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In The News

In India, Sex Workers Try To Shield Girls From Suffering Their Same Fate

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 […]

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In The News

International Women’s Day, From Oscar Night To Indian Streets

-Analysis- PARIS — #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have made the past year a crucial one for women’s rights. Or at least it has, from our Western, Oscar-Night point of view. As the world celebrates its first International Women’s Day of what we can glibly call the “post-Weinstein” era of the feminist cause, a recent Reuters […]

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In The News

The Meaning Of Brecht In Modern-Day Mumbai

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.

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In The News

Virginity Test, Why An Ugly Patriarchal Rite Won’t Go Away

In India, a centuries-old custom comes up against basic demands for human rights.

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In The News

Can India And Iran Rekindle Their 1990s-Era Romance?

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.

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In The News

Valentine’s Day Violence In India, A Culture And Policing Divide

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.

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In The News

On ‘Love Jihad,’ When India’s Patriarchy Mixes With Bad Faith

‘Love jihad’ is a brutally constructed political agenda combining patriarchal notions of ‘our women’ and communal notions of ‘their men.’

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In The News

Muslim Women’s Rights, A New Favorite Smokescreen Of Strongmen

The authoritarian and religious men leading Saudi Arabia, Iran and India are using women’s rights progress for purposes other than helping women.

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In The News

The Marriage Algorithm, India’s Caste-Conscious Answer To Tinder

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, […]

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Ideas Society

India-Pakistan, A Cricket Metaphor For Nationalism

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 […]

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In The News

A Sitting Mission, Meet India’s Toilet Man

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.

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In The News

Where Indian Camels Are As Sacred As Cows (But Vanishing Fast)

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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In The News

Relaxing With The Indian Maidens

The Courtyard of the Maidens is one of the most popular destinations in Udaipur, in the Indian state of Rajasthan. With its marble elephants and its lotus fountain, the garden was a perfect oasis of peace and quiet in the middle of the bustling city. For maidens and thirsty travel photographers alike.

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In The News

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.

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In The News

Forest Farming v. Cash Crops, Indigenous In India Take A Stand

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.

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In The News

The Formidable Challenge Of Electrifying Rural India

The current challenge in rural electrification is not just connecting households, but providing sufficient, affordable and high-quality supply.

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In The News

A Marble Souvenir

To help me remember where I’ve been, along my 60+ years of travels, I have amassed a decent collection of rocks, pebbles, bits of bark — in addition to my 20,000 slides. On the floor of this extraordinary Jain temple in northwestern India, a tiny fragment of marble was waiting for me to pick it […]

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In The News

Turns Out, India’s Cash Ban Was All For Nothing

-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 […]

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In The News

Signs Of Resistance To India’s Glaring Social Apartheid

Discrimination and exploitation are deeply rooted in India. But rather than silently endure, some in the underclasses are raising their voices in defiance.

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In The News

Postcard From The Ganges

Oh, to watch the sun setting over the Ganges and the ghats of Varanasi …

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Future Geopolitics Ideas

Collection Of DNA Spells Doom In India

-Analysis- In 2007, the department of biotechnology in India began drafting a controversial legislative bill to collect and store the DNA information of Indian citizens in a national databank to help solve criminal cases. Since then, the measure has largely failed to move forward due to inadequate safeguards to secure this sensitive personal information. The […]

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In The News

Amma Mia! India To New Zealand, The Women In Politics Paradox

-Analysis- Long before Angela Merkel or even Margaret Thatcher, Indian politics has produced some fearsome female leaders. Indira Gandhi, also known as the “Iron Lady” of India, took office as the first female prime minister of the country in 1966 and returned for another term in 1980. Years after Gandhi’s assassination in 1984, her daughter-in-law Sonia Gandhi, carried forward both the family and female legacy, and still stands as longstanding president of the Indian National Congress party. Lesser known abroad, but in some ways perhaps even more influential, was Jayalalithaa, fondly known as Amma (“Mother”), who ruled the huge southern […]

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In The News

The Growing Weight On India’s Women Farmers

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.

