Thought to be the world’s largest human gathering, more than 20 million Hindu pilgrims ritually bathed on the opening day of the festival
Continue reading...Category Archives: India
‘A three-generation project’: riverside development divides Indian city
The next 15 megacities #6: New facilities by the Sabarmati will provide Ahmedabad with much-needed public space, but at what cost?
As the sun dips below the horizon, young lovers make themselves more comfortable on benches overlooking the Sabarmati river. Walkers stroll along the concrete promenades, and mothers enjoy a moment of respite under newly planted saplings while their children play in the adjoining gardens.
Few Ahmedabad residents could have imagined this scene a couple of decades ago. Back then the Gujarati city’s tidal river banks were lined with slum housing – precariously constructed on land polluted by industrial effluent and untreated sewage, and home to some of the most marginalised communities in the city.
Continue reading...The Indian village where child sexual exploitation is the norm
Poverty and caste discrimination mean that children in Sagar Gram are being groomed by their own families for abuse
Many families in India still mourn the birth of a girl. But when Leena was born, people celebrated.
Sagar Gram, her village in central India, is unique that way. Girls outnumber boys. When a woman marries, it is the groom’s family that pays the dowry. Women are Sagar Gram’s breadwinners. When they are deemed old enough, perhaps at the age of 11, most are expected to start doing sex work.
Continue reading...India: teenage girl murdered and mutilated by family for eloping, say police
Girl killed with help of a butcher friend, say police in Bihar in so-called ‘honour killing’
Police in eastern India say a teenager who was found dead this week with her body dismembered and mutilated was murdered by her family in a so-called “honour” killing.
The body of the 16-year old from Gaya, a city in Bihar state, was discovered on Sunday. Pictures of her mutilated remains were widely shared on social media along with claims she had been doused in acid, sparking protests and candlelit vigils in the city.
Continue reading...India’s sick left out in the cold as New Delhi’s top hospital struggles to cope
Patients awaiting treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Science are living in tents and on pavements for months at a time as the centre reels under the weight of demand
The night-time cold in New Delhi is biting. As the temperature plunges, Alam Ansari’s twin daughters, born prematurely, have only their parents’ body heat to keep them warm while they huddle in a crowded tent on the road outside the capital’s top hospital.
They are not alone. Each day, about 8,000 people from across the country queue outside the outpatients department for treatment. Mainly from poorer backgrounds, they sleep in tents or on the ground.
Continue reading...India outcry after scientists claim ancient Hindus invented stem cell research
The organisers of a major Indian science conference said they were concerned by speakers citing religious texts and ideas at the event
The organisers of a major Indian science conference distanced themselves on Sunday from speakers who used the prestigious event to dismiss Einstein’s discoveries and claim ancient Hindus invented stem cell research.
The Indian Scientific Congress Association expressed “serious concern” as the unorthodox remarks aired by prominent academics at its annual conference attracted condemnation and ridicule.
Continue reading...Indian PM lampooned for ‘manufactured’ interview
Narendra Modi accused of being afraid of media after rare interview that failed to ask tough questions
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has been accused of being afraid of the media, after consenting to a rare interview – just one of a handful in four years as PM – on New Year’s Day in which he answered a range of questions that critics compared to “free-hit deliveries” in cricket.
Related: India: world's biggest election has suddenly become competitive
Continue reading...Protests break out in India after two women become first to enter Sabarimala temple – video report
Two women have visited a Hindu temple in Kerala after India's supreme court lifted a centuries-old ban. They had tried to enter last month but were stopped by protesters
Continue reading...Two Indian women enter temple after centuries-long ban on women
Event comes as hundreds and thousands of women form a 380-mile human chain in support of gender equality
Two women have become the first to enter a Hindu temple in India’s southern state of Kerala after the supreme court lifted a centuries-old ban on women.
The temple was later “purified” by priests at the famous Sabarimala temple, which does not permit menstruating women inside. They closed the temple for several hours to conduct ancient rituals to remove the “polluting” female presence.
