Top Asian News 3:59 a.m. GMT

India begins counting votes in marathon election expected to bring Prime Minister Modi a third term

NEW DELHI (AP) — India began counting more than 640 million votes Tuesday in the world’s largest democratic exercise, which was widely expected to return Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a third term after a decade in power. The 6-week election was seen as a referendum on Modi. If the 73-year-old wins, it will only be the second time an Indian leader has retained power for a third term after Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister. Exit polls on Saturday by major television channels projected a comfortable win for Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies over a broad opposition alliance led by the Congress party and its main campaign leader, Rahul Gandhi.

The Latest | India counts votes from a mega-election seen as a referendum on Modi

AP PHOTOS: The world’s largest election concludes in India

NEW DELHI (AP) — Votes will be counted Tuesday in India’s 6-week-long election. The world’s largest election could also be one of its most consequential. Voters are choosing 543 members for the lower house of Parliament in the election that pits Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an avowed Hindu nationalist, against a broad alliance of opposition parties that are struggling to play catch up. Votes were cast in seven phases across multiple states in staggered polling that enabled the movement of election officials and voting machines as well as tens of thousands of troops to prevent violence. Candidates crisscrossed the country, poll workers hiked to remote villages, and voters lined up for hours in sweltering heat.

India’s election concludes with the votes being counted Tuesday. Here’s what to know

NEW DELHI (AP) — The world’s largest election could also be one of its most consequential. India has close to 970 million voters among its more than 1.4 billion people, and its general election pits Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an avowed Hindu nationalist, against a broad alliance of opposition parties that are struggling to play catch up. Now 73, Modi first swept to power in 2014 on promises of economic development, presenting himself as an outsider cracking down on corruption. Since then, he has fused religion with politics in a formula that has attracted wide support from the country’s majority Hindu population.

South Korea is suspending a military deal with North Korea after tensions over North’s balloons

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s government approved the suspension of a contentious military agreement with North Korea on Tuesday, a step that would allow it to take tougher responses to North Korean provocations. The development came as animosities between the rival Koreas rose sharply recently after North Korea launched trash-carrying balloons across the border in reaction to previous South Korean civilian leafletting campaigns. South Korea’s Cabinet Council passed a proposal aimed at suspending the 2018 inter-Korean agreement on lowering down frontline military tensions. The proposal will formally take effect when it’s signed by President Yoon Suk Yeol, likely later Tuesday, according to government officials.

In Indonesia, women ranger teams go on patrol to slow deforestation

DAMARAN BARU, Indonesia (AP) — In a lush jungle at the foothills of a volcano in Indonesia’s Aceh province, the song of gibbons in the trees mixes with the laughter of the seven forest rangers trekking below them. An hour into their patrol, the rangers spot another mammal in the forest with them. “Where are you going? What are you doing?” they pleasantly ask a man walking past, farming tools in hand. “Remember to not cut down trees wherever you go, OK?” The friendly engagement is just one tactic the women-led forest ranger group has been using to safeguard the forest their village relies on from deforestation and poaching.

China’s spacecraft carrying rocks from the far side of the moon leaves the lunar surface

BEIJING (AP) — China says a spacecraft carrying rock and soil samples from the far side of the moon has lifted off from the lunar surface to start its journey back to Earth. The ascender of the Chang’e-6 probe lifted off Tuesday morning Beijing time and entered a preset orbit around the moon, the China National Space Administration said. The Chang’e-6 probe was launched last month and its lander touched down on the far side of the moon Sunday. Xinhua News Agency cited the space agency as saying the spacecraft stowed the samples it had gathered in a container inside the ascender of the probe as planned.

Hong Kong detains an artist on the eve of the 35th anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong police briefly detained a performance artist on the eve of the 35th anniversary of China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown, underlining the city’s shrinking freedom of expression. Police on Monday took away Sanmu Chen on a street of Causeway Bay, a busy Hong Kong shopping district, close to a park that for decades hosted an annual vigil to mourn the victims of the 1989 crackdown. Before officers approached Chen, he mimed the action of drinking in front of a police van. He also appeared to be drawing or writing something in the air. Police later said that officers took Chen to a police station because they found him causing chaos at the scene.

Japan police search for suspects in spray-painting of graffiti at controversial war shrine

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese police are searching for the suspects who spray-painted the word “toilet” on a Tokyo shrine that commemorates the country’s war dead, in an apparent protest against the release of treated radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, officials and news reports said. The red graffiti on a stone pillar at the entrance of Yasukuni Shrine was discovered early Saturday. In a video posted on Chinese social media, a man who identified himself as Iron Head criticized the discharge of wastewater from the damaged nuclear power plant into the ocean. “Faced with the Japanese government’s permission to discharge nuclear wastewater, can we do anything?” the man asks.

Sri Lanka closes schools as the death toll from floods and mudslides rises to 16

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka closed schools on Monday as the death toll due to floods and mudslides triggered by heavy rains in many parts of the island nation, rose to 16 people, officials said. The education ministry announced that the reopening of schools would depend on how the weather develops. Heavy downpours have wreaked havoc in many parts of the country since Sunday, flooding homes, fields and roads, and forcing authorities to cut electricity as a precaution. Twelve people died after being washed away and drowning near the capital, Colombo, and the remote Rathnapura, Matara and Galle districts on Sunday, according to the disaster management center.