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As the second decade of the twenty-first century begins, our principal political parties are still oblivious of the sweeping changes that have enveloped the Pakistani landscape in the year gone by. This, as the lack-lustre debates in the recent winter session of Parliament have shown, is true not only of the Opposition, but to a large extent, also of the ruling UPA.

New York: In the wake of last week's unrest in southern Italy, two United Nations independent human rights experts called on the European nation's Government to rein in the rising xenophobic attitudes towards migrant workers.

New York: Thousands of people continue to flee as the latest round of fighting between Government and rebel forces in the Sa'ada province of northern Yemen enters its sixth month, said the United Nations refugee agency, which last month put the number of uprooted at 175,000 but now estimates that it could be higher.

New York: A new fund managed by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) announced over $9 million in grants to support initiatives in 26 countries to empower women, ranging from boosting their political participation in Bosnia and Herzegovina to assisting those denied inheritance and property rights in Afghanistan.

New Delhi: India and Bangladesh have decided to write a new chapter on bilateral cooperation which would have a far reaching impact on South Asia.

The Indian Establishment sometimes behaves as if it had decided to be gratuitously destructive of the very state it represents and guards. Take Telangana. The Home Ministry dramatically pledged on December 9 to start the process of creating a separate state there. That this would inflame passions and provoke violent agitation and counter-agitation was a foregone conclusion. The issue would also trigger demands for smaller states elsewhere, for which the Centre is ill-prepared.

Now that Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh Yadav have got over their brief estrangement, it is worth examining the whys and wherefores of their short-lived tiff. The reasons on the surface are clear. After the Samajwadi Party's poor performance in the recent U.P. by-elections, especially in Ferozabad where the organisation's bahu - Mulayam Singh's daughter-in-law, Dimple Yadav, lost to party renegade Raj Babbar - there was the predictable exchange of harsh words between Amar Singh and Mulayam Singh's brother, Ram Gopal.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The World Bank launched the fourth book in the critically acclaimed Moving Out of Poverty series, which provides bottom up perspectives on poverty and local realities by over 60,000 people living in 500 communities in 15 countries. The latest publication focuses on seven conflict-affected countries and urges a rethinking of post-conflict strategies to rebuild states from below.

New Delhi: Work on setting up of Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) as UNESCO Category 1 institute in Delhi is likely to begin this year Also plans are afoot to set up a UNESCO House in Delhi. UNESCO's World Heritage Committee is likely to consider granting putting Majuli Island in Assam in the “List of World Heritage in Danger'.

New Delhi: India and Bangladesh on Monday signed three agreements to fight terror, organised crime and drug trafficking and a pact on sharing power.