Protests are on in New Delhi demanding a bonafide old-age pension. Right now, most Indians don’t qualify for benefits, and those that do only get $4 a month.
Tag: india
Monday, December 1, 2014 IRAQ’S GHOST SOLDIERS A corruption probe in Iraq has discovered that the Iraqi army counts 50,000 “ghost soldiers,” troops that don’t even exist but are paid, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said yesterday, as he continues efforts to end years of graft. Meanwhile, AP reports that the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS launched […]
Poor women come to this Indian clinic to rent their bellies to wealthy couples from around the world. A practical solution to modern problems or the worst kind of social engineering?
Monday, November 10, 2014 APEC SUMMIT Asia-Pacific leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, are in Beijing for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit, where China’s Xi Jinping and Japan’s Shinzo Abe met for formal talks for the first time after more than two years of deep tensions over disputed islands. South Korea and China announced this […]
The teacher is a shopkeeper who volunteers his time to kids who otherwise would be shut out from any education.
NEW DELHI — He wears a badge, and his slightly wrinkled light blue uniform has epaulettes. But the security guard casually seated on a chair at the entrance to this jewelry store in a New Delhi mall, old gun in hand, doesn’t exactly look like the deterrent type. In the shop window, display busts have […]
JAIPUR — India is emerging as one of the fastest-growing centers in the global market for weight loss surgery. Two-thirds of wealthy urban Indians are now overweight. Like 56-year-old Chander Kataria and 65-year-old Mohan Gulati. Chander weighs 85 kilos (187 pounds) while Mohan is over 120 kilos (264 pounds). They are both trying desperately to lose weight, and one of their efforts is a morning walk around the Bhagat Singh Garden in Jaipur. “I try to exercise, shake and vibrate every organ of my body, but it’s not working,” says Chander. Mohan has tried many ways to lose weight, including […]
MUMBAI — At the height of the Mumbai rush hour, boarding a train is about as easy as finding a comfortable position in a rugby scrum. On the overcrowded platform, those wearing glasses carefully tuck them away in their cases before taking a deep breath and pushing into the compact crowd of passengers until they […]
ISIS-CONTROLLED OIL REFINERIES TARGETEDThe U.S. Air Force and those of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have continued to hit ISIS targets in northern Syria, including 12 oil refineries captured by the jihadist group believed to generate up to $2 million per day in revenues, the BBC reports. Fourteen terrorist fighters and five civilians […]
NEW DELHI — The findings of India’s first linguistic census in a century were unveiled earlier this month. Of the 850 languages identified, 300 had never previously been documented, and nearly 200 are considered at risk of extinction because they have fewer than 10,000 speakers. The Sept. 5 ceremony took place at the Gandhi memorial […]
TIMES OF INDIA, BBC Worldcrunch MUMBAI — Police in India have arrested one man and are searching for four others after an Indian photojournalist was gang-raped in Mumbai Thursday. According to the Times of India, the man arrested has confessed to his involvement in the crime and has provided information to identify the four others. […]
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Speeding Train Kills 37 In India
BBC, PARDA PHASH (India), INDIA TIMES Worldcrunch PATNA — At least 37 Hindu pilgrims were killed after being hit by a train as they tried to cross tracks at a train station in the Northeastern Indian state of Bihar. The accident, which left another dozen injured, sparked furor among locals and other pilgrims who assaulted […]
India’s working poor include more than 5,000 men and women at one facility who wash and iron clothes by hand 14 hours a day, seven days a week, earning barely enough to survive.
Seven months after a student was brutally gang-raped and killed on a public bus in New Delhi, India has new legislation and an established women’s movement — but is it enough?
BBC, TIMES OF INDIA, INDIAN EXPRESS Worldcrunch DHARMASATI GANDAMAND – At least 22 children have died from food poisoning after eating a school lunch in this village in eastern India. The meal was served at a government primary school on Tuesday in Dharmasati Gandamand in the state of of Bihar. The Times of India reports […]
NEW DELHI – In 2012, out of the millions of people displaced by natural disasters around the world, over a quarter were from northeast India. Almost nine million inhabitants were forced to flee the region’s devastating monsoon. These forced displacements are a common occurrence. Floods have become so routine in Assam, a state located at […]
GENEVA – He quotes Mahatma Gandhi and wears the traditional Indian dress, but Arun Krishnamurthy is not living in the past. On the contrary, it is his desire to build a better future that led him to give up a promising career at Google and create an organization to help fight environmental degradation in his […]
MUMBAI – Shilpa Dhar is wearing fake eyelashes, jingling bracelets, and cherry-red nail polish. She tilts her head as she speaks, which makes her jet-black hair twirl around her neck. She smiles because her friends have told her she has a nice smile – so she smiles all the time now. “I have a Kareena […]
HINDUSTAN TIMES, INDIA TODAY, TIMES OF INDIA (India), REUTERS, AFP, BBC Worldcrunch DELHI – Figures were released Friday showing India’s economy grew at its slowest pace in a decade during the 2012-13 financial year. Low business confidence, slumping investment, high inflation and weak export demand from Western countries were blamed for the bleak performance, which […]
NEW DELHI – Dreaming with BRICs, the study published in 2003 by Goldman Sachs that traced the rise of four emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China) also marked the birth of a concept that has yet to disappoint. Between 2004 and 2011, average growth in China was 10.8%, in India 8.3% — to mention […]
SRINAGAR – An eagle boldly splits the air, to and fro, between disputed territories. On the ground, an electrified fence hurtles down the jagged flank of the mountain, bumps into the river, then resumes its straight race up heights. In the Uri district, in Silikot, the fence sharply cuts an odd borderline: dividing the Muslim […]
TIMES OF INDIA, INDIA WEST, DNA (India), REUTERS Worldcrunch LONDON – Two drops of Gandhi’s blood are being auctioned Tuesday in London. The two microscope slides are expected to be sold for between £10,000 and £15,000 ($15,200-$22,800), Reuters reports. The “fragments of Gandhi’s blood” were donated by the father of the Indian Independence movement in […]
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Magazines, Mapped! Week Of May 10
This week’s selection of magazine covers from around the world.
