Well, we all know this. Serbia used to include the area, which is now known as Kosovo. However, Kosovo started forming its own militant separatist cells. Upon finding out this, Serbia decided to stop this and from then on, things got ugly. After many years, maybe there is some shimmer of hope for the two countries. Regarded as a truly historic event, Kosovo and Serbia signed an agreement in Brussels on 19 April.

Almost 14 years following the war between Kosovo and Serbia, this agreement marks the first formalized type of agreement, which suggests the existence of normal relations between the neighbors. This agreement has also paved way to the membership of the EU, thereby raising hopes for the entire region. This is a welcome move and EU diplomats are receiving this with open arms. Nonetheless, all is not over yet. There still exists some amount of uncertainty regarding the implementation of the agreement.

In reaction to the deal signed, Kosovo Serb representatives reacted by putting up demonstrations in North Mitrovica to oppose the deal. In fact, this holds no weight as from July 2010, the international court of justice concluded that Serbia had no real means of opposing the status of Kosovo.

In this deal signed between the two once hostile neighbors, the merger of the four Serb municipalities in the north are now subject to Kosovo law. Kosovo would now have control over areas like economic development, healthcare, education and town planning. Security is one area that remains dubious. As per the deal, Kosovo police force will be deployed in the north. However, the regional commander posted in the north would be a Serb.

With regard to justice, a part of the Kosovo court will be placed in the north. However, the judges are mainly Serbs. Local councilors will be elected following Kosovo law. Additionally, Nato Kosovo Force will be deployed during these election periods and will help maintain law and order. Perhaps, the most important part of the deal is that both neighbors would no longer hinder each other’s efforts to gain EU membership.

Following the sealing of the agreement, Serbian prime minister, Ivica Dacic is reported to have told that this agreement brings about the best possible situation for Kosovo and Serbia. Since March 2011, dialogues had been ongoing in attempts to improve the living conditions of those living in the north. However, it took a long time for a settlement to come about from both parties. Finally, the nationalist government, which came to power following the 2012 general elections in Serbia declared that Kosovo was no longer subject to Serb sovereignty and could run its own capital.

The man who has toppled twice as Pakistan PM, jailed and even exiled, has now been elected again to serve as Pakistan’s Prime Minister. About a decade ago, it is this very man who stood at the Indo-Pakistan border with archenemy India to help inaugurate a ‘friendship’ bus service which was introduced to connect the two rival countries in a hope to reconcile ties.

It is now hoped that PM Sharif will yet again work at sweetening ties between the two countries. It is likely that he will take bold actions like he did in the past to improve relations with India, thereby reducing the chances of another major way between the nuclear-armed foes. This confidence comes about because of Sharif’s previous attempts at reaching out to India in a bid to forge better ties. In the past, these efforts were undermined by Pakistan’s powerful army. Sharif is geared up to helping Pakistan recover its tumbling economy and forging closer ties with India would help increase amount of trade between the two countries. By making peace with India, Sharif could also benefit from reducing threat posed by India, thereby reducing the clout of the army in Pakistan.

Sharif told reporters that he is keen on picking up where he left off back in 1999. This is what he has in mind to improve ties between Pakistan and India.

Given that Sharif has publicly articulated his intentions to forge better ties between the two rival countries, India’s political leaders and media have also taken this in a positive light. India has repeatedly been frustrated by Pakistan’s attempt to attack India and its failure to crack down on Lashkar-e-Tayyeba. In this regard, Sharif has vowed that such an incident will not repeat again.

Given the promises made by the newly elected Prime Minister, there will be many watchful eyes seeing if he manages to keep up to his words. If he indeed works on what he hopes to achieve, India and Pakistan stand to mutually benefit from each other. The quickly he gets to work on this, the more confident India will become on Pakistan’s seriousness about forging genuine ties. India Pakistan could also stand to benefit considerably if Sharif works on improving economic ties between the two sides by opening more border crossing. This way, more cargo could ply between the two countries. Many political observers purport that they are optimistic that Sharif will be able to improve Pakistan’s relations with India. However, at the same time, they claim that one should be realistic and not hope for an immediate crackdown on Lashkar-e-Tayyeba issue or a Kashmir settlement.

