Despite worldwide negative publicity following increase in attacks on foreign students, Australian cities occupy five of the top 20 places in a British survey conducted to find out the “most liveable cities” among the 140 cities in the world. Melbourne (photo above), which recently catapulted into news as an “unsafe” place for Indian students, ranked third in the world, behind Vancouver (in Canada) and the Austrian city of Vienna in The Economist Intelligence Unit’s...

Why is US President Barack Obama cold-shouldering European leaders? While we search for the answers, French President Nicolas Sarkozy thought of the next best thing…if the US president could not be persuaded to socialise with him, why not play host to Obama’s family? Sarkozy enjoyed a consolation prize yesterday: lunch with the President’s wife Michelle and their children, reports The Times. “Mr Obama was already flying home to Washington after doing the Paris sights with his...

Peter Varghese, 53, a distinguished Australian diplomat and former senior advisor to ex-Prime Minister John Howard, has been appointed Australian High Commissioner to India. He is due to take charge in August from John McCarthy, a distinguished and popular diplomat, who completes his five-year term in India. Varghese brings with him vast experience in current international developments. I strongly recommend his insightful 2006 presentation on Islamist Terrorism: The International Context. Please...

Australia is famous for its outback and the journey on the Ghan – its iconic trans-continental train - is a great tourist attraction. But for an American teenager Chad Vance, 19, it turned out to be a nightmare, who survived through sheer grit and luck. The Times of London reports: “Vance survived a terrifying late night train ride, clinging to the side of a train as it hurtled through the South Australian Outback at speeds of up to 70 mph (110 km/h). “Vance was travelling on...

Australia’s leading newspaper, The Age, carries a photograph of Indian students gathered outside St Albans railway station in Melbourne (see above). They have decided to move in groups “after incidents of intimidation in which train inspectors failed to intervene and police failed to respond to calls for help.” While the governments of India and Australia are opting for diplomatic and political officialese, the ground realities are different and dangerous, if one goes by the reports...

It is ironic that the two countries — India and China — with whom Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd wishes to build special relationship have begun to put a lot of pressure on him after the increase in violence against foreign students in his country. The Age of Australia reports: “The future of the $15.5 billion overseas student industry is under threat after the Chinese Government went public with concerns about violence against its students in Australia. “Battling to...

While different theories are being examined regarding the spurt in attacks against foreign students, Australia plans to impose tougher sentences for hate crimes. The federal and state governments have announced several steps to curb violence against Indian and other foreign students. (Yesterday, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd himself assured full security to Indian students and reassured the Indian government that Australia is not a racist country…See my earlier posts here…) Meanwhile The...

While we now often become sad and worried reading and watching news regarding economy and recession, Rosie Boycott believes that “our obsession with chasing more is losing its grip as a growing number of people turn to new values and simple pursuits with friends and family.” She writes in The Times: “Today, the more-more-more culture that has dominated our lives and behaviour for the past two decades has been uncovered as a sham. The desire to acquire more stuff – and the belief...

With the US public forced to own 60 per cent of the crippled auto giant General Motor’s share, the question about GM’s future is a legitimate one? Michael Moore, Oscar and Emmy-winning director, initiates a useful debate in Huffington Post. He wants the GM factories to stop making gas guzzling cars. Instead, GM should now produce energy-efficient and environment-friendly mass transportation systems. I wish that Michael Moore’s clarion call leads to a mass movement to initiate...

Millvina Dean, the last survivor of the fabled Titanic that sank in 1912, died on Sunday at age 97. While her father died in the sinking of the luxury ship, Millvina, her brother and her mother survived in a lifeboat that brought them to safety. More here… Here’s BBC documentary… Dean was nine weeks old when the liner sank after hitting an iceberg in the early hours of 15 April 1912. More here…

In what is being described as the largest industrial bankruptcy in American history, and the third largest overall, General Motors (GM) filed for bankruptcy in the US Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York today. A move that will clear the way for a sweeping reshaping of the famous company. (See here…) The Times of London reports: “The move, which has been expected for weeks, will see the US Government take a 60 per cent stake in GM, officials of the Obama Administration...

In a major speech in the Australian parliament today, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd condemned recent attacks on Indian students. Any violence against them would be met with “full force of the law”, he added. He said that more than 90,000 Indian students in Australia “are welcome guests in our country.” (A latest report states that a helpline to assist Indian students who are victims of crime will begin operating from Friday. See here…) (Meanwhile Australian police detained...

Australia is basically a laidback and relaxed country, and perhaps so is the policing. So when the top Indian leadership, led by the prime minister, almost bombarded the Australian top leaders and expressed their concern at the alleged racial profiling of (and attacks on) Indian students at Melbourne and Sydney, Mr Kevin Rudd had to sit up and assure safety to the Indian students. (See Sydney Morning Herald report here…) To further highlight the latest attacks, India’s legendary Bollywood...

