The past week South Asian neighbors Sri Lanka and India wrote page-turners for future generations: While a decades-old bloody ethnic war came to an end in the island nation, India returned 76-year-old Manmohan Singh and his Congress Party-led coalition to a second term, making the economist -- popularly regarded as the father of India's economic liberalization -- only the second prime minister in the last three decades to be re-elected for the country's top job.

Karachi, Paksitan's southern port city and financial capital, witnessed an unnerving coincidence earlier this month: While reports of Taliban militants -- on the run from conflict zones in the north -- infiltrating Karachi started trickling in, the city saw a simultaneous rise in threats and cases of harassment against women. Women have reportedly been approached by men -- sometimes armed -- and asked to cover up or stay home. Others have been threatened with dire consequences for freely roaming the streets or dressing "inappropriately".  

I thought I had written my last post on Slumdog Millionaire. Even then, I was apprehensive: some inevitable stories about the lives of the kids back in their slums had started emerging early. The latest to find a place among cable news headlines is about the Oscar-winning movie's youngest, wide-eyed star Rubina Ali's father trying to "sell" her off for $300,000 to undercover reporters posing as a rich middle-east couple eager to adopt the celebrity kid.

Six years ago, as I sat in my newsroom in New Delhi chatting with my editor, he asked me, "You are coming back to India after you are done with school there, right?" I had just handed in my resignation and was preparing to leave for California. "Of course!" I said. I wasn't lying. I perfectly intended to. A childhood friend of my father's who had moved to the U.S. in the '70s, laughed when I said I'd be back in India after school. "They all say that," he said. "Once you've crossed the seven seas, you are not going back."

  A week from now, the world's biggest celebration of democracy begins. Over 700 million eligible Indians are registered to vote for the country's 15th Parliament in five phases over a period of one month. Three states will also go to the polls to elect local governments. There are seven national political parties, over 30 regional ones, and a 1,000 other parties that the Election Commission lists as registers but unrecognized. The two main national parties are the centralist and grand old Indian National Congress (Congress in short), and the Hindu nationalist, right-wing Bharatiya  Janata Party (BJP).