Kate Sadleir was weighed down with boxes and brochures when she finished her business at the Irish Georgian Society on Dublin’s South William Street last Tuesday.

Devastating floods triggered by monsoon rains have killed more than 950 people and displaced close to 40 million people across northern India, southern Nepal and northern Bangladesh in recent days.

At least 40 people have died and hundreds of thousands have been evacuated as floods hit vast swathes of central and eastern India.

Here’s a briefing on some of the stories and issues highlighted on irishexaminer.com today

Good afternoon. Here’s all the news you need to know this lunchtime.

A second powerful earthquake in less than three weeks spread panic in Nepal yesterday, bringing down buildings weakened by the first disaster and killing at least 66 people, including 17 in neighbouring India and one in Tibet.

A powerful earthquake which struck Nepal today has killed at least 876 people across four countries.

Police in India have arrested three men for allegedly gang raping a Japanese research scholar and keeping her captive in a Buddhist pilgrimage centre.

Violence has flared in Indian-controlled Kashmir as millions of people vote on the penultimate day of national elections.

Indian Maoist rebels have killed 14 people in two separate attacks as they continue a campaign of violence aimed at disrupting a five-week national election.

A father in eastern India is suing his only son for defamation after he married a woman from a lower caste, saying that he has damaged his reputation and social standing.

Police arrested at least two men after a Danish tourist said she was robbed and gang-raped in the heart of the Indian capital’s tourist district, putting sexual violence in India further into the spotlight.

Rescuers using backhoes and shovels searched for survivors yesterday under a massive pile of broken concrete and dust that was left when a residential building under construction collapsed in southern India, killing at least 15 workers.

An Indian teenager was gang-raped in two separate attacks and then died after being set on fire, sparking protests in the eastern city of Calcutta, police said.

A school principal and her husband have been charged with murder after 23 children died from eating pesticide-contaminated lunches in July at the school in eastern India, police said.

A school principal and her husband have been charged with murder after 23 children died from eating pesticide-contaminated lunches at the school in eastern India in July, police said today.

A speeding train has run over a group of pilgrims, killing at least 20 people in eastern India, a lawmaker says.

The head of an Indian primary school where 23 children died after a meal made with contaminated oil has been arrested, nine days after she went into hiding.

Soon after they served the daily free lunch they had prepared for dozens of children at a rural Indian school, the two cooks realised something was very wrong. The students started fainting. Within hours, they began dying.

Post-mortem tests on 22 children who died after eating a school lunch in India have confirmed that insecticide was in the food or cooking oil, doctors said.

At least 22 children have died and more than two dozen others are sick after eating a free school

At least 20 children have died and more are sick after eating free meals at a primary school in eastern India.

A second suspect was arrested for the rape of a 5-year-old girl who New Delhi police say was left for dead in a locked room, a case that has brought a new wave of protests against how Indian authorities handle sex crimes.

A second suspect has been arrested over the rape of a five-year-old girl who New Delhi police say was left for dead in a locked room, a case which has brought a new wave of protests against how Indian authorities handle sex crimes.

The condition of a five- year-old girl who was allegedly kidnapped, raped and tortured by a man and then left alone in a locked room in India’s capital for two days has improved, a doctor said yesterday, as protests continued over the authorities’ handling of the case.

A five-year-old girl is in serious condition after being raped and tortured by a man who held her in a locked room in India’s capital for two days, officials said today.

Brandname multinationals such as IBM and Vodafone have offices nearby, and a five-star Marriott hotel is going up on the main airport road in eastern Calcutta, not far from pricey pastel apartment blocks looking like Legoland in the hazy sun-baked distance.

A POOR government clerk from a desolate region of eastern India has become the first person ever to win $1 million (€705,000) on an Indian game show.

A poor government clerk from eastern India has become the first person to win the jackpot on the Indian version of 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?'.

MONSOON rains destroyed mud huts and flooded wide swaths of northern and eastern India, killing at least 48 people in recent days and leaving hundreds of thousands marooned by raging waters.

Rescuers have finally reached some of the villages in India’s remote north-east cut off by a powerful earthquake as the death toll in the disaster climbed past 100.

Soldiers in north-eastern India have cleared a path to a hydroelectric project where 17 people were confirmed killed by landslides in a powerful Himalayan earthquake, bringing the overall toll in the disaster to 99.

Thousands of homeless villagers in the Himalayas spent a miserable night outdoors in heavy rains after a powerful earthquake flattened houses and rescuers struggled to reach victims in the mountains of India, Nepal and Tibet.

Rescue workers used shovels and their bare hands to pull bodies from the debris of collapsed buildings today, as the death toll from an earthquake which hit north-east India, Nepal and Tibet rose to 50.

A strong earthquake shook north-eastern India and Nepal tonight, killing at least 16 people, damaging buildings and sending MPs in Nepal’s capital running into the streets.

IRISH feeding technology company Keenan has signed a five-year deal to supply its patented animal feed and mixer wagons to India’s oldest dairy business, Keventer.

At least 13 homeless people have died in near-freezing temperatures and Himalayan winds in northern India, police said today.

Near-freezing temperatures and icy Himalayan winds killed at least 13 people overnight in northern India, bringing the death toll to nearly 100 from a cold snap that began three weeks ago.

A school principal fatally stabbed a Hindu nationalist politician while he was meeting supporters at his residence in an east Indian state, police said today.

A bomb planted under a bridge has killed eight civilians in India – a day after police found the crude device but left it under sandbags until it could be defused.

An argument over sacrificing goats during a Hindu festival triggered a stampede that killed 10 people today in a packed temple in northern India, officials said.

Trains and planes were halted across India today by strikes in protest at fuel price rises.

An overcrowded bus has collided head-on with a truck in eastern India today, killing 23 people and injuring 15 others, police said.

Police say at least 20 people have been killed and 15 critically injured in eastern India today when a minibus crashed into a tree and fell into a ditch.

Fierce thunderstorms with heavy rains uprooted trees and destroyed hundreds of homes, crushing dozens of people to death and injuring scores of others in northern India, police said today.

A stampede at a temple in north India today left three women dead and at least 50 others injured.

Two private jets nearly collided after taking off at Mumbai’s international airport.

Eight people including a state politician have been given life sentences for the murder of a former minister in India following a decade-long trial.

HORDES of scientists, students and nature enthusiasts prepared yesterday for the longest total solar eclipse of this century, while millions planned to shutter themselves indoors, giving in to superstitious myths about the phenomenon.

More than a quarter of the MPs elected to form India’s new government have criminal cases pending against them.