The Times of London has a shocking story about 20,000 Tamils who were killed on the Sri Lankan beach by shelling as the army closed in on the Tamil Tigers (LTTE). Photographs taken by The Times “present clear evidence of an atrocity that comes close to matching Srebrenica, Darfur and other massacres of civilians.” More here…

Timothy John “Tim” Roemer’s formal nomination as the US ambassador to India reflects Obama administration’s determination to build strategic partnership with this important South Asian country. It may also mark the turning point in the Indo-US relationship. Roemer, 52, seems to have been selected for this crucial post owing to his moderate, bipartisan politics, and national security experience. He will replace David Campbell Mulford, who was until recently the US ambassador...

A major clash has broken out between Sikh groups in India following the murder of a Sikh preacher, Dera Sachh Khand leader Sant Ram Nand (56), in Vienna. Four trains have been set on fire and several Indian towns in Punjab and Haryana have witnessed violence and damage to property by rioters. (Meanwhile reports from London say that a Sikh temple there has been set on fire. Is it an accident or arson? See video here…) In India “one person was killed and four others were injured as Army...

America is America and Britain is Britain and the twain shall never meet (with apologies to Kipling). The latest instance shows how the two countries differ, at least in their approach to sex, while reacting to the ads placed in the classifieds website Craigslist. Well, the US is certainly more short-tempered when it comes to selling sex online, reports The Times. “Last week the classifieds website Craigslist finally bowed to pressure from antivice campaigners and removed the erotic services...

Agatha Christie (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976) continues to get into limelight with dramatic regularity. Her play “Mousetrap” has become the world’s longest running play. And now Agatha Christie has set a new world record – for the book with the thickest spine (see photo above). Measuring over a foot long, with 4,032 pages, the volume contains the complete Miss Marple stories – all 12 novels and 20 short stories. With 252, 16-page hand-sewn sections, the production...

Who is responsible for the mess in Pakistan? Secretary of State Hillary Clinton trashed USA’s policy towards Pakistan over the last 30 years calling it “incoherent”, reports The Hindu. “She also acknowledged the U.S. shared the blame for the current mess in Pakistan.” More here… The world had known this fact for decades, except perhaps the mandarins in Washington. Now the question is how would the Obama administration make amends for the omissions and commissions of the...

Indian yoga guru Krishna Pattabhi Jois, pictured above aged 90 instructing a female student, passed away Wednesday. Jois, 93, brought the physically challenging form of yoga to the west, and counted among his followers Madonna, who included the traditional ashtanga chant on her Ray of Light album, and the actor Gwyneth Paltrow, reports The Guardian. “Ashtanga practitioners perform a series of yoga postures, known as asanas, daily and in strict sequential order. Beginners carry out the primary...

Was Shakespeare better known for his plays or his sonnets? Well we can go on arguing about that. The Independent carries a piece by Boyd Tonkin who introduces his selection of sonnets, while fans nominate their favourites to mark the 400th anniversary. “In 1609, the publisher Thomas Thorpe issued Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets in a handy quarto-sized edition, with a mysterious dedication to ‘Mr W.H.’, their ‘only begetter’, and the poem ‘A Lover’s Complaint’...

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) – once the most feared terrorists in the world – seem to have finally lost their battle against the Sri Lanka government forces after the reported killing of its top leader Velupillai Prabhakaran (file photo above). Thus bringing to an end 26 years of brutal war for a separate Tamil homeland. For the chronology of Tamil separatist violent movement please see here… “The (Sri Lanka) government claimed that the last civilians being held...

India witnessed peaceful general elections in which the ruling Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) won a decisive victory. It was a personal triumph for Sonia Gandhi (photo above), President of the Congress Party, and her son, Rahul Gandhi, an alumni of Rollins College in Florida, who spearheaded the election campaign. India election results topped trend on Twitter worldwide. (See here…) Mr Manmohan Singh will take fresh oath this week, only the second Indian Prime Minister since...

An ailing 63-year-old Nobel laureate, who happens to be the most popular leader of Myanmar (Burma), is being further traumatized by the brute military junta that has locked her up in her house for most of the past two decades. The Burmese democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, faces as long as five years in the country’s most notorious jail after new charges were brought against her over a bizarre intrusion earlier this month at the lakeside home where she lives under house arrest, reports The Times...

In the annals of diplomacy, and now the war-on-terror, the USA’s continued overlooking of Pakistan’s dangerous role in proliferating nuclear arms within the country, and among rogue states, would remain a great mystery. A recent MSNBC report details more alarming news. “Without any public U.S. reproach, Pakistan is building two of the developing world’s largest plutonium production reactors, which experts say could lead to improvements in the quantity and quality of the country’s...