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/ 11 January 2006
Sari-clad women carry sparkling metal pots of water on their heads through winding alleys leading to their homes. It’s a scene from eternal India, oft romanticised as a daily part of a wholesome country life. But these mothers and children live not in isolated villages. They eke out a living in an overcrowded slum in the shadow of the World Trade Centre.
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/ 10 January 2006
Dense fog blanketed northern India, disrupting rail and air traffic, as the death toll from a severe cold wave in India rose to 144 on Tuesday, officials said. In the worst-hit state of Uttar Pradesh, at least 12 people died overnight as hundreds of homeless people huddled around public bonfires lit by civic authorities.
Survivors of the devastating earthquake that shook Kashmir three months ago are showing signs of hypothermia and frostbite, a doctor said on Monday, as temperatures plunged below zero. Survivors living in tents and tin shacks next to their ruined homes said they are also concerned about avalanches.
United States software engineers have been called in to help in the search for an actor to play the role of Lord Buddha in a major Indian movie, a report said on Monday. Engineers in Silicon Valley have generated computer images of the Buddha which will be used in the global hunt for an actor to play the lead in the $120-million film by acclaimed Indian director Shekhar Kapur.
Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, said Tibetans in his homeland are still suffering from ”repression forces” in a swipe at China, a newspaper report said. ”The Tibetans living in Tibet are less fortunate than their counterparts living in India as they have to suffer a lot in their motherland from repression forces,” the Asian Age quoted the Buddhist leader as saying.
A surge in job-seekers sailing to the Andamans for a slice of the post-tsunami aid pie could alter the archipelago’s demography and further squeeze its indigenous peoples, experts warn. Environmentalists are also urging large relief agencies to pack up and leave the palm-fringed Andamans, arguing they are doing more harm than good to the islanders.
A dozen Greenpeace activists were detained by police on Tuesday after a protest at the French Embassy in India against a decision to send an asbestos-laden defunct warship to India to be broken up for scrap. The decommissioned aircraft carrier Clemenceau set sail from the French naval base of Toulon on Saturday for the world’s largest ship-breaking yard in Alang.
Cashing in on a high birth rate and the enormous potential of stem-cell research, India’s biotechnology firms are coaxing more parents to bank blood from their newborn’s umbilical cord. Stem cells are master cells from which the body’s immune and blood system originate and which can develop into cells of any organ.
An Indian schoolboy, whose name and insatiable appetite for runs bear a strong resemblance to superstar Sachin Tendulkar, is making waves in cricketing circles. Rahul Tondulkar, like the original master, hails from cricket-crazy Mumbai and is a right-handed batsman who has already notched up record-breaking feats in schools cricket at the age of 14.
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/ 27 December 2005
Fisheries inspector Muntasir Rah beams proudly as he struggles to hold steady a net full of thrashing trout at a hatchery in insurgency-racked Indian Kashmir. And when peace finally returns to the revolt-hit Himalayan region, he hopes anglers from around the world will take the bait and come back to fish for what he calls his "brown beauties".
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/ 27 December 2005
A Hindu youth from north-eastern India has written a Bible in inverse, or "mirror language", which is to be presented to Pope Benedict XVI as a Christmas gift, a cleric said on Sunday. Uttam Das (29) handed over his unique creation to Assam state’s Archbishop Thomas Menamparampil with a request that it be presented to the pope.
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/ 26 December 2005
Housing being provided by India in the tsunami-battered Andamans is ”totally unsuitable”, a United Nations expert said, while thousands of survivors crammed into tin shacks begged for proper housing a year after the disaster. Miloon Kothari, the UN’s special rapporteur on adequate housing, criticised living conditions in the archipelago.
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/ 24 December 2005
Tsunami was born on the morning of December 26 2004 to an exhausted mother sheltering in a crevice in the ground from the giant waves that crashed into India’s Andaman archipelago. Today, the miracle baby is something of a celebrity as he approaches his first birthday.
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/ 23 December 2005
Manoj Namburu ran a technology consulting firm in the United States before he moved to India’s hi-tech capital three years ago to build luxury houses for wealthy software executives. The villas located on the edge of the sprawling city of six million were an immediate hit with software engineers who were willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy peace in Bangalore.
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/ 22 December 2005
Harbhajan Singh finished with 10 wickets as India thrashed Sri Lanka by 259 runs in the third Test on Thursday to clinch the series 2-0. The wily off-spinner finished the match with 10-141 as Sri Lanka, chasing an improbable 509-run target, were bowled out for 249 in their second innings after resuming at 235-6.
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/ 21 December 2005
India were on the brink of a 2-0 series victory against Sri Lanka after rattling the tourists with spin for the second time in the third and final Test in Ahmedabad on Wednesday. The hosts were four wickets away from a win as Sri Lanka tottered on 235-6 in their second innings at stumps on the fourth day.
