Amidst the silent horns seeping through the bright “No Horn Please” signs distributed carefully throughout the city, one can hear the screeching sounds of vehicles just moments before crashing into what later becomes ‘a horrendous accident.’ Newspaper reports attribute it to innumerable causes: rash driving, bad road, and foggy weather, careless pedestrians crossing roads and what not.

PARIS – French President Emmanuel Macron recently launched his platform for the upcoming European Parliament elections. Official reactions to his approach—outlined in a commentary published simultaneously in every European Union country—were mostly positive, with even the Euroskeptic prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán and Liviu Dragnea of Romania, endorsing his agenda (for tactical reasons). But, in the chorus of approval, one notable voice was missing: Germany.

Just about the time India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi looked vulnerable, with his popularity rapidly declining, exchange of aerial strikes across the border with Pakistan seems to have reversed the slide. He looks like being back on the track in buoying the prospects of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the seven-phase general elections slated for April-May. At least that is what psephologists have been indicating one after another these past few weeks.

Social media has become both a mitigating and magnifying force for divisions between people around the world. In recent days, we have seen the connection between growing online hate speech and hate crimes in the real world. The apparent inability of legal regimes to creatively deal with this growing trend demonstrates how fast technology has outpaced the law.

Diaspora is a Greek term made up of two words, dia meaning ‘through’ or ‘over’ and speiro meaning ‘dispersal’ or ‘to sow’. It owes much of its origin to the exile of the Jews beyond Israel mainly in the 8th to 6th centuries BC. It is now commonly used in a generic sense for communities of migrants living or settled permanently in other countries, aware of their origins and identity and maintaining various degrees of contact with the mother country.

Nepal’s fast flowing rivers offer a tremendous resource to generate clean renewable energy that can fuel its inclusive growth. That is a double bonanza given how other energy sources are contributing to climate change—increasing the risks to lives and livelihoods around the world.

Today most countries in the world are affected by terrorism. India and Pakistan are no exceptions. Pakistan has been blamed for providing sanctuary to launch terror attacks against India from its soil. As is the case, India has been combating cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan. Although Pakistan denies it, terrorist groups like Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) have carried out attacks against Indian civilians and military installations time and again.

Each of the WHO South-East Asia Region’s Member States has played a critical role in the global push to End TB by or before 2030. In 2017, for example, health ministers from across the region issued a Call for Action, highlighting the measures needed to rout the disease. That was built on the following year by a Statement of Action, which pledged intensified efforts to achieve that outcome, even as domestic funding reached unprecedented levels.

NEW YORK – The US Federal Reserve surprised markets recently with a large and unexpected policy change. When the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) met in December 2018, it hiked the Fed’s policy rate to 2.25-2.5 percent, and signaled that it would raise the benchmark rate another three times, to three to 3.25 percent, before stopping. It also signaled that it would continue to unwind its balance sheet of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities indefinitely, by up to $50 billion per month.

The streets of Kathmandu witnessed yet another agitation in the never-ending series of protests staged by students unions against petroleum price hike by Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC). It has become bit of a ritual: there is a price hike, followed by protests, stage-ins, general strikes and targeted vandalism of government vehicles.