Once Sharif gets cracking on his work laid out for him, it will be interesting to watch the events that unfold with regard to India and Pakistan foreign relations.

Following incidents of sexual assaults in the US armed forces, US military leaders are ashamed and angry. These incidents have caused top ranking Pentagon officials to ensure that all efforts are taken to prevent such abuses from further occurring. This move came strongly from President Obama who pushed for a legislation to be introduced in Congress in efforts to seek justice for the victims. There were two high profile cases related to sexual assault in the military and were carried out by service members tasked with preventing such crimes.

Obama told reporters that his administration not only treated these acts as criminal acts but also found them shameful and disgraceful to the entire military system. Such acts only served to make the military less effective than it should be and these pose as security threat to the country. A survey found that about 26,000 cases of unwanted sexual contact took place in 2012 alone. This is a 35 percent increase from the estimated figure of 19,300 cases recorded in 2010. What is shocking is that a first class army sergeant posted at the sexual assault prevention unit at Fort Hood, Texas, was accused of sexual assault, abusive sexual contact and so on. Likewise, early in May, an Air Force officer who was tasked with preventing sexual assaults was charged with sexual battery. Upon investigation, he was dismissed from his duties. He was also accused of groping a woman’s buttocks and breasts.

There is a growing concern within the Pentagon that the latest sexual assault cases show that the military is not reliable enough to defend those in high-ranking positions against sexual predators. What this perhaps means is that some elements of preventing sexual assault may need to be taken out of the military’s charge. This is precisely what some lawmakers want as well. They feel that the military system is too consumed by its internal conflicts of interests that it is unable to objectively mete out justice to victims.

Whatever the case, these unprecedented sexual assaults have put pressure on the Pentagon to ensure that the military system exists for what it should do exist for. This pressure has put the Pentagon on the defensive. Spokespersons from the Pentagon reported that the Pentagon is now focused on taking real steps that they believe, in combination with retraining could bring about a change in the military system. Retraining efforts will not necessarily be limited to recruiting officers and those who work with sexual assault victims, but also include other job classifications as well. These actions taken by the Pentagon in collaboration with the Congress is likely to bring about some radical changes given the dip in confidence among people in the military.

Rivalry can take ugly turns not sparing even kindergarten children. This happened when two children of a kindergarten school in China died after drinking poisoned yoghurt by a rival school. These two girls of Pingshan country in Hebei Province of China suffered convulsions after consumption of the yoghurt and died later. Owner of the rival kindergarten and an associate have been detained after confession by rival owner that they poisoned the yoghurt.

The said rival owner confirmed that she had mixed rat poison in the yoghurt and her associate had put that yoghurt with the notebooks of the children on the road to the school from where the grandmother of the children took it unaware of the contamination of the contents. Both the children died moments after consuming the yoghurt.

According to the grandmother, she had kept the yoghurt alongside the books and pen which she had picked up from the road. In the afternoon, the girls came and drank the yoghurt and found the taste somewhat unusual and enquired from her. She also tasted it and thought there was something wrong with the bottle of the yoghurt. By then, both girls had collapsed and were foaming from mouth. The grandmother also displayed some problems after tasting it and had to undertake treatments.

Yuan Ailing, a Primary Education Professor at School of Life Sciences in East China Normal University, termed this as an extreme case and stressed on the lack of supervision in preschool education. She also pointed out the negligence of local government authorities in supervising pre-schools. Many departments have the duty of managing kindergartens but they are not doing it responsibly.

The incident’s primary cause was due to the two kindergarten owners trying to accelerate their number of students and therefore they were trying to malign the image of one another. Generally these private kindergarten schools don’t have necessary facilities due to lack of capital money and therefore indulge in such kind of activities to increase strength of children.

Such cases are equivalent to child abuse and need to be dealt with more strictly. Different incidents of similar kind have been happening in China like recently a man entered a school and slashed many kids and an adult with a knife and, in another incident, a car thief killed an infant who was sleeping in the back seat of the car which he stole. Learning about these incidents, one starts thinking there are no extents to one’s greed which lead to such incidents involving even infants.

Tax saving is always on everyone’s mind, be it any individual or a corporate giant. Money saved by tax saving can be considered as an alternate source of income. This is evident from Apple’s move of saving $9.2 billion tax. Apple’s team of accountants decided to finance a $55 billion stock buyback by using debt and not using offshore cash for the same. As a result, US government was not able to tax them on the deal which could amount of $9.2 billion.

