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It’s an Einsteinian problem in relativity. The policymakers in India’s hydrocarbons sector are facing a problem of equating 17 US dollars to an average of 4.2. Let us elaborate. Petronet LNG, co-promoted by the Public sector Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) and principal marketer of the Australian LNG, recently contracted Liquefied Natural Gas from Australia at a price 4 times at which most of natural gas produced within the country is sold.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Political tension has escalated further with the United Democratic Front Government and the opposition Left Democratic Front (LDF) taking to the confrontationist course on the issue of admissions to the self-financing medical colleges in the state.

Digvijay Singh may have described himself as a loose cannon in a TV interview, but the manner in which he persistently takes a contrarian line vis-à-vis the government can give the impression that he is dancing to someone else’s tune. Uma Bharati’s belief that he is Rahul Gandhi’s “spare tyre” is probably not far off the mark, for it is clear that the former Madhya Pradesh chief minister (also a poster boy of the Congress before he lost to the BJP in the state) is positioning himself on the right side of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.

BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh BJP is on cloud nine. The party’s victory in the assembly by-election in Jabera constituency of the Damoh district in the State has boosted its morale to a new high.

For all the hullabaloo that preceded the election of a new Chief of the International Monetary Fund, with calls from emerging nations to break the traditional European hold on the post, the Fund had little difficulty in appointing Ms. Christine Lagarde, France’s savvy Finance Minister, as Managing Director for a five-year term from July 5, 2011.This automatically followed once USA, wielding the highest voting power in the Fund, endorsed her over Mr. Agustin Carstens, Mexican central bank governor, her only credible rival.

Are there some vested interest groups, local as well as global, working in tandem to prevent India stepping into the next stage of industrial development and to put a brake to its high economic growth rate? The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, may disagree but events in the last two years, unfortunately, point finger at such a design.

New York: International tourism continues to rise around the world, with only the Middle East and North Africa lagging, and even those regions expected to improve later this year, according to the latest United Nations figures.

New York: A United Nations human rights expert warned today that a newly passed Salvadorian law requiring the country’s Supreme Court decisions to be unanimous could undermine the independence of the judiciary.

New York: Ministers and senior government officials from 31 countries, meeting at a United Nations-supported conference in Bangkok, have agreed to work more closely together on disaster risk reduction and make it central to national development strategies, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) reported today.

New Delhi: Is drug addiction a disease or crime, asked NGOs in response to the Government’s call to “think health, not drugs” on June 26, International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. Calling for a revision of laws on narcotic drugs, a group of experts asked that drug use be viewed as a health concern and not as criminal or moral wrongdoing.