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/ 20 December 2005
Tillakaratne Dilshan’s defiant 65 helped Sri Lanka recover from two early shocks on Tuesday to avert the follow-on in the third and final Test match against India. Dilshan saw the departure of overnight partner Jehan Mubarak (13) and Farveez Maharoof (4) as Sri Lanka slumped to 155 for seven before Malinga Bhandara (28 not out) provided the support that helped the tourists avoid the follow-on.
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/ 20 December 2005
Seven more Indian MPs have been caught on television asking for cash, hot on the heels of a similar scandal involving parliamentarians earlier this month, Star News TV said on Tuesday. Star News aired pictures of the sting operation which showed MPs from different parties, including the ruling Congress, apparently asking for cash ranging from five to 45% of the project value to approve spending on public works programmes.
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/ 18 December 2005
The death toll from the relentless cold front sweeping across north India has climbed to 36, it was reported on Sunday. The deaths have been reported from the Uttar Pradesh state over the last week, the NDTV network reported. Most of those who died were homeless people.
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/ 18 December 2005
At least 45 people, mostly women, were killed and more than 50 injured on Sunday in a stampede for food coupons at a flood relief camp in the southern Indian city of Chennai. More than 3 000 people affected by floods had gathered at a government school in the Tamil Nadu state capital to collect food coupons early on Sunday.
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/ 13 December 2005
Indian filmmaker and writer Ramanand Sagar, whose television series portraying Hindu gods battling demons captivated tens of millions and drew crowds of people who couldn’t afford TVs around shop windows on Sunday nights, has died, his family said. He was 87.
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/ 10 December 2005
Southern India braced on Saturday for the arrival of a powerful cyclonic storm expected to cross the Indian coast by noon (7.30 am GMT). The storm, named Fanoos, was expected to hit India’s south-eastern coastal state of Tamil Nadu with winds of up to 80kph and heavy rains, the Chennai weather office said.
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/ 7 December 2005
India’s Health Minister, Ambumani Ramadoss, has described his own country’s main Aids body as “visionless”.
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/ 5 December 2005
The first ball of the opening Test match between India and Sri Lanka will be delivered on Monday, the fourth day of the match, as the sun came out to dry the outfield after three days of rain. Umpires Daryl Harper of Australia and Mark Benson from England inspected the ground at 9am local time and decided to take another look after an hour before determining when the match can start.
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/ 4 December 2005
Bad weather continued to play havoc with the first cricket Test between India and Sri Lanka as play was cancelled for the third successive day on Sunday. Cyclone Baaz, which had weakened into a depression over the Bay of Bengal, brought more rain to the southeast coast of India and drenched the southern metropolis of Chennai.
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/ 2 December 2005
Environmental activists were to kick off a series of protests and vigils in India on Friday to mark the 21st anniversary of the Bhopal gas tragedy, which claimed thousands of lives. In New Delhi, the global environmental group Greenpeace was to act out a recreation of the disaster which struck the central Indian town of Bhopal just before midnight on December 2, 1984.
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/ 2 December 2005
Chinese authorities have arrested five Tibetan monks who refused to denounce their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and recognise Tibet as part of China, an India-based pro-democracy group says. The five were expelled from Drepung Monastery in Lhasa and handed over to the Public Security Bureau on November 23.
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/ 1 December 2005
A severe cyclonic storm building in the Bay of Bengal has threatened to curtail the first cricket Test between India and Sri Lanka in Chennai, India, from Friday. That will be bad news for fans in Chennai who have already seen the past three international matches here fall by the wayside due to bad weather.
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/ 29 November 2005
Skipper Rahul Dravid’s composed half-century anchored India to a series-levelling victory by five wickets on Monday in the fifth and final limited-overs international against South Africa. Dravid’s unbeaten 78 steered India to 224 for five in 47,3 overs after South Africa had put on a challenging 221 for six from 50.
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/ 28 November 2005
Jacques Kallis fell nine runs short of his 14th one-day century on Monday, but helped South Africa recover from a shaky start and set India a challenging target in the fifth and final limited-overs cricket international. Kallis posted a composed 91 to boost South Africa’s score to 221 for six in 50 overs.
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/ 28 November 2005
India’s cricket chiefs plan to speak to national coach Greg Chappell over a rude gesture he reportedly made to crowds in Kolkata last week, an official said on Monday. ”We will certainly discuss the matter at the board’s annual general meeting in Kolkata on Tuesday,” said Inderjit Bindra, former head of the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
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/ 27 November 2005
Gopal Vinayak Godse, the last surviving conspirator in the assassination of Indian independence leader and pacifist icon Mohandas Gandhi, has died at age 86, media reports said. Godse died at his home in the city of Pune late on Saturday, the Press Trust of India news agency quoted his son, Nana Godse, as saying.