The war against the LTTE, waged by the Mahinda Rajapakse government, may have restored peace in Sri Lanka. But thousands of Tamils paid the price for the so-called victory with their lives, journalist Frances Harrison says in her new book Still Counting the Dead.

On Monday, Greenpeace activist Brikesh Singh will leave the tree house close to the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra, where he has spent nearly a month protesting against the brutal sacrifice of forests, wildlife and forest dwellers for coal.

This is a major policy shift. Since 1959, when the Dalai Lama escaped to political asylum in India, the Communist Party has insisted that the Tibetans are a happy lot. The communist apparatchiks have passed off growing public protests, like the 40 self-immolations by Tibetans in the last four years, as the work of a few malcontents, instigated from "foreign countries" by the "Dalai Clique".

A Tibetan man died on Friday after setting himself on fire, the latest in a series of anti-government suicide protests in China's Tibetan autonomous prefecture.

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Heavily dependent on the Centre for supply of electricity and facing acute power shortage, Bihar has taken steps for setting up 25 hydel power projects for generating about 800 MW with the proposals at various stages of approval, official sources said.

When the time will come to prepare your 'balance sheet' as China's core leader, it will be counted as your personal failure, you, the party's Tibet expert, longtime Tibet watcher Claude Arpi writes to Hu Jintao

China on Tuesday accused the Dalai Lama of "masterminding" the self-immolation bid by a Tibetan activist in New Delhi ahead of the visit of President Hu Jintao to attract world attention on Tibet independence.

The condition of two Tibetans on a hunger strike for almost a month in front of the United Nations has deteriorated. George Joseph reports.

A large number of Tibetan refugees on Saturday organised a rally in Guwahati to register their protest against continued self-immolation by their compatriots back home against the 'suppression' by the Chinese regime. The protestors, under the aegis of the Tibetan Solidarity Committee, orgainsed a rally on the occasion of the 53rd Tibetan National Uprising Day to express their anguish over the death of another Tibetan due to self-immolation in Ngaba in north-eastern Tibet.

Hitting out at the Dalai Lama, China on Wednesday branded him as the "hatchet man of anti-China forces" for allegedly instigating the Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns to commit suicide and claimed that some of those who immolated themselves had criminal records.

China on Wednesday launched a blistering attack on the Dalai Lama, terming him the "hatchet man of anti-China forces" and calling the recent spate of suicides by Tibetan monks and nuns as an orchestrated attempt to create chaos.

Accused of adopting "rough and oppressive" religious policies in Tibet, China on Friday refuted the criticism and underlined that there was nothing wrong in its attempts to put up the portraits of Mao Zedong and other Chinese leaders in Tibetan temples.

China detained large numbers of Tibetans after they returned from India and forced them to undergo political "re-education", a global rights group has said, prompting Beijing to justify it as a necessary move to quell separatist activities.

The Chinese government is establishing management committees in every monastery in Tibet to strengthen its controls, amid a spate of suicides by Buddhist monks and reports of growing unrest among them.

'There is the hangover from colonial practices, which should disappear with greater educational freedom for women, and also, ironically, because of the looming woman shortage due to selective foeticide.'

The trial of a case involving rape of a Christian nun allegedly by religious fanatics during the 2008 Kandhamal riots in Orissa was stayed on Monday by the Supreme Court on a plea by the victim challenging the prosecution's failure to cross-examine a sub-divisional magistrate.

China on Tuesday vowed to "resolutely crack down" any attempt to incite unrest, blaming overseas activist groups and the Dalai Lama of instigating the recent spate of self-immolations by Buddhist monks and violent clashes in Tibetan-inhabited areas.

As China grappled to deal with recurring suicides of Tibetan Buddhist monks calling for return of The Dalai Lama, its official media accused the spiritual leader of trying to build a cult similar to that of "Falun Gong", which Beijing managed to contain years ago.

