The power of love, or the celebration of a future society that values spiritual oneness rather than patriarchal divisions, is the ultimate source of resistance.
country: India
Stay updated with comprehensive news on India from Worldcrunch. Discover insights on Indian politics, economic developments, societal issues, and cultural landmarks with translations from top international sources. Highlights include New Delhi, Mumbai, and events like Diwali.
HYDERABAD — Sex workers in towns and villages in the southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are often married off at a young age, or trafficked to larger cities. Statistics released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) place Andhra Pradesh second, behind West Bengal, for the prevalence of human trafficking. Many of those being trafficked are young girls, and the UN office says that in January alone, 939 minor girls were reported missing from the southeastern state. But one positive development is that a growing number of the women who have been victims of […]
The famous playwright who fled Nazi Germany only to be hauled, years later, before the House Committee on Un-American Activities has plenty to contribute still in our post-truth world.
In India, a centuries-old custom comes up against basic demands for human rights.
After a difficult 15 years, relations between New Delhi and Tehran are in need of improvement. The recent visit in India by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was key first step.
India’s police and political leaders need to find better ways to halt regular acts of vandalism on Valentine’s Day by those who want to block Western influence.
‘Love jihad’ is a brutally constructed political agenda combining patriarchal notions of ‘our women’ and communal notions of ‘their men.’
The authoritarian and religious men leading Saudi Arabia, Iran and India are using women’s rights progress for purposes other than helping women.
CHENNAI — In Murugavel Janakiraman’s office, his daughter’s drawings are pinned up next to family photographs. He proudly points out his children, Arjun and Anisha, his mother, who lives with them, and his wife, Deepa. They met on India’s most popular matrimonial website, Matrimony.com. And as the old saying goes, if you want something done, […]
NEW DELHI — Farooque was a Kashmiri. He hated India. His cousin was killed by security forces at a demonstration in Srinagar. This was 1990. We were classmates, and I always took him head on for his anti-India rhetoric. Back then, no one minded his bombast, nor our arguments — and life went on. Then came March 1992 and the cricket World Cup. The determined Imran Khan and Pakistan came from behind and won the title. I skipped college the day Pakistan won because I did not have the courage to face Farooque, who was of course ecstatic beyond words […]
An estimated 2.3 billion people worldwide live without toilets. Nearly two-thirds of them are in India. Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, a sociologist and NGO founder, is determined to do something about it.
In the northwestern state of Rajasthan, camels have long been worshipped as the main source of transport . But their numbers are rapidly dwindling.
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Rahul Gandhi: India’s Comeback Kid?
Slowly but surely, the Congress party is regaining its footing, and the scion to India’s political dynasty, the man who everyone gave up on, has newfound confidence.
In the Indian state of Odisha, the Khond, a large Indigenous community, are losing their forest and their food sources. There are environmental and nutritional consequences.
The current challenge in rural electrification is not just connecting households, but providing sufficient, affordable and high-quality supply.
-Analysis- BENGALURU — The patient was the Indian economy. Among the 176 countries that have been ranked by Transparency International on a scale from 100 (very clean) to zero (highly corrupt), India ranks in the second half of the list at 79, with illegal money of sizeable proportions. The central government, which was elected on the promise of a cleaner government, is worried about coming to power again. With the impending election two years away, it had to do something drastic: a much-dreaded surgery with uncertain consequences. That was the November 2016 decision of removing Rs 500 and Rs 1000 […]
Discrimination and exploitation are deeply rooted in India. But rather than silently endure, some in the underclasses are raising their voices in defiance.
As more men are migrating into cities in search of a living, women are left with all the weight of the farming and family. That is not a sustainable model.
Government crime numbers show that since 2001, more than 2,000 ‘witches’ — most of them women — have been killed.
MUMBAI — Afreen Rehman, 28, is one of five Muslim women who recently took her case to India’s Supreme Court demanding a ban on a controversial practice known as “Triple Talaq,” or instant divorce. Afreen says she had been married just two months when her in-laws started harassing her about her dowry. “My husband and other in-laws started mentally harassing me, saying that he has a law degree and that any other girl would have brought a large cash dowry and a big car while I brought nothing,” she says. Afreen’s in-laws sent her back to her parents’ home. And […]
NEW DELHI — Wearing orange dresses with matching turbans, a group of folk musicians play tunes on their pungi, also known as been, a traditional flute made from gourd fruit. The audience at Surajkund Craft Fair on the outskirts of the Indian capital is enthralled. Many break into dance. But the musicians themselves don’t look very enthusiastic. “This is not what we want to do; it’s been thrust upon us,” says Badri Nath, 75, who heads the troupe. “But since our original work has been banned, this is all we can do. Whether we are happy or not doesn’t matter.” […]
They say it’s never too late to learn. A special school in the Indian state of Maharashtra is proving that in a new way.
