Compiled by ADRIAN CHAN, FAZLEENA AZIZ and R. ARAVINTHAN

       TAMIL schools in Kedah have seen a 21% drop in pupil enrolment this year, Malaysia Nanban reported.

       Schools registered only a total of 904 pupils for Year One in the upcoming school term.

       This showed a continuous decline as there were 1,145 newly-enrolled pupils last year and 1,249 in 2019.

       Pendang district had just one pupil registering in the district’s only Tamil school.

       Pokok Sena which has one Tamil school apparently did not get any new pupils.

       > The daily also reported that rail passengers in India helped push attached train coaches away from its engine which caught fire.

       The train was headed to New Delhi from Uttar Pradesh when the engine caught fire during a stop in Meerut city.

       The fire quickly spread to two of the passenger coaches.

       At one point, there was a danger that the blaze could engulf the entire train.

       Some passengers and railway workers got together to push the coaches away. Eventually, the fire was put out by firefighters.

       The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.