India, Asia | featured news

President Barack Obama on Monday backed India for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, a dramatic diplomatic gesture to his hosts at the end of his first visit to this booming nation.

The Manmohan Singh government gives pride of place in its foreign policy to countries with the ways and means to transform India. The leader of the pack today, in a typically understated fashion, is Japan. The story goes back to the late 1990s.

The richest man in India, businessman Mukesh Ambani, has moved into his new home in Mumbai which is 27 storeys high and worth an incredible US$1 billion (£630 million).

A "hidden" language spoken by only about 1,000 people has been discovered in the remote northeast corner of India by researchers who at first thought they were documenting a dialect of the Aka culture, a tribal community that subsists on farming and hunting.

After harsh criticism and controversy, the 2010 Commonwealth Games begin Sunday in New Delhi, India.

Indian officials scrambled Thursday to salvage the rapidly approaching Commonwealth Games as a growing number of competitors delayed their arrival to allow organizers time to finish their frantic preparations.

The Commonwealth Games chief rushed to New Delhi seeking emergency talks with the prime minister over India's chaotic preparations, as two world champion competitors withdrew and England warned that problems with the athletes village have left the sporting event on a knife-edge.

After more than 100 days of deadly protests in Kashmir, India this week sent the equivalent of a peace delegation.

India said it withdrew a threat Monday to ban BlackBerry services for at least two more months after the device's maker, Research In Motion Ltd., agreed to give security officials "lawful access" to encrypted data.

Limiting births would allow India time to curb a population that threatens to turn its demography from an asset into a burden.