NEW DELHI —After an earthquake in Jammu and Kashmir state on May 1 left thousands of people homeless and caused 6 billion rupees in infrastructure damage, state officials said Tuesday that they are petitioning the central government for a special relief package.

The state government is seeking 6.07 billion rupees ($120 million), Vinod Kaul, revenue secretary for the state, told India Ink on Tuesday. The state cabinet sent a request to Delhi on Tuesday evening after the cabinet cleared the amount earlier that day, he said.

State officials say that the 5.8-magnitude earthquake at least partially damaged 70,000 houses in the mountainous districts of Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban, and that public infrastructure like roads and water utilities in these areas have also been severely hit… read it at New York Times India.

DELHI — In 2009, four students dropped out of an engineering college in a small town in southern India to pursue their dream. They wanted to channel the vast sea of knowledge floating on the Internet through text messages to millions of people who don’t have access to the web.

Now their creation, called SMS Gyan (gyan means knowledge), a search engine available on mobile phones, has 120 million users in India, the Middle East and Africa submitting over five million queries every day. And their company Innoz Technologies has expanded to 45 employees, and it earned $2.5 million worth of revenue last year.

The company’s founders say that Innoz is set to become the world’s largest offline search engine in 2015, with projections of 10 million monthly unique users and more than 55 million searches per day.

With 120 million Internet users, India has the third-largest number of Internet users in the world. But this pales in comparison to its 900 million mobile users, out of which less than 80 million currently use Internet on their mobile phones.

“There is a huge gap between mobile phone users and internet users,” said Abhinav Sree, a founding member of the company. “But so many people who don’t use the Internet still want information about things like weather, transport, sports and restaurants.”…read it at SmartPlanet.

NEW DELHI — A defendant in the Delhi gang rape case has been assaulted by other inmates inside Tihar Jail in New Delhi and was being slowly poisoned by the jail authorities, his lawyer said before a local court earlier this week.

Vinay Sharma, 20, was admitted to Delhi’s Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital on May 4, two days after the assault, said Mr. Sharma’s lawyer, A.P. Singh. On Tuesday he was moved to the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan hospital, a more sophisticated facility in the national capital.

“He is in a critical condition,” Mr. Singh told India Ink on Thursday. “He has had blood vomiting and chest pains.”

Champa Devi, Mr. Sharma’s mother, who visited him in the hospital last week, said her son had complained of chest pain.

Hospital staff declined to comment on Mr. Sharma’s condition…read it at New York Times India.

DELHI — In a widely reported judgment at home and abroad, India’s top court last month turned down a patent for a cancer drug costing $2,600 a month, in a huge victory for Indian generic drug makers who can now continue to sell it for $175 a month.

While Swiss drug maker Novartis said that the ruling discouraged innovation, it was hailed by legal and health experts as a balanced decision that set tough standards for innovation as well as protected consumers from being charged high prices for newer versions of drugs that did not have greater healing power than the older versions.

Patients suffering from chronic myeloid leukemia, who can’t afford the monthly costs for Gleevec, welcomed the decision of the Indian Supreme Court.

“Everybody is very jubilant,” said Y.K. Sapru, head of the Cancer Patients Aid Association (CPAA), the non-profit organization, which fought the Novartis patent case for seven years.

“If we had lost the case then patients would have died,” he said… read it at SmartPlanet.

NEW DELHI —The acquittal of Sajjan Kumar, the Indian Congress Party leader, for his alleged role in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots that killed thousands in Delhi has sparked widespread protests.

Since the acquittal on murder and rioting charges was announced, protesters in Delhi have stopped Metro trains, blocked roads, and on Thursday they clashed with police officers at the home of the Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi.

Additional Sessions Judge J.R. Aryan’s 129-page judgment explaining his decision was released on Wednesday by the Delhi District Court.

Mr. Kumar “deserves to be given benefit of doubt” because three key prosecution witnesses had not named Mr. Kumar until more than two decades after the riots, the judge said. These three key witnesses claimed to have seen Mr. Kumar inciting a mob to kill Sikhs in the Raj Nagar area of Delhi on Nov. 1, 1984, which led to the murder of five Sikh men in the locality… read it at New York Times India.

NEW DELHI — A Delhi court acquitted the Indian Congress Party leader Sajjan Kumar Tuesday for the murder of five men during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, but the lawyer for one of the victims said he is already planning to appeal the decision to the Delhi High Court.

“This is very, very unfortunate,” said H.S. Phoolka, a lawyer who has spent more than two decades trying to prosecute politicians who were allegedly involved in the massacre of at least 3,000 Sikhs in 1984 after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. “We will appeal against it,” he said in a telephone interview.

While Mr. Kumar was acquitted, five other men were convicted for their involvement in the murder of the same five men in the Raj Nagar area of Delhi on Nov. 1, 1984…read it at New York Times India.

A four-year-old girl who was raped and dumped near a crematorium in central India died on Monday evening from cardiac arrest, hospital authorities said Tuesday.

The girl, the daughter of day laborers, was lured from her home in the town of Ghansor in Madhya Pradesh state on April 17, and found the next day by her parents, bleeding profusely, the police said.

Her kidnapper seized her after promising to buy her bananas from a nearby shop, a police official said Tuesday.

She had been in a coma since April 18, Ashok Tank, a doctor who cared for her at CARE Nagpur Hospital, said in a telephone interview Tuesday. She suffered severe brain injuries and severe injuries to her vagina, he said, and was on a ventilator…read it at New York Times India.

DELHI — On a warm summer afternoon in Delhi, children accompanied by their parents filled up a section of the Sant Pramanad Hospital, and waited patiently for their turn to get a life-altering surgery.

These children, born with cleft lips and palates, have disfigured faces and they can’t speak or eat properly. Clefts plagues one in every 700 babies born in the world.

Ganesh tickled his 18-month-old daughter, Deepika, who squealed and smiled at the hospital commotion around her. “We were not scared when she was born like this because the nurse told us it could be treated,” he said. “But I wanted a good treatment and I can’t afford it on my salary.”…read it at SmartPlanet.

Laying blame for the 1984 massacre of thousands of Sikhs in India has taken center stage in Delhi again after a court reopened an investigation against the Indian National Congress Party politician Jagdish Tytler.

Three more witnesses, now living in the United States, are expected to be questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation, after a Delhi district court on Wednesday rejected a 2009 “closure report” by the agency.

Mass killings of Sikhs occurred in the days after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her two Sikh bodyguards on Oct. 31, 1984. While the official death toll of the anti-Sikh riots is 3,000, Indian media estimate that as many as 7,000 Sikhs were killed all over the country … read it at New York Times India.

DELHI — Aarti Natarajan, an education consultant, who has grown up in Delhi, describes everyday as a constant battle to secure her safety in the city.

“From the moment I step out of the house I push a paranoia button. You look at everyone with suspicion,” she said. “Everywhere you go, no matter what you wear, you will be blatantly stared at. It’s very intrusive.”

Natarajan, who often drives home from work after dark, says that on several occasions men playing loud music in their cars and making lewd gestures have followed her.

“So every time I have to think twice before staying for work late or going for an office dinner,” she said.