Gerald Granovsky, Senior Vice President at Moody’s Investment Services explained that if Apple would have used $100 billion from offshore cash reserve to fund this buyback, they had to pay 35 percent of the money to get it into the country. Saving $9.2 billion this time, it would amount to $100 billion a year since interest payments are tax deductible, he said.

Integrating debt into capital formation will result in profits, confirmed Mr. Peter Oppenheimer, Chief Financial Officer. This also includes abetment in capital costs and better reach to attractively priced capital, he said.

Apple has become one of the largest corporate tax payers in the country as confirmed by Steve Dowling, a company spokesperson. He said that $6 billion federal corporate income tax has been paid by Apple in 2012. This comes to around 1 in 40 dollars of total corporate tax submitted to the government.

Sale of bonds of $17 billion, which Apple announced last week, in a single week is the biggest corporate sale out on record and would have cost heavily if they had to finance it via offshore cash. This came in effect to depreciating growths which are hampering the growth of the stock the company. The stock observed a downward slide by 36 percent since last September. The company decided to pay back to its shareholders through bigger dividends and share repurchases.

Tax avoidance is common among corporate giants with leading companies using different tactics to save tax. In 2011, Facebook made huge profits or around $1.1 billion but paid no tax and received a refund of $429 million. Similarly Microsoft owed huge sum of money to countries like Denmark, the UK, France and the US in last three years. Google has been avoiding taxes through similar tactics.

All the companies are exploiting such trivial shortcomings of the corporate tax laws and using different tactics to save tax. Looking at the share of corporate tax, a downward trend has been observed in recent years with companies increasing their global footprints and finding different ways to save tax according the corresponding countries tax laws. It calls for the policymakers to change the existing norms and sort a different strategy to implement tax laws and lessen the government losses through such tax avoidance.

The Delhi police have arrested former India Test bowler Sreesanth and two of his other teammates from Rajasthan Royals on grounds that they have been involved in spot fixing in the Indian Premier League. India’s cricket board took action by suspending Sreesanth and teammates Ankeet Chavan and Ajit Chandila. If found guilty, the trio would have to face stricter punishments. The cricket board is firm on its stand to fight illegal activities like spot-fixing and will not condone any form of corruption.

It is suspected that Sreesanth had agreed to concede 13 or more runs in his second over for the match played on 09/05/13 for a sum of 4 million rupees. Reports added that Sreesanth tucked a towel in his waistband so as to send signals to a bookie, who could then place heavy bets on the run. The Delhi Police Commissioner, Neeraj Kumar, said that Sreesanth had bowled the first over without the use of the towel. Subsequently, the towel was placed in his trousers. To allow the bookies to place their bets carefully, Sreesanth then warmed up, stretched and gave 13 runs.

Without revealing too many details, the board said that there seems to be overseas connections associated with this spot-fixing incident and that there is sufficient proof that even the underworld is involved. The three players were arrested after listening to taped conversations lasting hundreds of hours. Two dozens of these phone calls were said to have originated from Pakistan, now regarded as home to a section of the Mumbai underworld

Following the controversy about spot-fixing, more ugly facts are even being revealed. According to news reports, one of the accused, Chavan has allegedly admitted to the charges laid on him. It is said that he also broke down during the investigations by the police. However, among the trio, Sreesanth remains firm on his stand and insists that he was framed by the bookies. Lawyers acting on behalf of Sreesanth said that there was no basis for the claims made against Sreesanth. The trio accused of spot-fixing have been sent to police custody for a period of 5 days.

30 year old Sreesanth hails from Kerala and has featured in 27 Tests and 53 ODIs. The other two accussed are spinners with Chavan hailing from Mumbai and Chandila from Haryana. This scandal is the worst to have hit the Indian Premier League, a series which attracts the best cricketers from around the world.  Kumar also reported that while Chavan was paid Rs.60 lakhs by the bookies, Sreesanth and Chandila received a sum of Rs.40 lakhs each. 11 bookies were also arrested by the Special Cell of Delhi Police from New Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad. The Police department had confiscated about 55 mobile phones and laptops. They are yet to recover the money they were paid.

