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Best-selling author Barbara Taylor Bradford's new novel follows two families living in a grand Edwardian manor. She tells NPR that Downton-style dramas are a way of encapsulating life in one house.

Political protests in South Asia aren't what they used to be. Mahatma Gandhi really did walk hundreds of miles when he defied British colonial taxes on salt by trekking to the sea. And when he went on hunger strike, he really did starve himself. When Pakistani lawyers recently protested in a "long march," they drove, in comfy air conditioned SUVS.

Former Pakistani prime minister Nawiz Sharif appeals to the nation's Supreme Court after being rebuffed in his bid to return to the country. Meanwhile, power-sharing negotiations continue between President Pervez Musharraf and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is in Sri Lanka to discuss how to handle the quarter-million people displaced by that island nation's 25-year civil war. The government said more than 6,200 of its forces were killed and almost 30,000 wounded in the final three years of its war against the Tamil Tiger rebels, which ended last weekend.

After a month of voting, the governing Congress party has won decisively in India, defying expectations.

The tiny Himalayan nation of Bhutan has crowned its fifth king in an elaborate Buddhist ceremony. It was the new king's father who pioneered the concept of "gross national happiness" — meaning there's more to a country than economic growth, and spiritual and mental well-being matter just as much.

A special Nepalese assembly voted Wednesday to formally abolish the country's 239-year-old monarchy and turn Nepal into a republic. King Gyanendra has remained unpopular since he seized absolute power in 2005.

Accounts of the escapades of Narayan Dutt Tiwari, a former governor of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, have stunned that nation. He resigned in December, citing health concerns.

India's foreign minister is in Pakistan as the two countries try to resume four years of peace efforts. Their often-combative relationship recently hit a difficult patch, in part because of the fragility of Pakistan's new government.

Senior Indian and Pakistani officials held wide-ranging talks in New Delhi Thursday. The discussions were put on hold after the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai. A band of militants sailed from Pakistan and rampaged through India's commercial capital. U.S. officials are pressing the two sides to end their 63-year dispute.