The dangers faced by women living in Delhi came under international scrutiny when a 23-year-old student was gang-raped and assaulted with an iron rod by six men in a moving bus on Dec. 16 in the capital. Two weeks later, she died. The brutal attack led to nationwide protests demanding justice for the victim and better protection for women.

Three months after the rape, new laws that expand the scope of sexual offenses to include stalking and voyeurism, and make repeat rapists subject to the death penalty, have come into force. The challenge now is implementation of these laws and inspiring confidence among women to approach the police for help….read it at SmartPlanet.

A Dutch man, Richard De Wit, confessed to stabbing to death a British woman in a houseboat on Dal Lake in Kashmir, the police said Sunday.

Sarah Groves, 24, was found dead on the “New Beauty” houseboat in Srinagar on Saturday morning. Her death comes as tourism to India has dropped after several high profile incidents of sexual assault of women, and recent protests and violence in Kashmir threaten the upcoming summer tourism season.

Mr. De Wit, 43, confessed Saturday evening to stabbing the woman, Syed Ahafadul Mujtaba, Kashmir’s deputy inspector general of police told India Ink on Sunday afternoon. Mr. Mujtaba said Mr. De Wit, 43, had told the police he had violent tendencies and that he had been under the influence of drugs when he killed her.

“He told us that he had problems with the Dutch government and that he had a strained relationship with his wife,” Mr. Mujtaba said. “He said that he woke up under the influence of cannabis, went to her room and killed her.”… read it at New York Times India.

NEW DELHI — Ram Singh, one of the men accused in the Delhi gang rape, was cremated in his family village in Rajasthan two days after he was found hanging in his jail cell on March 11. The body his family received was in horrific condition, family members said in interviews last weekend, making them believe more strongly than ever that he did not commit suicide.

Now, they’re agitating to get the rape case moved from Delhi, because they think Ram’s brother Mukesh, who has also been jailed for the crime, is at risk of being attacked inside Tihar Jail by other inmates or the police.

“We were told that Ram was put in a special cell for protection but despite that he is dead,” said Suresh Singh, 27, a third brother who is not accused of any crime. “We fear that Mukesh will suffer the same fate because everyone inside the jail knows that they were brothers.”… read it at New York Times India.

DELHI — After years of battling plastic pollution, the Delhi government instituted a ban, which took effect in November, on the manufacture, sale and use of plastic bags in the capital. But last week a young salesman in a bustling Delhi market openly sold a packet of 100 plastic bags to this journalist for 70 rupees (about $1).

“Bans come and go. We know we can be arrested but there is a huge demand and this is business,” said the salesman, who requested his name not be published. “Take the white ones instead of the black. It is less conspicuous. Just don’t take it out when you’re traveling in the metro just in case some cop sees you and asks where you got it.”…read it at SmartPlanet.

NEW DELHI — The ramifications of the Delhi gang rape case, in which a 23-year-old student was attacked in a bus later died, seem not to cease. The death of Ram Singh, one of the six defendants who was found hanged in his cell, has raised speculation about its cause and questions about the management of Tihar Jail, one of the most well-known in India.

This article is from an NYT India interview with Niranjan Kumar Mandal who spent four years in Tihar Jail on rape charges before being acquitted for lack of evidence.

In 2011, he sued the Delhi government for 45 million rupees, or $800,000, for falsely implicating him. The case for compensation is still pending in the Delhi High Court.

Now read it at the International Herald Tribune.

NEW DELHI — The death of Ram Singh, one of the six defendants in the Delhi gang rape case who was found hanged in his cell, has raised speculation about its cause and questions about the management of Tihar Jail. While the post-mortem report suggested suicide, Mr. Singh’s parents contend that the police murdered him, in part because both his arms were damaged from previous accidents.

What really happened on the morning of March 11 may never be known, but it has put life inside Tihar, one of India’s best-known jails, under scrutiny.

The gang rape of a 23-year-old student on Dec. 16, which led to nationwide protests and caused international furor, was regarded so barbaric that many Indians demanded the death penalty for Mr. Singh and the five others accused of the crime. Shortly after Mr. Singh entered Tihar Jail, some news outlets reported he was beaten by other inmates.

To understand the experience of sex offender suspects in jail, India Ink spoke with Niranjan Kumar Mandal, who was charged in the gang rape of a 23-year-old pregnant woman in a moving car in Delhi in July 2005. The case, known as the Mayapuri gang rape case, sent shock waves through the capital because not only was the young woman pregnant, she had a speech and hearing impairment as well.

The police, under intense public pressure, caught the wrong man. After spending four years in Tihar Jail, Mr. Mandal was acquitted in March 2010 by the trial court for lack of evidence. In 2011, he sued the Delhi government for 45 million rupees ($800,000) for falsely implicating him. The case for compensation is still pending in the Delhi High Court.

Mr. Mandal spoke about his arrest, his time spent in Tihar Jail, the behavior of his fellow inmates and the suffering of his family. He also shared his thoughts on Mr. Singh’s death.

Q. Can you tell us what happened after the police arrested you?… read it at New York Times India.

For many people in the Kashmir Valley, Wednesday’s deadly attack on an Indian security camp, which left five security personnel and two militants dead, was not a surprise.

Some describe it as the lid finally blowing off a pressure cooker that had been waiting to explode since the Indian government’s execution last month of a local man, Muhammad Afzal, for his role in the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament.

There is a growing sentiment in the Kashmir Valley that peaceful protests are no longer effective, Gul Mohammad Wani, a political science professor at the University of Kashmir, explained .

“This surprise attack has an immediate context and that context is Afzal Guru’s hanging,” Mr. Wani said. “Kashmir is on the boil.”…read it at New York Times India.

NEW DELHI — The family of Ram Singh, one of the accused in the Delhi gang rape case who was found hanged in his jail cell on Monday morning, was warned on Friday that his life might be in danger, one of his brothers said on Monday.

He could not have killed himself, family and legal advisers insisted on Monday. “It’s simply not possible,” one of Mr. Singh’s two brothers, who asked that his name not be used, said in an interview on Monday.

Ram Singh and his other brother, Mukesh, are two of the six accused in the Dec. 16 rape of a 23-year-old woman in a moving bus, which ultimately resulted in her death. Ram and Mukesh Singh were feared by their relatives and neighbors in Ravidas Camp, their home in Delhi, even before they were connected with the attack, because they had a reputation for heavy drinking and bad language.

But after Mr. Singh was found dead in his Tihar Jail cell Monday morning, hanging from a rope made of his own clothes, family members vehemently rejected the notion that he might have committed suicide…read it at New York Times India.

ALLAHABAD, India — Hundreds of ash-smeared holy men charging naked into the Ganges River is a spectacle that has played out over centuries, but it never gets old.

The hypnotic sight of the wild-haired ascetics is only dwarfed by the jaw-dropping panorama of pilgrims in the millions congregating on the banks of the Ganges River. The Kumbh Mela, often called the greatest show on earth, is the world’s largest human gathering. It is held every three years in one of these four cities — Allahabad, Nasik, Haridwar and Ujjain.

These spots, the story goes, is where four droplets of sacred water fell on Earth from a Kumbh (pitcher) as the Gods and demons fought over the elixir.

This year, the city of Allahabad welcomed an estimated 80 million to 100 million visitors, during the Maha Kumbh Mela, which, based on the alignment of the stars, takes place every 12 years. The 55-day Mela concluded on Sunday. The pilgrims, mostly Hindus, came from all over India to take a holy dip in the sacred river with the hope of washing away their sins.

