On Tuesday the crucial vote in the Indian Parliament over the India-US civil nuclear deal would decide the fate of the present coalition government led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. “The Washington establishment is keeping its fingers crossed and lips sealed before Tuesday’s trust vote,” says The Economic Times. “The White House and the State Department have refrained from offering a comment lest it be taken as interference in another country’s domestic affairs, but officials...

This question was raised by a reader in India who takes an avid interest in the American blogs/media. She marvels at the manner the media/blog pundits cling on to the statements issued by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Who is this chap? Do the pundits need to be reminded that Mr Maliki is the creation of the present Bush administration? The reader then reminds that Mr Maliki would become as irrelevant in a few months time as his mentor and master George W. Bush. Does it really matter whether...

If the arrival of The Beatles in the 1960s helped boost the backpacker traffic to India, it is now the turn of Americans to help in increasing, what is described as, ‘executive tourism’ to India. “India is now nearly as popular a destination for Americans as Spain,” reports The Canadian Press. “Travel to India from the United States increased 10 per cent between 2006 and 2007, on top of an eight per cent rise the year before,according to the most recent data from U.S....

It is celebration time at my in-laws house in the hill State of Himachal Pradesh in India. A century-old Kalka-Shimla rail line that passes through their sprawling ancestral lower Himalayan farmland, has been finally chosen by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) as a world heritage site. More here… During holidays I often walk along part of the rail track which, the Guinness Book of World Records states, offers steepest rise in altitude in the space of 96 kilometers,...

Pakistan has come under a blistering attack from Afghanistan and India. Afghanistan alleges that Pakistan’s intelligence service (ISI) and army are behind the bloody Taliban-led insurgency, calling the security forces the “world’s biggest producers of terrorism and extremism.” While India has blamed Pakistan’s ISI for the suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, and said: “ISI is playing evil. The ISI needs to be destroyed.” (What is ISI?…Click...

] Australian Ms Olive Riley, renowned as the world’s oldest blogger, has died at the age of 108, with her last posting talking about her ailing health but also how she still sings a happy song every day, reports Reuters. “Born in the outback town of Broken Hill on October 20 1899, she lived through two world wars and raised three children while doing various jobs, including ranch cook and barmaid.” More here… And here… How many bloggers in the world sing a happy...

Everything, it is said, is fair in love and war. Let’s admit it, we all are in love with “oil”. In the present long-drawn “war” we have allowed anything and everything to happen. In fact our “love” has turned into a naked “lust” for oil. And when “lust” takes hold of leaders and the public, they lose their sense of proportion and become virtually myopic (or blind) to the consequences of their actions. So what can a Mc Cain or an Obama...

The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has emerged as the first leader in the world who seems to have understood the implications of the looming food crisis and taken a practical step. Brown has issued a clarion call to his countrymen to wake up and stop wasting food. Will the G8 leaders support him in making this a worldwide campaign? (More than 1,300,000 tonnes of food grain – worth millions of dollars – went rotten in storage over the past decade in India, officials admit.) (Read...

In India many boys of my generation in school grew up on a staple diet of American/British comic books (to the great annoyance of our parents who felt we were neglecting our textbooks). I was delighted to read The Independent report that comic/graphic books are emerging stronger and gaining popularity in view of the failure of the media to satisfy public thirst for information regarding the raging conflicts, including the Iraq war. Here is what The Independent writes: “They’re a far...

Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, a former Chief of Staff of the Indian Army, led India to victory against Pakistan in the 1971 war that resulted in the partition of Pakistan, and the formation of Bangladesh (earlier known as East Pakistan). The Guardian obituary here… Manekshaw (April 3, 1914 – June 27, 2008) died aged 94. Silloo, his wife, passed away in 2001. He is survived by his daughters (Sherry and Maja), and was born into a Parsi family. The Times obituary here… Senator Barack...

As a young journalist I was once reminded that a journalist could either be a watchdog or a lapdog, can’t be both. Journalism, like other professions, has undergone a visible “change” in the past three decades. There was a time when many considered it a vocation (a calling), but now it is being increasingly treated as a mere job in any other industry. Shaun Mullen’s earlier post on TV personality Tim Russert evoked interesting comments in TMV. Who is a real journalist? Can...

The young Corporal Sarah Bryant, a member of the British Intelligence Corps, has become the first female soldier to be killed in Afghanistan. The mortal remains of Sarah and three other soldiers killed on June 17, when a device exploded in Helmand province near their base at Lashkar Gar, have reached Britain. (Photo above of Sarah on her wedding day to her husband Carl Bryant in 2005). Reports The Telegraph: “The sight of Sarah Bryant’s bare shoulders in her wedding dress is almost...

John Kenneth Galbraith, a distinguished economist and the popular American ambassador to India in the 1960s, once described the country as a “functioning anarchy”. Please judge for yourself if Galbraith was right or wrong… The drawing (on the left) shows the 27-storey house of Mukesh Ambani, world’s fifth-richest man, being built in Mumbai, home to Asia’s biggest slum. Mukesh’s $ I billion home would be ready in six months. Here is The Independent story…...

It is a commentary on our times that any report from Afghanistan and Iraq in the news blogs/media now provokes at best a cynical remark, or worst a yawn. But there are a few indefatigable columnists/journalists whose assessments of the ongoing tragic drama continues to provide fresh insights. Simon Jenkins, a distinguished journalist, is one of them. In a recent column in The Sunday Times, Jenkins makes interesting observations about Taliban and Al-Qaeda. “In seven years in Afghanistan, America,...

South Australia (SA) is often celebrated as the Down Under’s food and wine centre. Its capital city, the picturesque and laidback Adelaide, and its suburbs have rightly earned a well-deserved sobriquet of being the “cultural capital” of the country (and among the top liveable cities in the world). As a visitor here, I can vouch for the excellence of wine and the enjoyable concerts! I hope to explore Australia’s extraordinary natural environment, history and indigenous culture…and...

The guessing game is becoming intense as to who would be the main players in Barack Obama’s aspiring administration. Obviously, Obama will bring in a new team to run the federal government, the Oval Office and the Democratic Party if he makes it to the White House. So who will run the country if the voters decide that Yes, He Can? The Economist takes a look at the potential candidates. The article ends with the warning: “The ambition of Mr Obama’s team is exciting, but in office...

We often hear that the world is now a “global village” and “globalization” is inevitable. But there are warning signs we cannot overlook. Two experts point out that “for the first time in more than 200 years we are moving into a world not wholly dominated by the West. “If we want to influence this environment rather than be held to ransom by it, and if we want to take hold of some of the worrying features of globalisation, then real, practical multilateralism...

What do you think was the cargo in one of the last shipments to a U.S. research base in Antarctica before the onset of winter darkness? See the MSNBC story here…

The media revels in highlighting the debonair French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s romantic links, past and present. If this subject interests you then please click here… to read more about a rising female star who was once linked romantically with Sarkozy.