My Blog

India dream lures migrants' children Rahul is one British Indian who decided to go to India Rising numbers of people of Indian origin born in the West are moving "back" to the country their parents left decades ago. With India's economy growing faster than America or Britain's, the BBC's Rajini Vaidyanathan has been speaking to some of the new wave of "reverse migrants" who are seeking opportunities as well as a cultural connection. I am more Indian than my parents. Officially, anyway. To me this is more than an irony. Mum and dad were born in India, speak the languages, cook the food properly, and know all the customs and cultures. I, on the other hand, was born in Aylesbury in the UK, raised in Milton Keynes, and spent the best part of a decade living in London. I have a very British sense of humour, can just about tie a sari and have still nev...

The US Navy is working on turning seawater into fuel for its planes. But will the idea ever fly? It’s a century-old invention that costs billions to build. So does anyone still need aircraft carriers? The US Navy has a problem.  Its ships often stay at sea for months on end far away from home. To keep its fleet of ships, boats and aircraft running, a fleet of 15 oil tankers roams the globe acting like floating gas stations. According to the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) nearly 600 million gallons (2,300 litres) of fuel were delivered to Navy vessels in 2011. Moving those tanks of oil is an expensive business and that is even before the cost of the oil itself is factored in. Over recent years, the piece of oil has fluctuated wildly, but has generally been on an upward trend. Throw in the fact that many of the large oil-producing nations are generally situated in volatile regions of the world, and you begin to understand why the Navy is interested in cutting...

The Bronx school that produces Nobel winners By Olatz Arrieta BBC Mundo   With such an illustrious alumni, the Bronx High School of Science is tough to get into With its green doors and brown hallways, the Bronx High School of Science looks like many others in New York. But appearances can be deceptive. This high school is a veritable factory of Nobel prize winners in science - no other school in the United States has produced more. Eight alumni of the school have received a Nobel Prize in Physics or Chemistry since 1972. At the main entrance, next to the display case of trophies, there is a poster with photographs of the winners. The only person missing is the latest recipient, Robert F Lefkowitz, who has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, and studied here in the 1950s. Hopeful future Nobel prize winners studying here are, like many students in New York's public schools, the children of immigrants - t...

Changing China seen from the 'hard seats' of a train By Angus Foster BBC News, Beijing Travelling with a cheap rail ticket provides a snapshot of any country's underbelly. Doing it twice at an interval of 26 years, in a country like China, provides a fascinating snapshot of the country's rapid development. Sixteen hours sitting bolt upright on a train gives you a bit of time to reflect on how much a country has changed. It had started to go wrong when I got to the ticket booth in China's capital Beijing and found a queue snaking round the corner. It was the lead-up to the mid-autumn holiday and half the city was headed for distant homes. When I asked for a ticket to Wuhan, an all-night journey south, the young sales girl snorted her derision. Tickets were sold out for the next three days. Continue reading the main story “Half of China's population still lives in the co...

Heriberto Lazcano: The fall of a Mexican drug lord By Will Grant BBC News Heriberto Lazcano, the leader of Los Zetas, one of the Mexico's most feared and brutal drugs gangs, was killed this week in a shoot-out with the Mexican marines. This news was not a major surprise to Mexico-watchers - but then something strange happened. The life of a drug lord is generally pretty short. The world's most notorious was probably "El Patron" - the Colombian cocaine baron, Pablo Escobar, who died aged 44, barefoot, bloated and riddled with bullets on a rooftop in Medellin. Most do not rise that high in the drugs trade, though, nor live that long to tell the tale. We receive constant reports from the Mexican attorney general's office of supposed lieutenants and middle-ranking soldiers from gangs like the Sinaloa Cartel, the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas who have been murdered by their enemies or...

Fears and hopes in Turkish town scarred by Syria conflict By James Reynolds BBC News, Akcakale, Turkey-Syria border   Akcakale border crossing between is now shut Continue reading the main story On the road facing the Syrian border, a single Turkish army tank sits behind a mound of earth. Its sights point across 100 metres of scrubland towards the border. The town of Akcakale has felt some of the effects of its neighbour's conflict. It has been hit several times by shells fired from across the border. Muhittin Kaydi can see Syria from his front garden. He used to work as a money changer at the nearby border post.   Muhittin Kaydi says his children are now scared to play outside But that post is now closed, and Mr Kaydi has lost his job. He finds it hard to reassure seven children that their home is safe. "I tell them to calm down," he says, "but every time a door slams,...

Cuban missile crisis: The other, secret one By Joe Matthews Journalist How the second missile crisis unfolded Continue reading the main story Contrary to popular belief, the Cuban missile crisis did not end with the agreement between the US and Soviet Union in October, 1962. Unknown to the US at the time, there were 100 other nuclear weapons also in the hands of Cuba, sparking a frantic - and ingenious - Russian mission to recover them. In November 2011, aware that the 50th anniversary of the most dangerous few weeks in history was less than a year away, my Russian colleague Pasha Shilov and I came across several new accounts that changed our perspective on the Cuban missile crisis and how much we thought we knew about it. Growing up in Berkshire, England, through the nuclear paranoia of the 1980s, ...