Varun Vummudi, a Delhi-based entrepreneur, said that he came to “find out what all the fuss was about.” … read it at SmartPlanet.

BHANDARA, Maharashtra —As the police investigate the deaths of three young sisters in a small village in central India, they are certain of one thing: someone killed the girls, ages 6, 9 and 11, sometime after they were last seen on Feb. 14 in Murmadi, in the Bhandara district of Maharashtra, and then dumped their bodies into a well in a rice field, where they were found on Feb. 16.

Everything else, however, is uncertain, including how they were killed and whether this is a rape and murder case, or a merely a murder case, which affects the pool of possible suspects. The lack of clarity is raising concerns among villagers that the police are conducting a shoddy investigation.

The Bhandara police, which are currently treating this as a rape and murder case, have questioned more than 100 people, but so far no one has been arrested, which has infuriated the residents of Murmadi, especially the girls’ mother.

“I dressed them for school. That was the last time I saw them alive,” Madhuri Jaipal Borkar, who has no other children, told India Ink on Friday. “What can I say now? How do I go on?”… read it at New York Times India.

Each cycle of curfew and strikes in Kashmir takes a heavy toll on the livelihood of the majority of its six million inhabitants, and handicaps business especially in the transport and tourism industry.

The Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley, also called India Administered Kashmir, is one of the most heavily militarized regions in the world. It continues to be a red line for India and Pakistan as both countries claim it.

Experts, meanwhile, caution that Kashmir’s economy is suffering under curfews and strikes. Noted economist Nisar Ali, the director of the Jammu and Kashmir Bank Limited, has calculated that each day of inactivity in the valley costs the Jammu and Kashmir State at least 5,500 million rupees ($100 million)…read it at Huffington Post.

DELHI — Nadeem Shehzad, a businessman, has six owls in his bedroom, two Sparrowhawks clinging to the curtains in his living room, and about 120 Black Kites — plus two Egyptian Vultures — roosting on the roof his home near Chawri Bazaar in the old part of India’s capital city.

“The one with the red eye is a male and the one with the yellow eye is a female,” he said of the Sparrowhawks as flew overhead and settled on the refrigerator.

The male had a leg fracture and the female had her wings stuck by adhesive glue. The birds are now recovering. “Their claws are really sharp,” said Shehzad. “They can hurt you when you’re treating them.”

Shehzad, 34, and his brother Mohammad Saud, 31, are running a self-funded operation called Wildlife Rescue in their home in Old Delhi, which is characterized by large crowds squeezing through narrow lanes of packed and colorful bazaars.

It is also an area famous for kite-flying, especially during the weeks around India’s Independence Day on August 15. However, a rarely addressed problem of kite flying is the significant number of birds that are injured by the sharps strings of the kites…read it at SmartPlanet.

BARAMULLA, Jammu and Kashmir

Muhammad Afzal Guru’s widow, Tabassum, sat huddled in the dark on the floor of a large room Tuesday evening, closely surrounded by grieving female relatives in the home of her husband’s family.

“I just want his body back. That’s all,” she said, blinking back tears as a relative held a candle to her face because the electricity had gone out in the town of Sopore in Baramulla district. The 34-year-old woman, who goes by one name, filed a mercy petition for her husband’s life to be spared on Feb. 3. Now she is pleading for the government to return his body to her after he was executed for his role in a deadly attack on India’s Parliament.

A letter from the government informing his family of his execution was delivered two days after he was killed, a lapse that has been widely criticized. This lapse deprived his wife and son of a last meeting, family members said on Tuesday.

“I was shocked and my mind became numb” upon hearing of the execution, said Ghalib Guru, his 13-year-old son, who is named after an Urdu poet. “They should have told us a week before,” he said. The slender boy with dark flashing eyes was wearing a traditional Kashmiri pheran — a long woolen cloak worn in the winter — over jeans, along with a round prayer cap….read it at New York Times India.

SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir — A weeklong curfew may have prevented widespread protests and violence in Kashmir, but anger is still brewing over the central government’s secret execution and burial of the militant Muhammad Afzal.

A growing number of Kashmiris are now calling for the return of Mr. Afzal’s body to his hometown of Sopore in the Baramulla district, a demand that is shared by both mainstream and separatist political groups.

any Kashmiris believe that Mr. Afzal was framed and that he did not receive a fair trial, and they saw Mr. Afzal’s execution as a political move by the central government, led by the Indian National Congress party, to appear tough on terrorism ahead of the 2014 national elections.

“How can a son not be informed of his father’s death?” said Mirza Ahmed, a 23-year-old student at Kashmir University, who requested his first name not be used to avoid any retaliatory action by the authorities.

“This has nothing to do with occupation or independence but a mockery of basic human rights,” he added….read it at New York Times India.

SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir — After relaxing the curfew for the previous two days in several parts of the Kashmir Valley, the state government once again restricted the movements of residents and vehicles before a prayer march on Friday for a militant who was executed in Delhi.

The curfew was first imposed on Feb. 9 following the execution of Muhammad Afzal, who hails from the Kashmir town of Sopore in Baramulla district. Mr. Afzal, a member of the Jaish-e-Muhammad group, was secretly hanged in the nation’s capital for his role in the deadly 2001 attack on Parliament.

Mr. Afzal, who was popularly called Afzal Guru, has widespread support among Kashmiris who believe that he had not received a fair trial…read it at New York Times India.

SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir — Authorities eased the curfew in the Kashmir Valley on Wednesday, its fifth day, lifting restrictions in several areas of the summer capital of Srinagar as well as the districts of Budgam, Pulwama and Kupwara.

“Movement of people and vehicles is allowed” in the areas where the curfew has been relaxed, said a Kashmir police official, who did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to speak with the media.

Newspapers were distributed in Srinagar on Wednesday for the first time since Saturday, although restrictions on the movement of vehicles in many parts of the city and elsewhere in the valley prevented distribution in the entire region. Editors of local papers, who said they lost advertisement revenue over the past four days, are printing about half their regular circulation…read it at New York Times India.

he Kashmir Valley is on the fourth day of a government-imposed shutdown begun immediately after the hanging of the militant Muhammad Afzal, also known as Afzal Guru, who comes from the town of Sopore in Baramulla district.

Many residents are running out of food and milk in Srinagar, Kashmir’s summer capital. Meanwhile, dozens have been injured and at least one killed in protests against Mr. Afzal’s hanging, which happened secretly in Delhi on Saturday and was announced afterward.

Mr. Afzal, from the Jaish-e-Muhammad militant group, was convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to death by a special court in 2002 for his role in planning an attack on India’s Parliament in December 2001.

Schools, colleges and most shops in Kashmir are closed by government order, and people have been asked to stay inside their homes. Rows of shops and restaurants were shuttered.

Vehicles have been banned from the streets, cable news channels have gone dark, Internet service on cellphones has been blocked and newspapers were not being delivered. Hospitals, pharmacies and emergency services remain open…read it at New York Times India.

In Srinagar, the only people in the deserted streets were security forces.

BIHAR — Meena Devi’s grandmother was brought from Varanasi city in Uttar Pradesh and sold in the red light area of Munger, a town on the banks of the Ganges in Bihar.

