The New Nation - Internet Edition

Putin 'Person of the Year’

WASHINGTON: Time magazine named Russian President Vladimir Putin its "Person of the Year" for 2007 on Wednesday, saying he had returned his country from chaos to "the table of world power" though at a cost to democratic principles. Putin, a former KGB official picked from relative obscurity to be prime minister in 1999 by then-President Boris Yeltsin, will appear on the cover of a special issue of Time as the person the editors believe had the greatest impact on events, for better or worse. "He's not a good guy, but he's done extraordinary things," said Time managing editor Richard Stengel, who announced Putin's selection on NBC's "Today Show." "He's a new tsar of Russia and he's dangerous in the sense that he doesn't care about civil liberties; he doesn't care about free speech; he cares about stability. But stability is what Russia needed and that's why Russians adore him." Time magazine said on its Web site that Putin, the son of a factory worker whose grandfather cooked for Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, had led Russia with persistence, a sharp vision and a sense that he embodied the spirit of "Mother Russia."

Delhi Hindu temple world's largest

NEW DELHI: GUINNESS World Records has recognised a sprawling mock-ancient monument in the Indian capital as the world's largest Hindu temple, the Press Trust of India reported on Wednesday. The ersatz Akshardham temple, which covers 13 hectares and is built to look as if is hundreds of years old, was inaugurated in 2005. 'The majestic, ornately hand-carved Swaminarayan Akshardham in New Delhi stands apart as the largest Hindu temple in the world,' a Guinness certificate given to the temple organising committee said, according to Press Trust. Some 11,000 people built the temple over five years, an earlier Guinness statement said.