Category: South Asia

MUMBAI, August 9, 2009 (AFP) – The traditional image of finishing schools is of the Swiss Alps, where elegant young ladies from well-to-do families learn to walk, talk and make conversation before entering polite society. Now India is looking to the model for the three million or so graduates it produces every year to refine […]

KATHMANDU, August 9, 2009 (AFP) – When Anita Gimmi was unable to find work in her native Nepal last year, she borrowed 1,300 dollars and travelled to Qatar to take up a two-year contract with a cleaning company there.Less than a year later, the 26-year-old has been forced to return home still heavily in debt […]

SYDNEY, August 8, 2009 (AFP) – Australia announced a sweeping review of its international education sector Saturday, as India’s foreign minister prepared to meet with students rattled by a series of attacks and study scams. Education Minister Julia Gillard said former Liberal MP and diplomat Bruce Baird would head the review, which was aimed at […]

BANGKOK, August 7, 2009 (AFP) – Thailand’s government on Friday rejected Sri Lankan state media claims that the new leader of the defeated Tamil Tiger separatist group had been arrested in Bangkok. Government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said Selvarasa Pathmanathan, better known as K.P., had instead been arrested in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur. “The National […]

NEW DELHI, August 6, 2009 (AFP) – These are tough times for India’s flagship outsourcing industry whose skilled, low-cost workforce helped plant the country on the global business map.With the world in the grip of the worst economic slump since the 1930s, revenue growth from outsourcing — subcontracting work to a third-party company — is […]

August 6, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka’s state television on Thursday announced that the new head of the remnants of the Tamil Tiger rebels had been arrested in Thailand. Pathmanathan, an overseas-based leader who took over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) following the killing of its supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran in mid-May, was also […]

GLASGOW, August 3, 2009 (AFP) – Scotland is known around the world for bagpipes, Scotch whisky, haggis and tartan kilts. But now it is trying to protect a less obviously Scottish treasure: chicken tikka masala.A chef from Glasgow claims he invented the curry dish, and is pressing the European Union to give it “Protected Designation […]

DHAKA, July 30, 2009 (AFP) – When Kohinur Akhter’s 19-month-old baby boy came down with a fever and cough a little over a week ago, she had no idea the medicine she gave him to ease the pain would put him on his death bed. Now Akhter has been told by doctors in Bangladesh that […]

July 29, 2009 (LBO) – Sri Lankan menswear retailer Hameedia has expanded into the neighbouring Maldive islands, opening a showroom in the capital Male.“It involves a careful selection of fabrics and accessories, studying both national and international market trends, and, the demanding task of marketing.” Hameedia Managing Director Fouzul Hameed said the company was looking […]

NEW DELHI, July 26, 2009 (AFP) – The Indian version of a US reality TV show that extracts secrets from minor celebrities has caused protests and a furore in parliament with its focus on infidelity, incest and other taboo subjects. Indian Express columnist Shubhra Gupta was similarly insistent that viewers should be the final arbiters […]

July 24, 2009 (AFP) – Sri Lanka is to free some 1,800 jailed military deserters as part of a presidential amnesty, a justice ministry spokesman said on Friday. In 2003, the government moved to legally discharge 51,000 deserters from the security forces. Tens of thousands were killed in Sri Lanka’s decades-old Tamil separatist conflict.The pardon […]

NEW DELHI, July 23, 2009 (AFP) – The world’s leading universities such as Harvard and Yale could soon be allowed to open colleges in India under new legislation proposed by the government, a report said Thursday.India has a severe shortage of higher education institutions and a booming population with more than 30 percent of its […]