'Corruption in India is a total contradiction'
Spiritual leader and Nobel peace prize winner, the Dalai Lama , exemplifies how religious belief can steer a political movement using non-violence. Speaking with Sagari Chhabra , the Dalai Lama explains how Tibetans keep calm, why corruption is an ano-maly in India, why China should open up - and how it might be time to formulate secular ethics:

In the struggle over a homeland, how have you managed to keep six million Tibetans completely non-violent?

Before Buddhism, ... Read More

S.M. Krishna’s finely nuanced visit to Israel
K.P. Nayar

Gifts exchanged during diplomatic engagements as part of official visits are a good indicator of a political leader’s standing, more often than not, a credible measure of how the world sees a prime minister or a member of a national cabinet. In terms of ground reality, it throws up a better judgment of a politician than, for instance, the domestic media’s report card on performance. Official gifts also offer clues on where the ... Read More

Being Prudish About Politicians’ Private Lives
Michael Kinsley
Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Many years ago, when Senator Ted Kennedy was challenging President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic presidential nomination, I quit my job at a national magazine in protest over the owner’s refusal to publish an article I had edited about the senator’s extramarital activities.

At that time, there was a general consensus among Washington journalists that one didn’t do that sort of thing. (“That sort of thing” being reporting on ... Read More

Pranab Mukherjee refurbished Calcutta’s historic link with Chicago
K.P. Nayar

When Barack Obama visits India again as he has promised to do, assuming he is re-elected president of the United States of America this year, it is fairly certain that Calcutta will be on his itinerary. The finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee, has seen to that last weekend during a whirlwind tour of Obama’s home town, Chicago.
Mukherjee did not meet Obama, who was away from Chicago in his adopted residence at the White House ... Read More

Starbucks enters India: A suggested menu
By Elizabeth Flock
After several years of frustrated attempts at entering India, a Starbucks tea is finally on the Hindustan horizon.

Aiming to open 50 outlets by the end of the year, Starbucks managed to slip its way into the South Asian country through a 50-50 joint venture with Tata Global Beverages, a subsidiary of India’s largest conglomerate Tata.
India is known as a country of tea drinkers, with coffee being popular in the south. But that doesn’t ... Read More

A Legal Triangle Around Srimad Bhagavat Gita
By Fr. Anand Muttungal

From time immemorial Hindus hold Bhagwat Gita in the highest regard as the Holy Scripture. It is believed to be the divine discourse by the Supreme Lord Krishna Himself. It is believed to be the most popular scripture among all the sacred scriptures of Hindu religious traditions and even among the followers other religions. Every spiritual person regardless of religion holds the view that Bhagwat Gita is one of the most important ... Read More

India’s outsourcing firms doing just fine
While western politicians yabber on about bringing jobs back home, third-quarter results for India’s top three IT outsourcers show just how hard it is to reverse the offshoring trend.

At Tata Consultancy, the industry leader by revenue, sales jumped by more than a fifth from a year earlier in dollar terms, it said last week. At Infosys (INFY-N) and Wipro (WIT-N) they were up by around a sixth. This puts the industry on track for ... Read More

Indian paid-journalism sting prompts defamation trial
By Jennifer Norton

A Goa-based journalist is facing trial for libel in India today after publishing details of a sting in which he claims a newspaper offered him media coverage for cash.

Writing on his blog Paid News in Goa, Mayabhushan Nagvenkar says he contacted a leading regional daily pretending to be fictional local election candidate Bernard Costa in October 2010 and asked for coverage in return for money.

That paper is now suing him for defamation, ... Read More

To Israel as clouds of crisis gather
K.P. NAYAR

Washington, Jan. 8: S.M. Krishna’s hopping travel to four West Asian nations now under way has the potential to be the most important visit made by any external affairs minister in recent memory, ranking on par with Jaswant Singh’s post-Pokhran dialogue with the Americans and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s journey to the White House to jointly announce a nuclear deal with George W. Bush in 2005.
There is quiet concern in Washington that Israel ... Read More

Govardhan Ghat Paramaribo Suriname
January 15th – February 1st 2012
Govardhan Ghat
Paramaribo Suriname
South-America

Foreword

Sometimes an idea arises when all conditions are favorable and the right people are together. Recently I (Pt Shankar Upadhyay) was in Suriname for a visit and I believe something similar happened. The idea was born to have a great spiritual event on Surinamese soil.

A pilgrimage, a gathering of people, in Suriname and the surrounding countries, that live together in prayer and spiritual deepening. To bundle this ... Read More

Remembering the Delhi Durbar
Unsung century

A HUNDRED years ago Britain’s King George V visited the jewel of his Empire, marking—it later became clear—the zenith of British colonial rule in India. The highlight of his trip, on December 12th 1911, was an enormous and colourful ceremony known as the Delhi Durbar, where local princes paid homage, a 101-gun salute was fired for the King and many thousands gathered to see him crowned as Emperor of India. Delhi had been the ... Read More

How India conquered polio
Stephanie Nolen

On Friday, India marks a huge public health milestone – a year since a case of polio was found in the country – a critical step in being declared polio-free and an achievement that many experts long argued was impossible.

