The opposition far-right Freedom Party of Austria, the FPÖ, which voted in favour of the ban, said it did not go far enough.

It described the ban as “a first step”, which should be widened to include all pupils and school staff.

“There needs to be a general ban on headscarves in schools; political Islam has no place here”, the FPÖ’s spokesperson on families Ricarda Berger said.

Sigrid Maurer from the opposition Greens called the new law “clearly unconstitutional”.

The official Islamic Community in Austria, the IGGÖ, said the ban violated fundamental rights and would split society.

In a statement on its website, it said “instead of empowering children, they will be stigmatised and marginalised.”

The IGGÖ said it would review “the constitutionality of the law and take all necessary steps.”

“The Constitutional Court already ruled unequivocally in 2020 that such a ban is unconstitutional, as it specifically targets a religious minority and violates the principle of equality,” the IGGÖ said.

The government says it has tried to avoid that.

“Will it pass muster with the Constitutional Court? I don’t know. We have done our best,” Shetty said.

An awareness-raising trial period will start in February 2026, with the ban fully going into force next September – the beginning of the new school year.

[BBC]

The Myanmar military has not commented on the strikes, which come as the country prepares to vote later this month in its first election since the coup.

However, pro-military accounts on Telegram claim the strikes this week were not aimed at civilians.

Khaing Thukha, a spokesperson for the Arakan Army, told the BBC that most of the casualties were patients at the hospital.

“This is the latest vicious attack by the terrorist military targeting civilian places,” he said, adding that the military “must take responsibility” for bombing civilians.

The Arakan Army health department said the strike, which occurred at around 21:00 (14:30 GMT), killed 10 patients on the spot and injured many others.

Photos believed to be from the scene have been circulating on social media showing missing roofs across parts of the building complex, broken hospital beds and debris strewn across the ground.

The junta has been locked in a years-long bloody conflict with ethnic militias, at one point losing control of more than half the country.

But recent influx of technology and equipment from China and Russia seems to have helped it turn the tide. The junta has made significant gains through a campaign of airstrikes and heavy bombardment.

Earlier this year, more than 20 people were killed after an army motorised paraglider dropped two bombs on a crowd protesting at a religious festival.

Civil liberties have also shrunk dramatically under the junta. Tens of thousands of political dissidents have been arrested, rights groups estimate.

Myanmar’s junta has called for a general election on 28 December, touting it as a pathway to political stability.

But critics say the election will be neither free nor fair, but will instead offer the junta a guise of legitimacy. Tom Andrews, the United Nations’ human rights expert on Myanmar, has called it a “sham election”.

In recent weeks the junta has arrested civilians accused of disrupting the vote, including one man who authorities said had sent out anti-election messages on Facebook.

The junta also said on Monday that it was looking for 10 activists involved in an anti-election protest.

Ethnic armies and other opposition groups have pledged to boycott the polls.

At least one election candidate in in central Myanmar’s Magway Region was detained by an anti-junta group, the Associated Press reported.

[BBC]

The transfers range from 1,000-2,500 rupees ($12-$30) a month – meagre sums, worth roughly 5-12% of household income, but regular. With 300 million women now holding bank accounts, transfers have become administratively simple.

Women typically spend the money on household and family needs – children’s education, groceries, cooking gas, medical and emergency expenses, retiring small debts and occasional personal items like gold or small comforts.

What sets India apart from Mexico, Brazil or Indonesia – countries with large conditional cash-transfer schemes – is the absence of conditions: the money arrives whether or not a child attends school or a household falls below the poverty line.

 

Goa was the first state to launch an unconditional cash transfer scheme to women in 2013. The phenomenon picked up just before the pandemic in 2020, when north-eastern Assam rolled out a scheme for vulnerable women. Since then these transfers have turned into a political juggernaut.

The recent wave of unconditional cash transfers targets adult women, with some states acknowledging their unpaid domestic and care work. Tamil Nadu frames its payments as a “rights grant” while West Bengal’s scheme similarly recognises women’s unpaid contributions.

In other states, the recognition is implicit: policymakers expect women to use the transfers for household and family welfare, say experts.