Continue reading...Indian women form 620km human chain in support of lifting of temple ban – video
Hundreds of thousands of women have formed a 620km-long human chain across a southern Indian state in support of a court order overturning a partial ban on women entering one of Hinduism’s holiest temples
Continue reading...India: world’s biggest election has suddenly become competitive
PM Narenda Modi weakened after Rahul Gandhi’s Congress ends 2018 with string of regional victories
The world’s largest exercise in democracy looms in 2019. In the beachside towns of Kerala state, the mountain villages of the Himalayas and across the dusty cities of the Gangetic plain, an estimated 850 million people will cast their votes in India’s national election sometime between March and May. And the race just got competitive.
A few months ago the prime minister, Narendra Modi, looked invincible. His party had followed its thumping national election win in 2014 with a run of victories in India’s largest states. The Congress party, which ushered India into independence 70 years ago and had been its default ruler since, was reduced to a rump, with leaders from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) boasting the country would soon be “Congress-mukt” (Congress-free).
Continue reading...CARLTON: Sometimes it helps to take a step back
Our country's elections are odd things. From the presidential level down to the local, they can be part serious debate, part raging bowl of hatred and part circus.
India Ignores Pleas, Deports Rohingya Muslims to Myanmar
A billboard in the northern India city of Jammu put up by a Hindu nationalist group in February 2017 threatens the local Rohingya refugees to leave the region. Around 5,500 Rohingya refugees lived in Jammu when this billboard was put up.
Independent Shiva Ayyadurai challenges Elizabeth Warren
NEW BEDFORD - V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai doesn't have much use for the two-party political system in Massachusetts. He's running an energetic campaign as an independent for U.S. Senate to topple incumbent Democrat Elizabeth Warren, complete with a campaign bus bearing the slogan “Only a real Indian can beat a fake Indian.” Ayyadurai, 54, was born in Bombay, India, into the bottom rung of that county's caste system.
Three men, four questions and a 24 million dollar quandary
Hong Kong court orders asset management firm SSG Capital to answer questions about missing funds relating to a multi-million dollar fraud A court in Hong Kong has ordered Shyam Maheshwari, Andreas Vourloumis, and Edwin Wong, principals of the hedge fund SSG Capital, a Hong Kong-based asset management firm, to answer under oath questions about missing funds relating to a multi-million dollar fraud scheme perpetrated in the United States. The principals of SSG Capital are former Lehman Brothers executives based in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Dress that! Different avatars of Prime Minister Narendra Modi
On Prime Minister Narendra Modi's birthday, we take a look at his sartorial sense which shows a different side of the man This shimmery shirt was worn by Narendra Modi in South Africa when he had gone on a four-nation Africa tour aimed at enhancing ties with the continent. Showcasing India as an attractive destination for defence production, the Prime Minister also sought deeper collaboration in the sector with South Africa, a major arms exporter, even as he thanked them for supporting India's bid for membership of Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Google pulls YouTube ads by Putin critic Alexei Navalny
Democratic Party Mailer Associating Cynthia Nixon With Anti-Semitism Backfires - On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, just days before New York's gubernatorial primary on Thursday, a mailer sent by the New York Democratic Party misrepresenting Cynthia Nixon's views on Israel and accusing How WhatsApp Destroyed A Village - In July, residents of a rural Indian town saw rumors of child kidnappers on WhatsApp. Then they beat five strangers to death.
Avenatti would base his 2020 campaign in St. Louis
Bruce Ohr notes contradict Glenn Simpson on Donald Trump, Russia collusion theory - Fusion GPS founder Glenn R. Simpson pushed a conspiracy theory to the Justice Department that posited Donald Trump maintained a computer server in 2016 directly linked to the Kremlin-connected Alfa Bank in Moscow How WhatsApp Destroyed A Village - In July, residents of a rural Indian town saw rumors of child kidnappers on WhatsApp. Then they beat five strangers to death.
Mazagon Dock is getting into ship repair, exports: Rakesh Anand
Commodore Rakesh Anand , chairman and managing director, talks to Ateeq Shaikh about diversification and the recent competition the company has started facing from private shipyards in the areas of naval shipbuilding and ship repairs. Most shipyards in India are under the Ministry of Shipping, but Mazagon Dock comes under the Ministry of Defence.
Opposition indulging in vote bank politics over NRC: Shah
New Delhi, July 31 : The BJP on Tuesday said the National Register of Citizens , whose draft was released in Assam on Monday, is a matter of national security for the party and accused the opposition of indulging in vote bank politics. Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah said the security of the country and its people is the top most priority and dared other parties to clear their stand on Bangladeshi infiltrators.