India Ink: Newswallah: Bharat Edition

Jammu and Kashmir: Demands for a discussion over the recent execution of Muhammad Afzal, who was convicted in a deadly attack on India’s Parliament, rocked the state legislature on Friday, according to an IANS report on the NDTV Web site. The call for debate was initiated by the opposition People’s Democratic Party, and it found support from the governing National Conference party in the state.Northeast:...

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India Ink: How Will India Pay for the Perks in the New Budget?

Characteristic of a party headed for the polls, the Congress party’s budget Thursday morning had a lengthy list of handouts from increased spending on healthcare, education, rural and tribal welfare to a tax benefit for first-time home buyers and women’s development funds. Yet with all the additional spending adding up to a staggering 2.3 trillion rupees (about $42 billion), the minister projects...

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Benedict XVI Begins Final Day as Pope

VATICAN CITY — A day after blessing the faithful for the last time as pope, Benedict XVI prepared on Thursday to meet the cardinals who will elect his successor. After a nearly eight-year papacy that he said was filled with “light and joy” but also darker moments, Benedict will later leave the Vatican by helicopter for the papal summer residence where his retirement will formally take effect at 8...

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Iran and Six Nations Agree to Two More Rounds of Nuclear Talks

Pool photo byThe European Union foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, and Iran’s chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili, at the start of the talks. ALMATY, Kazakhstan — Talks between Iran and six world powers over its nuclear program ended on Wednesday with an agreement to convene technical experts in Istanbul on March 18 and return to Almaty for full negotiations among the delegations on April 5 and 6,...

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India Ink: What the Rail Budget 2013-14 Means for Passengers

Indian Railways Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal presented the railways budget for the financial year 2013-14 in Parliament in New Delhi on Tuesday.This was the first time in 17 years that a politician from the Indian National Congress made the railways budget speech, as the ministry has frequently been offered to allies in coalition governments.The minister did not announce additional unpopular passenger...

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India Ink: On Kissing, Bollywood, and Rebellion

Gardiner Harris’s recent piece in the New York Times made me do a double take, not just because of the attachment of the word “bombshell” before Katrina Kaif, which to me is somewhat like using “razor-sharp” as the defining adjective for President George W. Bush, but because of the cultural “Rubicon-crossing” significance attributed to a scene in “Jab Tak Hai Jaan:”A pivotal screen kiss reflected...

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Iraq President’s Health Is Improving, Doctor Says

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is now able to talk, his doctor said, adding he was hopeful the Kurdish statesman would soon be fit to return to Iraq from Germany, where he has been receiving medical treatment for a stroke. A peace-maker who often mediated among Iraq's Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish factions, 79-year-old Talabani was flown abroad in December in critical...

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Chinese Buoys Focus of Latest Dispute With Japan Over Islands

TOKYO – Japan has asked the Chinese government to explain why Chinese ships have strategically placed several buoys in the East China Sea near a group of disputed islands, a Japanese government spokesman said Friday. The spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, told reporters that ships from China’s State Oceanic Administration, which is similar to the coast guard, had placed the...

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India Ink: Biswas Nath, the Cycle Shop Owner from Uttar Pradesh

Why do millions of people, from entire Indian villages to urbane middle managers to foreign tourists, brave the crowds at the Kumbh Mela? During this year’s 55-day pilgrimage, to Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, an estimated 100 million Hindus and others are expected to take a holy dip in the Ganges River to wash away their sins. India Ink interviewed some of them.Biswas Nath, 38, a cycle shop owner from...

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Bulgarian Government Is Reported Set to Resign

The government of Bulgaria will resign Wednesday afternoon following a week of sometimes violent protests, Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said in a surprise announcement to Parliament. "The people gave us power and today we are returning it," he said, according to local news reports. ReutersPrime Minister Boiko Borisov of Bulgaria in Parliament on Wednesday. “The people gave us power and...

