"He is not under house arrest, he is under country arrest. [And] When he is outside, he flies with half the air force because he knows he can be arrested."

That Sri Lanka won’t be present at the award ceremony on Friday, when jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo receives the Nobel Peace Prize is no surprise. But here’s the logic:

One diplomat from Sri Lanka initially told The Wall Street Journal that its embassy in Oslo was sure to send someone "if nobody had a cold," but later said that no one would attend, saying: "We are a small country and China is now our friend."

“We are appalled to learn that the [UK] government is pressing ahead with ill-considered restrictions on judicial powers to order the arrest of suspected war criminals. Not only is it morally right, but it is also our international obligation to bring war criminals to justice, wherever their crimes were committed. …

“Requiring the prior consent of the director of public prosecutions before an arrest warrant can be issued introduces delay, making it easy for the suspect to leave the country, and risks introducing political interference. …

Amnesty International Wednesday slammed Britain’s announcement of new measures restricting the issuing of arrest warrants for suspected war criminals and torturers visiting the UK as “dangerous and unnecessary.”

“I am saddened with India. I would like to have thought that India would be standing behind us. That it would have followed in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.”

The Indian Express spoke to Myanmar’s opposition icon in her first interview to an Indian news organisation.

Indian and foreign phone companies could be forced to pay more than $1bn each to the New Delhi government after a critical audit of a controversial allocation of mobile licences, the Financial Times reports.

The decision comes amid one of India’s biggest corruption scandals in the Congress-led government’s six years in power, which has damaged the ruling party’s image and strained ties with a crucial coalition ally, Tamil Nadu’s DMK.

Having drawn over $3 billion investment this year alone in car manufacturing facilities, Chennai and its suburbs will in the next five years become a key automobile exporting hub, with investments expected to reach $15bn, the Tamil Nadu government says.

Tamil Nadu presently makes almost 1.3 million vehicles per year, the Economic Times reports.

“Rapid progress is expected in industrialisation over the next decade,” Chief Minister M Karunanidhi says, adding, “the State will rank highly with newly industrialised countries in the next five years.”

Currently, US automaker Ford, Korea’s Hyundai, German luxury car manufacturer BMW, and Franco-Japan automakers Renault-Nissan and amongst those who have set up manufacturing facilities in the area. Mitsubishi owns a plant in Chennai making SUVs and sedans, and Nissan is to produce a new MPV at its plant there.