They share mattresses while sleeping in the hospital corridors, wash their clothes together in common bathrooms and share pickle and gossip over home-cooked meals. More than a month after 26/11, as the victims recover at JJ Hospital their relatives have bonded big time, reports Alifiya Khan.

The new year began with Israel and Hamas back at war. No prizes for guessing that the Palestine-to-Pakistan danger zone will dominate headlines for all of 2009. But there will be new twists to the red-alert region: falling oil prices, political turns in the US and Iran. Pramit Pal Chaudhuri takes stock...see graph