Meena’s mother also became a prostitute and so did she. “We have done this for generations so I wanted to set my daughters free from this line,” she said.

In 2011, Meena, 35, was one of eight prostitutes who approached the local rural bank, Bihar Kshetriya Gramin Bank, for a loan to start a business. In an unprecedented move by the bank, the women were given a microfinance loan of Rs. 20,000 ($377) each. Four women opened a bangles shop and the four others started a tailoring service…read it at SmartPlanet.

SRINAGAR —Online abuse and a fatwa aimed at a rock band of Muslim teenage girls in Kashmir have led to arrests and a threat of a lawsuit.

Three men were arrested this week for posting threatening messages on the Facebook page of Praagaash, an amateur rock band in Indian-occupied Kashmir made of up Muslim girls. “The investigation is ongoing,” said Manoj Pandita, spokesman for the Jammu and Kashmir police, indicating that more arrests may follow.

A prominent human rights lawyer, Parvez Imroz of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, is planning to sue the top religious leader in Kashmir, who called for the fatwa, for “demonizing Kashmir before the international community” and for “running a parallel judicial system in the valley.”…read it at New York Times India.

The three Muslim teen-age girls, Aneeqa Khalid, Noma Nazir and Farah Deeba, just want to play rock and roll and heavy metal music.

The only female rock band at Srinagar’s national “Battle of the Bands” competition in December, they quickly gained fame in India after placing third there. Their band, Praagaash, which means “from darkness into light,” draws inspiration from Metallica, Green Day, Iron Maiden and Cradle of Filth, doing alternate rock covers and their own compositions.

“It was awesome and overwhelming,” Ms. Khalid, the 15-year-old bass guitarist, recalled during an interview Saturday. “We were getting all this attention and a standing ovation. Then we got other offers to play.”

But the national attention quickly turned bittersweet last weekend. Unwillingly, the members of Praagaash have been transformed from plucky amateur female rock musicians, into participants in an ongoing political and religious struggle in conflict-ridden Indian-controlled Kashmir, and, in fact, across India… read it at New York Times India.

Following the recent killings of Indian and Pakistani soldiers near the Kashmir border, a local newspaper reported classified United Nations documents show that the cycle of violence between troops of the two countries has continued despite the cease-fire in 2003.

The Hindu, a national English-language daily newspaper, said Wednesday that Pakistan has repeatedly complained to the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan about the killings of at least 18 of its soldiers, including four beheadings, by Indian forces between 2000 and 2011. The United Nations group was set up in 1949 to monitor cease-fire violations between the two countries.

Indian army spokesperson Col. Jagdeep Dahiya described the article as “erroneous and speculative.”

“The Indian Army is highly professional and does not indulge in un-soldierly acts as alleged in the article,” he said. “The very fact that Pakistan has not raised such issues in bilateral interactions since 1998 bears testimony to allegations leveled against the Indian army being misleading,” he said…read it at New York Times India.

DELHI — Stargazers in India are hoping to study the sun more closely than has ever been done before.

The Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), the country’s premier astronomical institute, has submitted a proposal to the Indian government for setting up a solar telescope along the Indo-China border. The telescope will be set up by 2017 near Pangong, a saltwater lake in Ladakh.

It will be the largest solar telescope in the world, according to the scientists at the IIA, who have called the project for its construction the National Large Solar Telescope (NLST)…read it at SmartPlanet.

NEW DELHI —Ram Singh and Mukesh, the two brothers accused in the Delhi gang rape case, were likened by a neighbor to Gabbar Singh from the Bollywood classic “Sholay.” A particularly cold-hearted Bollywood villain, the character stirred so much fear in viewers that mothers in India sometimes told their children “to stop crying and go to sleep or Gabbar Singh will come.”

“Those two were a real bad lot,” said the neighbor, a woman from the south Delhi slum of Ravidas, which was home to four of the six arrested in the gang rape of a 23-year-old student on Dec. 16. “They were always drinking, abusing and getting into fights,” she added, asking that her name not be used so she could avoid any further media attention.

Several other women in the camp shared similar memories of the two men, who were charged with murder, along with three other men and a juvenile, after the student succumbed to her injuries on Dec. 29. Ram Singh, 32, and Mukesh, who goes by one name and is described by relatives to be in his mid-20s, worked as drivers. They have pleaded not guilty.

The only person who remembered Ram Singh fondly is another brother, who was not involved in the gang rape and also lives in Delhi. Speaking on the phone from Gwalior, where he was traveling for work, he described his oldest brother, Ram, as a devoted husband and loving father… read it at New York Times India.

DELHI — It’s been quite a ride for Suneet Singh Tuli, maker of the world’s cheapest tablet, whose device has been hailed by the United Nations as a breakthrough in information technology. But he has also been mired in controversy after media reports suggested that India’s tablet is being manufactured in China.

This week, SP speaks with DataWind’s chief about the China controversy, plans for the United States, manufacturing woes … and Aakash 3. For someone who has faced a tough press, Tuli appears remarkably upbeat about his ambitious venture.

SP: In your previous discussion with us, you said that Aakash had a market in the United States as well. Do you still think so?…read it at SmartPlanet.

To keep her children warm on Wednesday night, Champa Devi tried to get a small fire going by puffing air into four pieces of wood outside their home in a South Delhi slum.

“I am heartbroken,” she said, coughing as a cloud of smoke billowed around her. “When I wake up, it feels like my heart has been torn away.”

Ms. Champa, 37, is the mother of Vinay Sharma, one of the six accused in the gang rape of a 23-year-old woman on a moving bus on Dec. 16, which resulted in her death two weeks later.

The horrific account of the rape, in which attackers beat their victim and her male companion with an iron rod and threw them naked onto a highway, sent shock waves through India.

Ms. Champa said she still can’t fathom how her son, who she says was born in March 1994, could have been involved in the gruesome crime. “He was always a quiet and simple boy,” she said. “He worked hard in school and always got top marks,” she said. “He especially liked studying English. We hoped for a good job in the future.”…read it at New York Times India.

Less than two weeks after the brutal gang rape of the 23-year-old student on a Delhi bus, the issue of women’s safety has been overshadowed by other incendiary fallouts and squabbles over the protests, which were carried out by thousands demanding justice for the victim. In the year ahead, it is imperative not to lose sight of the overarching challenge of protecting Indian women against the rising tide of dangers. Devising and enforcing an agenda for women’s safety is a daunting task , but the call for “we want justice,” which rang out over India Gate, needs a clear agenda and practical action…read it at The Hindu.

(Co-authored with Renana Jhabvala – the national coordinator of SEWA)

DELHI — In 2012, SmartPlanet reported on a series of inexpensive tablets from India especially the $41 one called Aakash, which was launched by the Indian government.

In November, Datawind relaunched its tablet as Aakash 2. The improved tablet is powered by Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich run on 1 GHz processor and 512 MB RAM with 4 GB internal storage and 32 GB microSD support. Its basic features include 7-inch capacitative touch screen, battery life of three hours, 0.3 megapixel front camera and WiFi connectivity.

The Indian government will buy about 100,000 units from Datawind for Rs. 2263 ($41) and make it available to students for Rs.1130 ($20). The commercial version of the tablet can be bought online for Rs. 4499 ($81)

This time, it was launched not only in India but also unveiled at the United Nations.

