Disinformation » India

The Robot Psychics Of India

JacobSloan — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 18:10:04 +0000

What happens when the unfathomable/intangible and the logical/mechanical intersect? Robots designed to tap into the spirit world — meet the priests/shamans of the twenty-first century. Via Discover Magazine:

These bots wait in perpetual readiness to dispense their pre-programmed wisdom, and for only 5 rupees or so, the robot’s handler will allow you to plug a pair of headphones into its metallic underpants and listen as it tells your fortune. One of our favorite designs is the mod/retro combination of a smattering of LED lights and an analog clock, for those mortals bogged down in the worldly concerns of time.

The Industry of Hunger

Jin_TheNinja — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:43:19 +0000

Photo: Tawheed Manzoor (CC)

Vandana Shiva on Al Jazeera English explains how, as mega-chains venture into industrial farming, they have created an epidemic of hunger- and generated billions in profit.

New Delhi, India – In November 2011, when the UPA government announced that it had cleared the entry of big retail chains such as Walmart and Tesco into India through 51 per cent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, it justified the decision saying that FDI in retail would boost food security and benefit farmers’ livelihoods.

But the assurance that FDI in retail would ease inflation did not resolve the political crisis the government was facing; it deepened it. Parliament was stalled for several days of the Winter Session, after which the government was forced to withdraw its decision.

The story of FDI in retail goes back to 2005, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed an agriculture agreement with the US, along with the nuclear agreement. On the board of the US-India Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture, as it is called, sit Monsanto (the world’s leading producer of GM seeds), ConAgra (among the world’s biggest agribusinesses, along with Cargill) and Walmart (the world’s largest retail giant).

Protests had prevented Walmart’s entry into retail, but, in 2007, it did get a backdoor entry through a joint-venture with Bharti (their stores go by the names of Easyday and Best Price Modern Wholesale). No back-end infrastructure has been built so far, one of the other claims of the government about why we need retail giants.

Farmers’ suicides spike in India

The way the UPA government tried to ram through the decision on FDI in retail – without consulting the opposition parties, or even its allies – was clearly undemocratic. But the decision itself was also flawed. It illustrated a disconnect between an ideology based on market fundamentalism – which is the leaning of the present government – and the Indian reality of small farms and small retail…

Read the rest on Al Jazeera English

Girl ‘Sacrificed To Ensure Better Harvest’

JacobSloan — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 20:00:42 +0000

The Times of India reports on a horrifying Wicker Man-esque murder in central India:

Two men have been arrested in for allegedly killing a 7-year-old girl and cutting out her liver in a ritual sacrifice to ensure a better harvest, police said Monday.

Lalita Tati disappeared in October and her dismembered remains were found a week later, Rajendra Narayan Das, a senior police officer, told The Associated Press. Tati was walking home after watching television at a neighbor’s house when she was kidnapped.

Police arrested two men, both poor farmers, last week and they told police they killed the girl to appease their gods and get a better harvest, Das said. The men were described as “tribals,” a term referring to the region’s indigenous people, most of whom remain mired in poverty and illiteracy.

Human sacrifices are rare but get prominent attention every few years. A deep belief in traditional healers, or witch doctors, is common in mostly tribal Chhattisgarh.

Man Has Raised His Arm Continuously For 38 Years

JacobSloan — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 17:52:30 +0000

Is his now-gnarled arm a beacon of peace? A symbol of rejection of earthly pleasures? A crystal-clear example of the insanity of religion? In pondering Amar Mahant’s arm, everyone will see what they want to see — like a Cheeto said to resemble both Jesus and Elvis. Via the West Australian:

In 1970 Amar Mahant [of New Delhi] left his job, family and friends to dedicate himself to his religious beliefs. In 1973, the clerk raised his hand in honour of Hindu deity Shiva – and he hasn’t put it down since. It’s now been 38 years.

Amar’s followers claim his sacrifice is a beacon of peace, while others say he has given up the use of a limb in order to separate himself from the pleasures of mortal life.

