You're listening to the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

Hello, I'm Oliver Conway. We are recording this at 13 hours GMT on Thursday the 15th of August.

Hamas says more than 40,000 Palestinians have now been killed in the war

with Israel. New talks have begun in Qatar but what are the chances of a ceasefire? The

Indian Prime Minister speaks out after widespread anger over the

rape and murder of a doctor in Kolkata and why Mark Zuckerberg's love of

ancient Rome led him to commission a statue of his wife.

Also in the podcast,

If it's true that life evolves wherever it has the right conditions,

by going to Mars we're going to find out

the truth about this matter, which is something

of thinking men and women have wondered about

for thousands of years.

The case for a trip to Mars. For more than 10 months, Israel has been carrying out air strikes and ground attacks in Gaza following the massacre of the 7th of October.

1,200 people died in the Hamas raid on southern Israel with 251 taken hostage.

Since then, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, 40,000

Palestinians had been killed in Gaza. Israel disputes that figure, but said last

month it had killed about 14,000 Palestinian fighters, while it had

lost more than 300 of its own soldiers.

In a moment we'll look at the prospects for a ceasefire in Gaza, but first Barbara Plattasha looks back at the

war so far, and a warning listeners may find some of the details upsetting.

Many, many Palestinians have been doing this over the past 10 months, digging graves. Like Nabil Abu al-Faham, burying his family in northern Gaza under a gray cloudy sky.

...