Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has suffered a series of political reverses in recent months but widespread anger after 40 troopers were killed in an Islamist militant attack last week could lead to a surge in support for his Hindu nationalist party.

An Indian man on death row in Pakistan for alleged spying committed "terrorist acts" including targeted killings and kidnappings on New Delhi's orders "to create anarchy", Islamabad's lawyers told the UN's top court yesterday.

Prime Minister Imran Khan yesterday said Pakistan would retaliate if attacked by India in response to a bombing in the disputed Kashmir region, which India blamed on Pakistan, while adding he wanted to cooperate in investigating the blast.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has ordered the release of about 2,100 Pakistani prisoners from the kingdom's jails during a high-profile visit to Islamabad, Pakistan's information minister says.

Maldives authorities yesterday detained former strongman president Abdulla Yameen after he was accused of trying to bribe witnesses in his money laundering trial, officials said.

Bangladesh High Commissioner to India Syed Muazzem Ali says Dhaka’s ties with New Delhi have reached a multi-dimensional and comprehensive platform benefitting the peoples of the two closest neighbours.

Bangladesh’s leading cultural outfit Chhayanaut is conferred the Indian government’s prestigious Rabindranath Tagore Cultural Harmony award for 2015 at an impressive function in New Delhi of India.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman says Saudi Arabia has signed investment agreements worth $20 billion during his high-profile visit to Pakistan, where tensions were flaring up with nuclear-armed rival India.

Celebrations have erupted in northeast India after a contentious nationality law put forward by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government failed to pass.

Despite good relations between Bangladesh and Bhutan, the bilateral trade volume is relatively small and limited to few goods.

Police fired rubber bullets into a crowd of several thousand demonstrators in eastern Myanmar yesterday, activists said, as protests mount over a new and controversial statue.

An opinion piece in the International New York Times criticising Pakistan's powerful army was censored by its local publisher yesterday, replaced by a blank space in a country where it can be dangerous to reprimand the military.

Rescuers yesterday battled to reach the site of an avalanche that buried 10 people in Indian-administered Kashmir following two days of heavy snowfall across the region, police said. The

Sri Lanka's president said Wednesday that a 42-year moratorium on capital punishment will end within two months with the hanging of drug convicts.

A Taliban official said on Wednesday the United States had promised to withdraw half of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of April, but the US military said no timeframe had been set.

BJP president Amit Shah said yesterday the upcoming Lok Sabha elections will be Prime Minister Narendra Modi versus the rest.

Pakistan's Supreme Court yesterday rebuked the powerful military and intelligence agencies, calling for them to uphold free speech and stay out of politics in a country ruled by the generals for nearly half its existence.

Nepal yesterday approved a third extension for commissions tasked with probing crimes committed during its decade-long civil war, promising changes to make the hamstrung bodies effective.

A Taliban official said yesterday that the United States had promised to withdraw half of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of April during talks last month, RIA news agency reported, more than past estimates of the planned pull-out.

Indian police have rescued more than 180 Nepali men and women in a major operation near the border with Myanmar after activists raised suspicions they were being trafficked into forced labour.