India In Blog Posts: Cola, Newly Weds, Travel and Bollywood · Global Voices
Kamla Bhatt

The cola affair, wifi, newly weds, travel, and Bollywood are some of the themes that we look in this week's round-up about India.  Pepsi and Coke have been feeling the heat or should I say some really chilling  response from its customers in India. Why is that? Tests reveal that both the beverages have very high amounts of pesticide in them.
This so called pesticide cocktail in major colas is a cocktail indeed – a cocktail of politics, psuedo science, posturing and bad economics. Arjun writes in The Indian Economy Blog that "This so called pesticide cocktail in major colas is a cocktail indeed – a   cocktail of politics, psuedo science, posturing and bad economics." Read his post "Cola Can," to find out what he has to say on this subject.
Jacob of the Great Indian Mutiny  in his post titled, Pesticola, dare for more? writes, "However, I do wonder why is ‘drinking’ water is never tested in India, as it   is within the span of control (and responsibility) of our bureaucrats and   politicians? We drink so much more of it than soft drinks, which are mostly out   of reach for the average Indian? Why are Indian brands of ‘mineral’ water never   tested? And what about milk and BEER???? Doesn't it smell more of cheap   xenophobia than pesticides?"
“First Cadbury's peddles you the “fruit and worm” then coke pepsi dispense you the antidote. wash down with some grade a pesticide. gotta love them multinationals. JK of Indian Idle takes a swipe at the multinationals in India and writes, "First Cadbury's peddles you the "Fruit and worm" then Coke and Pepsi dispense   you the antidote. Wash down the worm with some grade A pesticide. You gotta love   them multinationals." Find out why he nursed a non-cola drink instead of a Pepsi or a Coke all these years.
From the cola war we move to the world of wifi. Ravi Kumar of Bangalore Metroblogging wonders what this fuss about wifi is all about? Bangalore apparently is going to be the first Indian city to be completely wifi enabled and Ravi wonders "how many would really take the risk of lugging around / using a laptop in a   public place where people can really throng?" Read his post to find out what else he has to say on this subject.
From wifi connectivity, we move away from India to the USA. There is a pretty sizeable Indian community in the USA, and Suyog of Stupendous Man writes about an important aspect of the community. Newly weds. How can you spot the newly married couple? A quick visit to Wal-mart or Costco might reveal some surprising results. What are the pros and cons of hanging out with newly wed couples? Read his post to find out. Suyog, of course, is footloose and fancy free at the moment.
We remain in the USA and look at two topics that Indians love to talk and blog about: travel and film. Recently both these topics have created quite a bit  of buzz in the world of blogs. One is a post by Xeni Jardin of BoingBoing and the other is KANK, a new Bollywood film.  Xeni Jardin's blog and audio post is about a nomadic group called Gaddhi located in the North India.  Xeni traveled up to Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh to speak to a group of Gaddis. You can read Xeni's blog post here, and listen to the NPR audio post, which is in English. Dharamshala is also the home of the Dalai Lama.
We love acronyms, and boy do we love our acronyms for our films. So "Kabhi Alvida Na Kahna," which means Don't Ever Say Goodbye is better known as KANK. Hindi movie fans, aka Bollywood film fans, are gearing up for the release of KANK this week. New York-based Maria writes in her blog Filmholic that " When tickets went on sale last week for KANK, I heard rumors that there was   going to be a midnight showing on Thursday night at Cineplaza 13 in North   Bergen, NJ, on six of their screens, but since then cannot get anyone at the   theater to confirm or deny that." I was taken aback to read that tickets for this film went on sale a week ago!
Sweta Mogra writes in her blog that she and her friends have been fabricating a whole bunch of storylines for KANK.  Read to find out what their combined verdict is about this yet-to-be released film.  The film, by the way, was shot extensively in New York state.