21 and 22 year-old boys top 2024 Hurun India Rich List of youngest entrepreneurs. Net worth: ₹ 3,600 cr and ₹ 4,300 cr respectively

Mangaluru International Airport (MIA), Karnataka’s second busiest airport, has seen 148.5kg of gold smuggled between 2019 and December 2024, with 90% arriving from the UAE. Customs officials recorded 346 cases, averaging 30kg of gold seized per year (2.5kg per month). Most smugglers are from Kerala and Bhatkal.

A senior customs officer revealed that MIA sees at least five gold smuggling cases per month. Numbers dropped during the pandemic but surged after flights resumed. Many offenders are first-time carriers, while some are habitual smugglers. With fewer flights, customs thoroughly checks passengers, making smuggling harder.

Smugglers constantly innovate concealment methods. Hiding gold in the rectum remains common, but gold is also found in trolley bags, mobile covers, chocolate boxes, milk powder, biscuit packets, and clothing layers. Electronic devices like car speaker magnets, LED bulbs, AirPods, wristwatches, and ballpoint pens have been used.

Unusual tactics include hiding gold in a woman’s hairband, a baby’s diaper, and even a kheer mix packet (347g). In one case, a passenger attempted to smuggle 100g in his mouth under a mask but was caught.

Officials note that while the UAE remains a key source, smugglers now bring gold from other Gulf countries, continuously adapting to evade detection.

A 7.7 magnitude earthquake, and an aftershock of 6.8, hit central Myanmar at 12.50pm (local time) Friday. The epicentre was 16km northwest of the city of Sagaing, and at a depth of 10km, the United States Geological Survey said. 20 deaths have been reported - in Myanmar so far - by local media.

Deaths have also been reported from a mosque in Mandalay city, which collapsed while people were inside, praying and a university building in which a fire broke out. And a 1,000-bed hospital in Myanmar capital Naypyidaw has become a "mass casualty area", news agency AFP said.

The Myanmar junta has declared an 'emergency' and has appealed for international aid.

Tremors were felt as far away as northern Thailand, where some metro and rail services were suspended in Bangkok. Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra is holding an "urgent meeting" to review the crisis and she too has declared a state of 'emergency' in the capital city.

China's Yunnan province also reported strong tremors; the China Earthquake Networks Center said the magnitude was 7.9. And mild tremors were also reported from Kolkata in Bengal and parts of Manipur, where tremors of 4.4 magnitude were recorded as well as Dhaka and Chattogram in Bangladesh.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said India is ready to offer any assistance needed. "Praying for the safety and wellbeing of everyone," he posted on X. "... have asked our authorities to be on standby."

Terrifying videos on X showed buildings shaking in Bangkok and other cities, with people running onto the streets in panic. "I heard it... I was sleeping in the house and then I ran as far as I could in my pyjamas out of the building," Duangjai, a resident of popular tourist city Chiang Mai, told AFP.

One particularly horrifying video showed water from an infinity pool falling over the edge.

And another showed an under-construction skyscraper in Bangkok's Chatuchak neighbourhood collapsing. According to reports, 43 workers have been trapped amid the debris.

"When I arrived to inspect the site, I heard people calling for help, saying help me," Worapat Sukthai, deputy police chief of Bang Sue district, told AFP. "We estimate that hundreds of people are injured but we are still determining the number of casualties."

In Myanmar, an old bridge over the Irrawaddy River and some residential buildings having collapsed, with images from Mandalay (around 24km from Sagaing) suggesting more people may be trapped.

Other videos showed extensive damage to the airport in Mandalay and to a monastery near the city of Taunggyi, in Myanmar's Shan State that is on the border to Thailand.

Earthquakes are relatively common in Myanmar, where six strong quakes of 7.0 magnitude or more struck between 1930 and 1956 near the Sagaing Fault, which runs north to south through the country.

A powerful 6.8-magnitude earthquake, in the ancient capital Bagan in central Myanmar, killed three people in 2016, also toppling spires and crumbling temple walls at the tourist destination.

The impoverished nation has a strained medical system, especially in its rural states.

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has warned that the tight Israeli blockade on the entry of humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip is pushing the coastal territory closer to an acute hunger crisis.

Philippe Lazzarini made the remarks in a social media post, in which he noted that the siege, which is preventing food, medicines, water and fuel from entering the region, has lasted longer than what was in place in the first phase of the war.

Israel has banned the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza since March 4, following the expiry of the first phase of a ceasefire and an agreement with Hamas resistance movement on the exchange of Israeli captives for Palestinian prisoners.

Lazzarini warned that Gaza’s population depends on imports via Israeli-occupied territories for their survival.

“Every day that passes without the entry of aid means more children go to bed hungry, diseases spread & deprivation deepens,” he said.

“Every day without food inches Gaza closer to an acute hunger crisis,” the UNRWA chief noted.

Lazzarini described the banning of aid as a collective punishment on Gaza’s population – the vast majority of which are children, women and ordinary men.

He called for the siege to be lifted and for humanitarian aid and commercial supplies to be brought into Gaza “uninterrupted and at scale.”

Backed by the United States and its Western allies, Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Flood against the Israeli regime in response to its decades-long campaign of oppression against Palestinians.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed at least 50,021 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 113,274 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under the rubble.

On November 21 last year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its deadly war on the blockaded coastal sliver.