NEW DELHI – It is not hard to imagine how the French government (or their counterparts in Athens or Washington) would dream of such a thing: escaping the monthly stress of publishing unemployment figures. In India, the national jobless rate simply doesn’t get calculated, and the topic is virtually absent from media and political debate. […]
On April 15th, India announced that an “intrusion” of around 50 Chinese military personnel had crossed onto the Indian side of the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, and set up a tent camp. The Indian military immediately responded with tit for tat camp of tents nearby. Thus started the so-called “Tents Confrontation” standoff. The […]
KHADICHAUR – Araniko Highway, connecting Kathmandu to the Nepal-China border, doesn’t look much like a highway. It is narrow strip of roadway sometimes covered in asphalt, sometimes just dirt. This 115-kilometer road, winding between mountains and ravines is also deadly. Or it would be, without the incredible dexterity of the truck and bus drivers who […]
LA DEPECHE DU MIDI, LE FIGARO (France) Worldcrunch TOULOUSE – Three months ago, Jeannot Marciniak, a 70-year-old retired garbage collector from this city in southwest France, packed his bags for India, a country he’d long dreamed of discovering, reports Le Figaro. While sitting on a bench in Pondicherry, in southern India, a man came up […]
Step inside the diamond market in Surat, where billions worth of the precious stone circulate every month. There are serious concerns about both security and origins.
PRO-RUSSIAN PROTESTERS SEIZE BUILDINGS IN EASTERN UKRAINEPro-Russian protesters seized government buildings last night in the East Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk, following rallies to demand independence referendums there, Reuters reports. FRANCE AND RWANDA ARGUE GENOCIDE Rwanda is launching commemorations today in Kigali to mark the 20th anniversary of genocide there, which lasted 100 […]
HINDUSTAN TIMES, FIRST POST (India), BBC (UK) Worldcrunch MUMBAI – As many as 40 people were killed, including 11 children, in the collapse of a building illegally under construction near Mumbai, police said Friday. Dozens of people were injured in the disaster late Thursday night, The Hindustan Times reported, as authorities continued searching for others […]
In the private sector as in politics, a small group of influential dynasties still rule the country. Being on the outside, makes a play on power virtually impossible.
HINDUSTAN TIMES, ECONOMIC TIMES (India) NEW YORK TIMES (USA) Worldcrunch NEW DELHI — In a landmark decision on Monday, India’s Supreme Court rejected a application by pharmaceutical giant Novartis for a major cancer drug patent, a ruling that could clear the way for cheaper generic versions of medicines to continue to be distributed around the […]
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti was called on to lead a caretaker government. His expertise was welcome, but then the economics professor was bitten by the bug of political ambition…
During a long sit-down in his Dharamsala residence, the Dalai Lama answers hard questions about the self-immolation of Tibetan monks and Chinese leaders, old and new.
THE HINDU, THE TIMES OF INDIA (India), BBC NEWS (UK), REUTERS Worldcrunch NEW DELHI – Ram Singh, a bus driver on trial for the gang-rape and murder of a young woman last December, committed suicide in a high-security cell at New Delhi’s Tihar Jail – but his lawyer and family suspect he was murdered. The […]
NEW DELHI – Mukesh is standing barefoot in front of the computer embedded in the wall, deep in concentration. He’s trying to guide the little arrow of the mouse onto the number eight because the talking machine asked him how old he was. This is the first time that he has come to the “Hole […]
THE INDIA TIMES, HINDUSTAN TIMES (India), BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch CALCUTTA – At least 19 people have been killed and over a dozen critically injured in a fire that broke out early on Wednesday morning at an illegal market in the eastern Indian city of Calcutta. It took three hours to contain the blaze, but […]
Up close, on set and in search of extras inside India’s over-the-top movie scene.
BBC NEWS (UK), TIMES OF INDIA, HINDUSTAN TIMES (India) Worldcrunch ALLAHABAD – At least 36 pilgrims on their way back from the world’s largest religious festival in northern India have died in a stampede late Sunday. The death toll may rise again, as dozens of other injured were in a critical condition after the stampede […]
TIMES OF INDIA, OUTLOOK (India), BBC (UK). NEW DELHI – Indian President Pranab Mukherjee has approved a new rape law that would provide harsher punishment for rapists, including the death penalty. The BBC reports the brutal gang rape on a 23-year-old woman in December caused an outrage across the country and sparked a debate about […]