Amar’s sacrifice has turned his arm into a useless stump of flesh and bone, with a gnarled hand and unclipped fingernails hanging from the end. He says he experienced years of excruciating pain in order to follow his beliefs, but the pain has now passed. What’s left of his arm is now stuck in the bizarre position, atrophied after years of non-use.

Devotees of Hinuisim will often undergo incredible acts of self-sacrifice, sometimes involving starvation or vows of silence. Many of Amar’s followers have followed suit, raising their own arms for years and even decades.

Gibson Guitars Vs. the U.S. Government

Easy Rider — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 01:35:35 +0000

Via Brooklyn Vegan and Gibson.com:

The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.) This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India.

On August 24, 2011, around 8:45 a.m. CDT, agents for the federal government executed four search warrants on Gibson’s facilities in Nashville and Memphis and seized several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. Gibson had to cease its manufacturing operations and send workers home for the day, while armed agents executed the search warrants. Gibson has fully cooperated with the execution of the search warrants.

India’s Illegal ‘Human Safari Park’

Good German — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 07:45:15 +0000

Andaman Islands. Photo: _e.t (CC)

Via Wanderlust:

The Andaman Trunk Road was ordered to be closed by India’s Supreme Court in 2002 but it still remains open and poses a high threat to the indigenous community who have a population of just 365.

‘Survival’, an organisation which campaigns for tribal people’s rights worldwide, has called for travellers to boycott the road which runs through the Andaman Islands, a destination growing in popularity among tourists.

Rules to protect the Jarawa reserve and its community are routinely broken and thousands of tourists — both Indian and international — travel along the road each month, making the reserve in effect, a human safari park.

The hunter-gatherer Jarawa, have only had friendly contact with outsiders since 1998 so there is a high risk of tourists passing on diseases to the community who have little immunity.

In 1999 and 2006, the Jarawa suffered an outbreak of measles, which historically has decimated many indigenous communities worldwide following outside contact. The ongoing use of the Andaman Trunk Road risks a repeat of previous outbreaks.

Indian Company Produces Flat-Pack, $700 Houses

BananaFamine — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 02:03:33 +0000

Reports Agence France-Presse via Raw Story:

The Indian company that launched the world’s cheapest car has unveiled its latest product for the fast-growing nation: a flat-pack house that costs just $700 and can be built in a week.

The Tata group, maker of the $2,500 Nano car, said that the 20-square-metre (215-square-foot) home comes from a pre-fabricated kit that includes doors, windows and a roof.

“We have already prepared two-three different designs based on discussions with users and are gathering more feedback,” Sumitesh Das, the head of the project at Tata, told reporters in Hyderabad.

“Hopefully, in the next six-eight months we should be able to roll it out in the market nationally.”
The basic model of a so-called “Nano” house will cost 32,000 rupees ($720) and will use coconut fibre or jute for wall cladding and interiors. It has a life expectancy of 20 years.

For more information, see original article.

Monkey Wedding Called Illegal By Indian Officials

vulcan — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 04:47:04 +0000

Humanity, look out. There is no way by causing this action, it will turn out well for all of humanity. Via the Huffington Post:

In the small village of Talwas, Rajasthan, Raju, a well-known cigarette smoking monkey, and his bride Chinki were married, according to Stuff.

Raju had become a local celebrity after Ramesh Saini, a rickshaw driver, adopted him three years ago when he found the monkey unconscious.

He’s been a surrogate son to the childless Ramesh ever since.

“I want to enjoy the feelings of a son’s marriage through Raju’s wedding.” Ramesh told the publication. “We will welcome the bride in our house … after the wedding with all rituals.”

Americanization Training At An Indian Call Center

JacobSloan — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:49:38 +0000

The most marketable skill in India today is the ability to abandon your identity and slip into someone else’s.

An American spends his summer at an Indian call center, including a boot camp in which new employees try to change their nationality in three weeks by shedding their accents, gazing at photos of Walmart, watching Seinfeld, and eating pepperoni. Via Mother Jones:

I am waiting for a company cab, now an hour and a half late, to drive me across town to a call center, where an Indian “culture trainer” will teach me how to act Australian. For three weeks, a culture trainer will teach us conversational skills, Australian pop culture, and the terms of the mobile-phone contracts we’ll be peddling.

