International and Bilateral Issues:

The prolonged stay of an armed ship in India's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is a matter of concern
Iranian ship MV Assa, anchored about 160 nautical miles west of Kochi for a few weeks now, was under round-the-clock monitoring by the Navy.
The ship has on-board machineguns [ostensibly to thwart] the menace of piracy. It is in international waters and has not violated any law. We can't do anything so long as there is no EEZ violation. The Ministry of Defence, which is seized of the matter, has launched a protest against the Iranians
Up to 12 nautical miles from the shore is India's territorial waters where the internal laws of the land apply. However, the area within the EEZ, which extends up to 200 nautical miles from the coast, are international shipping lanes. While India holds the right to exploit the marine resources in its EEZ, it can't disrupt commercial shipping along the sea lines of communication
According to Navy sources, the concern raised by India's maritime security agencies stems from the fact that the Iranian shipcould be here to discharge hazardous toxic waste.

The Oxford University Press (OUP) on Tuesday said that its decision to discontinue publishing and selling A.K. Ramanujan's essay, ‘Three Hundred Ramayanas,' was based on “commercial considerations.” It denied acting under pressure from right-wing protesters who had claimed that the essay hurt Hindu sensitivities.
The two Ramanujan books at the centre of the current debate — Many Ramayanas and The Collected Essays of A.K. Ramanujan — have not been removed from the market in India through acts of censorship.
the book was out of stock from 2008 but OUP continued to collect a small number of back orders on its internal systems.

Hard-line Iranian students stormed the British diplomatic compounds in Tehran on Tuesday, bringing down the Union Jack flag and throwing documents from windows in scenes reminiscent of the anger against western powers after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iran's Parliament approved a bill that reduces diplomatic relations with Britain following London's support of recently upgraded western sanctions on Tehran over its disputed nuclear programme.
The occupiers called for the closure of the embassy calling it a “spy den” — the same phrase used after militants stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 hostages for 444 days.
In the early moments of the siege, protesters tossed out papers from the compound and hauled down the U.S. flag. Washington and Tehran have no diplomatic relations since then.

Pakistan on Tuesday decided to boycott next week's Bonn Conference to decide on the future of Afghanistan.
Pakistan's absence from the Bonn moot would not be helpful to the efforts aimed at bringing about peace in the Afghanistan
The Cabinet also endorsed the decision of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet to stop transit of supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan through Pakistan, and to ask the U.S. to vacate the Shamsi airbase.
Pakistan is under considerable pressure from the United Arab Emirates to reverse its decision to call for vacation of the airbase but has apparently refused to budge.
The airbase had been leased out to UAE by Pakistan in 1992 for allowing rich Arabs to fly directly into Pakistan for hunting purposes and the emirate had, in turn, sublet it to the U.S. The U.S. first used the airbase to launch attacks inside Afghanistan and then for drone attacks inside Pakistan.

A day before the term of Nepal's Constituent Assembly was to expire, lawmakers amended the interim Constitution and extended the CA's term by six more months on Tuesday.
This is the fourth extension of the CA. Its original two-year term ended on May 28, 2010. It was extended for a year, and then twice for three months each. In a recent verdict, the Supreme Court declared that the CA can be extended one last time, and if it failed to write a Constitution, there should be fresh elections or referendum.

President Dmitry Medvedev turned on a new early warning radar in Russia's westernmost region reiterating his threats to counter U.S. missile plans in Europe.
With a range of 6,000 km, the radar can detect ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as aircraft flying across Europe and Northern Atlantic.
Last week, Mr. Medvedev said Russia would deploy Iskander short-range ballistic missiles in Kaliningrad if the U.S. goes ahead with placing missile interceptors in Europe.

In a development that underscored weakness in the United States economy, the parent company of American Airlines (AA), the country's fourth-largest airline operator, has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection.
The action by AMR, which comes on the back of an ailing job market and unresolved budget deficit crisis, is likely to deepen concerns of slow economic growth and consequently fears of a double-dip recession.