Following years of sometimes difficult relations over trade and political issues, the European Union Commission recently issued a new strategy paper aiming at a “strategic partnership” with India in five key sectors ranging from economics to development.

Nepal’s intermittent terrorist violence and a new wave of civil unrest flared in April and May with European and other international aid donors caught in the middle of the crossfire trying with only slight effect to influence a resolution of the Himalayan kingdom’s lengthy turmoil.

Seemingly against virtually all odds, the Congress Party and its allies, who started the campaign in a timid position of apparent inferiority and gloom, were swept into power May 13 by a majority of Indian voters unconvinced that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s slogans and economic prosperity referred to them.

The long anticipated elections in Sri Lanka in early April may have ended a bitter political test of strength in the country but seemed to have perhaps complicated the leadership’s main challenge of continuing the lengthy peace process with Tamil rebels in the civil war of more than 20 years.