Bright recent college grads pore over flashcards and accent tapes, intoning the shibboleths of English pronunciation—”wherever” and “pleasure” and “socialization”—that recruiters use to distinguish the employable candidates from those still suffering from MTI, or “mother tongue influence.” The lucky ones will secure Spartan lodgings and spend their nights (thanks to time differences) in air-conditioned white-collar sweatshops.

Indian BPOs work with firms from dozens of countries, but most call-center jobs involve talking to Americans. New hires must be fluent in English, but many have never spoken to a foreigner. So to earn their headsets, they must complete classroom training lasting from one week to three months. Speaking Hindi on company premises is often a fireable offense.

Next is “culture training,” in which trainees memorize colloquialisms and state capitals, study clips of Seinfeld and photos of Walmarts, and eat in cafeterias serving paneer burgers and pizza topped with lamb pepperoni. Trainers aim to impart something they call “international culture”—which is, of course, no culture at all, but a garbled hybrid of Indian and Western signifiers designed to be recognizable to everyone and familiar to no one. The result is a comically botched translation—a multibillion dollar game of telephone. “The most marketable skill in India today,” the Guardian wrote in 2003, “is the ability to abandon your identity and slip into someone else’s.”

When I first decided to apply for a call-center job, I headed to Gurgaon, a commercial suburb of Delhi. Gurgaon was built 30 years ago by a corporation, for corporations. It was fallow farmland until 1979, when DLF, India’s biggest developer, began buying up property. Gurgaon is a non-city. In my time there, I saw no sidewalks, convenience stores, or public parks—only stray cows foraging in the sun-baked dirt between office towers.

Read the rest at Mother Jones

Indian Parents Push For Surgical Procedure To Turn Children From Girls To Boys

Pelliciari — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 20:45:03 +0000

Photo: Planemad (CC)

Oh the social questions this raises! How does this benefit/hurt the future generation? Should parents have the right to change a child’s sex? What psychological damage could occur? What if an adult learns that they had the procedure when they were young and want it reversed? The next twenty years may see a rise in the search for therapists. Hindustan Times reports:

Girls are being ‘converted’ into boys in Indore – by the hundreds every year – at ages where they cannot give their consent for this life-changing operation.

This shocking, unprecedented trend, catering to the fetish for a son, is unfolding at conservative Indore’s well-known clinics and hospitals on children who are 1-5 years old. The process being used to ‘produce’ a male child from a female is known as genitoplasty. Each surgery costs Rs 1.5 lakh.

Moreover, these children are pumped with hormonal treatment as part of the sex change procedure that may be irreversible.

The low cost of surgery and the relatively easy and unobtrusive way of getting it done in this city attracts parents from Delhi and Mumbai to get their child surgically ‘corrected’.

[Continues at Hindustan Times]

Rachel Maddow on The Problem With Pakistan in 30 Seconds (Video)

ralph — Sat, 28 May 2011 19:09:39 +0000

Last Typewriter Factory in the World Closes

moezilla — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 14:47:57 +0000

The last company manufacturing manual typewriters has finally shut its doors!

It was based in Mumbai, India, and in the 1990s “the company was selling 50,000 models each year,” reports this technology site, but “That had dropped to around 10,000 by the mid-2000s, and last year the company sold less than 1,000 typewriters. According to the company’s general manager Milind Dukle the only people now buying manual typewriters are ‘the defense agencies, courts and government offices.’”

“With manual typewriters no longer being produced, I think it’s fair to say we’re now a world where computers rule supreme.”

Termites Eat Millions Of Indian Rupees In Bank

BananaFamine — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 09:12:25 +0000

Via Yahoo News:

LUCKNOW, India – It was an all you can eat buffet at the bank.

An army of termites munched through 10 million rupees ($222,000) in currency notes stored in a steel chest at a bank, police in northern India said Friday.

The bank manager discovered the damage when he opened the reinforced room in an old bank building on Wednesday, police officer Navneet Rana told The Associated Press.

