South Asia’s water: Unquenchable thirst. India makes way for Wal-Mart. NEW DELHI (AP) — India’s Cabinet decided Thursday to allow more foreign direct investment in the nation’s huge retail industry, a move that could strengthen the country’s food supply chain and open India to giant global retailers.
Top retailers such as Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Tesco and IKEA have long lobbied for a chance to build stores in the country of 1.2 billion people. Foreign multibrand retailers have Indian partners in wholesale operations, but no retail presence. Pic: AP. Multibrand retail stores could be built with up to 51 percent foreign direct investment under the change the Cabinet approved Thursday. The Cabinet also allowed 100 percent foreign direct investment of single-brand retail operations, up from 51 percent.
Opposition parties and some allies of the government resisted the move. The spokesman for the ruling Congress party, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, called the decision “centrist and reasonable.” The main opposition, the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, decried the move. Will U.S. Lose its Drone Edge? The U.S. has traditionally dominated the use of unmanned drones.
But will rising powers be able to blunt its edge? A decade after the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency flew its first armed Predator drones over Afghanistan, the consensus view is that the U.S. military and intelligence community have achieved a lasting near-monopoly on robotic warfare. The Pentagon and CIA operate the vast majority of the world’s armed Remotely-Piloted Aircraft (RPA) and sponsor most of the cutting-edge research and development for new drones. But that could change, according to two experts who hold outside views.
Today’s Predator and Reaper drones are slow and vulnerable compared to traditional, manned jet fighters. The Pentagon shares Laird’s concern, although not his fatalism. But could they defeat enemy drones? In predicting an imminent end to U.S. drone dominance, Laird and Kilcullen are definitely in the minority. India’s dynastic politics: Must it be a Gandhi? A Trip to Bhutan - Alan Taylor - In Focus. The Kingdom of Bhutan is a small Himalayan country east of Nepal, nestled between China and India, with an estimated population of 700,000. Last month, Bhutan celebrated the wedding of monarch Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, the fifth Druk Gyalpo ("Dragon King"), to 21-year-old commoner Jetsun Pema, now Druk Gyal-tsuen ("Dragon Queen") of Bhutan. The deeply traditional nation has been slow to adopt modern development; a country-wide ban on television and the Internet was only lifted in 1999, and only after the previous king abdicated power in 2006 did the nation have its first parliamentary elections.
Bhutan, often rated as one of the happiest countries in the world, is the birthplace of the concept of "gross national happiness," an alternative to the more traditional measure of gross domestic product. The popular Oxford-educated king is now seeking to strengthen ties with other nations while preserving as much of Bhutan's independence and culture as possible. 1600 mots liés au sexe interdits dans les SMS au Pakistan.
Qu'est-il le plus surprenant, entre le fait qu'il existe au Pakistan une liste de mots et expressions interdits sur les services de télécommunications, ou le fait qu'un opérateur ose s'en émouvoir et le contester ?
PC Mag rapporte que l'Autorité des Télécommunications du Pakistan (ATP) a communiqué aux opérateurs le 14 novembre une liste de 1600 termes que les Pakistanais ont interdiction d'utiliser, en leur demandant de bloquer les messages qui contreviendraient au règlement. La liste, visible ici en anglais, contient beaucoup de termes plus ou moins explicites liés au sexe, tels que "clitoris", "sperme", "soixante-neuf" ou "érection" (pour choisir les plus polis), mais aussi des expressions beaucoup plus surprenantes comme "mange-moi", "flatulence", "syphilis", "plus dur", "pied d'athtèle" ou "imbaisable".
Des termes descriptifs comme "scrotum", "homosexuel" ou "tampon" figurent aussi dans la liste.