Last week, two ominous events in India – a solar eclipse and record high-tides in Mumbai – spurred astrologists and soothsayers to predict floods and catastrophe. Their prophecies were dismissed, and the celestial events came and went with no horrendous devastation.
But maybe we weren’t looking closely enough, because life in Mumbai often looks and feels [...]
If ever there was a symbol of the conflict between female education and tradition in Central and South Asia, this was it.
One of my students from the slums of Mumbai (where full black burqas are not uncommon), 15-year-old “Sally” takes the train to school everyday. Her parents had no idea that she was secretly meeting [...]
The stupidity and arrogance of our government has never ceased to amaze me, but the latest dust-up over secret CIA plans to assassinate Al Qaeda leaders is truly Orwellian.
Apparently, long ago, in an administration far, far away, some Bush adviser actually had a brain. Imagine this: instead of dropping bombs from unmanned drones on remote [...]
Posted in India on July 6th, 2009 5 Comments »
Last week’s ruling by a New Delhi court struck down a 150-year-old colonial law that made homosexual acts a crime in India.
It effectively means that gay Indian men no longer have to worry about criminal prosecution (social acceptance and equality is another story). But perhaps more importantly, it means a choice.
Previously, gay men in India [...]