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Do You Get Harassed by Strangers?
All (women) aboard! India's four largest cities recently introduced the "Ladies Special" — a commuter train for women only. The cities have found that the segregated service is needed to prevent women from being groped, pinched, and subjected to shouted insults while they commute to work.
India Chain Claims to Be Home to Longest Ever Dosa
To be filed right next to New Delhi's record for the world's largest biryani: Sankalp, a restaurant chain based in the city of Ahmedabad, India, claims to have made the world's longest dosa.
The mammoth dosa — a crepelike South Indian specialty made from rice and black lentils — was created last Wednesday and measured in at 32 feet and 5 inches long, taking less than 40 minutes to put together. To make the behemoth, a team of 16 chefs practiced for 10 days, working to achieve the correct length by maintaining a steady temperature across the entire dosa, while handling a tawa, or hot plate, that was 35 feet long.
More Indian Women Casually Using Emergency Contraception
Widespread access to family planning medication can come with some negative side effects. Gynecologists in India are reporting a sharp rise in medical complications, such as excessive bleeding or incomplete abortions, due to women's casual use of over the counter emergency contraception and abortion pills. Doctors say that women commonly look up the dosages on the Internet and then buy the pills themselves, never consulting a doctor.
Indian Women Asked to Plow Fields Naked For Rain
Modern women in eastern India have been asked to participate in an ancient tradition: plowing dry fields naked with the hope that it will embarrass the weather gods and urge them to respond with a much needed monsoon.
This year, Indian farmers are worrying over a very dry start to the monsoon season and having nude women plow the fields while chanting hymns is the most trusted custom among farmers. Interestingly, only unmarried women are allowed to participate.
Front Page: France Celebrates Bastille Day
- France held its annual military parade to mark Bastille Day, the country's national holiday. This year the parade honored India, as prime minister Manmohan Singh was in town meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. — AFP
- Microsoft has plans for a free, online version of Office.
Girl-Grooming Trend on the Rise in India
In our image-obsessed culture, girls are grooming at younger and younger ages, making youth-targeted bikini waxes and toddler beauty pageants more and more common. Now, it looks like the disturbing trend of underage grooming is impacting the youth of India, as girls, and even boys, are making stops to the salon and spa more frequently. In fact, recent marketing studies imply that the hottest Indian beauty trends involve services targeted towards teens and tweens.
Oh Snap! It's Finally OK to Be Gay in India
While gay Americans fight for marriage rights, gay people in India are just winning the right to be homosexual. Today the high court in New Delhi overruled colonial-era legislation that criminalized homosexuality. Britain decriminalized homosexual acts in 1967, but its former colonies, including Malaysia, Singapore, and Zimbabwe still have strict laws against homosexual relations.
Indian Colleges Blame Jeans For Sexual Harassment
Female university students in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh can no longer wear jeans or any other Western clothes to school. It's all for their own protection, of course — officials say that expelling women who dress like this is "the only way to stop crime against women."
If the schools really wanted to stop sexual harassment, they should probably go after the men who perpetrate it.
Father of Slumdog Star Denies Putting Daughter Up For Sale
The father of Slumdog Millionaire star Rubina Ali has denied putting his daughter up for adoption (or, as the rest of the world says, "sale") to the BBC.
Over the weekend, UK paper News of the World reported he was asking £200,000 (nearly $300,000) for his 9-year-old daughter. I'd like to say it wasn't as sinister as it sounds, but, basically, it was.
Slumdog Makers Start Fund For Child Poverty in Mumbai
The makers of Slumdog Millionaire have set up a fund of almost $1 million to support child poverty programs in Mumbai, India. Those behind the Oscar-winning film, which made more than $400 million worldwide, have been accused of exploiting the people who live in Mumbai's slums for their own gain.
While the child actors from the movie got to travel to Hollywood for the Oscars, neighbors cheered them on in their hometown slums.
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