The Evening Wrap: Former policeman kills 24 children, 13 others at Thailand daycare centre

A former policeman killed at least 37 people including 24 children in a gun rampage at a daycare centre in Thailand on Thursday, later shooting dead his wife and child at their home before turning his weapon on himself, police officials said. Police identified the attacker as a former member of the force who was dismissed from his post last year over drug allegations. The man had been facing trial on a drug charge and had been in court in the hours before the shooting, a police spokesperson told broadcaster ThaiPBS. He had come to collect his child from the daycare centre but opened fire when he did not find the child there, the spokesperson said. At least 37 people were killed in the attack, according to police spokesman Archayon Kraithong. Another 12 people were wounded. At least 24 of the dead were children, mostly preschoolers. About 30 children were at the facility when the attacker arrived, fewer than usual, as heavy rain had kept many people away, district official Jidapa Boonsom, who was working in a nearby office at the time, told Reuters. The attacker forced his way into a locked room where children were sleeping, Jidapa said. She said she thought he killed children there with a knife, adding that a teacher who was eight months pregnant was also killed with a knife. Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha, in a statement on Facebook, called the shooting a “shocking incident”. “I have ordered the police chief to travel to the scene immediately to take necessary actions and all involved parties to provide immediate relief to all affected people,” he said. 6 more bodies recovered from Uttarakhand avalanche site Six more bodies were recovered in the evening on Thursday, two days after a team of climbers from the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM) were trapped by an avalanche in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi, the institute said. Meanwhile, 13 mountaineers are still believed to be missing. The avalanche hit Draupadi Ka Danda II peak at a height of 17,000 feet on October 4 when the team was returning after summiting. According to NIM, the recovery of six more bodies takes the number of bodies retrieved so far to 16 after five were recovered on Thursday morning. Uttarakhand police had previously said that 10 bodies had been retrieved. Earlier in the day, the State Emergency Operation Centre (SEOC) in Dehradun said, without accounting for the five bodies recovered, that of NIM’s 61-member advance training course team, including trainees and instructors, four bodies had been recovered, 30 were safe and 27 still missing. Earlier in the day, a 14-member team from High Altitude Warfare School based in Gulmarg in Jammu and Kashmir joined the rescue operation for the missing mountaineers. The team, which specialises in high-altitude rescue operations, will help in the joint efforts by the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and mountaineers from NIM in their efforts to find the missing climbers, the SEOC said. Cough syrups exported only to Gambia, says preliminary report The preliminary enquiry of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has said Maiden Pharmaceutical’s four cough syrups which are suspected to have caused the death of children in the Gambia, according to a warning issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO), were manufactured and exported only to Gambia. “The Haryana-based manufacturer is licensed by the State Drug Controller to make the products Promethazine Oral Solution BP, Kofexnalin Baby Cough Syrup, MaKoff Baby Cough Syrup and MaGrip n Cold Syrup for export only,’’ said the Health Ministry on Thursday. It added that the samples (controlled samples of the same batch manufactured by Maiden Pharmaceuticals Limited for all the four drugs in question) have been taken and sent for testing to the Regional Drug Testing Lab, Chandigarh by the CDSCO, the results of which will guide further course of action as well as bring clarity on the inputs received/ to be received from the WHO. The CDSCO has also requested the WHO to share at the earliest the report on establishment of causal relation to death with the medical products in question etc. As per the tentative results received by the WHO, out of the 23 samples of the products under reference which were tested, four samples have been found to contain Diethylene Glycol/ Ethylene Glycol. India expected to grow at 6.5% in FY22-23: World Bank The World Bank has estimated that India will grow 6.5% in the current fiscal year (FY22-23), after having grown at 8.7% in the fiscal year ended March 31. The estimate for the current year was revised downwards by one percentage point since June due to persistent pressures. The Indian economy is expected to speed up to 7.0% in the next fiscal year, before settling back down to 6.1% in FY24-25. The numbers were released as part of the World Bank’s twice yearly South Asia Economic Focus, titled, ‘Coping with Shocks: Migration and the Road to Resilience’, ahead of the World Bank IMF annual meetings in Washington DC. With Sri Lanka’s economic crisis, the devastating floods in Pakistan, and recovery from the pandemic impacted by the war in Ukraine, recovery in the region will be uneven, with the economies that are more services-led (India, Nepal, and Maldives) expected to “maintain a reasonable recovery trend despite headwinds”. Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Pakistan are more at risk and will see poverty increase in 2022. The slowing in India’s growth during the current fiscal year, relative to the previous one, was because most of the COVID recovery happened last year, the report said. The impact of the Russia-Ukraine war, global monetary tightening, high commodity prices and interest rates impacting domestic demand (especially private consumption in FY2023-24), contributing to this slowing. Although India growth estimates are above the South Asian average, there is weakness in employment and supply chains, the report says, with supply chain delays having improved only marginally since June this year. While India’s economy-wide employment index is improving on a monthly basis, it is doing so at speeds slower than the rest of the world (barring Asia). While private consumption in India increased overall in quarter 2 of 2022, the recovery across income groups has been uneven, as per the World Bank. High income households’ consumption of contact-intensive services and consumer goods recovered, but for rural and low income households, consumption was weak. Return of migrant workers to their places of work has also been slow, impacting household incomes in cases where migrants are sending money home. Nobel Prize in literature goes to French author Annie Ernaux The winner of the Nobel Prize in literature for 2022 is French author Annie Ernaux, it was announced on Thursday at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. The 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to the French author Annie Ernaux “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.” Ms. Ernaux believes in the liberating force of writing. Her work is uncompromising and written in plain language, scraped clean, the academy said. Ms. Ernaux has said that writing is a political act, opening our eyes for social inequality. For this purpose she uses language as “a knife”, as she calls it, to tear apart the veils of imagination. In ‘L’occupation’ (2002), Ms. Ernaux dissects the social mythology of romantic love. On the basis of notes in a diary recording her abandonment by a lover, she both confesses and attacks a self-image built on stereotypes. Writing becomes a sharp weapon dissecting truth. In her writing, Ms. Ernaux consistently and from different angles, examines a life marked by strong disparities regarding gender, language and class. She has written over thirty literary works. Ms. Ernaux, was born in 1940 and grew up in the small town of Yvetot in Normandy, where her parents had a combined grocery store and café. Her path to authorship was long and arduous, the academy said. Read our explainer on the works and views of Annie Ernaux In Brief: India is willing to do whatever it can to facilitate a solution to the Ukraine crisis, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said, as he highlighted how India pressed Moscow on the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine when the two countries stepped up fighting near the highly sensitive facility. The Minister said that it was natural for different countries and regions to react differently to the crisis in Ukraine. The people will view it from their viewpoint, their immediate interest, historical experiences, their insecurities, he said. He is in Auckland on his first visit to New Zealand as the EAM and made the remarks during an interaction with the CEO of Auckland Business Chamber Simon Bridges. [logo] The Evening Wrap 06 OCTOBER 2022 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [[Arrow]Open in browser]( [[Mail icon]More newsletters]( [Privacy Info]( Former policeman kills 24 children, 13 others at Thailand daycare centre A [former policeman killed at least 37 people including 24 children]( in a gun rampage at a daycare centre in Thailand on Thursday, later shooting dead his wife and child at their home before turning his weapon on himself, police officials said. Police identified the attacker as a former member of the force who was dismissed from his post last year over drug allegations. [First responders attend to a victim at the site of an attack at a day care centre in the town of Nongbua Lamphu, north eastern Thailand on October 6, 2022. Photo: Mungkorn Sriboonreung Rescue Group via AP] The man had been facing trial on a drug charge and had been in court in the hours before the shooting, a police spokesperson told broadcaster ThaiPBS. He had come to collect his child from the daycare centre but opened fire when he did not find the child there, the spokesperson said. At least 37 people were killed in the attack, according to police spokesman Archayon Kraithong. Another 12 people were wounded. At least 24 of the dead were children, mostly preschoolers. About 30 children were at the facility when the attacker arrived, fewer than usual, as heavy rain had kept many people away, district official Jidapa Boonsom, who was working in a nearby office at the time, told Reuters. The attacker forced his way into a locked room where children were sleeping, Jidapa said. She said she thought he killed children there with a knife, adding that a teacher who was eight months pregnant was also killed with a knife. Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha, in a statement on Facebook, called the shooting a “shocking incident”. “I have ordered the police chief to travel to the scene immediately to take necessary actions and all involved parties to provide immediate relief to all affected people,” he said. 6 more bodies recovered from Uttarakhand avalanche site [Six more bodies were recovered]( in the evening on Thursday, two days after a team of climbers from the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering (NIM) were trapped by an avalanche in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi, the institute said. Meanwhile, 13 mountaineers are still believed to be missing. The avalanche hit Draupadi Ka Danda II peak at a height of 17,000 feet on October 4 when the team was returning after summiting. According to NIM, the recovery of six more bodies takes the number of bodies retrieved so far to 16 after five were recovered on Thursday morning. [Army personnel move towards the avalanche site to carry out rescue operations in Uttarkashi district on Uttarakhand on October 6, 2022. Photo: Twitter/@suryacommand via PTI] Uttarakhand police had previously said that 10 bodies had been retrieved. Earlier in the day, the State Emergency Operation Centre (SEOC) in Dehradun said, without accounting for the five bodies recovered, that of NIM’s 61-member advance training course team, including trainees and instructors, four bodies had been recovered, 30 were safe and 27 still missing. Earlier in the day, a 14-member team from High Altitude Warfare School based in Gulmarg in Jammu and Kashmir joined the rescue operation for the missing