More than two dozen lawmakers and prominent Indian Americans gathered at the US Capitol for the annual Diwali celebration, highlighting the contributions of the Indian American community and the strong US-India relationship. The event, organized by the BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, also featured addresses from several Congressmen and Senators who expressed support for Indian Americans and emphasized the importance of the US-India partnership.
Nepal court releases rape accused cricketer Lamichhane on bail
According to observers, with pro-China Rajapaksa winning the election, the result will have a bearing on India's presence in the Indian Ocean region where Beijing is increasingly making inroads.
Rajapaksa is the first president to be sworn in outside Colombo.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will arrive in New York on Sunday to participate in the high-level 77th session of the UN General Assembly, which kicks off on September 20 with the opening of the general debate.
According to a UN report, people live long, healthy lives in these 12 countries.
At least three people were killed and nearly 100 others injured when communal clashes broke out in a popular Sri Lankan tourist region, even as President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Monday warned rioters against taking law into their own hands in curfew-bound areas.
Anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela's condition remains "critical but stable", South African President Jacob Zuma said on Saturday hoping he will be out of the hospital soon.
The future challenger to Narendra Modi would be somebody who can bring the Hindus and Muslims together again. The Hindus as Hindus, not broken caste groups, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
Over a week after the superstorm Sandy battered the United States east coast, another significant storm is forecast to hit already-ravaged New York and New Jersey states bringing in high winds, storm surge and snow in some areas.
President Maithripala Sirisena's new Cabinet was also sworn in and Rajapaksa was named the new minister of finance and economic affairs.
Ramesh Menon, the veteran journalist suggests Prime Minister Narendra Damodardas Modi what he should do if he wants to win 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Suggestions surfacing in United States diplomatic cables leaked by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks that the Sri Lanka government precipitated in war crimes against the minority Tamil population at the height of the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, has prompted British Defence Secretary Liam Fox to abandon plans for a private visit to the island nation.
We have our own problems for sure and they are not trivial, but for now, our economy is in not too bad a shape, our politics is as personality-driven and authoritarian as that of most countries in the world. We must make the best of what we have and not be excessively unhappy looking at the grass on the other side of the septic tank which may not be greener after all!, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
Braving three minor hurricane storms en route, the aircraft carrying Indian relief landed at the Little Rock Air Force base in the US on September 13
Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States Sherry Rehman believes trade and people-to-people interactions between India and Pakistan can contain the fall-out of "flare-ups" like the recent killing and beheading of two Indian soldiers near the Line of Control in Kashmir.
'If all goes well, Modi will visit the Maldives later this year. But two Indian concerns remain unaddressed: President Yameen's intentions about Mohammad Nasheed and China,' says Rajeev Sharma.
France's completely new team lost 2-1 to Norway in a friendly on Wednesday with the ghosts of World Cup controversy and failure also hanging over England despite Steven Gerrard's brace in a 2-1 win over Hungary.
A leading Washington, DC-based think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, notwithstanding the arrest of retired Sri Lankan Army General Sarath Fonseka who challenged President Mahinda Rajapakse at the recent elections, and the country's poor record on human rights and its treatment of several thousand internally displaced persons, has said that the United States cannot afford to disengage with the island nation.
New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton apologised on Thursday to former US tennis star James Blake, who was arrested after being wrongly identified as a suspect in a fraud ring and said he is concerned over how much force is used.
Though the FBI is still in the process of compiling hate-crime statistics for 2008, those based on local media reports have forced experts to describe the surge as unprecedented. Some officials compared it to the rise in attacks on Muslims after the 9/11 attacks.
Obama's decision to visit India must be a result of his judgement that Modi is a man of action, feels Ambassador T P Sreenivasan.
Mahinda Rajapaksa completed 50 years of parliamentary politics in July this year. He was elected as a Member of Parliament at the young age of 24 in 1970. He has since been elected president twice and has been appointed prime minister thrice.
Speed skating - Swings wins mass start, brings first Belgian Winter gold in 74 years.
The global stigma of discrimination will go only when Asians and Africans have the self-confidence to be themselves, says Sunanda K Datta-Ray
The Sri Lankan government has ruled out unregulated access to the Internally Displaced Persons' camps in the island nation, arguing that such a step may threaten 'peace and tranquility' in these camps.Thousands of Tamil civilians, who had fled their homes after the fighting between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Sri Lankan army escalated after a decades-long civil war, are still living in these camps.
"Sri Lanka is our next door neighbour. Geography bounds us. We have overwhelming trade ties with them. India is their biggest trade partner and the largest investor in Sri Lanka. Every fifth tourist in Sri Lanka arrives from India. Both countries' bilateral relation are so intertwined that both of us will soon take India's vote against them in the United Nations Human Rights Council in their stride."
Senior diplomatic sources, while conceding that there have been regular discussions of the Sri Lanka situation between Delhi and Washington, and that both countries were on the same page in terms of its policy regarding the repatriation of Tamil refugees and that the rights of the Tamil minority needs to be respected, reiterated that this issue would not figure in the discussion Clinton has while in Chennai
"It should be borne in mind that India will never allow a separate independent state for Tamils in Sri Lanka because such a development will have a disastrous effect in India," Wickremanayaka, who is the first Sri Lankan Prime Minister to visit Israel, told a gathering. The Sri Lankan Prime Minister, who is on a four-day visit, claimed that Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam chief V Prabhakaran wanted to create a Tamil state "by including certain parts of India as well".
A round-up of all the results from the 16th World Athletic Championships in London
Colombo's enduring interests suggest the relationship between the Sri Lanka and China will only strengthen, says Nitin Pai.
'Absolute non-violence is not only sinful, but immoral.' 'This doctrine of non-violence benumbed the revolutionary fervor, softened the limbs and hearts of the Hindus, and stiffened the bones of enemies.' A revealing excerpt from Vikram Sampath's Savarkar (Part 2): A Contested Legacy, 1924-1966.
"The enemies of the country want to project the militancy in the country as indigenous and for this purpose, they have been recruiting some local youth for arms training," he said.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may attend the opening ceremony for the Sochi Winter Olympics, but China has ruled out any formal meeting with President Xi Jinping whose attendance at the Games has already been confirmed.
Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party on Monday promised reservations to Muslims as well as Marathas, implementation of Rajinder Sachar committee report, and support for `statehood to Andaman and Nicobar' in its manifesto for the Lok Sabha elections, released in Mumbai.
Sri Lankans on Thursday voted in large numbers in the bitterly contested presidential election in which incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa is seeking a record third term against his friend-turned-foe Maithripala Sirisena, with an unusually high voter turnout in Tamil and Muslim areas.
President Barack Obama last week paid rich tributes to the late Dalip Singh Saund -- the first Asian-American and Indian-American United States Congressman -- and described him as a trailblazer. Aziz Haniffa reports.
United States President Barack Obama on Tuesday paid rich tribute to late Dalip Singh Saund -- the first Asian American United States Congressman -- and described him as a trailblazer for the entire Asian American and immigrant community.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
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