SmartPlanet spoke with tech expert Prasnato Roy, editorial adviser at CyberMedia India, on what’s new with the tablet and will it work better…read it at SmartPlanet.

DOHA, Qatar — At the United Nations climate change talks here, developing countries demanded that the developed world raise money from 2013 to 2015 to help them combat the consequences of climate change through 2020.

The annual U.N. talks from Nov 26 to Dec 8, attended by 194 nations, ended with no such pledge. Instead, the discussion on “mid-term” finance was pushed to next year.

During the talks in Doha, Philippines was hit by Typhoon Bopha, which has killed more than 700 people and displaced hundreds of thousands.

“We refuse to make this a way of life,” said Nadarev “Yeb” Sano, the Philippines head of delegation said at the conference while emotionally appealing for action… read it at SmartPlanet.

DOHA, Qatar — During a public event at the United Nations climate change conference in Doha, India’s veteran environmentalist Sunita Narain told a senior negotiator from India, “The Indian government should take a principled stand and walk out of the Doha climate talks if equity is not made a part of the deal.”

Ms. Narain, head of the Centre of Science and Environment in Delhi, has been an activist at the climate talks since 1991. Time magazine has called her one of the most influential people in the country. The environmentalist discusses equity and why these negotiations are between “polluters and beggars.”

Q) You urged the Indian government to walk out if there is no equity. Did you mean it?…read it at the Huffington Post.

DOHA, Qatar – At the United Nations climate talks in Doha this week, India opposed any move that would require developing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture.

With an estimated 485 million cattle, goat, buffalo and sheep, India has the most livestock in the world, and it is the second largest producer of methane in the world after China. Methane, a byproduct of livestock’s digestive process, is the second most abundant greenhouse gas, after carbon dioxide, and it traps 25 times more heat than carbon dioxide does.

Agriculture is too important to India to ask farmers to change their practices now, Indian representatives said in Doha.

“Agriculture is not only a source of economic growth but also a source of livelihood for millions of people,” R.R. Rashmi, a senior negotiator from India, told delegates… read it at New York Times India.

In Pakistan, public anger against drone attacks carried out by the United States continues to grow.

From June 2004 through mid-September 2012, missiles from these unmanned aircrafts have killed 2,562 to 3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474-881 were civilians, including 176 children, according to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, an independent journalist organization. Its research shows that out of a total of 351 attacks, 299 were done under the Obama administration.

In November, however, The Guardian reported that Pakistan is building its own combat drones.

Raja Sabri Khan, a Pakistani aerospace design engineer, who has built drones for two decades, says that his country’s government doesn’t have the money to make combat drones yet.

Khan, who heads Integrated Dynamics, a Karachi-based private company, has pioneered drone technology for civilian use. The engineer speaks with SmartPlanet about why he makes drones, his buyers as well as the costs and the risks involved… read it at SmartPlanet.

DOHA, Qatar – With one week left for the U.N. climate change talks to conclude, developed and developing countries remain at odds on how to solve the crisis being linked to the recent spate of extreme weather events that have claimed lives and destroyed property worth billions of dollar.

As discussions heat up here in Doha, India’s chief negotiator, Meera Mehrishi, spoke to India Ink on the contentious issues playing out in the halls of the mammoth Qatar National Convention Center, where delegates from 194 countries have gathered…read it at New York Times India.

DOHA, Qatar — At the United Nations climate change talks in Doha, India is taking an active role in asking developed nations to commit to ambitious carbon dioxide emission cuts and pledge money to combat the global challenge.

Delegates from 194 countries are attending a two-week-long annual conference on climate change here, which concludes on Dec. 7.

So far, developed nations have been mostly unresponsive to India’s push. The European Union has agreed to 20 percent carbon emission cuts from 1990 levels for the period of 2013 to 2020, a level that advocates for cuts say had already been pledged earlier. This time frame is known as the “second commitment period” of the Kyoto Protocol, which is the only legally binding treaty on climate change. Four developed countries – Japan, New Zealand, Canada and Russia – have already backed out of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

“We are disappointed, however, that the developed countries are in the process of locking in low ambitions under this second commitment period,” Meera Mehrishi, India’s chief negotiator, said Thursday. “We call on them to raise their level of ambition consistent with what is required by science.”… read it at New York Times India.

DELHI – Two Indian cities – Kolkata and Mumbai – are among the top ten facing the highest risk from climate change, according to a study released last week by Maplecroft, a British consultancy firm specializing in risk assessment.

A week ahead of the U.N. climate change conference in Doha, Qatar climate activists in India are wondering whether Hurricane Sandy will propel the United States to adopt a more pro-active role in addressing the global challenge at a domestic and international level… read it at SmartPlanet.

DELHI — This week, five non-governmental organizations here launched a national campaign against bonded labor called “Bandhua 1947.”

Activists say that millions of Indian laborers are trapped in a cycle of debt, which leaves them at the mercy of their employers. These laborers spend their lives working in brick kilns, rock quarries, rice mills, farms, and beedi factories. They do not have the knowledge or resources to leave or demand recognition of basic rights. The Bonded Labour System Abolition Act, 1976 which should protect them is not enforced.

SmartPlanet spoke with Saju Mathew, head of operations for the International Justice Mission in South Asia, about funding and objectives of the campaign… read it at SmartPlanet.

After two decades of militancy, the Kashmir Valley has been relatively calm during the past two years. Tourists from India and around the world flooded into the scenic valley last summer, and the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, has called for troop reductions and a repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

But military officials say the peace remains fragile and that the infiltration of militants from Pakistan continues, albeit in smaller numbers. The army has said that Kashmir isn’t ready for any drastic dilution of security.

India Ink recently discussed the situation in Kashmir with Lt. Gen.Baljit Singh Jaswal, who from October 2009 to December 2010 led the Northern Command, which currently controls more than 300,000 troops in the state.  General Jaswal was in charge the last time violent protests swept the valley, in 2010.

The retired general spent most of his career conducting counterinsurgency operations in Kashmir and the northeast.

During a long conversation at the Assam Rifles Mess in Delhi Cantonment on Thursday, he discussed the challenges of guarding the Line of Control, the lingering threat from Pakistan, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and the life of a soldier in Kashmir…. read it at New York Times India.

RAJASTHAN ––Shanta Devi was branded a witch nearly a decade ago, after her family was plagued by long bouts of fever and breathing problems.

Villagers still cover their faces while crossing the 65-year-old woman, who lives in a tribal belt about 60 miles outside Udaipur city in the desert state of Rajasthan. Last year, the branded woman’s relatives were advised by a witch doctor to make her drink goat’s blood as a cure. But she refused, even as neighbors wielded sticks in her backyard to pressure her into doing so.

For generations, women have been frequently branded as witches in villages spread across the dusty Aravalli hills and elsewhere in rural parts of India, blamed for unexplained or incurable illnesses among villagers and livestock. The lack of medical facilities near remote villages allows these superstitious beliefs to prevail….read it at New York Times India.

HYDERABAD — India’s poorest fishing, forest and farming communities will be worst hit by rapid losses of nature as well as efforts to conserve it. They are at risk of losing their lands to erosion and mining or being displaced by government policies to protect forests and coasts. This trend will play out across the globe.