India has defended its right of building infrastructure on its land and the defence minister claims that Indian Army and Air Force is capable of dealing with any challenge. The minister on the sideline of the recent incident was interacting with reporters in Panaji. He claimed that like China, India too had the right to defend its territory and will ensure that no misadventure on part of China takes place ever.

The recent incursion incident that carried on for 21 days had created a wedge between India and China and both the countries were feeling the need to deescalate. However, the rhetoric against China is nothing new and every time the Chinese side indulges in any such activity, India merely issues a veiled threat and that too after the Chinese withdrawal.

Reports emerging from Daulat Beg Oldie sector are contrary to what the Defence minister is pointing. As per the reports it was only when India agreed to dismantle its position from Chumar area, did China withdrew from Depsang valley in the Daulat Beg Oldie sector.

External affairs minister, Salman Khurshid who has just returned after a 2day trip to China was also quick to point out that India did not strike any deal with China on the withdrawal issue and that the matter was sorted out amicably.

However, this soft posturing by India on the border conflict has always been used by China to its advantage. The Chinese side had merely issued a clarification that the activities on their side of border were simply developmental in nature and that it did not want India to be a party to the same.

When asked if India had already started dismantling its infrastructure in Chumar region, A.K. Antony avoided a direct answer. He simply pointed out that any kind of discussion on this topic was unwarranted. The implementation of the same was being done by local commanders.

Interestingly, the defence minister was quick to point out that India believed in solving challenges through diplomatic means only. According to Antony, the country goes by standard procedures in such circumstances and not much needs to be read between the lines.

The minister evaded a direct reply on why India could not prevent the Chinese from intruding in its territory. The minister maintained that status quo was his prime concern and the same has been maintained.

The Chinese issue has always embroiled Indian defence establishment in doldrums. According to some defence analysts, the reason for the same is that the Army still has a fear psychosis from what happened during the Indo China war in 1962. However, it needs to be remembered that the incidents at that point of time were a consequence of political miscalculations and the Indian Army need not be blamed for the same. We need to rise above fear and ensure that our territorial integrity is maintained, all the while.

Friday was the day of awakening for the ruling United Progressive Alliance led by Congress. Bowing to public pressure its two ministers who were embroiled in corruption charges had to make way.  Railway minister, Pawan Kumar Bansal and law minister Ashwani Kumar were shown the door. Interestingly, both the ministers are from North India and their departure is set to create a vacuum in the ministry, when it comes to inducting ministers from North India.

Rumours were also building that Manmohan Singh was initially hesitant to remove the minsters as both of them were considered to be close to him. However, Sonia Gandhi was adamant on removing the tainted ministers and after a hectic discussion with the Prime Minister for over 45 minutes, it was   decided that both Pawan Kumar Bansal and Ashwani Kumar will have to resign.

It is also worth mentioning here that for the first time in Indian political history has such circumstances built up that two central ministers had to resign in a single day and that too for corruption related charges. The ruling Congress will like to derive political mileage from the episode as it was under pressure to act against the ministers.

The principle opposition party, the BJP that had to bow out of power in Karnataka only two days ago on corruption charges too finds itself in a tight spot. Congress can now go around boasting that it is a party that works on principles and does not tolerate corruption in any form.

On their parts both the ministers had issued clarifications too. While Pawan Kumar Bansal pointed out that he was resigning due to the misconduct of his nephew, Ashwani Kumar cited that he would not want to create a political problem for the party, especially when the Lok Sabha polls are fast approaching.

Both the ministers reached the residence of Prime Minister around 9 pm and shortly the resignations were announced. While it is not clear as to who will hold the charge in the railway ministry, the name of Kapil Sibal is doing the rounds for the post of law minister.

Congress spokesperson Bhakta Charan Das was quick to offer the comments on the emerging scenario. The spokesperson pointed out that while the Congress party was quick to act on matters related to corruption and has given marching orders to its ministers in one day, the BJP needs to explain as to why it did not take remedial action in time in states like Karnataka, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh where its Chief Minsters were facing such allegations of corruption.

