Now people in India are pointing the finger at China. The Times of India yesterday reported unnamed Indian government officials alleging China has orchestrated a series of attacks on sensitive networks of Indian agencies. “China’s cyber warfare army is marching on, and India is suffering silently,” is the lead of the Times story. “Over the past one and a half years, officials said, China has mounted almost daily attacks on Indian computer networks, both government and private, showing its intent and capability.”

In a country where airport security is unfailingly polite and efficient, the guard’s stiff attitude spoke volumes.

Just weeks ago, most Chinese were welcoming foreigners as Olympic guests and partners in the country’s meteoric economic development. But as the country enters the final 100 days before the Olympic Games in Beijing, the mood has changed. Many Chinese have begun to regard foreigners as adversaries interfering in domestic affairs or, at worst, bigots unwilling to accept China’s emergence as a great power.

There’s no denying that Myanmar (formerly Burma) is in bad hands: Suu Kyi has been under house arrest in Rangoon on and off since 1989. In 1990, her national election victory was ignored by the military-backed State Peace and Development Council. Meanwhile, General Than Shwe’s brutal junta has destroyed 3,000 villages, displaced 1.5 million refugees, and conscripted 70,000 child soldiers. Still, Suu Kyi’s call for an ongoing travel boycott seems misguided. It isn’t depriving the SPDC of vital foreign cash, like she claims. It’s depriving her democratic movement of potential supporters all over the globe.

Laid on the pattern of the famed Tulip Gardens of the Netherlands, the garden in the heart of summer capital Srinagar is a welcome addition to Kashmir.

But mounting inflation in the developing world, especially Asia, is threatening that arrangement. Not just in China, where rising energy and labor costs have already made exports to the United States and Europe more expensive, but in the lower-cost alternatives to China, too.

“Inflation is the major threat to Asian countries,” said Jong-Wha Lee, the head of the Asian Development Bank’s office of regional economic integration.

It is also a threat to Western consumers because Asian exporters, even in very poor countries, are passing their rising costs on to their customers.

Perhaps, but probably not. For while Nepal’s King Gyanendra’s dour face may still stare out from 1,000 rupee bank notes and while the palace still in theory flies the royal standard when he is at home, it seems that the country’s monarch is the last of his line.

After 239 years with a royal family – and with a king having enjoyed absolute rule over his impoverished subjects for the overwhelming majority of those years – Nepal is poised to throw out the world’s last Hindu monarchy. Next week voters will elect an assembly whose first scheduled task is to declare Nepal a republic and set about drafting a new constitution. New currency, minus Gyanendra’s image, has already been printed.

In a joint statement issued on Thursday following three-hour consultations on the Sri Lankan issue at a hotel in Chennai, Ramadoss and Thirumavalavan demanded “an immediate halt to all Indian military aid to the Sinhalese chauvinist regime in Sri Lanka which has directed its entire strength in a barbaric manner against the Tamil people”. They have also planned to stage a demonstration against the Indian support to Sri Lankan military.

But on Monday, the Indian government itself consecrated the oft-circulated fiction as fact in Parliament, possibly laying itself open to a breach of privilege. By relaying to Rajya Sabha members (as reported in The Times of India) a host of unsubstantiated and inflated figures about Indian professionals in US, the government also made a laughing stock of itself.