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In The News

The Chinese Dragon Breathing Down India’s Chicken Neck

Geopolitical and historical intrigue could lead to war-mongering along the Indian-Chinese border, but an open conflict is highly unlikely.

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In The News

India And China, The Planet Is In Your Hands

And the rest of ours too…

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In The News

Surviving India’s Modern-Day Witch Hunts

Government crime numbers show that since 2001, more than 2,000 ‘witches’ — most of them women — have been killed.

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In The News

Muslim ‘Instant Divorce’ Takes Center Stage In India

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 […]

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In The News

Dire States: Does India Have A Hidden Debt Bubble?

The western state of Maharashtra, home of Mumbai and the biggest regional economy of India, announced this month that it will waive farmer loans worth 1,140 billion rupees, or nearly $18 billion. The June 12 measure will leave only 800 billion rupees, or about $12 billion, in the state’s coffers until the end of the […]

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In The News

The Indian Snake Charmers Refusing To Change Their Tune

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.” […]

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In The News

Move Over T. Rex, Rajasaurus Is Here

Rajasaurus, anyone? India’s native dinosaur discovered as recently as the early 2000s has been fittingly given an Indian name: Rajasaurus narmadensis, or “regal reptile of the Narmada,” is a predator that lived roughly 65 million years ago, a Smithsonian Mag story recently notes. Rajasaurus belongs to the sub-family of the wicked carnivorous Tyrannosaurus Rex, star […]

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In The News

Indian School For Grandmothers Takes On Female Illiteracy

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.

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In The News

A Human Shield Exposed In The Daylight Of Kashmir

One of the ugliest tactics in modern warfare has been the use of “human shields.” From Serbia to Sri Lanka and Gaza, armed combatants have been accused of putting civilian lives at risk on the frontlines in order to protect themselves. If the enemy attacks innocent bystanders on site, it risks committing a grave human […]

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In The News

True Fiction: Leonardo DiCaprio Wades Into War Over Water In India

Around the world, local water shortages are a very real sign of the effects of climate change. Drought conditions in certain areas of India have recently left some cities reeling, leading to new political tensions. Meanwhile, last weekend, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in Washington, D.C. and around the United States to demand […]

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In The News

The Ghost Of Capitals Past

The city of Fatehpur Sikri, founded in 1569 near Agra, served briefly as the capital of the Mughal Empire before it was abandoned, mainly for water scarcity reasons, only 16 years later. It’s one of India’s best preserved ghost towns. See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World here.

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Geopolitics Society

Attacks On Africans Unmask India’s Ugly Race Problem

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 […]

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blog Food / Travel

Red Hot Gastronomy

These rows of red chilies, drying by the side of a road in northern India, bring back culinary memories of a painful kind. My French stomach, unaccustomed to eating spicy food, definitely had a hard time appreciating some of the country’s delicacies … See more slides from My Grand-Père’s World here.

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In The News

Behind India’s First Female Mosque, A Women’s Rights Champion

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. […]

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In The News

A Long-Distance Phone Call, One Nationalist To Another

-Analysis- It was just a passing reference at Monday’s White House briefing: Press Secretary Sean Spicer mentioned that U.S. President Donald Trump had called to congratulate Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his party’s recent victory in state assembly elections. After all, the Indian leader had plenty to celebrate. His Bharatiya Janata Party was able […]

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In The News

India’s Punjab State Plagued By Opiate Addiction

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.

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In The News

Trump’s America And The Grief Of An Indian Mother

-Analysis- It’s every Indian mother’s worst nightmare. Would the son she proudly sent abroad wind up in harm’s way in a foreign land? Parvatha Vardhini’s son reassured her that he was safe and secure in the U.S., even as hate crimes rose in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory. After his body was flown back […]

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