“It’s a matter of investigation how termites attacked bundles of currency notes stacked in a steel chest,” he said. The money was put in the chest in January.

The termites had damaged bank furniture and documents in the past.

The police have registered a case of negligence against bank officials in Barabanki, a town 20 miles (30 kilometers) southwest of Lucknow, the Uttar Pradesh state capital. In India, police register a case before opening an investigation.

For more information, see original article.

An Outsider’s Firsthand Look At The Aghori And Tantra Traditions

James Curcio — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 01:47:38 +0000

James Curcio

Special guest host James Curcio talks to William Clark about the time he spent in India, covering everything from tabla, the aghori sects of tantra, hinduisim and all points in between.

Over the course of the Immanence of Myth project, James Curcio has had many conversations with mythic artists, intellectuals and professors, and outright mutants who in Hunter’s words are “too weird to live and too rare to die.” Most of these are being written or transcribed in part for the book.

The Gspot: William Clark and Tantra (Or listen to the podcast on Alterati.com)

In the time since, we produced a “Gonzomentary” satyr-play about the modern artist called Clark. This podcast provides a very different look at the character behind the character.

Clark Episode 2: No Money Mo’ Problems

Confessions Of A Thug

Haystack — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 13:29:29 +0000

Victoriangothic.org reviews the classic novel which first popularized the Thuggee cult, a darkly psychological adventure story with a murderous anti-hero, Ameer Ali:

Philip Meadows Taylor’s 1839 novel Confessions of a Thug captured the imagination of 19th-century Britain with its chilling depiction of an organized death cult preying upon the hapless travelers of India’s wild and desolate roads. Based upon real accounts Taylor gathered during his work suppressing the Thuggee cult for the Nizam of Hyderabad, the book is ominously introduced as an authoritative exposé in which true events have been faithfully woven into a fictionalized narrative.

Group of Thugs c. 1864.

As portrayed by Taylor, the Thugs are the votaries of Bhowanee (Kali); the destructive aspect of the Supreme Being. Endowed with superior intelligence and cunning, they are sent forth to make “sacrifices” on her behalf. The reward for their piety is the plunder they gather from their victims. In so far as they observe her omens and obey her taboos, Bhowanee grants them protection from earthly authorities.

Their modus operandi is to inveigle wealthy marks into joining their camp, or to merge with travelling caravans who seek protection in numbers while making treacherous journeys through foreign lands. “Thug” being the Hindi word for “conman,” they proceed to charm and manipulate their travelling companions into lowering their guards. Then, at some remote, well chosen-spot, a signal is given and each Thug simultaneously strangles his assigned victim with a roomál (hankerchief). The bodies are quickly stripped and deposited in preprepared graves, which are then skillfully disguised, as by building fire pits over them to explain the disturbance of the earth. In order to quietly and routinely commit mass murder, the Thugs must operate with military efficiency. Each man is trained to perform a repertoire of specialized roles, including those of strangler (bhuttóte), grave-digger (bélha), inveigler (sótha) and those who bury the dead (lugháees).

The anti-hero protagonist of Confessions of a Thug is Ameer Ali (based upon Syeed Amir Ali, a prolific Thug who turned King’s evidence). As a small child his parents are murdered by Thugs, but one, Ismail, chooses to spare him and raise him as his son. After Ameer forgets his parents and learns his stepfather’s vocation, he is initiated into the cult. The ensuing narrative reads much like a conventional adventure story of a boy heading off to sea, or running away with a band of gypsies, except for the stark fact that the protagonist is repeatedly committing acts of cold-blooded murder…

[Full Article at Victoriangothic.org]

India’s Population Reaches 1.21 Billion

Pelliciari — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 20:31:37 +0000

The world’s population has had a rapid increase in the last decade, but India takes the cake. With the 2011 census updated, India’s population reaches 1.21 billion. BBC reports:

India’s population has grown by 181 million people over the past decade to 1.21bn, according to the 2011 census.

More people now live in India than in the United States, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan and Bangladesh combined.

