After 25 years, for the first time, election was held to the demerged Northern Provincial Council (NPC) on September 21. Though the victory of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) with a thumping two-third majority was predicted, some thought the development route to ethnic reconciliation as relentlessly articulated and pursued by the Rajapakse government, would give it some electoral benefits. It managed to win only 7 seats (18.38 per cent of the votes) in the 38-member council.

Nairobi, the capital of African nation Kenya has witnessed one of the bloodiest terrorist events of recent times. Starting from September 21, the attack at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi which continued till September 24 resulted in more than 60 deaths and scores of people have been injured. Somali Jihadi terrorist group Al-Shabaab, an al Qaeda affiliated and a splinter of the Islamic Courts Union, (ICU) claimed responsibility for this four day long mindless mayhem.

Syrian crisis has achieved the unachievable. It has compelled a communist country to talk peace and democratic/capitalist countries to talk war. Fortunately, it appears that the invasion of Syria by the US forces has been stopped, at least, temporarily. An agreement on chemical weapons stockpiled in Syria has been reached following the talks held in Geneva between the Foreign Minister of Russia, Sergey V. Lavrov, and US Secretary of State John Kerry.

As the September 07 presidential elections are getting closer in Maldives, three out of four presidential candidates and their political parties have been trying to woo the security agencies and indulge in religion based campaigning.

The strategically significant Central Asian region, which feeds by two historically important river systems- Amu Darya and Syr Darya with credible hydrocarbon and oil resources, is quite often attracts theories of 'resource conflict', 'water war' and 'great game'. However, cooperative management on strategic rivers to cater to the needs of riparian countries remains an unresolved issue.  Presently, the UN is organising a two days (August 20-21) High-Level International Conference on Water Cooperation (HLICW) in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

On July 26, 2013 India’s dedicated meteorological satellite INSAT-3D was successfully launched into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) by Ariane-5 VA-214 launch vehicle from Kourou, French Guiana. This satellite has been designed and developed by India Space Research Organization (ISRO). The process of orbit raising maneuvers is under progress to place it in the 36,000 km high Geostationary Orbit.