Marcus Ching (Page 505)

In June, 11 women sanitation workers from the southern Indian state of Kerala pooled money to buy a lottery ticket. Last week, they were overjoyed to find out they had hit the jackpot of 100m rupees ($1.2m; £946,685).

The women are part of a group that collects non-biodegradable waste from households in Parappanangadi town in Kerala’s Malappuram district. They usually get around 250 rupees a day – from monthly payments made by the households – and occasionally a share of the money made by the local corporation from selling the segregated waste they collect.

The money, they say candidly, is not enough to make ends meet. Most of the women have borrowed money and taken loans for their children’s education and other expenses.

That’s why they would occasionally join forces to buy a lottery ticket.

The lottery is largely illegal in many Indian states but Kerala’s government itself runs a highly popular programme – private lotteries are banned in the state.

“Once, we won a 1,000-rupee prize and shared it,” says MP Radha, who usually buys tickets for the group.

Last month, the group decided to buy a 250-rupee ticket for a monsoon bumper prize lottery (bumper prize lotteries are issued for special occasions such as festivals).

Kuttimalu, 72, says she was initially sad when Radha was collecting funds because she didn’t have enough money.

“Then Cherumannil Baby (another member of the group) told me she had 25 rupees and was willing to lend me half of it for the ticket,” she tells the BBC.

So the two women put in 12.5 rupees each for their share of the ticket while the other nine women paid 25 rupees each.

“We agreed we would get an equal share if we won anything,” Ms Kuttimalu says. “We didn’t expect to win such a huge amount of money!”

The women only found out they had won a day after the draw, when one of them asked her husband to check the results.

“This is the fourth time we bought a ticket for the bumper prize,” Ms Radha says.”We are fourth time lucky!”

Ms Baby, 62, says she can’t believe the group has hit the jackpot.

“Luck was never on my side,” she says. Her house was washed away in the devastating floods that hit Kerala in 2018. She now plans to build a house and pay off her debts.

Other women in the group also have similar stories to share.

K Bindu, 50, lost her husband last year to kidney failure. The family was unable to afford the money for his transplant.

“He used to buy lottery tickets with the money we kept for dialysis,” she says. “He left us without finishing the construction of our house. I have to complete it now.”

Ms Bindu wants to spend the money on educating her 15-year-old daughter so she can get a good job.

Lakshmi, 49, says that just the night before their lottery win, her family had been worrying about their future. Her husband, a construction worker, was struggling to get work because of heavy rains in the state.

The couple is relieved that they can now spend the money on their daughter’s studies.

Leela, 56, had been worried about how she would pay for her daughter’s surgery. “I had already borrowed money for her wedding by taking a loan against my house,” she says.

After paying government taxes, the group will receive 63m rupees. Ms Baby and Ms Kuttimalu will divide their share of 6.3m rupees equally between them while the others will get 6.3m rupees each.

Apart from collecting waste, the women also help construct public toilets and install facilities for disposing waste, says KT Balabhaskaran, director of the Suchitwa Mission, the agency which coordinates these efforts across the state.

On Friday, a day after their life-changing win, the 11 women reached the agency’s office like always to resume their work.

“We decided one thing,” Ms Leela says. “We will not leave this job because it was this collective that brought us prosperity.”

BBC News India is now on YouTube. Click here to subscribe and watch our documentaries, explainers and features.

India has confirmed that an object that washed up on a Western Australian beach recently was from one of its rockets.

The giant metal dome was found at Green Head beach, about 250km (155 miles) north of Perth, in mid-July – prompting speculation about its origins.

India’s space agency spokesman told the BBC on Monday it was from one of its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles (PSLV).

Sudhir Kumar added that it would be up to Australia to decide what to do with the object. He did not comment further.

His comments came after the Australian Space Agency (ASA) on Wednesday said that the object was “most likely” the third stage of a PSLV, which are used by India to launch satellites into orbit.

Countries often plan for debris from their launches to land in oceans to prevent them damaging people and property.

Dr Alice Gorman, a space archaeologist and Associate Professor at Australia’s Flinders University, said that while there are often serial numbers on components, it was also possible to identify debris based on appearance.

The ASA said it was working with India’s space agency to “determine next steps, including considering obligations under the United Nations space treaties”.

The BBC has approached the agency for further comment.

According to the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, countries are required to return any “foreign” space objects found in their territory to the owners.

Dr Gorman said that there were many reasons why a country would want debris back, such as mission analysis.

In this case, however, she said there would be no benefit in India retrieving the object.

Western Australia has already indicated it would be happy to keep it.

The state’s premier, Roger Cook, suggested to local media that the object could be stored in the state museum alongside debris from Nasa’s Skylab station, which was discovered in 1979.