India is on course to overtake China as the world’s most populous nation by 2030, but its growth rate is falling, figures show. China has 1.3bn people.

The census also reveals a continuing preference for boys – India’s sex ratio is at its worst since independence.

Female foeticide remains common in India, although sex-selective abortion based on ultrasound scans is illegal. Sons are still seen by many as wage-earners for the future.

[Continues at BBC]

The Red Cross Briefed the U.S. on India’s Use of Torture in Kashmir

Good German — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 07:21:35 +0000

The AFP reports, via CommonDreams:

The International Committee of the Red Cross provided US diplomats in 2005 with evidence of the systematic use of torture by Indian security forces in Kashmir, leaked US diplomatic cables revealed Friday.

In a confidential briefing, the ICRC told the diplomats of 177 visits it had made to detention centres in Indian Kashmir that revealed “stable trend lines” of prisoner abuses, according to the cables released by website WikiLeaks.

Techniques included electric shock treatment, sexual and water torture and nearly 300 cases of “roller” abuse in which a round metal object is placed on the thighs of a sitting detainee and then sat on by guards to crush the muscles.

The ICRC said it had been “forced to conclude that the (Indian government) condones torture,” the cables said.

Human rights groups have repeatedly accused India of abuses in Muslim-majority Indian Kashmir, where it has been fighting an armed separatist insurgency for more than 20 years.

The ICRC, which met with nearly 1,500 detainees, stressed that very few were militants. The vast majority were civilians “connected to or believed to have information about the insurgency”.

Fighting Monkeys With Monkeys…

ralph — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 23:00:13 +0000

The more we train our fellow primates for tasks once relegated to human beings, the closer we are as a species to seeing the Statue of Liberty half-submerged in a shoreline. Sara Sidner writes on CNN:

New Delhi, India — Chotu is not happy to see visitors. He is busy scratching himself and intensely surveying his surroundings when he’s approached.

He and his buddies Pinki and Mangu are in the middle of their eight-hour shifts. They have important jobs to do. They are some of more than 100,000 security forces protecting people during the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

But Chotu and his gang are a special force trained to put a stop to any monkeying around near the stadiums. Chotu, Pinki and Mangu are langur monkeys.

Their trainers said each one has the ability to scare off 50 potential attackers — namely the wild smaller macaque monkeys that roam the streets and buildings of Delhi.

The wild monkeys are known for some naughty habits. You can’t blame the macaques; they’re just being themselves. The wild monkeys are in a densely populated city where they occasionally have run-ins with humans — especially if there is a chance to snatch some food.

Above Image: McKay Savage from Chennai, India via Wikimedia Commons

New Language Discovered In India

Pelliciari — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 18:50:41 +0000

Cultures about to be lost are still being found. The new language discovered in India, Koro, leaves more questions than answers. From Discovery News:

A team of linguists announced Tuesday that they have discovered a new and unique language, called Koro, in northeastern India, but immediately warned that it was highly endangered.

Only around 800 people are believed to speak the Tibeto-Burman language, and few of them are under the age of 20, according to the researchers who discovered Koro during an expedition as part of National Geographic’s “Enduring Voices” project.

The language, they said, has never been written down.

Continues at Discovery News …

From National Geographic:

Recipe For Disaster? India Divides Sacred Site Between Muslims and Hindus

majestic — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 14:56:23 +0000

I almost hate to say it, but is this the next Jerusalem? From the Wall Street Journal:

NEW DELHI—An Indian court ruled Thursday that a sacred site claimed by both Hindus and Muslims should be divided, in a complex decision that will test whether India has moved beyond the violent religious passions that bedeviled the nation in the 1990s.

In the ruling, two of the three judges in the case found that the site be divided into three parts—two for the Hindu side and one for Muslims. Two of the judges also found that the site was the birthplace of Lord Ram, a significant ruling for the Hindu side. The court said no action would be taken for three months and the Muslim side said it would appeal to the Supreme Court of India.

The case, before the Allahabad High Court in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, has been running since 1950 and had been closely watched not just for its historic and religious significance but for the country’s reaction; a Hindu mob partially destroyed a mosque on the site in 1992 which was followed by widespread violence.

