Anthony D'costa

Twentyfive persons killed in bomb blast in Lanka...
Bush is US President...
Another coup in Pakistan...

That could be the news.

Think of any hotspot today and the Net has a web site giving you news about it. News as it happens.

Take Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West Asia, Fiji or the United States of America, which just cannot seem to decide who its next president will be... or even India. If you want to know what General Pervez Musharraf is up to in Pakistan or the toll following the latest bout of Tiger violence in Lanka or whether Mahendra Chaudhry is back in the hotseat in Fiji or whether George W Bush or Al Gore is the next president, there are hundreds of sites giving you updates by the minute.

For Pakistan, my best bet for newslinks is http://faridi.net/news. It has Dawn that has an Internet news alert, which is a free news service by e-mail. It kept me updated, especially with newsbreaks, on the coup and subsequent violence in Pakistan.

It also has a link to The Frontier Post, a leading newspaper in Pakistan.

Besides links to BBC (Pakistan) [which is actually a link to the British Broadcasting Corporation's page on southern Asia], The Nation [which claims to be Pakistan's first online newspaper that updates round-the-clock] and The News [of the Jang Group], which are reliable, it has a link to the Pakistan page of Amnesty International. Amnesty's Pakistan page is good for anti-Pakistan campaigners. And a link Musharraf would definitely like to see blocked.

That should give you a clear picture of Pakistan.

On Sri Lanka, I recently discovered a Lanka page. It gave good updates on the day's developments. Not a very exciting looking page but it had comprehensive news on the island nation.

The Island has a very cluttered front page, but again, has the news. When I checked it out, it had a report on the 'big match' now on in Sri Lanka cricket, which is described by wags as 'Sony vs Worldtel'. It reported that the captains of the two teams who got together to prevent Clifford Ratwatte's election as president of the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka were going for each other’s jugular. ''The cricketing field is said to be awash with dirty linen while genuine cricketers are looking at it aghast,'' it commented.

Daily News is skimpy but like The Island comes useful whenever there's trouble in the neighbourhood.

While on Lanka, one cannot forget the Tamil Eelam homepage and the Eelam web. They are for all who want to learn more about 'Hon. V. Pirapaharan' and what the Tamil Tigers are up to.

However, the best is the BBC. Whether it is news on Sri Lanka, Jerusalem, Palestine, the Gulf or, of course, the United Kingdom, or anywhere in the world [or is it universe?] it is always on the ball, breaking news. Very much like CNN, though the only weak point of both being the easy-but-not-so-easy-to-notice bias.

For those looking for news on south Asia [read India, Pakistan...], CNN and BBC have direct links.

CNN [TV] went great guns during the Gulf war and the dotcom is now on the dot, breaking news on the US presidential election drama.

Talking of the Gulf, the main sites of interest to Indians are Khaleej Times and Gulf News, rivals in Dubai's print world.

When trouble broke out in Fiji, the obvious site to log in to was fijilive. It gave accurate and on-the-minute updates during the coup against Chaudhry. It also broke the news about the recent court order favouring Chaudhry.

All Web sites were [and are] in a frenzy over the US presidential elections. To know who will be the next US president you can check out Salon, politics, politics1 [which also has links to various sites], besides The New York Times, New York Post, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, MSNBC... and, of course, BBC and CNN. .

They all had it: Bush is President, Bush is not President; Gore wins in Florida, Gore does not win in Florida; Bush wins in... counts, recounts, dimpled ballots, absentee votes, chads, whatever. Trust the Americans.

Believe me, I never learnt more words from any world event than the US presidential election.

However, a strange problem they all faced was that they ran out of ideas on visuals. They kept adapting and readapting the same graphics and virtually ran fuzzy as the country could not decide who their next president was to be for much, much longer than expected.

As crossfire continues between Palestinians and Israelis, The Jerusalem Post filled me in on Prime Minister Ehud Barak's indecisiveness. For the Palestinian perspective, there was the Palestinian National Authority [the page is under construction]. Palestine-net has news of daily killings with even an 'updated martyrs list' [that's Palestinians killed since September 29, 2000]. There's also Palestine Daily if you want more on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

When news on the Chhota Rajan shooting broke out late at night in India, the obvious site to visit was The Bangkok Post It has the latest on the alleged gangster's extradition proceedings [if any, now!].

During the recent plane crash in Singapore, [the now new-look] New Straits Times was a good source of info.

One of the best Indian news sites is rediff.com, which has links to The Times of India, The Indian Express, The Hindu, The Hindustan Times and a host of others. A good digest of India news for the day.

Besides, there's India Today, Outlook, indiainfo, indya, india...

Of these, India Today has a good headline ticker.

Scenting a market in India, Yahoo, Lycos and MSN recently started India-specific pages. MSN has a tie-up with NDTV [which also has a news ticker] and The Hindu.

The Mother of all Websites for Newslinks [methinks] is no doubt The Drudge Report. It has links to Associated Press's breaking news, ABC News, Reuters [which incidentally has a direct India link], AFP, UPI... you name it.

A colleague also recommends 1stheadlines and worldnews. However, his favourite is moreover. Amazing stuff, guys, amazing!

And, finally, for comic relief, after a hard news day, why not try chopping this onion? You'll cry with laughter.

You too can stay in touch with news as it happens:
BEST INDIA NEWS SITES:
rediff.com [comprehensive]
India Today [good]
The Times of India [well-networked]
Outlook [we told you about match-fixing...]
The Indian Express [vast network]
The Hindu [strong on news from the south]
The Hindustan Times [from the nation's capital]
Deccan Chronicle [from Cyber Pradesh]
Deccan Herald [from the Garden city]
Indiainfo [all that is India]
India
indya.com

BEST WORLD NEWS SITES:
CNN [American bias]
BBC [Brit slant]
The Drudge Report [Very loud, but excellent]
1stheadlines [great stuff]

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