Locals said they might be interested in turning it into a local tourist attraction, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

Dr Gorman said another option would be to put in a park, adding: “Things that have been in space have this kind of aura and to touch something that has been in space would be a bit special.”

The object is currently in storage with the ASA. It is still not clear which mission it was used in, nor how long it had been in the water before washing up at Green Head.

Experts estimated that it would have been at least a few months. The debris was covered with barnacles.

There were initially concerns about potentially dangerous toxins leaking from the object if it was found to be part of a rocket.

However, the authorities later determined it was not a risk to the public.

The ASA has asked that any members of the public who finds further suspected debris should get in contact with them.

It is not the first time that space junk has landed in Australia. Last year, a chunk from one of Elon Musk’s Space X missions was found in a paddock in the state of New South Wales.

At least two people have died in Beijing as China is battered by one of the strongest storms to hit the country in years.

Storm Doksuri has been causing widespread flooding and has led to chaos across northern China.

In the capital, at least 31,000 people have been forced to flee their homes, while subway stations have been closed.

While the storm – a former super-typhoon – is weakening, officials have urged people to remain indoors.

A red alert has been issued in the city and employers have been ordered to allow people to work from home, with the death toll from the severe flooding expected to rise in the coming days.

Rainfall in Beijing and other cities in northern China has already reached dangerously high levels, while driving rains are expected to continue for at least another 24 hours.

China’s Meteorological Bureau said an average of 170.9mm of rain deluged Beijing between Saturday night and noon on Monday, the equivalent of the average rainfall for the entire month of July.

The storm made landfall in Fujian Province on Friday, causing landslides and flooding before moving north towards the capital.

In footage shared online by Beijing residents, cars could be seen being swept away by torrential rains and there are fears that passengers could have been trapped inside after waters rose rapidly. Some roads were also torn up by the severe flooding.

Elsewhere, subway stations were engulfed by the flooding, while to the south of the city, a railway bridge was washed away. Dozens of flights have also been cancelled to and from the city.

In the Mentougou district, emergency officials recovered the two bodies from waterways early on Monday, state media reported. About 5,000 people have been evacuated from the mountainous district.

Guo Zhenyu, a 49-year-old resident, told the AFP news agency that the heavy rains had quickly submerged much of the area.

“This morning it was crazy, the water overflowed the Mentougou river and the whole avenue was flooded,” he said.

Other residents expressed concerns that the rains could cause structural problems for their homes.

“Once it starts raining, the road turns into a drain, and there’s water on the first floor inside houses,” Chen, 52, told AFP. “The houses here are all old houses, so there are definitely concerns about safety.”

In the Fangshan district, state media reported that some 2,000 members of the People’s Liberation Army had been deployed to help shore up flood defences against the rising waters.

Meanwhile, in southern China, typhoon Khanun is expected to hit the heavily populated Zhejiang Province in the coming days.

The floods mark the latest example of extreme weather to hit China this summer. The country has been consistently posting record temperatures, which scientists say have been exacerbated by climate change.

The world has already warmed by about 1.1C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.

The warmer it becomes, the more moisture the atmosphere can hold. This results in more droplets and heavier rainfall, sometimes in a shorter space of time and over a smaller area.

The Taliban have burned musical instruments in Afghanistan, claiming music “causes moral corruption”.

Thousands of dollars worth of musical equipment went up in smoke on a bonfire on Saturday in western Herat province.

Since taking power in 2021, the Taliban have imposed numerous restrictions, including on playing music in public.

Ahmad Sarmast, Afghanistan National Institute of Music founder, likened their actions to “cultural genocide and musical vandalism”.

“The people of Afghanistan have been denied artistic freedom… The burning of musical instruments in Herat is just a small example of the cultural genocide that is taking place in Afghanistan under the leadership of the Taliban,” Dr Sarmast told the BBC.

Some of the items set ablaze in Herat included a guitar, a harmonium and a tabla – a kind of drum – as well as amplifiers and speakers, according to images online. Many of these had been seized from wedding venues in the city.

All forms of music were banned from social gatherings, TV, and radio while the Taliban were in power in Afghanistan from the mid-90s until 2001.

A music scene flourished in the two decades that followed, but the Taliban’s return in August 2021 prompted many musicians to flee the country. Singers and musicians still in the country are reported to have been subjected to beatings and discrimination.

In the past two years, the Taliban have imposed other severe restrictions under their strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Women have borne the brunt of these harsh measures. The Taliban have decreed they should be dressed in a way that only reveals their eyes, and must be accompanied by a male relative if they are travelling more than 72km (48 miles).

Teenage girls and women have also been barred from entering school and university classrooms, gyms and parks.

Last week all hair and beauty salons across the country were ordered to shut on the Taliban’s orders, after being deemed un-Islamic.