This war of words is set to escalate in coming times and both parties seem to be prepared for the same. However, in this war of scoring points over the political rivals, one at times forgets the real issues. The need of the hour to look for the root cause of this corruption and merely seeking the resignation of minsters will not solve the problem in longer perspective. Congress and BJP know this very well but choose to shun away the menace of corruption and seek short term remedial measures, which sadly are not too good for a thriving democracy like India.

In the latest case in this regard, the main opposition party, the BJP has set a condition that it will not allow the passage of bills until the law minister Ashwani Kumar and railways minister Pawan Kumar Bansal are removed from their constitutional posts.

The Congress meanwhile is finding itself in a tight spot due to the tough stand adopted by the opposition as the fate of National Food Security Bill and Land Acquisition Bill hangs in balance, until the time, the opposition mends its ways.

In the BJP parliamentary meeting chaired by Lal Krishan Advani, it was decided that the party will seek time from Lok Sabha speaker to prevent the ruling party to rush through these two vital bills. Gopinath Mundae, the Deputy leader of BJP in Lok Sabha made the intentions of the party clear when he pointed out that the party will not participate in any discussions till both the minsters are either not removed or terminated. The hasty passing of bills without any proper discussion would also not be allowed at any cost, as per Gopinath Mundae.

Both key minsters of ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) are in the eye of storm that has made life difficult for the ruling coalition. While Pawan Kumar Bansal is in news because of his nephew who was caught in a bribery scandal, the law minster has been caught in the twists and turns of the Colgate issue.

Munde even blamed the ruling party of trying to pass off the bills in haste. He pointed out that the government had tried to pass the Food Security Bill in the din that prevailed because of the commotion of the Indo China conflict and the Colgate scandal that is making news these days.

Infact, BJP has set conditions for passing of these vital bills. Gopinath Mundae pointed out that only if Pawan Bansal and Ashwani Kumar resign, will the bills will see the light of the day. He claimed that whole opposition is united on the issue and will not allow passage of bills, until the ministers resign.

Meanwhile, intellectuals among the political clan are raising questions on the credibility of the opposition and intentions of the government on this prevailing commotion. Irrespective of the party which is ruling, it has become a common practice to disallow the passage of vital bills until the political aspirations of leaders are not satisfied.

The ruling clan of India and the opposition alike forget that passage of vital bills as Food Security Bill and Land Acquisition Bill is quite essential for healthy growth of our democracy. It is high time that our leadership and those in responsible positions in opposition rise above their political aspirations and help the country prosper and grow. Only then will the true worth of being the biggest democracy in the world will be realized.

A software engineer based in Coimbatore, C Ashok Kumar has filed the complaint that he was looking for Hotmail on Google. As soon as he keyed in the word Hot on the Google screen, random number of links appeared online which were linked to various pornographic websites.

What disturbed C Ashok Kumar was the fact that as several children used internet at his home for completing home work and checking out several online tests, any such misguided search can spoil the pristine mind of child. Anyone looking for medical meaning of word ‘Sex’ on Google usually ends up opening pornographic sites, at times causing huge embarrassment to everyone present around.

The court has meanwhile decided to serve notices on internet giant Google soon and the case would be up for hearing on June 7^th. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team was too made party as it has failed to notify Google on the actions it needed to take to tackle the problem.

One needs to look no further than China when it comes to implementing local cyber laws in true earnest. China was the first country to remove obscene content from search engines operated by Google. C. Ashok Kumar in his complaint was also quite critical of You Tube, the video subsidiary of Google. The video uploading site features a range of videos and one can search for sexually explicit videos with ease on You Tube. The situation is so bad that anyone can upload any vulgar video with ease on You Tube. One sees a manifestation of this, almost on a daily basis when local explicit videos feature on You Tube.

Here is actual search result for search term “Hot”

Kumar demanded that all the content that comes on these websites should be filtered before the same gets uploaded. It is the moral duty of these search engines and Google in particular to protect the morality of our young generation and children in particular who are dependent on Google for finding a range of material. Washing off its hands and leaving everything to the judgement of the children is not the solution to the problem and Google must take remedial measures on its own to stop the spread of pornographic material through its sites.

Kumar maintained that he has even recommended blocking of the search engine if it does not adhere to morality aspects. Google on its part needs to act in a responsible manner. The search engine is used extensively throughout the world and the complaint filed by C. Ashok Kumar should motivate the search engine giant to introspect on what has gone wrong with it.