To minimize the risk of post-verdict violence, the government has deployed hundreds of thousands of security personnel across the country, including 190,000 in Uttar Pradesh alone. Officials repeatedly called for calm whatever the verdict and banned bulk instant messaging to make it harder for demonstrators to organize.

Some businesses around the country informally advised some of their staff to stay home Thursday. In the state of Karnataka, the government closed all schools and colleges Thursday and Friday. In Madhya Pradesh, the administration imposed a rule which disallows any gathering of more than four people…

[continues in the Wall Street Journal]

Drug Resistant Indian Superbug Spreading

majestic — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 13:31:09 +0000

From Reuters:

A new superbug could spread around the world after reaching Britain from India — in part because of medical tourism — and scientists say there are almost no drugs to treat it.

Researchers said on Wednesday they had found a new gene called New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase, or NDM-1, in patients in South Asia and in Britain.

NDM-1 makes bacteria highly resistant to almost all antibiotics, including the most powerful class called carbapenems, and experts say there are no new drugs on the horizon to tackle it.

With international travel in search of cheaper healthcare increasing, particularly for procedures such as cosmetic surgery, Timothy Walsh, who led the study, said he feared the new superbug could soon spread across the globe…

[continues at Reuters]

Coming Soon: The Bollywood Hitler Movie

JacobSloan — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:24:27 +0000

Dear Friend Hitler is a lighthearted Bollywood romp, presumably filled with dancing, based on “Hitler’s love for India and how he indirectly contributed to Indian independence.” Anupam Kher and Neha Dhupia star as Hitler and Eva Braun (although Kher just quit, following the public controversy). The Guardian reports:

Western productions have occasionally attempted to make fun of Hitler, ranging from successes like The Producers to fiascos like Heil Honey, I’m Home. But Dear Friend Hitler is not a traditional Bollywood musical, and makes no claim to comedy. “It aims to capture the personality of Adolf Hitler and his insecurities, his charisma and his paranoia during the last few days of his life,” Kumar says. In other words, this is Downfall – but with a positive spin.

India’s Castes: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Count?

majestic — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 14:13:38 +0000

Jason Overdorf reports that for the first time in 80 years India may get a true tally of an ancient system, in Globalpost:

NEW DELHI, India — The 2,000-year-old Hindu caste system remains the most powerful force in Indian society.

Friendships, business ties and marriages live and die according to its dictates. Political parties carefully script their election tickets according to its mathematics. And an increasing number of government policies — including spiraling quotas for government jobs and university education — follow its logic.

But it’s not polite to talk about it, and might even be dangerous to quantify it.

Yet in an unexpected turn, earlier this month the coalition-leading Congress Party led by Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh caved to pressure from opposition leaders and agreed to add a survey of India’s myriad castes to the 2011 census, which began April 1. Weeks after the decision, jostling and debate rages on as India’s politicians reflect over the potential upheavals that may result.

Many here fear that a new understanding of the various groups’ numbers could disrupt the current political structure, while the upper crust fears another wave of escalating quotas will make it even more difficult for a young upper caste person to get a university education. But the momentum of caste politics makes a reversal seem impossible.

Broadly speaking, the caste system has Brahmins and Kshatriya at the top of the social order, followed by the trading castes known as Baniyas and scores of laboring castes such as the Yadavs, and beneath them all the erstwhile untouchables…

[continues in Globalpost]

Gandhi’s Sex Life Laid Bare in New Book

Raymond — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 03:14:18 +0000

From Yahoo News:

A new book on Mahatma Gandhi has delved into the intimate life of the Indian icon whose famous vow of chastity did not prevent him sleeping with naked women and conducting bizarre sex “experiments”.

“Gandhi: Naked Ambition” by British historian Jad Adams sheds new light on the spiritual leader and independence hero whose spartan existence and resistance to earthly pleasures are an integral part of his popular image.

The book has been released in Britain and will be available soon in India where it is bound to make waves in a country where Gandhi’s image is fiercely protected and a source of national pride.

