... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3134316/will-self-reliant-indias-second-wave-covid-19-force-rethink?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3134316/will-self-reliant-indias-second-wave-covid-19-force-rethink?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 May 2021 10:00:17 +0000 The death toll began to pile up in Ritwick Ghosh’s social circle back in India. First a college friend succumbed to Covid-19, then a close friend’s sister, then another lost a family member. “As long as there is no name or face, it is just a statistic,” he said from Shanghai. “The moment there is a name and a face, it is no longer a statistic.” Ghosh works for one of the biggest investment funds in China and has lived in the mainland for over a decade. Over the past 10 days, as the devastating... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3132656/oxygen-taobao-how-chinese-are-helping-indian-expats?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3132656/oxygen-taobao-how-chinese-are-helping-indian-expats?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 May 2021 04:30:09 +0000 Pankaj Kavde believes he is the last Chinese-language tour guide in Aurangabad, a city in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. And even he is “not speaking it any more”. “I don’t see that many Chinese tourists,” says Kavde, who grew up in Ellora village – a 45-minute drive from Aurangabad – surrounded by what the Lonely Planet calls the “pinnacle of Deccan rock-cut architecture”. The Ellora Caves, a Unesco World Heritage Site, are one of the largest rock-cut cave complexes in the world, a... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3102942/border-tensions-and-covid-19-leave-indias-chinese-language?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3102942/border-tensions-and-covid-19-leave-indias-chinese-language?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 27 Sep 2020 08:00:07 +0000 Dr Pratik Mammode has spent much of the past year on the front lines of India’s fight against the coronavirus. Until recently, the 26-year-old junior resident doctor had been on Covid-19 duties, donning and doffing personal protective equipment day in, day out on 12-hour shifts at a 1,500-bed facility in India’s capital city of Delhi. He remembers being sweaty and horribly dehydrated for most of the four months he was on-call. Tough though the experience was, he was prepared for the challenge,... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3101248/product-china-india-snubs-its-china-educated-doctors-even-covid-19?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3101248/product-china-india-snubs-its-china-educated-doctors-even-covid-19?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 13 Sep 2020 08:29:50 +0000