Asia News Wrap:

From around Asia, here are a few stories that you may have have missed…

It's good news for mobile phone users in India as the country's 5G network is finally set to take off later this year with New Delhi concluding the spectrum auction worth $19 billion. The country has been late to catch up with this technology seen as crucial for next generation science like self-driving vehicles and artificial intelligence. Two of Asia's richest men – Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani – have mopped up a large portion of the available spectrum. The government aims to begin the roll-out of 5G by October this year.

In Japan, about 540,000 people in the Tohoku and Hokuriku regions were asked to evacuate on Thursday as torrential rain swept through the sea of Japan coast, causing floods and landslides. The Japan Times reported that in Kitakata, Fukushima Prefecture, "a bridge used by East Japan Railway (JR East)'s Banetsu West Line collapsed due to heavy rain on Wednesday night."

During a news conference on Thursday morning, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said that around 1,900 households, most of them in Niigata Prefecture and neighboring areas, lost power, while 380 households were experiencing water supply cutoffs. Two people were missing.

In South Asia, Nepal's government said on Thursday it will hold a parliamentary election on November 20 amid concerns over high inflation and depleted foreign exchange reserves that have led to rising food and energy prices.

Education Minister Debendra Paudel confirmed that a cabinet meeting had approved the date for the election to the 275-member House of Representatives – 165 seats on first-past-the-post basis and the rest through proportional representation. A leftist alliance including the centrist Nepali Congress party of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has held power since July last year. Former Prime Minister K.P.Sharma Oli's communist UML party, is the main opposition. Nepal has seen 10 governments change since the 239-year-old monarchy was abolished in 2008.

South Korea launched its first-ever space mission beyond Earth orbit on Thursday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in the United States.

The satellite is taking a long, roundabout path to conserve fuel and will arrive in December. If successful, it will join spacecraft from the U.S. and India already operating around the moon, and China's Chang'e-4 lunar probe and Yutu-2 rover exploring the moon's far side. 

Chinese scientists designed a hydrogel that may have a double effect in the fight against cancer. It helps burn up tumors more accurately and boost one's anti-tumor immunity. The study published on Thursday in the journal Science Advances described metal-based biomaterial shown to enhance the heating efficiency and restrict the heating zone under microwave exposure, a local tumor ablation strategy used clinically. Scientists from the Institute of Functional Nano & Soft Materials at Soochow University enveloped calcium and manganese ions into a tiny alginate-based hydrogel that can produce more heat in a restricted, targeted spot and avoid causing thermal damage to nearby healthy tissues