Some three years back, an independent NGO: the Center for Science and the Environment, found unsafe levels of pesticides in Coke and Pepsi in India, findings that were subsequently corrobarated by a parliamentary committee. Now more recently, a repeat study finds something like 25 times the EU standards of pesticide in Indian soft drinks [report ( Read more... )

Only in India can a donkey be arrested for being part of a protest, as "evidence from the scene of a crime". Details from the BBC, here.The Kancheepuram District People's Forum and the Sons of the Soil groups rented the donkey for use in a demonstration against what they say is the lethargy of the authorities in dealing with the issue ( Read more... )

is the title of an 1890s era book, on the lives of the "other" half of New York, and is also the title of an interesting new team blog, that seeks to focus on the India that the mainstream news media tends to ignore.Sometimes I think nothing going to change for this “other India” until they're empowered to demand change for themselves, this blog ( Read more... )

And loving every moment of it. It's been absolutely fab. to be back in India - no confusions, no major excitement, just feels like home. Landed in Bombay - a city that evokes mixed responses from a lot of people, I like Bombay though problems and all - it's an alive, gritty city. Spent the day catching with my aunt whom I hadn't seen in far too ( Read more... )

Genocide should be genocide regardless of whether it's in Dafur or Gujarat, right? This poem about the Gujarat pogrom really gave me goose-bumps, and Narendra Modi's videocast in Madison Square Garden drew me to a protest rally against his murderous policies. Kofi Annan's Op-Ed in the NYTimes on the Dafur genocide, while upsetting didn't ( Read more... )

The first was a superb all-night Indian classical concert at IIMB - free admittance, clear skies, pretty girl sitting next to you, lounging around on the lawns with old friends (shortindiangirl and chaibacca), superb musicians, can't really ask for more.. Kadri Gopalnath on the sax, Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt on the Mohan Veena ( a modified guitar) - both brilliant ( Read more... )

It's always good to be back in India.. B'lore's changing, lots more ppl, cars, money, alarmingly fewer trees, more stress - still it it just feels right to be here.. Home really is where you belong, where your friends are, a place where you're not groping for the light switch in the dark, where you press the bloody switch down to turn it on.. Not ( Read more... )

But more sober than ecstatic about it, there's hasn't been much to cheer about thus far ( Read more... )

The Kanchi Sankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati has been arrested and remanded to jail on charges of murder no less - Holy cow! more here and here.. The story seems to have all the ingredients of a hollywood thriller, a celebrated and venerated seer, an alleged whistle-blower of a victim murdered in a temple no less, political pressure for the arrest,a ( Read more... )

but that apparently doesn't stem from a paucity of people using condoms