India has not only pipped China to become Asia’s most popular destination for conducting clinical trials, but also emerged as a favourite country attracting a large number of medical tourists from the world, according to a high-level 10-month long study by India’s Planning Commission. “The report said while a heart bypass surgery would cost a patient $6,000 in India, the same surgery would cost the person $7,894 in Thailand, $10,417 in Singapore, $23,938 in the US and $19,700 in...

Why did the ruling Pakistan People’s Party boss and Benazir Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, choose Yousaf Raza Gilani as Prime Minister, a man who’s unlikely to act as his proxy? The answer is attempted by a wellknown Pakistani columnist Ms Mariana Baabar, who has written an interesting piece in the recent issue of The Outlook, a respected Indian magazine. “Loyalty too tilted the balance in Gilani’s favour. A day before Gilani was elected PM, Zardari told The News,...

There seems to be a universal outcry at the deteriorating standards in the television channels worldwide. From India to Britain and the USA…there is a sense of general dismay that the TV channels are failing in their primary duty of initiating/explaining important issues of public interest, so essential in democracies to help people take informed decisions. This subject needs wider scrutiny within and outside the media. The Independent on its opinion page has this to say about Britain: “At...

Cricket is not only the most popular sport in the Indian subcontinent, it has now turned into a global money-spinner. And now communist China which had banned the game, describing it as a pursuit of imperialist lackeys, is turning to India and Pakistan to gain proficiency in the sport. “A first consignment of bats, balls and other paraphernalia will be sent to China in a month or two, according to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI),” reports The Times of London. “To...

“It is increasingly clear that much of the current wave of repression (in Tibet) is occurring not in spite of the (Beijing) Olympics but actually because of the Olympics,” says a recent Amnesty International report. The group also called on world leaders to speak out on the situation in Tibet, calling a failure to address the issue tacit ‘endorsement’ of human rights abuses. President George W. Bush has said he plans to attend the ceremony but Germany’s Angela Merkel...

Not being able to sleep is very unpleasant but it’s not going to kill you – no one ever died from not sleeping. But it is a great blessing to have a refreshing sleep when one hits the bed…or wherever… (photo above courtesy Getty Images) Much has been written about how to get good sleep. I found the following article interesting…please click here. You may also try this…

I have been arguing in this blog that if world leaders were to shed their impotent stance on pressing/critical world issues, even the arrogant (etc.) President George W. Bush can be persuaded to see the light of reason and prevented from taking unilateral decisions that endanger world peace. The recent mounting pressure on China to behave itself in Tibet is a case in point. Close on the heels of Nicolas Sarkozy’s threat to boycott Beijing Olympics (as also the European Union’s similar...

Unbelievable? It has emerged that Barack Obama is a tenth cousin, once removed, of the man whose job he wants – George W Bush. The New England Historic Genealogical Society, founded in 1845, claims that the politicians’ ancestries show they have more in common than they think. The society is the oldest and biggest non-profit genealogical organisation in the United States. The society has established that Bush and Obama are linked by Samuel Hinkley of Cape Cod, who died in 1662, reports...

The international media has gone on an overdrive to highlight a hard hitting report recently released by the aid agencies. The report brings into focus the fact that the prospects of peace in Afghanistan have been undermined by Western donors’ failure to keep their promises. And this is compounded by corruption and inefficiency. The Guardian reports: “Afghanistan is being deprived of $10bn (£5bn) of promised aid, and 40% of the money that has been delivered was spent on corporate...

As President Prevez Musharraf was swearing in newly-elected Yousaf Raza Gilani as Pakistan’s Prime Minister on Tuesday, there came trooping in at Islamabad the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, and Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Richard Boucher, who straightaway began talks with former premier Nawaz Sharif. Later, they visited Musharraf at the presidential palace. The U.S. Embassy declined to say who else the envoys would meet. Perhaps sending a clear message to...

Is it curtains for the bluff and bluster game played by President ex-General Pervez Musharraf and his mentor in the White House, President George W. Bush, for the past eight years? The first important decision the new Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani took after being elected as prime minister was to order the release of the Chief Justice of the highest court, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry. Justice Chaudhry and his family had been confined to his house since Musharraf declared a state of emergency...

Out of sight…out of mind. Working on this old adage Britain intends to push the cigarettes under the counter. The Times reports: “Cigarettes are to be forced beneath shop counters with supermarkets and cornershops banned from displaying tobacco products. “The latest assault on smokers will also see the disappearance of vending machines from pubs and restaurants in an attempt to further limit children’s access to tobacco. Both measures are to be included in a consultation to be...

