India’s first-ever Mars mission would begin its travel towards the Red Planet on November 5, 2013. It would take around nine months for this satellite to reach Mars orbit and start taking the observations. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C25) rocket with Mars Orbiter Spacecraft onboard will be launched from Sriharikota (Andhra Pradesh) coast, nearly 50 miles north of Chennai city.

While the world is gradually moving towards a green economy, Orissa is seen to be embracing a brown economy. Depending on the likes of Vedanta, POSCO, batteries of sponge iron, and coal companies, which have demonstrated negligible social and environmental sensitivities, the state government intends to allocate exclusive water to such industries. On August 5, the state cabinet approved a proposal to create a 'water conservation fund' from the monetary contribution of industries which use the water from October to June.

The second constituent assembly (CA) elections in Nepal, slated for November 19 this year, were to give some hope to the politically frustrated masses and bring the derailed transitional political process back on track. But that did neither.

After 25 years, for the first time, the election was held for the demerged Northern Provincial Council (NPC) on September 21. Though the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) victory with a thumping two-thirds 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 the 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 days long mindless mayhem.

The 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 tried to woo the security agencies and indulge in religion-based campaigning. These issues have dominated the campaigning of the two candidates - Ibrahim Gasim of the Jumhoree Party (JP) and Mohamed Waheed of the Gaumee Ithihaad Party (GIP). Instead of focusing on the socio-economic issues, these two parties have been trying to win. The first round of the general elections by dividing the society between  Islamic and anti-Islamic forces.

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, quite often attracts theories of 'resource conflict', 'water war' and 'great game'. However, cooperative management of strategic rivers to cater to the needs of riparian countries remains an unresolved issue.  Presently, the UN is organising a two-day (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 the India Space Research Organization (ISRO). The orbit-raising process of manoeuvres is underway to place it in the 36,000 km high Geostationary Orbit.

On 16 July 2013, the UPA government decided in principle to open up as many as 13 sectors for foreign direct investment—ranging from 49 per cent to 100 per cent—with different caveats. Some needed approval through automatic routes, some through the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), and others with distinct riders.