Tribal villagers from the Singrauli district of Madhya Pradesh state in central India are fighting against the expansion of coal mines near their forests. They voiced their concerns at the U.N. Conference on Biodiversity, which concluded on October 20 in the southern city of Hyderabad.

Radha Kali, 42, said that for generations her community has survived on forest products like tendu leaves that are used for making beedis and mahuwa flowers with medicinal properties. Their cattle have open spaces to graze. “We won’t give up our jungle,” she said. “Everything will be destroyed.”…read it at SmartPlanet.

HYDERABAD — If it’s Thursday, it must be Tree Diversity Day – at least for the nature lovers milling about the ballroom of a massive conference center in Hyderabad, home of the 11-day United Nations Conference on Biodiversity.

About 8,000 tree species, approximately 10 percent of the Earth’s total, is threatened with extinction. The Tree Diversity Day, organized by the World Agroforestry Center based in Nairobi, brought together experts to discuss ways of preventing these losses.

During one such discussion, M.S. Swaminathan, often called the father of the Green Revolution in India, stressed the need to create “biohappiness” to stop biodiversity degradation. To explain his point, Dr. Swaminathan spoke of largely poor people living along the most biodiversity-rich parts of the Great Rift Valley in Africa. “Bio-resources need to create jobs and livelihoods,” he said. “This will create prosperity between man and nature.”…read it at New York Times India.

For the next two years, India will steer efforts to save the Earth’s biodiversity during a time when its “natural capital” is being lost at an unprecedented rate.

India is hosting the UN Conference on Biodiversity, which kicks off today in the southern city of Hyderabad. This gathering is the first in what has been declared as the “UN Decade of Biodiversity.” 192 countries and the European Union are participating.

The conference slogan in Sanskrit is “Prakruti Rakshathi Rakshitha” which translates into “Nature protects if she is protected.”

In the next few decades, losses of flora, fauna and ocean’s ecosystems will impact food supply and the livelihood of millions who depend on these resources. “The situation is extremely critical,” said Ashok Khosla, head of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world’s oldest environmental network…read it at SmartPlanet.

Rifat Mohidin, a journalism student, was disappointed after her first interaction with Rahul Gandhi, Congress Party’s general secretary, at Kashmir University on Friday. Ms. Mohidin, 19, wanted to ask Mr. Gandhi about providing security to Kashmiris when they traveled to other parts of India.

“But I was not allowed to ask any of my questions,” she said. “I went there with a lot of hope, but my hopes were shattered.” (Read Ms. Mohidin’s full opinion of the discussion here.)

Mr. Gandhi’s two-day visit to Kashmir this week reiterated his message made during a visit in September 2011: he said he wanted to understand the pain of violence-stricken Kashmiris, as well as connect the Kashmiri youth with economic opportunities.

Shreen Hamdani, a 21-year-old journalism student, said that the interaction was only an hour long because it started late, and teachers stopped students from asking any political questions…read it at New York Times India.

The social networking Web sites Facebook and YouTube have been blocked since Friday in India’s northern state of Jammu and Kashmir, even though it has been over a week since the last protests against an anti-Islam film.

One telecom company employee, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed that Facebook and YouTube were still inaccessible on Wednesday, as did several Kashmiris. The state government had ordered telecom companies late last month to shut down Internet and mobile phone services as it tried to keep Muslims from uploading and downloading the video “Innocence of Muslims,” which has angered Muslims across the world because of its negative portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad.

Government officials insist that the measure quelled the riots and prevented the kind of violence that claimed over 20 lives in Pakistan…read it at New York Times India.

KASHMIR — Shaida Banu attends stitching lessons in Silikot village near the Line of Control on the Indian side of Kashmir. A tailor teaches embroidery and patchwork in a large schoolroom with sewing machines and a chalkboard. Not far is a cordoned-off plot of mines laid out to prevent militants entering from the Pakistan side.

Ms. Banu, 22, wants to support her family by making clothes, but there isn’t enough dress material available in this mountainous terrain. “My father is old, my mother dead and my brother disabled — I feel responsible,” she said. In 2001, her mother was shot in the head by a bullet from the other side while herding goats. Two years later, her brother lost his leg to an exploding shell while fetching water.

Hundreds of people were disabled in the cross-fire between India and Pakistan, especially during the peak of the militancy in the 1990s, and many families still struggle with the aftermath. Army porters had their legs blown off while running over mines. “You could step out of your house and return with a limb gone,” recalled Mohammed Sheikh, 60, who lost his leg in 1999 when a shell landed in his village.

One hamlet, where most inhabitants have lost limbs, is called “village of the handicapped.”…read it at New York Times India.

The state government of Jammu and Kashmir ordered telecom companies to block access to YouTube and Facebook in the Kashmir Valley, effective midnight Thursday, to curb potential protests over an amateur video that has angered Muslims.

Rafique Jaan, 25, a student of Kashmir University said the government acted too late. “Lakhs (hundreds of thousands) of people have downloaded it on their mobile phones. The government is just trying to restrict people from communicating with each other,” he said.

Mr. Jaan, who was angry about the video, added: “What was the government doing for the last one week?”…read it at New York Times India.

SRINAGAR — “It may blow — get back everyone!” someone in the crowd shouted.

The police and journalists drew back from the government vehicle that had been set on fire by angry protesters in Srinagar. Its flames set the nearby tree alight. Everyone fell silent for a few seconds at the sight of the burning vehicle and branches.

Srinagar witnessed on Tuesday a complete shutdown of the city, which was called by several Muslim organizations to protest a video denigrating the Prophet Muhammad that was produced in the United States. The move had originally received a lukewarm response in the city, but it gathered momentum after it was backed by the hard-line separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who enjoys huge support here.

Kashmiris responded to call by closing businesses, schools and transport services. Usually buzzing marketplaces were left with rows of shuttered shops and empty pavements…read it at New York Times India.

SRINAGAR– Three young men picked a shady, grassy spot, out of earshot from the crowds bustling about the University of Kashmir campus, to talk on Saturday afternoon.

A day earlier, they had helped organize an on-campus protest against the anti-Islam video that has sparked violent protests in several Muslim countries. The students asked that only their first names be used because they feared punishment by the university. “We don’t want to get caught,” said Faraz, 21.

For these students, the film has provided a fresh vent to express their deep-rooted resentment against the United States. “We see it as one more deliberate insult toward the Muslim world after invading our lands for 10 years,” said Tanveer, 24, as his friends nodded…read it at New York Times India.

DELHI — Fast food giant, McDonalds Corp., plans to open totally vegetarian outlets near two pilgrimage sites in India.

The first restaurant will open in 2013, near the Golden Temple in the northern city of Amritsar, which is sacred for Sikhs. The second one is planned for the town of Katra, which is the base for Hindus who are visiting the Vaishno Devi cave shrine.

These will be McDonald’s first vegetarian joints in the world. The fast food giant has been operating in India since 1996.

Rakesh Srivastava, 39, frequently visits Vaishno Devi with his wife, who is a strict vegetarian. “If it’s purely vegetarian food then I will definitely go to it,” said Srivastava, who describes the food available near the religious site as a bit bland. “You can’t have any onions and it isn’t spicy.”…read it at SmartPlanet.

