Free Republic

The Norwegian archaeologists Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad's famous identification, in 1961, of a Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, from just after A.D. 1000 is, of course, a notable exception, no longer in dispute. But that discovery has so far gone nowhere. The Norse settlers, who may have numbered as many as 160 and stayed for three years or longer, seem to have made no lasting impression on the aboriginal skraellings that, according to Norse sagas, they encountered, and to have avoided being influenced in turn. The traditions of the Micmac people, modern-day inhabitants of the area, have...

In the good old days, if they fell in love in B-school, got married and kicked off a career, the choices were predictable — if it was an MBA in marketing, it had to be a role in a consumer goods multinational (think Hindustan Unilever or Procter & Gamble or Nestle); if it was finance, the husband-wife duo inevitably found themselves at rival investment banks on Dalal Street. These days, it's a bit different. Many couples who met in school or college — not just B-schools — are taking the long and invigorating walk down the aisle of entrepreneurship. And,...

It has been just one month since President Obama visited New Delhi and planted a sacred Peepal tree in the grounds of a Mahatma Gandhi memorial garden. But now the tree has been reduced to little more than a stick after all the leaves suddenly dropped off, causing panic among nervous officials.

Officials in India want to make one thing clear: The tree that President Barack Obama planted in New Delhi three weeks ago is not dead. It just looks dead.

(Reuters) - The government has cleared a $8 billion plan to build India's most advanced warships, defence sources said, just months after ordering new submarines to close the gap with the Chinese navy in the Indian Ocean. Since taking over last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has signalled his resolve to build a strong military after years of neglect that military planners say has left India unable to fight a two-front war against China and Pakistan. India's navy has been rattled in recent months after Chinese submarines docked in Sri Lanka, just off its southern coast, underlining the growing reach...

China's Real Estate Market Crashing... Real Estate is the single biggest domestic lending segment in China. Combined with deflation in Iron Ore, Steel, Copper, and other industrial metals China's collateral quality is looking very very shaky compared to loan volume... SNIP While the world's attention is glued to events in Greece, the real action continues to evolve quietly thousands of kilometers east, in China, where the near record surge in new loans remains unable to offset the dramatic slowdown in shadow banking issuance. And while China's bubble-chasing, animal spirits have recently reoriented themselves from real estate to the stock market,...

At about $50 a barrel, crude oil prices are down by more than half from their June 2014 peak of $107. They may fall more, perhaps even as low as $10 to $20. Here’s why.

NEW DELHI-An Indian Air Force fighter jet crashed Tuesday, a day after the country’s military paraded its might in front of the nation and U.S. President Barack Obama during Republic Day celebrations. An air force official said the pilot of the single-engine, single-seater MiG-27 aircraft of Russian origin ejected safely before the plane crashed in Barmer, in the northwestern state of Rajasthan, which borders Pakistan. “The plane was on a routine mission,” the official said, without elaborating. The crash highlights the aging equipment of the Indian armed forces. The South Asian country has been seeking to modernize its mainly Soviet-era...

1971, A War Hero Remembers War Hero Major General Ian Cardozo (retd)was wounded in the battle of Sylhet in Bangladesh in the 1971 war with Pakistan. He lost his leg in a landmine blast, but conquered his disability and went became the first disabled officer in the Indian Army to command an infantry battalion and then a brigade. Awarded a Sena Medal for gallantry, General Cardozo is presently Chairman of the Rehabilitation Council of India and has authored The Sinking of INS Khukri -- Survivors Stories and Param Vir -- Our Heroes In Battle. In conversation with Claude Arpi, the...

An Opinion article in the Washington Post by John R. Graham explains How Domestic Medical Tourism Could Save Us All Money. One of the most under-reported medical success stories in recent years has been the increase in medical tourism: traveling abroad to get high-quality care at a fraction of what it would cost in the United States. The same Lasik eye surgery that might cost $4,400 here (for both eyes) is available in India, for example, for $500, according to the Medical Tourism Association. A heart-valve replacement that might cost $170,000 in the United States could cost less than $30,000...

Even as three Rafale fighters line up in Bengaluru for eye-popping aerobatics displays at the Aero India 2015 exhibition this week, senior ministry of defence (MoD) sources say the proposal to buy the French fighter is "effectively dead".The reason: During three years of negotiations between Dassault and MoD officials in the so-called "contract negotiation committee" (CNC), it has emerged that Dassault's bid was actually higher than that of the Eurofighter Typhoon, not lower as the MoD had announced on January 31, 2012. Dassault had submitted a sketchy commercial bid, and when the CNC obtained details from the French company to...