That his attitudes to sex were censorious and unusual is well known. He wrote of his disgust at himself for having intercourse with his wife Kasturba, aged 15, when his father died in 1885.

In later life, having fathered four children, he forbade even married couples in his ashram retreats from having sex and lectured men on the need to take a cold bath when they felt lustful.

More than 60 years after Gandhi’s death, Adams has gone through hundreds of pages of his writings and eyewitness accounts to build a behind-closed-doors picture of a man considered both a saint and the father of the nation in India.

[Read more at Yahoo News]

Yoga As A Political Movement

majestic — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:05:30 +0000

The return of yogis to political life? From the New York Times:

HARIDWAR, India — The sun slumbered well beneath the horizon, but Swami Ramdev had been up for hours. Swathed in a saffron loincloth, he led his charges, a few hundred devotees in this holy city on the Ganges River and tens of millions more watching on television, through a rapid-fire series of yoga poses.

“If you sweat this much in the morning, you will never get old,” he shouted, the Chiclet-white dazzle of his smile undimmed by the wild bush of his beard. His own 50-ish body, lithe and supple as it whipped through the poses, underscored the point.

Without skipping a beat, Swami Ramdev, who as one of India’s most popular and influential gurus has reintroduced yoga to India’s masses, segued seamlessly into his latest passion: politics.

“We clean up our bodies,” he cried. “Then we will clean up our democracy!”

Swami Ramdev plans to do for the body politic what he has already done to the country’s creaky physiques: whip it into shape. He announced last month that he would found a political party that would field candidates for each of the 543 parliamentary seats in India’s next general election in 2014.

“What the people need is honest, brave and responsible leadership,” he said in an interview at the sprawling campus of his rapidly expanding yoga, natural foods and medicine empire in northern India. The country’s political system is riddled with corruption and riven by the deep divisions of religion and caste, he said. Tapping into the ancient Indian wisdom that gave birth to yoga, and the holy texts like the Vedas and Upanishads, is the only way to excise those cancers, he contended.

“We must have a total revolution,” he said…

[continues in the New York Times]

Headless Human Sacrifice Victim Found In Indian Temple

JacobSloan — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:20:55 +0000

Cutting off people’s heads as a gesture to the gods may have fallen out of favor, but it still happens sometimes, BBC News reports:

The severed head and torso of a man has been found in a temple in the Indian state of West Bengal in what the police say is a case of “human sacrifice.” The head and the body were found at the local temple to the goddess Kali near Chotomakdampur village in the western district of Birbhum.

“This man has been sacrificed to propitiate the gods,” said local official Kalyan Mukherjee. “This is a shame for Bengal where the ruling Left coalition claim they have eradicated social evils and combated superstition,” an opposition leader Samir Kumar Ray said.

Indian Military to Weaponize World’s Hottest Chili

disinfogreg — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:26:26 +0000

WASBIR HUSSAIN writes on the Associated Press:

GAUHATI, India — The Indian military has a new weapon against terrorism: the world’s hottest chili.

After conducting tests, the military has decided to use the thumb-sized “bhut jolokia,” or “ghost chili,” to make tear gas-like hand grenades to immobilize suspects, defense officials said Tuesday.

The bhut jolokia was accepted by Guinness World Records in 2007 as the world’s spiciest chili. It is grown and eaten in India’s northeast for its taste, as a cure for stomach troubles and a way to fight the crippling summer heat.

It has more than 1,000,000 Scoville units, the scientific measurement of a chili’s spiciness. Classic Tabasco sauce ranges from 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units, while jalapeno peppers measure anywhere from 2,500 to 8,000.

Coca-Cola and Water Use in India: “Good Till the Last Drop”

Raymond — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:08:18 +0000

From ScienceBlogs.com:

The marketing executive who came up with Coca-Cola’s popular slogan in 1908 most likely never expected it would be taken so literally. However, a hundred years ago there probably weren’t many who imagined a term like “water wars” could exist in a region that experiences annual monsoons.