This focus on women’s economic role has also shaped politics: in 2021, Tamil actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan promised “salaries for housewives”. (His fledgling party lost.) By 2024, pledges of women-focused cash transfers helped deliver victories to political parties in Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Odisha, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh.

In the recent elections in Bihar, the political power of cash transfers was on stark display. In the weeks before polling in the country’s poorest state, the government transferred 10,000 rupees ($112; £85) to 7.5 million female bank accounts under a livelihood-generation scheme. Women voted in larger numbers than men, decisively shaping the outcome.

Critics called it blatant vote-buying, but the result was clear: women helped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition secure a landslide victory. Many believe this cash infusion was a reminder of how financial support can be used as political leverage.

Yet Bihar is only one piece of a much larger picture. Across India, unconditional cash transfers are reaching tens of millions of women on a regular basis.

Maharashtra alone promises benefits for 25 million women; Odisha’s scheme reaches 71% of its female voters.

In some policy circles, the schemes are derided as vote-buying freebies. They also put pressure on state finances: 12 states are set to spend around $18bn on such payouts this fiscal year. A report by think-tank PRS Legislative Research notes that half of these states face revenue deficits – this happens when a state borrows to pay regular expenses without creating assets.

But many argue they also reflect a slow recognition of something India’s feminists have argued for decades: the economic value of unpaid domestic and care work.

Women in India spent nearly five hours a day on such work in 2024 – more than three times the time spent by men, according to the latest Time Use Survey. This lopsided burden helps explain India’s stubbornly low female labour-force participation. The cash transfers, at least, acknowledge the imbalance, experts say.

Do they work?

Evidence is still thin but instructive. A 2025 study in Maharashtra found that 30% of eligible women did not register – sometimes because of documentation problems, sometimes out of a sense of self-sufficiency. But among those who did, nearly all controlled their own bank accounts.

 

A 2023 survey in West Bengal found that 90% operated their accounts themselves and 86% decided how to spend the money. Most used it for food, education and medical costs; hardly transformative, but the regularity offered security and a sense of agency.

More detailed work by Prof Kotiswaran and colleagues shows mixed outcomes.

In Assam, most women spent the money on essentials; many appreciated the dignity it afforded, but few linked it to recognition of unpaid work, and most would still prefer paid jobs.

In Tamil Nadu, women getting the money spoke of peace of mind, reduced marital conflict and newfound confidence – a rare social dividend. In Karnataka, beneficiaries reported eating better, gaining more say in household decisions and wanting higher payments.

Yet only a sliver understood the scheme as compensation for unpaid care work; messaging had not travelled. Even so, women said the money allowed them to question politicians and manage emergencies. Across studies, the majority of women had full control of the cash.

“The evidence shows that the cash transfers are tremendously useful for women to meet their own immediate needs and those of their households. They also restore dignity to women who are otherwise financially dependent on their husbands for every minor expense,” Prof Kotiswaran says.

Importantly, none of the surveys finds evidence that the money discourages women from seeking paid work or entrench gender roles – the two big feminist fears, according to a report by Prof Kotiswaran along with Gale Andrew and Madhusree Jana.

Nor have they reduced women’s unpaid workload, the researchers find. They do, however, strengthen financial autonomy and modestly strengthen bargaining power. They are neither panacea nor poison: they are useful but limited tools, operating in a patriarchal society where cash alone cannot undo structural inequities.

 

What next?

The emerging research offers clear hints.

Eligibility rules should be simplified, especially for women doing heavy unpaid care work. Transfers should remain unconditional and independent of marital status.

But messaging should emphasise women’s rights and the value of unpaid work, and financial-literacy efforts must deepen, researchers say. And cash transfers cannot substitute for employment opportunities; many women say what they really want is work that pays and respect that endures.

“If the transfers are coupled with messaging on the recognition of women’s unpaid work, they could potentially disrupt the gendered division of labour when paid employment opportunities become available,” says Prof Kotiswaran.

India’s quiet cash transfers revolution is still in its early chapters. But it already shows that small, regular sums – paid directly to women – can shift power in subtle, significant ways.

Whether this becomes a path to empowerment or merely a new form of political patronage will depend on what India chooses to build around the money.

[BBC]