You must visit these wonderful places across the globe to experience their rich and vibrant culture.
The protests brought home the fact that the Sri Lankan public is in no mood for halfway measures, as voices against Rajapaksa 'family rule' and 'securitisation' of the civilian administration began sidestepping the more critical economic crisis, affecting the nation and afflicting the individual, observes Sri Lanka watcher N Sathiya Moorthy.
'He has dealt with such tremendous odds that he understands things at a level that not many people do.'
President Pranab Mukherjee's recent visit to the Pacific Island nation is path-breaking, but much more needs to be done, says Dr Rahul Mishra.
'India has to prepare for future warfare where kinetic use of force at the border will be limited. War will take place in the realms beyond the border.'
The woman was part of a group of protesters and had declared that she wouldn't come down until "all the children are released.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that he had a productive meeting with visiting External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar during which they discussed the bilateral ties, COVID-19 relief efforts, India-China border situation and Afghanistan and vowed to work together to address areas of shared concern.
Coming into the series at the back of a convincing series win over Pakistan, Australia will look to seal their seventh day-night Test win when they face New Zealand in the opening Test beginning in Perth on Thursday.
These 10 images below it's a mad, mad world.
At a virtual press conference to launch the report, Inger Anderson, Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme, said, "Climate change is here and now. No one is safe. Despite warnings from so many years, the world did not listen. We need to act now. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions will not only limit climate change but also reduce air pollution."
Faced with prospect of its assets across the globe being seized just like Pakistan and Venezuela, the government decided to scrap retrospective taxation but the international embarrassment could have been avoided had 'attached' shares of Britain's Cairn Energy Plc not been sold, according to tax and legal experts. On Thursday, the government introduced a Bill in Parliament to scrap the tax rule that gave the tax department power to go 50 years back and slap capital gains levies wherever ownership had changed hands overseas but business assets were in India. The 2012 legislation was used to levy a cumulative of Rs 1.10 lakh crore of tax on 17 entities, including UK telecom giant Vodafone, but substantial punitive action was taken only in the case of Cairn.
The first Test between New Zealand and Pakistan is scheduled to go head this week after engineers checked the safety of the Christchurch cricket venue following a massive earthquake that rattled the centre of the country early on Monday. The powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake pummelled central New Zealand's South Island, killing at least two people, damaging roads and buildings and setting off hundreds of strong aftershocks. It was felt strongly in Christchurch, South Island's largest city, which was hit by a 6.3 quake in 2011 that killed 185 people.
Addressing the centenary celebrations of the Communist Party of China at the historic Tiananmen Square, Xi in over an hour-long address also said that integrating Taiwan with the Chinese mainland is a historic mission of the ruling party.
The surface-to-surface missile, powered by solid propellants, was test-fired from a mobile launcher at 10.10 am from launch pad-4 of the Integrated Test Range at Abdul Kalam Island (Wheeler Island), defence officials said.
Pakistan's cricket authorities remained on tenterhooks on Thursday awaiting word from Cricket Sri Lanka on the upcoming ODI and T20 Internationals series.
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A tour of Vietnam and Cambodia with Anita and Rohit.
The India-Japan joint naval exercises are a strategic signal for China, observes Dr Rajaram Panda.
Pranjal Bhumij scored a stoppage time goal to help Mumbai City FC hold hosts Kerala Blasters to a 1-1 draw in the Hero Indian Super League (ISL), in Kochi, on Friday.
'Any future course of action towards active participation in the alliance when formed would need a lot of deliberation, long term vision and should be in our best national interests,' notes Commodore Vengalil Venugopal (retd).
The deep depression in North Andaman Sea and its neighbourhood intensified into a cyclonic storm on Wednesday and is likely to cross Andhra Pradesh and Odisha coast on October 12.
'Sullivan and Jaishankar welcomed the cooperation in recent weeks that resulted in deliveries of over USD 500 million in COVID-19 relief supplies from the US federal and state governments, US companies and private citizens across America for the people of India'
The announcement means that a total of five pieces of debris from the Malaysian Airlines' jet have now been discovered in various spots around the Indian Ocean since it vanished.
Fourteen billion dollars goes a long, long way; it would buy you three US aircraft carriers or six NASA rover missions to Mars.
Scotland Yard's War Crimes Team, which is part of its Counter-Terrorism Command, has launched an investigation into the role of British mercenaries in fighting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels in Sri Lanka during the 1980s.
Take a look at the Barbadian singing sensation's holiday album.
The Cabinet on Wednesday approved the National Mission on Edible Oils - Oil Palm (NMEO-OP) with a financial outlay of Rs 11,040 crore to promote domestic cultivation of oil palm in the next five years, and reduce the country's dependence on edible oil imports. The decision comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the new central scheme on August 15 during his Independence Day speech at Red Fort. Briefing the media, Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said the Cabinet approved the NMEO-OP with a focus on the northeast region and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands with a financial outlay of Rs 11,040 crore.
Rajapaksa's move signalled that he would contest the snap polls, to be held on January 5, under his own party banner and not that of Sirisena's SLFP.
The athletes were unable to enter Australia due to government restrictions on foreign nationals travelling from China.
A West Indian Day celebration, Hurricane Dorian destruction, and the immersion of Lord Ganesha in Mumbai round out this week's best images.
Humans rarely get to glimpse the animal kingdom up-close. But, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest, which is developed and produced by the Natural History Museum in London, offers a peek into the lives of species around the world. The competition has just revealed the shortlist of 25 photos for the LUMIX People's Choice Award. Voting is open until February 4, 2020, and the overall winner will be announced in February.
Mahinda Rajapaksa is a democratically elected leader who received a massive mandate of 71% of votes, and he owes nothing to Delhi or Washington for staging his political comeback, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
'If a 'two-front war' develops, Iron Brother may only turn out to be a drag on the PLA, since Pakistan is in no position to wage a war with India,' argues Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
South Korean rescue boats and helicopters scrambled to pluck passengers, most of them high school students, from a ferry as it listed and slowly sank off the country's southwest coast on Wednesday.
China should not feel cornered by a raft of geopolitical moves by the US and Japan against it by forging closer ties with India, Russia and others in the region and Beijing should focus on becoming a strong economic and military power, a state-run daily said on Thursday.
Mumbai, India's financial capital, is set for a mega transformation with a massive patch of land opening up for redevelopment; a new metro railway ready to start services by the year-end; and the country's oldest railway station, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, going for modernisation with private sector participation. Work on Mumbai's second airport will start from next month, while construction of the sea link connecting central Mumbai to Navi Mumbai has already moved into a fast lane despite Covid-induced lockdowns. Also, a coastal road project, connecting Nariman Point to Worli, is under way and will help decongest the city to quite an extent. Of all these mega infrastructure projects, the one that has a huge potential to change the city's skyline is the Eastern Waterfront project - to be built on the Mumbai Port Trust (MbPT) land.
Quad leaders are also planning to roll out vaccine deliverables and announce a series of measures in the field of healthcare and infrastructure sector, officials in Washington, DC said.
The missile has a strike range of more than 2,000 km.
It was for the first time that a Chinese spy ship was detected in Japanese water since a submarine was spotted in 2004. The latest intrusion came less than a week after another Chinese naval vessel sailed near islands at the centre of a Tokyo-Beijing sovereignty dispute in the East China Sea.
The agreement provides for creation of an enabling framework for closer cooperation and interoperability, besides allowing militaries of the two countries to use each other's bases and facilities for repair and replenishment of supplies, the official said.
