Category: South Asia

KABUL, September 2, 2010 (AFP) – An owner of Afghanistan’s biggest bank, Kabul Bank, said Thursday it was not facing a run and was supplying branches with enough cash to meet demand, a day after US media allegations of corruption. “There is not a run. We’re here and we are prepared to pay out as […]

NEW DELHI, August 31, 2010 (AFP) – India on Tuesday said China was demonstrating “more than normal interest” in the Indian Ocean as two Chinese warships made a rare visit to military-ruled Myanmar. India is watchful of China’s growing presence in the region, including its major investments in ports being built in Sri Lanka and […]

NEW DELHI, August 31, 2010 (AFP) – India’s BlackBerry users heaved a sigh of relief Tuesday after the government gave the company a two-month reprieve on a threat to ban its messaging services, averting a showdown over security access. Research in Motion (RIM), the smartphone’s maker, has made “certain proposals for lawful access” to heavily […]

NEW DELHI, August 26, 2010 (AFP) – India warned the makers of the BlackBerry Thursday its messaging services could be shut down if it failed to give security agencies access “in readable format” as a compliance deadline loomed. A shutdown would affect corporate users among BlackBerry’s 1.1 million customers, whose communications have a higher level […]

KOLKATA, August 26, 2010 (AFP) – A solemn mass kicked off a day of remembrance Thursday on the birth centenary of Mother Teresa, known as the “Saint of the Gutters” for her life’s work with the sick and destitute of Kolkata. Mother Teresa began her missionary work with the poor in Kolkata in 1948 and […]

NEW DELHI, August 26, 2010 (AFP) – Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said that the country’s widening divide between rich and poor was a factor that encouraged crime and caused difficulties for police. Singh told a conference of police chiefs in New Delhi that national security was being threatened by an array of […]

SEOUL, August 23, 2010 (AFP) – India’s leading sports utility vehicle maker Mahindra and Mahindra signed a preliminary agreement Monday to take over bankrupt South Korean carmaker Ssangyong Motor, Ssangyong said. Ssangyong announced the signing of the memorandum of understanding in a regulatory filing to the Seoul stock exchange, but no figures for the deal […]

NEW DELHI, August 23, 2010 (AFP) – India announced new stimulus measures Monday worth 225 million dollars to help garment, leather and handicraft exporters during the “fragile” global economic recovery. The country’s export growth slowed sharply in July on weakening demand from Western markets and the government has warned that the pace could slacken further […]

Aug 22, 2010 (LBO) – The Maldives plans to hold a festival bringing together international and local artists and experts from the fields of literature, art, science, drama, music and poetry in October this year. The event, billed as a festival of “ideas, conversations and fun” will celebrate “one of the world’s most hopeful new […]

MUMBAI, August 22, 2010 (AFP) – Ashish is a senior executive in the financial sector in the home of Bollywood, Mumbai. He earns a good wage, lives in an upmarket neighbourhood and sees himself as a decent, law-abiding citizen. But like many Indians, the 49-year-old sees nothing wrong with buying the latest Hindi-language and Hollywood […]

NEW DELHI, August 19, 2010 (AFP) – They are every marketeer’s dream and the future of the world economy — now Asia’s aspirational middle classes have been laid bare in a major new study focusing on their astonishing growth. The Asian Development Bank forecast in the research released Thursday that over the next two decades […]

NEW DELHI, August 19, 2010 (AFP) – India’s government has proposed a formula that could avert its threatened shutdown of the core features of the BlackBerry smartphone over security worries, a newspaper reported Thursday. The communications ministry has put forward a plan by which security agencies could gain access to heavily encyrpted corporate email sent […]