Ashish Kumar Sen

WASHINGTON - Buoyed by the mandate of his people, Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's first democratically elected president, now faces some of the biggest tests of his leadership.

It's not often that India and Pakistan agree on something. When they do, it becomes cause for congratulatory phone calls from Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to the foreign ministers of both countries.

The 40,000 IIT graduates in the U.S. have helped change perceptions of India as geo-economics changes our lives. One of the goals of the alumni of the Indian Institutes of Technology is to turn their alma mater into a household name in the United States, like Harvard, MIT and Stanford.

Tents and relief supplies donated by international charities for survivors of a deadly earthquake in Pakistan-administered Kashmir are being hoarded by local officials, said human rights groups and volunteers working in the stricken region. The charges come with the onset of the freezing Himalayan winter, when shelter can mean the difference between life and death for hundreds of thousands of families left homeless.

Israel should not prevent the Islamic militant group Hamas from participating in Palestinian elections in January, but it must insist that the group disarm before doing so, says the deputy mayor of Tel Aviv-Yafo.

The Bush administration will have a tough time convincing skeptical members of Congress that its July 18 decision to undertake civilian nuclear cooperation with India will not undermine the U.S. commitment to nonproliferation.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, two teams of men smartly attired in cricketing gear prepared for a face-off at a minor league baseball field in a suburb of Washington, D.C. Three hours later, with the match satisfactorily over, the cheery group was packing its bags and heading home.