Just two years ago, India reported 741 cases of polio, the largest number in the world. But a mammoth, years-long push, involving billions of dollars and millions of volunteers fanning out across the country’s ... Read More

Pranab's address at 9th India-Saudi Arabia Joint Commission
New Delhi, Jan 5: Following is the text of the Opening Remarks of the Union Finance Minister, Shri Pranab Mukherjee delivered, here today at the 9th India-Saudi Arabia Joint Commission Meeting:

“It is my privilege to welcome you and your delegation to the 9th India – Saudi Arabia Joint Commission Meeting. I hope your stay so far has been enjoyable and the deliberations of the three Sub-Committees under the aegis of the Joint Commission constructive and ... Read More

Sanskrit a misunderstood language: PM
New Delhi, Jan 5 : Sanskrit, which is recognized as one of the oldest living languages of the world, is often misunderstood as only a language of religious hymns and rituals, said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here on Thursday.

He was inaugurating the 15th World Sanskrit Conference here on Thursday.

“Such an understanding does injustice to the great genius of this language and betrays ignorance of the work of great writers, thinkers, sages and scientists like Kautilya, ... Read More

Men and women are very different in personality traits
Washington: Women show greater sensitivity, warmth and apprehension than men, while emotional stability, dominance, rule-consciousness and vigilance are the domain of males, says a study, indicating that the sexes share less ground than previously thought.

These findings are based on a survey of 10,000 people, which demolished many myths and stereotypes regarding gender differences, including the study that said differences between men and women were small.

The study explains why certain professions, such as engineering, ... Read More

The daughter’s return
A glimmer of hope in the sad tale of sex-selective abortion in India

THE march of sex-selective abortion in Asia seems relentless. Not every society adopts the practice, but those that do—and they include the two largest countries on earth—have seen it spread through every social group, unhampered by growing wealth. Indeed, middle-income couples seem more willing and better able to manipulate the sex of their children than are the poor. And they are more likely ... Read More

Scaling Caste Walls With Capitalism’s Ladders in India
By LYDIA POLGREEN

As the founder of a successful offshore oil-rig engineering company, Mr. Khade is part of a tiny but growing class of millionaires from the Dalit population, the 200 million so-called untouchables who occupy the very lowest rung in Hinduism’s social hierarchy.

“I’ve gone from village to palace,” Mr. Khade exclaimed, using his favorite phrase to describe his remarkable journey from the son of an illiterate cobbler in the 1960s to a wealthy business partner ... Read More

The city that got left behind
A NATIVE-BORN writer, Amit Chaudhuri, says that Calcutta should be compared to world cities like New York and Paris for its rich past and mix of influences. Yet ever since the Suez Canal was built in 1869, boosting trade in Bombay (now Mumbai), people have said the city (now Kolkata) has been going to the dogs. They have been right. Calcutta lost its title as India’s capital a century ago, and its status as the ... Read More

DOING MORE WITH VERY LITTLE
By VIKAS BAJAJ and JIM YARDLEY

HYDERABAD, India — For more than two decades, M. A. Hakeem has arguably done the job of the Indian government. His private Holy Town High School has educated thousands of poor students, squeezing them into cramped classrooms where, when the electricity goes out, the children simply learn in the dark.

Parents in Holy Town’s low-income, predominantly Muslim neighborhood do not mind the bare-bones conditions. They like the modest tuition (as low ... Read More

What’s Cooking? Peace or Conflict?
Shobha Shukla

I recently read about an innovative takeout restaurant in Pittsburgh, called Conflict Kitchen, which only serves cuisine from countries that the United States of America is in conflict with. This landmark eatery was begun by three Pittsburgh artists - Jon Rubin, Jon Pena and Dawn Weleski - who aptly call it a "public artwork experiment", with the objective "to see how we can get past the conflict that is going on between governments ... Read More

Pow, Right in the Fritter: Super spicy
By ROB MIFSUD

Tara Donne for The Wall Street Journal, Food Styling by Karen Evans, Prop Styling by DSM
Balls of Fire: Vada Pav, the heat-packing fired-potato sandwich, is typically served with green and red chutneys.
It's best to approach street-side dining in Mumbai—or anywhere in India, for that matter—with caution. But caution, if you love Indian food, is torture. While working in Mumbai, and studying the city's culinary specialties, I learned that you don't typically go to ... Read More

A Hindu Nationalist Trips on His Words at Harvard: Choudhury
By Chandrahas Choudhury

Earlier this month, the faculty of arts and sciences at Harvard University took a vote on a proposal to terminate the appointment of the Indian economist and politician Subramanian Swamy at its annual summer school.

The proposal was unusual because Swamy, who teaches two economics courses during the three-month summer school and received a Harvard Ph.D. in 1964, was dismissed not for reasons of competence, but because of an essay he had published ... Read More

With gifts, cakes and evergreen trees, Indians celebrate the ultimate festival
Stephanie Nolen

December 25 is in many ways the ultimate Indian holiday: It appeals across religious lines in a country where gift-giving, over-the-top decorating and eating sweets are three of the rare activities around which every ethnic and geographic group is united.

These days every Indian mall holds a Christmas festival and decorates with zeal. Upscale restaurants offer special Christmas menus. And a Christmas tree is a new status symbol.

“We’re going to have a tree at ... Read More