It was too good to be true. India’s Prime Minister and leader of the Indian right, and the most leftist US President in history seemed to be getting along. Then on January 27, the final day of his three-day Indian trip, President Obama spoke to 1,500 people at the iconic Siri Fort, and to the ears of those that heard it, lectured that “India will succeed so long as it was not splintered along the lines of religious faith.” The general reaction among Indians was ‘who does he think he is?’ Religious conflict has been in the forefront here of...

Radical Islamist group Hizb-ut- Tahrir which cleverly avoided global scrutiny while spreading its ideology may become a more dangerous terrorist group than the ISIS and it's presence in South Asia should be a cause for concern for India, according to a report. "While ISIS runs amok in Syria and Iraq, demanding media attention through acts of barbarous cruelty, HuT (Hizb-ut- Tahrir or the Party of Liberation) is quietly building a global infrastructure of radicalised youth and deep-pocketed Arab support in preparation for the global Khilafat," said the report published in the latest edition of CTX Journal. The group has cleverly...

Madison police today released video of officers throwing a 57-year-old Indian citizen on the sidewalk outside his son's home. The incident left the grandfather temporarily paralyzed and hospitalized with fused vertebrae. Chirag Patel said his father, Sureshbhai Patel, was visiting to help his wife care for their new baby, a 17-month-old son, so he could pursue his masters degree in electrical engineering at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Madison police officer Eric Parker today turned himself in to face assault charges. Chief Larry Muncey told a small press conference in Madison that he also recommended that Parker be fired...

With economic growth and demand slowing down in Europe, the sun for Israel’s export-oriented economy is rising in the East. China and India, the two giant economies of Asia, not only offer attractive growth prospects – in contrast to the saturated markets of continental Europe – but their populations also widely view Israel favourably. Especially in the case of India, Israel is well placed to meet some key strategic demands of the country today. India, under the new government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has embarked on an ambitious plan to increase the share of domestic manufacturers in defense...

Madison police last week roughed up a 57-year-old Indian citizen who was walking on the sidewalk outside his son's home, leaving the older man temporarily paralyzed and hospitalized with fused vertebrae."He was just walking on the sidewalk as he does all the time," said his son, Chirag Patel, this morning. "They put him to the ground."No crime had been committed. Madison Police on Monday issued a statement saying the department had suspended the officer and were investigating the use of force in this case. The police statement wished the man a "speedy recovery."Chirag Patel, an engineer for one of the many government...

Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH) is one of the largest providers of technology, consulting and business process outsourcing services. The company was founded in 1994 as a captive arm of Dun & Bradstreet and started trading on the NASDAQ in 1998. The stock just hit an all-time high after reporting 4Q earnings and revenues that exceeded analyst estimates. One of the key drivers this quarter was a 26% surge in revenue from the health care division, its second biggest division behind financial services.Cognizant expanded its health-care offering to take advantage of the industry-wide overhaul of the healthcare system spurred by the...

India on Monday forecast that annual economic growth would accelerate to 7.4 per cent in the year ending in March after its statisticians changed the way they measure Asia's third-largest economy. The new estimate is sharply higher than the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) growth projection of around 5.5 per cent under the old method as well as a revised 6.9 per cent growth a year earlier.

Information technology workers at Southern California Edison (SCE) are being laid off and replaced by workers from India. Some employees are training their H-1B visa holding replacements, and many have already lost their jobs...The H-1B program "was supposed to be for projects and jobs that American workers could not fill," this worker said. "But we're doing our job. It's not like they are bringing in these guys for new positions that nobody can fill. "Not one of these jobs being filled by India was a job that an Edison employee wasn't already performing," he said...SCE employees said that since August,...

The Barak 8 is a long range surface to air missile NEW DELHI: When the Indian Navy commissioned its most-advanced warship eight months ago, the INS Kolkata was missing its primary weapon system - the Barak 8 long range surface to air missiles, 32 of which were meant to be carried onboard in ready-to-fire mode. NDTV has learned that the Barak 8 missile has cleared all its tests and is ready for induction. The missile, designed to intercept incoming anti-ship missiles at a range of at least 70 kilometres, has been made in partnership with Israel, where it has successfully...