In this week's round-up of South Asian bloggers many of them share common themes and threads sports, read cricket; films; food; and of course politics.

Bangladesh:
Samad of Bangladesh Watchdog has a posting about the Human Rights Report for Bangladesh. Nayma, a political science student from New York wonders about Institutions and Constitutions and comes to the realization that Bangladesh has an “Electoral” democracy. She shares her thoughts about Bangladesh and how it compares to some of the other states in the world.

Cell phones and their users have come under scrutiny and Drishtipat has a post about moral policing and cell phone usage in Bangladesh.

These two blog entries have pictures from Bangladesh. Bonlebon has a link on where do ships from around the world go to die? Amy shares here pictures of Dhaka.

Bhutan:
The landlocked country of Bhutan does not have many bloggers. Rossputin has a political update on the country via his friend in Bhutan. The current king will retire in a couple of years making way for his son. And Cyborg in his discussion about a Buddhish book points out that the current king coined the term Gross National Happiness.

India:
Technology, and anything technical, is always a hot topic of conversation among Indian bloggers. This week we take a look at Apple, the company that does not possess much traction in India when compared to Microsoft. What do bloggers think of the company and its products? We have two interesting views on this subject. Amalgalm of Thoughts has an interesting take on Apple's iPod. It is not iPod they say, instead it is iPlod. Read on to discover why they call it iPlod. Apple dominates the thoughts of another blogger — Mandar, writes about a wonderful iPod Creativity Contest and Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple.

Abhilash of Sania Mirza India's Teen Pride has a write-up about her Australian Open performance. Cricket fever is on in India and this picture by Dinesh speaks volume. You say footaball season and Superbowl? Switch over to India to witness the frenzy over cricket.

Anurag Jain has a nice round-up of the Tri-Continental Film Festival organized by Breakthrough, a Human Rights Organization. There are some interesting films from South Africa, China and Latin American countries. It is not very common to come across blog postings about Chattisgarh, a new Indian state that came into existence five years ago. Saurabh has a nice round-up about Chattisgarh.

Neologism, or new words, are constantly crafted in India and perhaps this is a natural off-shot of a polyglot society. For example, it is common to fuse an Indian language with an English word, and viola you have the birth of a new word. Word Mint has converted this pastime into a regular feature and has a blog to showcase their efforts. This group of creative people are constantly churning new and interesting words. Read on.

Pakistan:
The Cricket mania has seeped into the private lives of the players. Two Pakistani players have put their marriage plans on hold due to the cricket season. Read here. It sounds that marriage season was not only in the mind of cricket players, it was also the a hot button topic for Sami. British Born Confused Desi is visiting Pakistan from the UK, and shares her thoughts and pictures of Lahore's inner city.

Karachi Metroblogging writes that musician Bryan Adams will perform at a live concert on January 29th, 2006. South Asians love their food and tea. Fahd discusses his favorite tea spots in his town of Wah. Metroblogging Islamabad mentions the influence of Afghani immigrants in terms of food: french fries with Afghani chutni, now that is definitely a new twist to that food.

ZindagiXP has an interesting blog entry about dwarfs and giants — how do politicians behave in comparison to entrepreneurs?

Nepal:
Nepal Law has a list of human rights activists arrested by the government this week. The arrests total to about 89 people including politicians. Democracy of Nepal's Parmendra Bhagat shares his views on the latest development in Nepal.