Gyms wrestle out the akharas of Agra
By Brij Khandelwal, IANSAgra : Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan's six-pack abs may be sending all and sundry to the gym, but it is driving the nails into the coffin of traditional wrestling schools known as 'akharas' in this city.
By Sanjeeb Baruah, IANS
Guwahati : Every morning in Assam's Kuthori village, adjoining the famed Kaziranga National Park, people wait anxiously to find out whether their crops are safe from rampaging elephants, wild buffaloes and rhinoceroses.
By Devirupa Mitra, IANSNew Delhi : In a small Tamil Nadu village is India's only living link to a certain colonial past - born in Guyana, 64-year-old C.G. Naresh was a passenger on the last ship that returned home to India with indentured labourers more than five decades ago.
By F. Ahmed, IANSChanduna (Jammu and Kashmir) : As a pristine white blanket of snow covers the countryside, Kashmir's rich tradition of folklore comes to life in this village.
Master Habibullah, 59, is a retired schoolteacher. He has a large family. His wife Halima, three sons, Fayaz, Shabir, Showkat, and their wives and children, all live under one roof.
By Mohammed Shafeeq, IANS
Hyderabad : It is a New Year gift that this city awaits every year. Popularly known as 'numaish' - the Urdu word for exhibition - the fair has come a long way since it was first organised in 1937 during the reign of the Nizam.
By Ganesh Nadar, IANS
Auckland : India has many global success stories, yet not many of them have women in the lead. But Chitra Bhonsle, 36, who was born in a Maharashtra village and today heads the New Zealand operations of global courier company DHL, has always defied the odds.
By Jaideep Sarin, IANS
Banchari (Haryana) : Whenever and wherever they go, it is a spirited performance that comes from the group, made up of villagers aged between 10 and 65 years. The beats of their 'nagada', or kettledrum, have placed this village on the global map.
By Joe Cochrane, IANS
Islamabad : There's never a taxi around when you need one. Except, of course, if you are in Pakistan's capital Islamabad.
By Shyam Pandharipande
Nagpur, Jan 1 (IANS) A 13-year-old student of Indian origin in the US and his American friends washed cars, sold pizzas and cakes, and held sports tournaments to raise money for a tube well in a water-starved village in India.
V. Vijayalakshmi
Pune, Jan 1 (IANS) Mere trips to Singapore and Thailand, or for that matter even London, Paris and Rome are no longer good enough for the great Indian traveller who is now looking at specialised tours like music cruises, adventure trails, spiritual getaways and health holidays abroad.
- Bush and Ahmadinejad fighting for timeMOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov) - Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and U.S. President George W. Bush visited the Middle East almost simultaneously. Bush went there to whip up support for an anti-Iranian coalition, while ElBaradei was in Tehran for a mee...
- Reviving a Tradition: Muslim Women as Religious AuthoritiesBy Yoginder Sikand Separate madrasas for Muslim girls are a relatively recent phenomenon in India. Although the number of such madrasas is still small, there is a distinct trend towards setting up more such institutions, both that provide only religious education, as well as those that combine both Islamic and modern subjects. W...
- Turkey will not launch war against KurdsMOSCOW. (Georgy Mirsky for RIA Novosti) - Turkey invaded North Iraq, the domain of the Kurdistan Workers Party, several times. Five years ago, I was in the area where fighting is now taking place. At that time, small Turkish groups used to cross the border to deliver strikes on Kurdish positions. What has changed since then? K...
- Arabs have no appetite for Bush-style democracyMOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Maria Appakova) - Iran and al-Qaeda are the main obstacles in the way of the Middle East's movement towards democracy and freedom. They sponsor terrorism worldwide and threaten regional stability. This is the main message of George Bush's speech given during his visit to Abu-Dhabi. The spee...
- India salutes NRIs at annual conferenceBy Kul Bhushan, IANS If you were visiting India in early January, you had the chance to attend a number of major NRI events. You could listen to and probably meet top Indian leaders and rub shoulders with fellow NRIs who are leaders in their own countries or achievers in their professions and businesses. It was a great chance to...
