PWD committed to minimising burden on resources and environment in public infrastructure projects SUSTAINABLE development refers to one that fulfils the demands of the present without compromising...

Journalists had been threatened when carrying out their duties, including being beaten up, and for some, even their relatives faced retaliation. THE watchdog role of the media in China was dealt a...

I refer to the issue of non-Muslim clubs in schools and my gratitude to the Education Minister for his clarification. A policy on this is overdue because certain people have been having a field day...

The boy who was singing was talented, if not wholly mature. No one in the hall that day grudged him his turn, but few wanted it unduly extended. The crowd was polite, but some murmurings began when...

No one likes the war of words that has re-erupted over Belgaum. The Boundary Commission must have taken into consideration the pros and cons of the language issue before allotting it to Karnataka....

The onus is on the generals in Rawalpindi to effect the hardcore Taliban leadership's reconciliation and, as a quid pro quo, Washington recognises Pakistan's “legitimate interests” in...

In April this year, a BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded, caught fire and collapsed, killing eleven people and triggering an oil spill on a scale not experienced since the Exxon Valdez spill...

Whether you believe in god or not, every effect must have a cause. Out of nothing, nothing comes: ex nihilo nihil fit. Any creation must have a creator: call him Brahman, God, Allah the Merciful......

Three U.S. troops died in blasts in Afghanistan, bringing the death toll for July to at least 63 and surpassing the previous month's record as the deadliest for American forces in the nearly...

A little travel down memory lane and we may find possible answers. Abhisit Vejjajiva's scathing attacks on the Samak Sundaravej government two years ago over its support for Cambodia's attempts to...

LONDON -- International action on climate change looks set to drift for the next two years as politicians waver in the wake of the financial crisis, despite a new report which says the last three...

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is now reviving much of Washington's old clout in Asia as missteps by rising giant China prompt its smaller neighbors to turn to the U.S. as a counterweight,...

LONDON -- After marching to the same tune for the past decade, Britain's property market and its economy are going separate ways, and further house price falls look likely into 2011 even if the...

MOSCOW -- Russia's Dagestan region has overtaken its neighbors as the epicenter of violence in the mainly Muslim North Caucasus, where the Kremlin is struggling to contain an Islamist...

Read my lips, pay your taxes. The next time income tax-wallahs say that, we mustn't sulk. For, taxmen aren't merely monochromatic bureaucrats bent on burning holes in pockets. Several of them have ...

Rising food and fuel prices hurt us, literally, where we live. But the real cause of India's chronic double-digit inflation, largely ignored in the current debate, lies elsewhere: wasteful ...

The website, BeautifulPeople.com, launched in 2002 in Denmark and now with a presence in 190 countries, purports to be only for beautiful people. Photographs of potential members are voted upon by...

Julia Gillard's re-election campaign lost momentum last week in the wake of fresh cabinet leaks. She's said to have opposed increasing the age pension because old people favour the Coalition, and...

If the past three years have taught us anything it is that if voters had their time again they would have re-elected the Howard government for a fifth term. As Tony Abbott said yesterday, "when...

A CONCEPTION of conservatism that is more relevant to Aboriginal Australians is patriotism in adversity: fighting for the survival of one's people, culture and...

There's a famous scene in Charlotte Bronte's Gothic melodrama Jane Eyre where the heroine relates to her betrothed her awful experience of the previous night, when a ghastly figure of a woman invaded...

EVEN before Kevin Rudd's hospitalisation yesterday, he had come to dominate the 2010 election campaign - and that domination is killing Labor's...

FINALLY, in the hurly-burly of the leaders' debate last Sunday, Julia Gillard acknowledged it: voters, she said, were "surprised and taken aback" by the suddenness and speed of Kevin Rudd's...

FOR all the humiliation and ridicule Kevin Rudd faced over his brief stint as prime minister, for all the personal criticisms Julia Gillard has had to endure, for all the background sledging suffered...

Jeff Kennett swears he's almost been driven to drink by the incredible shrinking vision for Australia's future. "My worry is that neither party has yet addressed the issue of where do you want...

Each leader was exploding with conviction until they had to face the people, and, whoosh, out came the gimmicks. Latham signed a pledge to keep interest rates low in 2004, Rudd copied the Coalition's...

But that's not how Bradbury, who won the seat in 2007 on a vote-jolt double the size of Kevin07's national swing, and his Liberal opponent Fiona Scott see it. The contest will be fierce in this...

The 11th Five Year Plan seeks to achieve 4 per cent growth rate in agriculture by the end of the Plan period. The Planning Commission is working towards an overall 9 per cent to 10 per cent growth...

— PHOTO: AP Nepal's Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal who resigned last month (right) with the Chairman of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), Prachanda. The roots of the...

A little over a year ago, Ali Arshad, a resident of Okhla in Delhi, went to a well-known private sector bank to open a bank account. He thought his case would be fast-tracked because he had a banking...

Ecotourism and western-style conservation projects are harming wildlife, damaging the environment, and displacing and criminalising local people, according to a controversial new book. The pristine...

Earlier this month, Lao Foreign Minister Thongloun Sisoulith traveled to Washington to meet United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. His visit marked the highest-level contact between the...

BUDAPEST -- Hungary's center-right government has ended talks on renewing an IMF aid deal and signaled it wants more time to meet EU budget deficit...

LONDON -- Its chairman is Swedish, a growing chunk of its revenue comes from Russia and its incoming chief executive speaks with an American accent. So goes the Britishness in the company once known...

Daily incidents take a constant toll of U.S. lives, and accelerated indigenization of security has brought fresh risks by placing weapons in unreliable hands. The set piece battle in Helmand was...