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For His Second Act, Japanese Premier Plays It Safe, With Early Results

Toru Hanai/ReutersPrime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose policies have sent the Tokyo stock market up, will visit Washington this week. TOKYO — Since taking office less than two months ago, Japan’s outspokenly hawkish new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has been in what some political analysts are calling “safe driving mode.” He has carefully avoided saying or doing anything to provoke other Asian nations,...

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India Ink: Thomas Friedman Answers Your Questions

New York Times op-ed columnist and author Thomas L. Friedman recently wrapped up a week-long trip to India, where he met with business executives, government ministers and other officials, entrepreneurs and development groups. Even as India’s economy has slowed considerably, Mr. Friedman remains a big believer in what he calls the “miracle of India.’’Earlier we asked India Ink readers for their questions...

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IHT Rendezvous: In Singapore's Immigration Debate, Sign of Asia's Slipping Middle Class?

BEIJING — Immigration is a hot-button issue nearly everywhere in the world, though the contours of the debate vary from place to place. In the United States, sweeping changes to the law may offer legal residency for millions of people who have entered the country illegally, my colleague Ashley Parker reports.Here in Asia, in the nation of Singapore, the debate looks somewhat different: The government...

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U.S. Embassy Denies Intervening in Mexico Cabinet Choice

The United States Embassy in Mexico on Friday issued a statement denying an article in The New York Times that reported that Ambassador Anthony Wayne had met with senior Mexican officials to discuss American concerns about the possible appointment of Gen. Moisés García Ochoa of Mexico as that country’s defense secretary. “Despite significant reporting in the Mexican press during the presidential...

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Meteorite Fragments Are Said to Rain Down on Siberia; 400 Injuries Reported

MOSCOW – A shower of falling objects, tentatively identified as fragments of a meteorite, streaked through the sky in western Siberia early on Friday, damaging buildings across a vast swath of territory. More than 400 people were reported to have been injured, most from breaking glass. But hours after the objects fell to earth, emergency officials had reported no deaths. Yelena Smirnykh,...

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Woman Found Fatally Shot at Home of Pistorius

Emilio Morenatti/Associated PressOscar Pistorius, the South African Olympic and Paralympic track star, in September. JOHANNESBURG — Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius was taken into police custody early Thursday morning after he shot and killed a woman in his home in Pretoria, according to South African police officials. Mr. Pistorius, 26, won two gold medals and a silver at last year’s...

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Pope to Make First Public Appearance Since Decision to Resign

VATICAN CITY — As Christians embarked on the 40-day period of Lent preceding Easter, Pope Benedict XVI made his first public appearance on Wednesday since the stunning announcement of his resignation two days ago, holding a general audience at the Vatican before a mass at St. Peter’s described by officials as likely to be his final celebration of a major mass in the huge basilica before his retirement...

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India Ink: Lost and Found at the Kumbh Mela

ALLAHABAD, Uttar Pradesh— Most people know the heart-sinking feeling of losing someone in a crowded place. Imagine the feeling of being lost at the largest gathering of humanity in the world, the Kumbh Mela.It’s a scene so dramatic, and so common, that it’s a theme in many Bollywood movies — families who attend the Kumbh are separated and then reunited decades later.Pranmati Pandey, a middle-aged...

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IHT Rendezvous: A Different Kind of Labyrinth in the London Underground

LONDON — The artist Mark Wallinger has a few strings to his bow: he spent 10 days in a bear suit in 2004 in the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin; he won the Turner Prize in 2007; he enjoyed a few days of media admiration/derision in 2009 when he proposed a 50-meter white horse as a public art project in Ebbsfleet in Kent. On Thursday, Mr. Wallinger presented his newest work: a commission from the London...

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IHT Rendezvous: Hungry Enough to Eat a Horse?

LONDON — As new revelations emerged in the great horse meat scandal gripping the European food industry, there was no indication it would dim the enthusiasm of Continental foodies for their favorite equine delicacies.Aldi, a cut-price supermarket chain, was the latest retailer to take action, announcing late on Friday that it had removed spaghetti bolognese and beef lasagne from stores in Britain...

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