New Delhi / AFP About 330 million people are suffering from drought in India, the government has said, as the country reels from severe water shortages and desperately poor farmers suffer crop losses. One of the government’s most senior lawyers PS Narasimha told the Supreme Court that a quarter of the country’s population, spread across 10 states, have been ...

  Karachi / AFP Pakistan’s Habib Bank Limited announced it had received a licence to open a branch in China, a move that would make it the first South Asian lender to operate in the world’s number two economy. More commonly known by its acronym ‘HBL’, the bank said it would open a branch in Urumqi, the largest city in ...

  SHENZHEN / AP The Chinese automaker that sold more electric cars last year than Tesla, Nissan or GM is taking a back road into the American market on a battery-powered bus. Detouring around the cost and risk of consumer sales, BYD Co. has quietly built a U.S. business supplying rechargeable buses to environmentally-minded transit agencies. Its factory north of ...