When Shaani Das left Pakistan, she didn’t imagine having to shelter from the Indian monsoon under a damp and cramped plastic tent with her husband and children.

But Kurup Das, her husband, says that their new life is still better than living like the “lowest” in Pakistan. “Here we have the freedom to breathe without fear,” he said.

The Das couple, along with six other families, have pitched tent in an ashram near Majnu Ka Tila, the home of many Tibetan refugees in Delhi.  Mrs. Das, 30, is now questioning whether she made the right decision. “Look at us,” she said. “We had such big dreams and now we are living in poverty.”…read it at Wall Street Journal India.

Mohammed Ali spent 15 days of the fasting month of Ramadan in the mountains between Bangladesh and Myanmar, the country from where he was fleeing.

Mr. Ali, 17, says he only missed two days of fasting because of extreme hunger and fatigue as he hid from soldiers that comb the forests on the border.

Mr. Ali is from the western Rakhine state of Myanmar, where deadly clashes have erupted between Rohingya Muslims and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists. Following the violence, which has claimed the lives of at least 80 people, Muslims have been fleeing Myanmar. “We are not considered citizens,” said Mr. Ali. “They tell us that the British sent our ancestors here and so we must return to India, Bangladesh and Pakistan…” read it at Wall Street Journal India.

HAPASARA CAMP, Assam – Noor Islam Dewan, a Bengali Muslim, still remembers his two horses: one called Cheti, or white, and Pothora, which means patches, named for its dappled auburn and white colors. “They were beautiful,” he said.

Mr. Dewan says he paid 12,000 rupees ($216) in 1990 for two acres of land in Kokrajhar district in lower Assam, as the western part of the state, close to the Bhutan border, is known. “I sold rice and maize across the border and bought cows,” he said. “It was a good life.”

That life ended nearly 20 years ago…read it at The Wall Street Journal India.

DELHI — It isn’t everyday that a theoretical physicist from a small Indian city is catapulted into the limelight — chased by the media and wowed by the public.

But that’s what happened to Ashoke Sen, a string theorist in Allahabad in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, after he won the $3 million Fundamental Physics Prize this month…read it at SmartPlanet.

Up in the mountains, a hushed stillness has descended on Dalaunja, the last village bordering the Line of Control, which divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

Still, the open wounds of conflict haunt its crisp air on a sunny day. For more than a decade, this village simmered in the battle between the Indian Army and the militants. Dalaunja acquired a notoriety of sheltering insurgents coming from Pakistan…read it at The New York Times India.

Badlu Ram tugged against the tattered strips of the white gauze that bound his hands and legs to the hospital bed in the town of Fatehabad. “Please free me,” he pleaded. On July 13, Mr. Ram had attempted suicide by consuming pesticide. “It was my duty … it was my duty,” he repeated.

Mr. Ram, 60, said he had failed to protect his family’s 26 acres of land, which the government plans to acquire for building a nuclear power plant near Gorakhpur village in Fatehabad district of Haryana state…read it at New York Times India.

KOKRAJHAR/CHIRANG, Assam — Almost two weeks after their village was burned by rioters, a group of Bodo men sneaked back to see the charred remains of their houses. All their livestock, except the pigs, were gone. “Right now, standing here, I am petrified,” said Kalidas Brahmo, a farmer, walking through the rubble of his home.

Bangaldoba village Part I in Kokrajhar district was attacked on the afternoon of July 23 by Muslims, villagers said. “They came with sickles, swords, sticks, spears, and all us of took off together,” said Mr. Brahmo, 32. “The women and children ran in front, and the men were behind them…”read it at New York Times India.

DANDI, Gujarat – Until three out of her five sons were imprisoned in Pakistan for breaching the maritime border while fishing, Babiben Mandan Majethiya and her daughters-in-law had no idea that Pakistan even existed.

These women, who never went to school, still don’t know about the partition or the wars fought between India and Pakistan. “I only know my sons would never do anything wrong,” Mrs. Majethiya had cried when they were locked up.

After one year in prison, the three men came home on the evening of July 1. When reached by phone on Sunday night, Mrs. Majethiya had just finished cooking them a warm meal and tucking them into bed. “After so long, I will sleep peacefully and my heart will begin to mend,” she said. “But I will never let them go back to sea.”

Mrs. Majethiya lives in Dandi, a small coastal village of Gujarat state in its Junagadh district, where several families are missing men who have been arrested by Pakistan for crossing the maritime border while fishing in the Arabian Sea. Many of them sail from Porbandar, the main port town and the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi, which is about a five-hour drive from the rural hamlet of about 60 families…read it at The New York Times.

Ravi grabs a table on the terrace of a dimly-lit café so that street noise can muffle our conversation. He is a gay man who cheats on his wife with other men. “This is my life,” he says. “Do I like it? No.” The 39-year-old sales agent, big-built and clean-shaven, receives several calls from men propositioning him for the evening. One caller, who has left his wife in a small town, now freely dates men in Delhi. “I’m not too keen on him,” says Ravi. “He isn’t careful, because his wife is so far away.”

Thousands of gay men in India are leading a double life. Marriages were often used as a cover when homosexuality was prohibited. After a decade-long legal battle, it was decriminalized in 2009. But family pressure reduces the changed law to a technicality. Parents force marriage at the cost of their children’s happiness, and sometimes their lives…read it at Huffington Post.

On a chilly october evening in Pampore, a town in the Indian-administered section of Kashmir, 12-year-old Saiqa Shaukat sits with her aunt, uncle, and cousins in a backyard filled with plucked purple flowers. It’s the first day of harvesting. For hours on end, Shaukat and her relatives gently pick out three golden stigmas from each flower. Later these stigmas will be dried to make zafaraan, or saffron, sometimes called the king of spices.

Kashmiri farmers have been growing saffron for centuries. But the past decade has created new challenges for saffron farmers. Changing weather patterns driven by global warming – along with soil degradation, fungal infections, and rising pollution – have damaged the growth of the purple flower, Crocus sativus…read it at the Earth Island Journal.

Knees pressed against her chest, Sakina huddles near the window of a sparsely furnished house. Her face is lit by a solitary ray of sunlight creeping into the cold room. It creates shadows around the petite woman who is wrapped in a ragged shawl.

Sakina, 22, was a teenager when she was sold by her family for 1,200 rupees (£15) to a stranger over the age of 60. Her sister, who organised the deal, had duped Sakina by presenting a “young good-looking” chap before the marriage ceremony. She was shocked at seeing the elderly man on the wedding night. Rendered helpless by youth and poverty, there was no escape for the bride. “Nobody helped me,” she said…read it at the Guardian.

Ali shuffles across the quiet yard of a drug de-addiction centre in Srinagar, the capital of India-administered Kashmir. The 26-year-old sought help after a decade of using drugs ranging from brown sugar to codeine. Ali recalled being high when he was training with militants for jihad. “It used to make me feel strong and motivated,” he said. “I felt I could do anything.”

For two decades, the people of Kashmir have endured the fighting between the Indian army and the militants.  The impact of the long-drawn conflict is now surfacing in the form of deteriorating mental health in the Valley along with a drastic rise in drug abuse. The state government of Jammu and Kashmir, however, is ill-equipped to arrest the problem…read it at SmartPlanet.

