Modi woos Sri Lanka, Maldives as India fends off Chinese influence

Revelers burst firecrackers through the night in spite of a ban, plunging air quality levels to toxic lows by Friday.

Nine people are dead and two others missing after floods in Sri Lanka and parts of southern India caused by more than a week of pounding rains. Nearly half of Sri Lanka's 25 districts have been hit by the deluge, with the worst affected areas in and around the island's tea-growing Central Highlands.

At least six people, including four school children, were killed and scores missing after a ferry capsized in eastern Sri Lanka on Tuesday, officials said. Sri Lanka navy officials and divers conducted a search and rescue operation after the incident, authorities said.

Sri Lanka's ongoing economic meltdown is getting worse day by day. It's the worst financial crisis this island nation of 22 million people has faced since its independence seven decades ago. The country's foreign reserves have been dangerously low in recent months, and experts fear the country is on the verge of default.

The BJP is projected to win four of the five states that went to the polls over the past month. The results could set the course for India's general election in 2024.

In Sri Lanka, 13 years after the end of the civil war with the Tamil Tigers that lasted a quarter of a century, reconciliation appears elusive. Elected in 2019, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, seen by the Sinhalese majority as a hero and accused by the Tamil minority ​​of war crimes during the conflict, embodies this divide. FRANCE 24's Thomas Denis reports, with Navodita Kumari.

Russia's war in Ukraine has sent shockwaves around the world and hit the global economy hard. In economically depressed Sri Lanka it's exacerbating an already existing economic crisis.

Sri Lanka's cabinet ministers have resigned from their posts as an economic crisis deepens in the country. Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksahas has yet to step down, despite growing demands for his resignation.

Sri Lanka's government said restrictions on access to social media platforms came a day after protesters defied a nationwide curfew to demand government accountability.

Sri Lanka's president said a nationwide state of emergency was necessary to ensure order in the country, a day after protesters clashed with the police. Sri Lanka is in the throes of a financial crisis.

Following days of protests over soaring prices and fuel shortages, Sri Lanka's cabinet ministers have resigned en masse. The head of the central bank has also stepped down. We take a look at how the heavily indebted country got to this stage. Plus, our correspondents report on how Niger could be facing its worst food crisis in a decade, amid global food and energy shortages worsened by the war in Ukraine.

Fuel shortages across Sri Lanka have prompted fuel rationing. For the seventh day in a row, protesters demonstrated in front of the president's office.