Archive | October, 2008
The Free Tree & Bio-Piracy of the West
The “Free Tree” of India The neem is evergreen. It grows fast and in any kind of soil, good or bad. It can soar 25 metres high and can live for 200 to 300 years – that is if it is not cut down. It is one of the most tolerant trees. It is not scared of [...]
Continue reading...Kambala: Buffalo Racing In Slushy Waters of Karnataka
27. October 2008
The rhythmic beat of drums and trumpets reverberates in the air. The area from where the sound emanates is jam-packed and I can barely see the goings on from my position. Camera in hand, I make way through the all men crowd dexterously, swinging my head to the intoxicating music. I find myself inside a unique [...]
Continue reading...The Doon Boom
21. October 2008
The city that houses Doon School is now playing host to a whole array of new education barons–with big money and bigger ambitions. Some weeks ago, a Gurgaon-based businessman walked into the office of Upendra Arora, proprietor of the Natraj Bookshop on Dehradun’s popular Rajpur Road. The visitor was planning to set up an “international-class school [...]
Continue reading...The Road to Riches – Asian Highway
19. October 2008
The Stilwell Road A road named after an American general who oversaw its construction at the height of World War II has the potential to bring India and China closer together. Running from India’s northeast through Myanmar to southwestern China’s Yunnan province, the 1,736-kilometer Stilwell Road, if reopened, would boost overland trade and travel between India [...]
Continue reading...The Striped Environmentalist
18. October 2008
The majesty of the Bengal tiger although considered a threat to their existence by the locals in Sunderbans, is in effect a direct check on the wilful onslaught of nature by unconcerned people. Consider it this way; the threat of the tiger in the jungle and the Crocs in the river has been the major discouragement for the [...]
Continue reading...Blissfully Baul
16. October 2008
Singing soul-stirring songs that speak in simple language of love and human bondage, this 29-year-old Baul has really broken free from what we all struggle to — the self. YOUNG REBEL Parvathy Baul: `City people are scared to talk to me because I have a spiritual inclination. But in our whole nation, everything is spiritual’. Sixteen. A [...]
Continue reading...Ancient Media – Craft above Creed
15. October 2008
They came as refugees from Bangladesh in 1949 with nothing but some scrolls tucked under their arms. Now settled with their families in East and West Midnapore districts of West Bengal, these Muslim women continue to earn their living using the very scrolls they had brought along with them. The scrolls, or patachitra, are part of [...]
Continue reading...A Life of Selfless Service
13. October 2008
Hidden amid the dazzling human mosaic of India are millions of tribal people. For centuries, they have lived apart in remote highlands and forests. The Madia Gonds, for example, occupy 150 square kilometers of dense forest in eastern Maharashtra, bordering Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgarh states. In a thousand isolated villages, they survive by hunting and [...]
Continue reading...A Shot in the Arm for Alternative Medicine
12. October 2008
In a quiet government office in the Indian capital, Delhi, some 100 doctors are hunched over computers poring over ancient medical texts and keying in information. These doctors are practitioners of ayurveda, unani and siddha, ancient Indian medical systems that date back thousands of years. One of them is Jaya Saklani Kala, a young ayurveda doctor, who [...]
Continue reading...The Killer has Arrived
10. October 2008
India’s rapid economic growth could be slowed by a sharp rise in the prevalence of heart disease, stroke and diabetes, and the successful information technology industry is likely to be the hardest hit, a study has found. So-called lifestyle diseases are estimated to have wiped $9bn off the country’s national income in 2005, but the cost [...]
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31. October 2008
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