The elephant ride up the stone pathway of the medieval Amber fort outside Jaipur is designed to make tourists feel like Rajput warriors returning from battle—-or something on those fantastical lines. But one man, watching the majestic procession a few years ago, was awed by something far less regal.

Vijendra Shekhawat, who makes handmade paper, stared at the mounds of dung plopping out at regular intervals as the elephants ambled up to the sandstone and marble palace. The 30-year-old entrepreneur was mesmerized by the fibre-spokes sticking out of the wet poo. “I didn’t pick it up right then,” he said, laughing. “But I came back later.”

Much to the horror of his family, Shekhawat returned home with sacks of elephant poo to experiment whether it could be used to make handmade paper. The entrepreneur had already been using raw materials like silk waste and vegetable slush to prepare paper. His backyard holds a small mill with one “beater” machine that produces about 40kgs of pulp. His family, now trained, make up the workforce….read it at SmartPlanet.

As the dust settles around this year’s U.N. climate change conference, the world is weighing its consequences for the global North and South. The final move by India, for the first time, dilutes the divide between developed and developing countries in sharing the burden of combating the global crisis.

Mired in disputes, the recently concluded talks in Durban spilled into an extra two days. The highly contested political and moral issues divided the negotiators, activists and the media of the developed and developing world…read it at SmartPlanet

Declaring that India has come to the climate conference with an “open mind”, Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan on Tuesday said the developed countries’ projection of legally binding agreement being a “panacea” for climate change was “completely off the mark”…read it at PTI/Indian Express

Even before the annual UN climate change negotiations are formally kicked off in Durban, India is warding off pressure to commit to legally binding CO2 emission cuts. Developed countries are threatening to abandon the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which imposes emission reduction obligations on 37 industrialised countries, if all major emitters don’t do more to curb their greenhouse gases…read it at The Tribune

A man nails posters titled ‘Lessons in Revolting’ on a wall by the entrance to Rawabet, a small theatre in downtown Cairo. The hammering rings like gunshots and, in the sweaty stillness inside the theatre, I am deceived. It is a summer afternoon in August, the month of Ramadan, and I’m there to see a final dress rehearsal…Read it at The Caravan

Cairo—Ali, a 34-year-old Cairo businessman who asked that his real name not be used, is weighing whether or not to circumcise his 12-year-old daughter. Female circumcision, or female genital mutilation (FGM), as it also known, involves removing part or the entire clitoris. In more severe forms of the procedure, the labia minora is removed and the vaginal opening is stitched up. Ali’s wife has told him about her own experience; describing her story to me, he said, “It is her most terrible memory.”

Three thousand years of tradition instruct him that circumcision is the best means to this end. And, in the post-Mubarak Egypt, there are fewer and fewer voices offering an alternative view. The decades-long movement to stop FGM has become a casualty of the power struggle in Egypt…read it at The New Republic

Clutching her stomach and vagina, Bethlehem Iyeli whimpered and squirmed on her hard bed. The 23-year-old Ethiopian woman began to cry as she looked at her sleeping baby, who began life in a cramped tent in a refugee camp on the Egyptian-Libyan border. “I am happy but I cannot feel anything but pain,” she said.

Neda Hassan, 16, and Majida Hassan, 20, are sisters. Both are covered with bites from what they described as “flying bedbugs” . For weeks, they haven’t been able to stop scratching. Their sores are now infected and bleeding. A decision to carry out medical tests in Cairo was not followed through due to mismanagement by various agencies and Egypt…read it at The Times of India

The international community is stumbling in its efforts to find a middle path to a greener planet. Less than a year remains, when nations will converge in Rio de Janeiro to renew their vow towards sustainable development and a greener economy.

Sean McDonagh, an Irish priest and ecologist, who observed the negotiations, says, “The data is getting more apoplectic while the interest and leadership is disintegrating.” Read it at Down to Earth.

The Sufi Music Festival is  held in the imperial city of Fes in Morocco, every year. In 2011, it explored spiritualism, democracy and diversity…an oasis in the Arab world…read it at India Abroad

Combining the Indo-Pak influences with Arab-Andalusian music was an experiment that worked. While each act was distinctive in its character, the heady mix of sounds and the costumes in the Qawwali visually transported viewers to a time centuries before that evening.

Fes retains much of its old world charms and architecture. The city has the world’s oldest university— University of Al-Karaouine– founded by the daughter of a wealthy merchant in 859 AD. It started as a religious school.

The “medina” in Fes is one of the largest pedestrian spaces in the world. The circuitous maze of shops, lanes and homes has existed for hundreds of years in the medina, which is called a living museum.  Before nightfall, the sky above the city’s old forts is filled with circling swifts.

Pro-democracy activists launched fresh protests Sunday, despite King Mohammed VI‘s Friday speech announcing a draft constitution that would limit the powers of his country’s centuries-old monarchy.

While the king is offering a constitutional monarchy, the demand is for a parliamentary monarchy like the United Kingdom. For the activists, the king’s reforms are piecemeal and if they compromise now then the momentum they have generated for comprehensive change will be lost…Read it at The Christian Science Monitor

Gazing at the full breasts and amputated arms of a couple of steel sculptures at an art exhibition in New York is like reading an abridged narrative of the cruelty inflicted on women. They look like dented milk cans. A handle sticks out of their heads, a chain runs down their necks, and rusted shackles clamp their severed thighs down.

The exhibition also features a series called Birth Marks by Mumbai-based artist Vidya Kamat, who depicts the female body as entombed by cultural values, which have translated into sati, honour killings and dowry deaths.

In two close-up photographs, she has shot her own hands and legs sparkling with zardozi. The golden-metallic embroidery is woven into patterns that look like mehndi. But they also look like they have been sewn into the skin. “These decorations are seen as celebration, but I wanted to reverse the motif of zari to the element of pain… as permanently scarring the body,” she says…read it at Open Magazine

While the world’s attention is focused on Yemen and Syria, the Arab Spring is slowly gaining momentum in Morocco. In this North African kingdom, protesters are increasingly enraged by the security forces’ crackdown on peaceful demonstrations and dismissive of the promises of reform that the monarchy made in March…Read it at Foreign Policy

Indra B Tamang came from a Nepali village that had a witch doctor but no electricity. In his 20s, he met an American poet who changed his life. For the past four decades, Tamang has lived in the iconic Dakota building in New York, and mingled with folks like Andy Warhol, Tennessee Williams and John Lennon.

But that’s the past. Let’s flash forward to the present.

On a rainy day in April, a small room at the Woolworth Building in Lower Manhattan was crammed with art lovers and well-wishers from the Nepali community, who were there to attend the opening day of Tamang’s photography exhibition…read it at The Caravan

An inside view of a trial where the confessions of the man who prepared the ground for the 26/11 Mumbai attacks have put the Pakistani intelligence agency in the dock

Four elderly men from the Indian Subcontinent sit on a bench on Devon Avenue, David Coleman Headley’s old neighbourhood in Chicago.

They bask in the setting sun, smoke cigarettes and talk politics on a Monday afternoon. They blame and tease each other about India-Pakistan relations and how the two neighbours can find their way to peace.

“I understood the group operated under the umbrella of the ISI,” Headley says, referring to the terrorist group Laskhar-e-Toiba (LeT), accused of carrying out the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, “They coordinated with each other.”

Read it at Open Magazine