China will step up its control on the management of the numerous Buddhist monasteries in Tibet and its prefectures in the wake of recurring self-immolations by monks, which it alleges are instigated by the Dalai Lama. Senior officials of Tibet Autonomous Region have pledged stepped-up efforts to strengthen the management of monasteries in the fight against the Dalai Lama group, official new agency Xinhua reported.

British writer and iconoclastic Christopher Hitchens who courted controversy by branding late Nobel laureate Mother Teresa "a fanatic and fraud" has died after a battle against cancer.

A Sri Lankan court on Thursday dropped charges of child trafficking against a Mother Teresa charity and released a senior nun, an Indian national, suspected of selling babies for adoption. Sister Mary Eliza, the head of Missionaries of Charity convent, was arrested late November for her failure to disclose an underage pregnancy at the Prem Children's Home at Moratuwa, a Colombo suburb.

Dev Anand's films offered, for most part, unalloyed entertainment and had little melodrama and silly fight scenes like most other films. And that was the prime reason to see them, hoping that they would help me prepare better for the exams, remembers Arthur J Pais.

According to a comment piece published in The Lancet, like any other nulliparous women, or those who do not have children, Catholic nuns are also have an increased risk of dying from breast, ovarian, and uterine cancer compared with women who bear children

Till now, apart from a few statements issued by his office, the young Karmapa Lama has refused to come out of his reserve and comment on the accusations levelled against him, particularly the cash donations received by his monastery but not deposited in a bank, and his relations with India. For the first time, he agrees to speak to Rediff.com, in an exclusive interview to Claude Arpi

A woman throws a white scarf over Tibetan Buddhist nun Palden Choetso as she burns on the street in Daofu, or Tawu in Tibetan, in this still image taken from video shot on November 3, 2011 and released on November 22.

The killing of Sister Valsa John over tribal rights is another episode of land dispute in the coal belt, writes Sreelatha Menon

Three persons have been detained in connection with the killing of nun Valsha John, police said on Friday.

China has warned the Dalai Lama against interfering in the reincarnation process to select a successor after his death, saying this tradition of Tibetan Buddhism cannot be influenced by any group from abroad.

In a tiny corner in Bengaluru, Sister Jacqueline Jean McEwan has been quietly serving poor leprosy patients for 30 years. Shobha Warrier meets the nun the locals call their own Mother Teresa.

In a tiny corner in Bengaluru, Sister Jacqueline Jean McEwan has been quietly serving poor leprosy patients for 30 years. Shobha Warrier meets the nun the locals call their own Mother Teresa.

Miss Venezuela, Ivian Lunasol Sarcos Colmenares, who spent five years studying in a nunnery, has bagged the title of Miss World 2011 amid much fanfare at Earls Court Two in London.

Slamming the Dalai Lama for conducting prayers for the Buddhist monks who had immolated themselves protesting Chinese rule in Tibet, China on Thursday said his support amounted to backing "terrorism in disguise".

Villagers protest against the Koodankulam nuclear power project.

Home Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday intervened to restore visa "without limit of time" for British-born Catholic nun Jacqueline Jean McEwan, known as Sister Jean, in Bangalore and making it clear that she can stay in India as long as she likes.

Till now, apart from a few statements issued by his office, the young Karmapa Lama has refused to come out of his reserve and comment on the accusations levelled against him, particularly the cash donations received by his monastery but not deposited in a bank, and his relations with India. For the first time, he agrees to speak to Rediff.com, in an exclusive interview to Claude Arpi

United Nation's top rights body on Wednesday asked Syria to stop attacking pro-democracy protesters and allow a fact finding team to assess the humanitarian situation in the country.

Tibetan monks and migrant Chinese workers have both dared to defy Chinese authorities, says B Raman

A local court on Tuesday directed the police to frame charges against two women employees of a government chemical lab in Thiruvananthapuram for tampering with test reports relating to the Sister Abhaya murder case.

The veteran actor is set to play the lead role in Masterpiece, a film about legendary French painter Henri Matisse.