The Palk Strait is a strait that connects the Bay of Bengal in the northeast with Palk Bay in the southwest, and then with the Gulf of Mannar in the southwest. It's located between the Tamil Nadu state of India and the Jaffna District of Sri Lanka, and is 40–85 miles wide and 85 miles long. The strait is surrounded by Pamban Island (India), Adam's (Rama's) Bridge, the Gulf of Mannar, and Mannar Island (Sri Lanka).

The Palk Strait is named after Robert Palk, who was the governor of Madras Presidency from 1755–1763 during the British Raj period. Several rivers flow into the strait, including the Vaigai River of Tamil Nadu.

"How prime Ministers Decide" is a book written by a eminent senior journalist Neerja Chowdhury. In this book she has documented her experiences with six prime ministers of India. The six Prime Ministers she has chosen out of the 15 are -

• Indira Gandhi (‘I am the issue’),
• Rajiv Gandhi (‘gravitas and poise’),
• Vishwanath Pratap Singh (‘crafty’, ‘messiah’),
• P.V. Narasimha Rao (‘scholarly’, ‘superstitious’),
• A.B. Vajpayee (‘walking slowly’, ‘forlornly’, ‘sombre’),
• Manmohan Singh (‘So be it’) come alive in her narration as no biography of any of them can hope to match, let alone better.