mountaineers. The team, which specialises in high-altitude rescue operations, will help in the joint efforts by the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and mountaineers from NIM in their efforts to find the missing climbers, the SEOC said. Cough syrups exported only to Gambia, says preliminary report The preliminary enquiry of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has said Maiden Pharmaceutical’s four cough syrups which are suspected to have caused the death of children in the Gambia, according to a warning issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO), were [manufactured and exported only to Gambia](. “The Haryana-based manufacturer is licensed by the State Drug Controller to make the products Promethazine Oral Solution BP, Kofexnalin Baby Cough Syrup, MaKoff Baby Cough Syrup and MaGrip n Cold Syrup for export only,’’ said the Health Ministry on Thursday. It added that the samples (controlled samples of the same batch manufactured by Maiden Pharmaceuticals Limited for all the four drugs in question) have been taken and sent for testing to the Regional Drug Testing Lab, Chandigarh by the CDSCO, the results of which will guide further course of action as well as bring clarity on the inputs received/ to be received from the WHO. The CDSCO has also requested the WHO to share at the earliest the report on establishment of causal relation to death with the medical products in question etc. As per the tentative results received by the WHO, out of the 23 samples of the products under reference which were tested, four samples have been found to contain Diethylene Glycol/ Ethylene Glycol.  India expected to grow at 6.5% in FY22-23: World Bank The [World Bank has estimated that India will grow 6.5%]( in the current fiscal year (FY22-23), after having grown at 8.7% in the fiscal year ended March 31. The estimate for the current year was revised downwards by one percentage point since June due to persistent pressures. The Indian economy is expected to speed up to 7.0% in the next fiscal year, before settling back down to 6.1% in FY24-25. The numbers were released as part of the World Bank’s twice yearly South Asia Economic Focus, titled, ‘Coping with Shocks: Migration and the Road to Resilience’, ahead of the World Bank IMF annual meetings in Washington DC. With Sri Lanka’s economic crisis, the devastating floods in Pakistan, and recovery from the pandemic impacted by the war in Ukraine, recovery in the region will be uneven, with the economies that are more services-led (India, Nepal, and Maldives) expected to “maintain a reasonable recovery trend despite headwinds”. Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Pakistan are more at risk and will see poverty increase in 2022. The slowing in India’s growth during the current fiscal year, relative to the previous one, was because most of the COVID recovery happened last year, the report said. The impact of the Russia-Ukraine war, global monetary tightening, high commodity prices and interest rates impacting domestic demand (especially private consumption in FY2023-24), contributing to this slowing. Although India growth estimates are above the South Asian average, there is weakness in employment and supply chains, the report says, with supply chain delays having improved only marginally since June this year. While India’s economy-wide employment index is improving on a monthly basis, it is doing so at speeds slower than the rest of the world (barring Asia). While private consumption in India increased overall in quarter 2 of 2022, the recovery across income groups has been uneven, as per the World Bank. High income households’ consumption of contact-intensive services and consumer goods recovered, but for rural and low income households, consumption was weak. Return of migrant workers to their places of work has also been slow, impacting household incomes in cases where migrants are sending money home. Nobel Prize in literature goes to French author Annie Ernaux The [winner of the Nobel Prize in literature for 2022 is French author Annie Ernaux]( it was announced on Thursday at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. The 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to the French author Annie Ernaux “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.” Ms. Ernaux believes in the liberating force of writing. Her work is uncompromising and written in plain language, scraped clean, the academy said. Ms. Ernaux has said that writing is a political act, opening our eyes for social inequality. For this purpose she uses language as “a knife”, as she calls it, to tear apart the veils of imagination. In ‘L’occupation’ (2002), Ms. Ernaux dissects the social mythology of romantic love. On the basis of notes in a diary recording her abandonment by a lover, she both confesses and attacks a self-image built on stereotypes. Writing becomes a sharp weapon dissecting truth. In her writing, Ms. Ernaux consistently and from different angles, examines a life marked by strong disparities regarding gender, language and class. She has written over thirty literary works. Ms. Ernaux, was born in 1940 and grew up in the small town of Yvetot in Normandy, where her parents had a combined grocery store and café. Her path to authorship was long and arduous, the academy said. Read our explainer on the [works and views of Annie Ernaux]( In Brief: [India is willing to do whatever it can to facilitate a solution to the Ukraine crisis]( External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said, as he highlighted how India pressed Moscow on the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine when the two countries stepped up fighting near the highly sensitive facility. The Minister said that it was natural for different countries and regions to react differently to the crisis in Ukraine. The people will view it from their viewpoint, their immediate interest, historical experiences, their insecurities, he said. He is in Auckland on his first visit to New Zealand as the EAM and made the remarks during an interaction with the CEO of Auckland Business Chamber Simon Bridges. 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