Stories about India from May, 2007
India: Reviewing Protocols of Zion
Dispatches from Zembla on a documentary called Protocols of Zion. “Most of the footage and interviews shown in the film are truly frightening and to ignore them as works of a lunatic fringe will be a serious mistake. Having said that, the film doesn't really get into really troubled waters,...
India: Flying Coffins
Retire The Coffin hopes to mobilize opinion about the Mig 21, also known as the flying coffin. “This blog is dedicated to the memory of Squadron Leader Swapnil Sakar Pandey, who sacrificed his life on March 1st 2007, while trying to steer his burning aircraft away from populated areas. The...
India: The trouble in Punjab
Indian Muslims on the ongoing conflict between the sects of the same religion in Punjab. “That brings me to some really troubling happenings in Punjab recently. Apparently there is a sect called Dera Sacha Sauda that claims a following of 15 million people. 15 million is a huge number even...
India: Mythology and culture
The Kerala Articles on similarities between various mythologies across the world. “There are many other similarities between the various mythologies in the world. It is not possible to cover all of them under the realms of a single post. But it is infinitely fascinating to learn more and more about...
India: Democracy and Uttar Pradesh
Deepa's Web Log on the sheer “show of democracy” in the recently conducted elections in Uttar Pradesh. “In the heartland of India's largest state where women are by and large in purdah, a woman, from the lower caste, with no pretensions to sophisticated qualification or degrees or mannerisms, managed to...
India: Plagiarism and MSM
Offstumped on plagiarism and how easily it comes to Indian MSM. “For long now Journalists in the mainstream media have derided blogs as banal and bloggers as plagiarists. Offstumped had challenged these attacks in the past with very charitable rejoinders , but this Sunday marks a new low in the...
India: Tasteless Advertising?
Sudeep's Diary points to advertising that appears to be offensive to certain communities. “How is it that such a blatant mockery of people belonging to scheduled castes and backward classes passing off without a resistance? Or has everyone taken the tagline too seriously?”
India: Bloggers on art, morality, government and freedom of expression
In what looks like more than mild disagreement between the moral police and the artists, a student from a university in Baroda was arrested for displaying “obscene” works of art. The student, Chandramohan at Maharaja Sayajirao University was first assaulted by “goons” and then arrested. Chapati Mystery reminds us that...
India: Education and the Government
Atanu Dey explains why liberalizing the education sector comes with many benefits. “The supply of educational services will increase, the quality will improve, and prices will come down. These are all everyday first-order efficiency effects of letting markets work. The second-order effects will be increased productivity, increased production, and better...
India: On Encounters
Kafila points to the suffixes used with the word encounter in India. “So my plea is that we stop using the phrase ‘fake encounter’ because encounter will suffice. Fake encounters somehow seems to posit a difference between a real encounter (that’s the one in which the police go on an...
South Asia: 1857, and 150 years later
An interesting discussion at Sepia Mutiny on the nature of the 1857 Rebellion against the British in the subcontinent, as official commemoration appears to suddenly be the mood of the hour. “I know shamefully little about this fundamental event in the history of the Indian Subcontinent, and even less about...
India: Unani Medicine
Mumbai Magic goes for a walk in the bazaar and chances upon stores selling Unani medicine. “So how did Unani come to Bhendi Bazaar, a Muslim locality of Mumbai? The Mongols, that's how! When the Mongols invaded Persia and Central Asia, many scholars and physicians of Unani fled to India,...
India: Are we born women?
Hip Hop Grandmom attempts to answer if one is born a woman. “The couple meant well and they had probably done so for their daughter. My opinion in the matter was different. I had decided that I would rather invest in her education and let her buy gold or silver...
India: Calcutta Coffee House
Trivial Matters has a delightful photo-post on the Calcutta Coffee House. “Situated in the heart of Calcutta, opposite the Presidency College, commissioned in 1942 by The Indian Coffee Workers’ Co-operative Society, the coffee house quickly developed on the lines of a student Literaten Kaffeehaus. Satyajit Ray would dream up films...
India, Bangladesh: Borders and Fences
Wanabehuman on fences and borders in South Asia. “But concern here is the fencing of the Indo-Bangladesh border, countries which are not only unmatched in size, population and resources but more importantly are friendly states with a solid record of their friendship track. Apart from very localised border shootouts, and...
India: Madras and Home
etcetera on “home”coming. From New York to Madras. “On my first day back, a houseful of relatives encourage me to go take a ‘nap’ at 5 in the evening. I wake up a little after midnight, and for about 15 seconds, I feel how wild party animals probably feel like...
India: Donuts and Orkut for married women
Sunny Days is puzzled by someone who scraps telling her that married women shouldn't be on Orkut. “What could I say? I pointed out that people who wished to stay anonymous really have no place in a networking site. I know a whole bunch of people who use pseudonyms, but...
India: HIV/AIDS awareness in Pune
Deep Griha – an NGO that works in Pune slums blogs about their attempt to increase HIV/ AIDS awareness. “What will bring a housewife onto the streets for something related to AIDS – the seemingly tabooed disease? What will make office-going men and women of corporate India sacrifice their Sundays...
India: The interiors of India
Lokayan has random snippets of experiences from the interiors India – as seen through the eyes of a couple of people working in the social sector “Yet we saw hope. We saw people coming together. We saw individual brilliance. We saw people finding joy in small things in life. We...
India: UP Politics
Recursive Hypocrisy on the politics of Uttar Pradesh. If opinion/exit polls are to be believed, and taken with a pinch of salt, one can come to a reasonable conclusion. Mayawati will be the next chief minister. The question is, with whose support. Given the law in its current form, and...
India: A place to pray
Indian Muslims on the difficulty of finding a place to pray. “I wonder how many non-Muslims are comfortable with Muslims praying in front of them. I have seen people, in northern India, object just for the sake of doing it. On the other hand I have seen very amiable responses...
