In case folk were unaware of it (as I was), 2007 kicked off the International Polar Year, with its own website.

While reading K's recent diary about being a couch potato, I suddenly realised the difference between the East and West. The answer - East of Suez, We.Cannot.Cook.Potatoes.

Ahmed Rashid has an excellent reputation as a journalist over here, writing for liberal dailies in Pakistan, and with reports appearing in the Daily Telegraph and NYT, although he also has the negatives associated with gaining a reputation as a pundit, namely, a website, to start with. Nevertheless, his latest book (although somewhat dated by the speed of fast moving events) charts the melancholy progress of events in Afghanistan from 2003 to early 2008 in more detail than most.

I mentioned our local intelligence gathering agencies in my last diary. Mostly, their work doesn't get published in our local press. Recently after the spate of serial bombings and the bumbling of our terrorism watchers they have pointed me to articles, in the NYT, of all places - where more worthwhile stuff seems to get published than anywhere else. I'm not sure if all the gentlemen in the forvm here agree with that.

Living just next to a porous border, I get to meet up with some of our local intelligencewallahs from time to time who are trying to plug a long border to assorted militants extending across four countries.

After single-handedly taking a decision to increase pollution in our part of the world by 100% by inflicting the Nano, Tata Motors is finally doing something worthwhile. A recent visit by my wife to Bangalore got me a sneak preview of the miniCAT.

There is a great crop of talented writers in English just now in South Asia. I've already written about my favourite. Someone who is really hitting the headlines here just now is the Pakistani writer Mohammad Hanif. His debut novel merited an op-ed in Dawn by Afiya Zia

BlaiseP's recent diary on the the problems in this region gives a flavour of the importance of the drug trade in this part of the world.

As much for our two countries' loss of innocence as any other, as, for the first time, we have an embassy bombed.

Not my words - incidentally, don't miss the VW ad