THE LITTLE RANN OF KUTCH, India – Sheltered beneath a canvas sheet to escape the blistering desert sun, miles from any roads or power lines, a group of Indian children huddle around a tablet and experience the internet for the very first time.

The remote wi-fi connection is powered by a van bringing the digital world to around 10,000 families living on the inhospitable salt flats of western Gujarat state, where they work eight months a year in extreme conditions.

The salt desert known as the Little Rann of Kutch, is roughly 180 kilometres (110 miles) from state capital Ahmedabad.

The workers mining the land for salt live without electricity and other amenities while their children attend school in mud huts or tin sheds where they lack even the most basic learning supplies.

Bringing the web to this isolated region is no small feat, with communities scattered over thousands of square kilometres.

The crew from NGO Agariya Heethrakshak Manch, one of the stakeholders in the project, first erected a powerful digital tower on the outskirts of the desert capable of sending a signal up to 60 kilometres away.

Then they fixed an antenna to the top of their van and hit the road armed with laptops, tablets and printers.

They visit each of the region’s 14 makeshift schools approximately once per week, teaching the students how to use technology to access the internet and learn digital skills.

The students are eager to learn, crowding around to watch online videos about maths and science.

“The internet and these tablets have made learning much more fun and engaging for all the children. They now have so much to learn and explore,” Pankti Jog of Agariya Heethrakshak Manch told AFP.

The youngsters are not the only ones discovering the joys of the web.

This mobile service has also helped their parents – migrants who make the annual journey to the salt plains for work – access government welfare schemes online, Jog said.

The crew hopes to increase the frequency of school visits to once every three days once they get more vans.

Currently their single van speeds between three schools a day, spending about two hours at each, Jog said.

“We have connected around 800 students to internet and digital learning in this remote region”, she said.

BEIJING – A Chinese official who allegedly declined to smoke in front of Muslims in Xinjiang has been demoted for taking an “unstable political stance,” a state-run newspaper reported Tuesday.

Xinjiang, home to China’s Muslim Uighur ethnic minority, restricts religious practises – such as growing beards, wearing headscarves, and fasting during Ramadan – that are seen as symbols of “Islamic extremism”.

A notice from the Hotan district government over the weekend accused Jelil Matniyaz, a village-level secretary for the ruling Communist party in the far-western region, of being afraid to smoke before religious figures.

“His behaviour of ‘not daring’ to smoke conforms with extreme religious thought in Xinjiang,” a local official told the Global Times newspaper.

He added that a dutiful party member would choose to smoke in front of religious believers in order to demonstrate his or her commitment to secularism.

Matniyaz’s failure to do so meant that instead of “leading the fight against extreme religious thought,” he was “failing to confront the threat of extreme regional forces”, the official said.

Matniyaz was given a “stern warning”, stripped of his party secretary duties and downgraded from senior staff member to staff member.

Xinjiang has been racked for years by a series of violent attacks which Beijing blames on exiled Uighur separatist groups whom it says are aligned with foreign terrorist networks.

Rights groups have countered that unrest in the region is largely a response to repressive policies, and that tighter measures are counterproductive.

Uighurs, a traditionally Muslim group, complain of cultural and religious repression and discrimination.

China introduced new anti-extremism legislation in Xinjiang late March, including a provision that bans “abnormal” beards.

JAKARTA – An Indonesian court on Tuesday adjourned the blasphemy trial of Jakarta’s Christian governor until after the city’s April 19 election, a contest pitting him against a Muslim rival that has divided the city and fanned religious tension.

The trial of Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, Jakarta’s first ethnic Chinese and Christian leader and an ally of President Joko Widodo, has raised questions about the role of religion in politics in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority nation.

Purnama has been allowed to campaign in the election despite his trial and prosecutors had been expected on Tuesday to call for him to be jailed on a charge of insulting Islam.

Instead, judges agreed to a request by prosecutors to postpone the hearing to April 20, a day after the election for city governor.

Police had also written to prosecutors to ask for a delay over security concerns.

“We think the police letter can be taken into consideration due to the matter of security,” prosecutor Ali Mukartono told the court, referring to the timing of the next hearing.

The prosecution’s main reason in asking for a delay was to have more time to prepare, he said.

City police last week called for the trial to be delayed until after vote because of worries that religious and ethnic tension in the city of more than 10 million people were running high.

Purnama went on trial late last year after some Muslim groups objected to comments he made about his opponents’ use of the Koran in campaigning.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of Muslims, led by hardline groups, have taken to the streets to call for Purnama to be sacked, and to urge voters not to elect a non-Muslim.

Some anti-Purnama protesters said they were disappointed with the delay.

“This hearing was delayed deliberately until after the election … The election, a political factor, is affecting this legal process,” said Pedri Kasman, a member of the moderate Islamic group, Muhammadiyah.

Muslims make up nearly 90 percent of Indonesia’s 250 million people but there are sizeable communities of Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and people who adhere to traditional beliefs.

The state ideology, Pancasila, enshrines religious diversity in an officially secular system.

Purnama has apologised for his comments and denied any wrongdoing. He faces up to four years in prison if found guilty.

Despite his trial, Purnama enjoys strong public support because of his efforts to ease Jakarta’s chronic traffic congestion and flooding.

TAIPEI – Taiwan’s ex-president Ma Ying-jeou, who has faced a string of lawsuits since stepping down last year, scored a legal victory Tuesday in a defamation case against a commentator who claimed he had taken illicit donations.

Ma filed the libel lawsuit in 2014 against radio show host Clara Chou for alleging that he accepted Tw$200 million (S$9 million) from scandal-hit food giant Ting Hsin International Group in exchange for favours.

The high court overturned a previous ruling and convicted Chou of defaming the former president as she “failed to thoroughly verify” the allegations before reporting them.

Ma firmly rejected Chou’s accusations, saying his government fully investigated the company’s alleged involvement in a number of food safety scandals and indicted dozens of people.

The verdict, which requires Chou to either pay a fine of Tw$50,000 or sever a 50-day prison sentence, is Ma’s second legal victory after a district court last month found him not guilty in a political leaks case.

But the ex-leader faces a new trial starting Friday after state prosecutors brought fresh leaks charges against him last month.

Ma has maintained his innocence and vowed to “fight to the end for justice”.

Ma had immunity from prosecution while in office. But since he stepped down in May last year after serving two terms, the 66-year-old has been hit with a raft of corruption and other allegations.

Ma’s Beijing-friendly Kuomintang (KMT) party held power from 2008 to 2016, before it was trounced by Tsai Ing-wen and her opposition Democratic Progressive Party.

Ma is the third ex-president in Taiwan to be indicted on criminal charges.

His predecessor Chen Shui-bian was serving a 20-year sentence for corruption until he was freed on medical parole in 2015.

Lee Teng-hui was charged with embezzling state funds during his 1988-2000 presidency, but was acquitted.