The rape and murder of a trainee doctor in India's Kolkata city earlier this month has sparked massive outrage in the country, with tens of thousands of people protesting on the streets, demanding justice. The 31-year-old doctor was brutally assaulted at the RG Kar Medical College hospital, where she worked. The doctor's partially-clothed body was discovered in the seminar hall, bearing extensive injuries. A hospital volunteer worker has been arrested in connection with the crime, but Kolkata residents in particular suspect a massive cover-up involving the state government of Mamata Banerjee.

At the weekend, doctors across hospitals in India observed a nation-wide strike called by the Indian Medical Association (IMA), with only emergency services available at major hospitals. Thousands participated in a Reclaim the Night march held in Kolkata to demand safety for women across the country. The doctor's case has also put a spotlight on challenges faced by healthcare workers, who have demanded a thorough and impartial investigation into the murder and a federal law to protect them - especially women - at work.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken said that "time is of the essence" to secure a Gaza ceasefire, as he wrapped up a Middle East tour with an agreement between Israel and Hamas still elusive. The deal "needs to get done, and it needs to get done in the days ahead," Blinken told reporters in Doha before departing for Washington, as he reiterated his call for Hamas to accept a "bridging proposal" for a deal, which he said Israel had accepted, and asked both parties to work towards finalising it.

Blinken and mediators from Egypt and Qatar have pinned their hopes on the bridging proposal which aims to narrow the gaps between the two sides in the 10-month-old war, after negotiations last week paused without a breakthrough. The US expects the ceasefire talks to continue this week. Hamas is not directly participating in these negotiations and has said the latest proposal on the table veers too closely to Israel's demands.

Russian authorities said that Moscow came under the largest attack yet by Ukrainian drones since the start of fighting in 2022, and that it destroyed all of them. Russia destroyed 45 Ukrainian drones overnight on August 20-21, the country's Ministry of Defense said. It said 11 were destroyed over the Moscow region, 23 over the Bryansk region, six over Belgorod, three over Kaluga and two over Kursk.

"This was one of the biggest attempts of all time to attack Moscow using drones," Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said on his Telegram channel. He said all of the drones were destroyed because strong defences have been created around the capital. Some Russian social media channels shared videos of drones apparently being destroyed by air defence systems, which then set off car alarms. The drone attacks came as Ukrainian forces continued to push into Russia's western Kursk region.

A bus carrying Shiite pilgrims from Pakistan to Iraq crashed in central Iran, killing at least 28 people. The crash happened Tuesday night (Aug. 20) in the central Iranian province of Yazd, said Mohammad Ali Malekzadeh, a local emergency official, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. Another 23 people suffered injuries in the crash, 14 of them serious, he added. He said all the bus passengers hailed from Pakistan. There were 51 people on board at the time of the crash outside of the city of Taft, some 500 kilometres (310 miles) southeast of the Iranian capital, Tehran.

Iranian state television later broadcast images of the bus, turned upside down on the highway with its roof smashed in and all its doors open. Rescuers stepped gingerly through the broken glass and debris littering the road. In Pakistan, authorities described those on the bus as coming from the city of Larkana in Pakistan's southern Sindh province.