On February 25 a complaint was filed in the New York Supreme Court against the The Coca-Cola Company alleging that they knew about and sought to cover up human rights abuses in Guatemala. While that trial gets started, the company’s controversial practices in India continue involving the over-exploitation of limited water resources and the contamination of groundwater supplies. In response to public outcry the soft drink company is now championing itself as a longtime environmental leader and the business community is eager to advertise their claim. Yesterday CNN Money reported that:

Coke has been a leader when it comes to environmental issues: It is aiming to be water neutral — meaning every drop of water used by the company will be replenished — by 2020.

This would come as a surprise to the Plachimada community in the State of Kerala. Ever since Coca-Cola opened a bottling plant on their land in 2000 they have been faced with chronic drought and polluted water. In 2006 these residents of a small impoverished community in southern India began a pitched campaign to evict Coca-Cola from their land which led to fierce battles with local authorities.

[Read more a ScienceBlogs.com]

Forbes Billionaires List Shifts To China, India & Mexico

majestic — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:05:41 +0000

Carlos Slim Helú. Photo: José Cruz/ABr (CC)

A sure sign that the balance of power is shifting away from the United States and Europe towards developing nations is shown in the new Forbes list, with the Mexican Carlos Slim Helu beating out Bill Gates for the top spot and China claiming more billionaires than any country outside the US.

India’s billionaires, however, are richer, as reported in the Christian Science Monitor:

With the release of the latest Forbes rich list of billionaires, India is finding much to brag about – even as other fast-growing economies like China make their mark.

Eight Indians made Forbes magazine’s latest list of the top 100 billionaires, and two – energy tycoon Mukesh Ambani and steel mogul Lakshmi Mittal – sit in the top 5. Mr. Ambani is now the fourth richest person in the world, and the richest person in the Asia-Pacific region.

The highest-ranking Chinese person on the list is Li Ka-shing of Hong Kong, ranked No. 14 with $21 billion.

Ten of Asia’s top 25 billionaires are Indian, while one is from China.

Although China has more billionaires overall than India (and every other country besides the United States, for the first time), Indian billionaires are richer. According to a local edition of Forbes last November, the wealthiest 100 Indians are collectively worth $276 billion, while their top 100 Chinese counterparts are worth $170 billion.

The three richest Indians – Ambani brothers Mukesh and Anil and Mr. Mittal – together had more wealth the top 24 Chinese billionaires combined…

[continues in the Christian Science Monitor]

Criticising GM Crops May Land You In Jail

phunkychic666 — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:45:51 +0000

Imran Khan for express buzz:

BANGALORE [India]: Criticising Genetically Modified (GM) products could land you in jail — if the draconian draft Biotechnology Regulatory Authority Bill (BRAB) of 2009, which will be tabled in the current session of the parliament by the UPA government, is passed.

In an unprecedented muzzle on the right to freedom of speech of the citizen, Chapter 13 section 63 of the draft bill says, “Whoever, without any evidence or scientific record misleads the public about the safety of the organisms and products…shall be punished with imprisonment for a term that shall not be less than six months but which may extend to one year and with fine which may extend to two lakh rupees or with both.” The BRAI Bill drafted by the department of bio-technology under the Ministry of Science and Technology comes on the heels of a moratorium on Bt Brinjal announced by the Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh.

“What they are doing is much worse than what Hitler or Mussolini did. Through this bill, they want to take absolute authority. They are behaving like a vendor instead of a regulator,” Pushpa M Bhargava, a member of the Supreme Court appointed Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) said.

There are also other provisions in this bill which are disconcerting.

Article 27 (1) of the bill seeks to keep the information related to the research, approval and science of the GM Products out of the purview of the Right to Information ( RTI) Act.

In other words, farmers, NGO’s and Environmental groups that have been on the forefront of the campaign against BT Brinjal and other genetically modified crops, can longer obtain information about it.

Not only that, the three member experts of the Department of Biotechnology will override any existing legislation about GM technology in the states.

The draft bill also states that the BRAI will set up its own appellate tribunal which will have the jurisdiction to hear arguments on the issues concerning biotechnology. In case of any disputes, petitioners can only approach the Supreme Court of India…

[continues in express buzz]