While every sneeze of Obama/Clinton/McCain attracts reams and reams of media/blog coverage, Iraq seems to have become a violent theatre of death and destruction in some other planet in the universe. The recent AP story underscores this irony in the grim milestone reached on Sunday when four US soldiers were killed in Baghdad. “The overall U.S. death toll in Iraq rose to 4,000 after four soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad, a grim milestone that is likely to fuel calls for...

While India’s neigbouring region Tibet undergoes violent convulsions, another Buddhist neighbour (the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan — also sandwitched between India and China), ends more than a century of royal rule today with its first parliamentary elections. Interestingly, “no one, except the King who is giving up his power, seems happy about it.” “Unlike so many other countries, where upheaval has been midwife to democracy, Bhutan has never been more peaceful or...

Beijing is in a state of shock after the recent Tibetan uprising, and not just because the Beijing Olympics are only a few months away. News reports indicate that the Chinese government is showing signs of bitterness, nervousness and hostility following the outbreak of sudden violent protests in different parts of Tibet. “Despite 20 years of iron-fisted security, huge investments and mass migration since the last Tibetan uprising, the roof of the world once again looks like a hostile place...

Yousaf Raza Gillani, who was Speaker of Parliament in Pakistan in the 1990s under the then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, is expected to be sworn into office as prime minister on Tuesday. Gillani has been reportedly handpicked by Asif Ali Zardari, the late Benazir Bhutto’s husband, who appears to have his own ambition to capture that chair as early as possible. (The Zardari’s PPP party has agreed to form a coalition government with the party of ex-PM Nawaz Sharif, who was ousted by Musharraf...

In the Indian subcontinent the virtues/benefits of “selfless-giving” is not only woven into the religious/social/spiritual discourse in all religions from time immemorial, but commonly practised even by those whose financial position may be just above the subsistence level. Now a “scientific study” (from the very bastion of self-acquisitive culture) tells us that “money can buy happiness, but only if you spend it on someone else.” “Spending as little as...

It is a sad story…typical of incidents that are not uncommon in some Pakistani cities/towns, as well as in some parts of India, especially northern India (and Delhi in particular). To read the first-hand account of sexual harassment narrated by a young woman/writer in the blog the Pakistan Spectator please click here… Shockingly, many incidents of harassment take place in full public view. Many times the police is are silent spectators and least helpful (something to do with lack of...

Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, an outspoken supporter of Tibet’s freedom, travelled to the north Indian picturesque hill abode of the exiled Dalai Lama to express her concern at the violence that has gripped Tibet in the wake of widespread and bloody protests there. Ms Pelosi has strongly criticised China’s crackdown on Tibet. According to a news report: “Speaking of the violence in Tibet, she said the situation of Tibet is a challenge to the conscience...

The Economist magazine’s Beijing correspondent was perhaps the only foreign journalist in the Tibetan capital Lhasa when the riots broke out there. It is a balanced account of what exactly happened there. With the Beijing Olympics beginning in August this year, China tried its best to somehow prevent a bloody show-down with the Tibetan protestors, and the consequent international outrage. (Meanwhile an Associated Press report says that the Dalai Lama offered Thursday to meet with Chinese...

Despite the iron-grip of the Chinese government and dispatch of large number of troops, violence has spread to other provinces in Tibet. The Associated Press reports from Beijing: “China acknowledged for the first time Thursday that anti-government riots that rocked Tibet last week have spread to other provinces, while communist authorities announced the first group of arrests in connection with the violence. “The Xinhua news agency report confirms previous claims by exile Tibet activist...

In the wake of the recent bloodbath that followed violent protests in Tibet, and the crushing of the rebellion by the Chinese troops, the Tibetan spiritual and political leader in exile in India, the Dalai Lama (a Nobel laureate), is back in the news. A useful Q&A on Dalai Lama and the Tibetan issue appears in The Independent…Click here… Excerpt: “Why is Dalai Lama so well known? The Dalai Lama is the man who brought Buddhism to Hollywood. Buddhism is the fastest growing Eastern...

I always thought that passengers were kicked out of the aircraft after becoming a nuisance… too much tippling, or harassing a woman. Please click here for ten interesting reasons why people were not allowed to remain on board…

Coming months/years would be spent in assessing whether the US administration’s strategy/decisions were worth it. It will be a tough task. Two leading economists seem to have set the agenda for future debate in their book that has attracted media attention. There are lot of questions that arise and deserve convincing, not emotional/ideological, answers. The Three Trillion Dollar War has been written by Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel prize-winner in economics, and Linda Bilmes, a budget and public...

I am again reminded of one of my favourite singer Harry Belafonte’s number “Women smarter…” after I read this court judgement pronounced in Italy. Their lordships observed women were justified in bending the truth in order to conceal extra-marital relationships. (For my “Women smarter-Part I… click here.) Italy’s highest appeal court has ruled that married Italian women who commit adultery are entitled to lie about it to protect their honour, reports the...