Bangladesh was known as East Pakistan from 1948 to 1971, when it broke away from Pakistan and became an independent country. While extreme poverty and devastating floods plague Bangladesh, it is the birthplace of an innovative and profitable idea that has improved the lives of millions--the Grameen Bank. Founded by economics professor Muhammad Yunus in 1976, the bank extends "microcredit"--loans for amounts as small as $2--to people who own no land and are responsible to each other for repayment. By defying conventional banking wisdom, the Grameen Bank has dramatically changed the lives of its borrowers, 94% of whom are women in deeply conservative communities.

Please investigate the Grameen Bank and its offshoot, Grameen Telecom. How do these not-for-profit corporations work? What is the repayment rate for the bank? How will Grameen Telecom transform the lives of families who live in poor rural areas?

Formerly a single colony of the British Empire, India and Pakistan split into two hostile countries during Partition in 1947. Since then, they have fought several wars over the disputed Jammu and Kashmir region. While China also has a territorial claim in the area, the main nuclear threat comes from India and Pakistan, both of whom tested their nuclear weapons in 1998.

Since the War on Terror began in 2001, national alliances have shifted. Pakistan, for example, looks to please both the U.S. and China. Meanwhile, India battles sectarian violence internally. As the world's largest democracy, India voted in a new government in 2004 while Pakistan remains under mainly military control.

Sri Lanka's ethnic diversity developed in part as a result of British colonial cultivation of tea. Tamil workers were imported from southern India, but they did not integrate with the existing Sinhalese culture. By the time the British colony of Ceylon became the independent country of Sri Lanka in 1948, the Sinhalese majority had more economic and political clout than the Tamil, who were persecuted. In 1983, the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) began an insurgency against the formal government that continues today.

Based on your reading, to what extent is Sri Lanka's civil war a legacy of British colonialism? Or is it a modern ethnic conflict, with responsibility for the conflict on the Sri Lankans themselves? Please explain your reasoning with examples or comparisons to other ethnic conflicts.