DELHI — A disturbing video has gone viral in India. It shows a mob viciously attacking a Nigerian man at a suburban Delhi mall. The attackers kick, punch and hit him with steel trash cans, chairs, bricks — pretty much anything they can lay their hands on. The victim is 21-year old Nigerian student Endurance Amalawa — who is now lying on a hospital bed with bandages covering his head, arms and back. In the adjacent bed is his older brother Precious Amalawa. He has fewer injuries and is able to recount the ordeal. He remembers entering the mall, buying […]
LUCKNOW — It’s Friday afternoon at the Ambar mosque in the northern Indian city of Lucknow. The call to prayer, or Azan, rings out in the afternoon heat. Women start to gather. They wash their hands, face and feet as part of a ritual purification. In India, women aren’t typically encouraged at mosques. But Ambar mosque is doing quite the opposite — the second floor of the mosque is reserved for women to offer Namaaz or prayer. Rabia, a local resident, says she visits the mosque most Fridays. For her, the Ambar mosque is more than a place to pray. […]
The northern state of Punjab is known as India’s bread basket. But in recent years, it has become a fertile ground not just for crops, but also drug abuse.
DIBRUGARH — A blazing sun is shining on Jyoti Khaund’s plantation, where rows of green foliage stretch as far as the eye can see. This hot and damp district in the Brahmaputra Valley, in the northeastern state of Assam, is where India’s best tea is produced. But Khaund is frustrated this morning looking over his […]
India’s Supreme Court made it compulsory to play the national anthem in cinemas. And you better stand up when the music starts.
In India’s patriarchal society, there’s a cultural tendency to favor boys, which leads to too many parents each year abandoning their baby girls. At least there is a way to avoid the worst outcome.
NEW DELHI — I am outside the Reserve Bank of India building in New Delhi. It’s 8 a.m. The bank opens at 9 a.m. but more than 300 people have already queued up here. Among them is 60-year-old Mohammad Mustaqeem. He runs a garment shop but hasn’t been able to open it for the last three days. “There’s no business in the market. The only thing for us to do now is to stand in these queues for money because without it we can’t even get food.” “The grocer is now refusing credit so we can’t get milk, we can’t […]
SEEMAPURI — In this neighborhood on the outskirts of Delhi, electronic scrap keeps growing. Piles and piles of electronic waste or “e-waste” litter the narrow alleys here from old computer circuit boards and cables to discarded keyboards and phone handsets. Mohammad Salman, 25, deals with such e-waste. “We collect it from all over the country, from waste pickers and other scrap dealers and then look for items that can be fixed,” he says. Salman says he sells the precious metals that can be found in e-waste. “We give it to bigger dealers and what they do with it is their […]
India’s northern state of Bihar recently imposed a complete ban on alcohol in the state, driven largely by women’s rights groups. The prohibition is now blamed for a dozen recent deaths from bad booze.
Most Indians are vegetarians. But omelets, a colonial legacy, remain popular in India.
Moviegoers are turning out in droves to see Kabali, a new Indian film featuring superstar Rajinikanth. What’s all the excitement about? KBR journalist Jasvinder Sehgal attends a pre-dawn premiere to find out.
Qawwali is Sufi devotional and mystic poetry that promotes a tolerant form of Islam. It dates back centuries, but is losing ground to popular rock and Bollywood music.
Just go, leave everything behind and relax. We sent our reporter to Jodhpur, India’s blue city, where he is desperately trying to disconnect with all his worldly stress.
In the western state of Rajasthan, a group of about 70 village girls, some of them already married, are receiving a full education, a break from their families, and a chance at independence.
NEW DELHI — The journalists gathered for an editorial meeting at their newspaper in the Indian capital. Their work includes hard-hitting reportage and investigative scoops that other publications in the country followed up on. The group of journalists are unlike most others. They live on the streets. And they are all under the age of 18. Their paper, a New Dehlhi monthly called Balaknama or ‘Voice of Children,’ publishes stories of children living and working on the streets. Exploring topics such as child sexual abuse, child labor and police brutality, the newspaper has doubled in size from its original four […]
MUMBAI — In the western state of Maharashtra, dozens of men, women and children surround a water tanker on the main road. They hold pitchers, buckets and other containers, and are trying to fill as many as they can. Renuka, 35, pushes her way to the top of the tanker and is able to fill her five pitchers. “I waited 15 days to get this much water. But how long will it last?” she says. “We haven’t had tap water for the last two years. Our ponds and wells have dried up. There’s no water at all.” Manohar was less […]
Under the watchful eye of the Indian government, yoga master Sri Sri Ravi Shankar wants to resolve the world’s conflicts through a breathing technique. At a gathering last month, he attracted 3.5 million followers in New Delhi.
The Indian city is among the worst in the world for air quality. Automobiles share much of the blame, with some 1,400 cars a day joining the estimated 8.5 million vehicles already circulating there. But there are other factors too.