As the balance of global research and development activity tilts towards Asia, China is making sure it occupies a position at its centre.

Barun Roy: 'Mainland' for innovation

Business Standard

If you knew Sarawak &ndash; the East Malaysian state on the island of Borneo &ndash; only as a land of tropical rain forests, oil palm and orang-utans, it&rsquo;s time you changed your view. For, this laidback place of 2.3 million people, which receives some 3.5 million adventure tourists a year, has forcefully emerged, in just a couple of years, as Malaysia&rsquo;s next major heavy industry base and foreign investment destination.

Barun Roy: Malaysia's SCORE card

At this year&rsquo;s Republic Day parade in Kolkata, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wasn&rsquo;t on hand to receive Governor M K Narayanan at the podium when he drove up. She had yet to reach the venue, having suddenly decided to leave her car and walk, just so she could wave to and get waved at by her fans. Was this breach of protocol intentional, to snub the governor who had earlier expressed his unhappiness over issues like farmer suicides in West Bengal and child deaths in government hospitals? One can&rsquo;t say, but it was typical Mamata behaviour.

Paribartan and payback

An air of great hope hangs over Myanmar following pro-democratic reforms announced in recent months by the country&rsquo;s new set of rulers. And it further cleared in mid-February when the government of President Thein Sein allowed masses to congregate at Yangon&rsquo;s famed Shwedagon Pagoda to celebrate the 2,600th year of Lord Buddha&rsquo;s enlightenment. This was the first permitted public gathering at the pagoda in over 23 years.

Barun Roy: Myanmar? get set?

One year on, the Japanese can&rsquo;t still get over the nightmare of meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex, triggered by a catastrophic tsunami, that has left all but two of the country&rsquo;s 54 nuclear power plants idled for rigorous stress tests.

Barun Roy: Life after Fukushima

To an otherwise frothy year of celebrations of the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore, filled mostly with mundane, beaten-track rituals, going even to the ludicrous extent of playing Tagore songs all day long, seven days a week, at major road crossings in Kolkata, Amit Chaudhuri&rsquo;s book lends a welcome touch of seriousness.

Poet of unforeseen arrival

A common theme that ran through the recent parliamentary debate on the Lok Pal Bill was, simply put, this: street agitations can&rsquo;t be allowed to decide government policies nor usurp the constitutional duty of lawmakers. It was an arrogant position to take, considering that Anna Hazare was only reflecting popular will and under the Constitution, people matter above everything else. By denigrating Hazare, politicians were actually belittling public opinion that exists outside the purview of government and Parliament and, thus, in a fundamental sense, devaluing the very spirit of the Constitution.

Barun Roy: Arrogance before the fall?

After much hesitation and dilly-dallying, Indonesia seems ready, at last, to undertake what could be one of the world&rsquo;s most expensive infrastructural projects &mdash; a $25-billion bridge across the Sunda Strait that separates the islands of Java and Sumatra. Early last month, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono signed a decree for a team to study the technical aspects of the proposed bridge and come up with a design within the next 12 months.

Barun Roy