In a country where 270 million people live below the ‘poverty line’, obesity seems to be a distant issue, meant for the rich kids of first world. But India is under siege: junk food, alcohol and sedentary lifestyles are leading us to silent self-destruction, making one in every five Indian men and women either obese or overweight. According to a study published in the noted journal Lancet, India is just […]

The gruesome rape and hanging of two teenage girls in the populous Uttar Pradesh state again proves how women have become the biggest victims of India’s sanitation crisis. Nearly half-a-billion Indians – or 48% of the population – lack access to basic sanitation and defecate in the open. The situation is worse in villages where, according to the WHO and Unicef, some 65% defecate in the open. And women appear […]

India’s southern state of Andhra Pradesh has formally split in two, with its northern area carved out to create a new state called Telangana. The move followed prolonged protests by residents of Telangana, who felt the region had long been neglected. Telangana, which officially came into existence at midnight local time, becomes the country’s 29th state. With a population of 35 million, it comprises 10 former districts of Andhra Pradesh […]

India has set up a special task force to find illicit money, in one of the first decisions taken by the government of new Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The special investigation team (SIT) would seize “black money” – cash that has not been declared or taxed and is mostly deposited in foreign banks. The decision was taken at the first cabinet meeting of the new government. According to some estimates, […]

Washington:  As a rising middle class – from Brazil to India competes with Americans, and as new nations embrace democracy and market economies, the US has to be ready to respond to this new world order, President Barack Obama said on Wednesday. “The world is changing with accelerating speed. This presents opportunity, but also new dangers,” Obama said in his address to the United States Military Academy at West Point […]

Meet the 19-year-old who inadvertently grabbed the “Prime Minister of India” Twitter handle – the same one India’s top leaders are now tussling over. Qaiser Ali says he still doesn’t understand how it happened. The teenager from Lucknow in India just wanted to give his Twitter handle a better name. “I don’t know how but it came into my mind to check PMO [Prime Minister’s Office] of India, and when […]

 Narendra Modi, the leader of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, claimed victory as India’s next Prime Minister on Friday, bringing to power a man whose controversial past at one point led the United States to deny him a visa. Official results were expected late Friday. Viewed as pro-business, Modi, 63, has pledged reforms to revive the nation’s flagging economy. But his past is not without controversy. Throughout his campaign, […]

The mother and uncle of a Canadian woman killed 14 years ago have been ordered extradited to India in stand trial in her alleged “honour killing”. Malkit Kaur Sidhu and Surjit Singh Badesha are accused of ordering the murder after Jaswinder Sidhu, 25, married a rickshaw driver. She was killed in Punjab in June 2000 after she travelled there to reunite with her husband. The family has denied involvement in […]

In Pic :Pedestrians and visitors gather as smog envelopes The Red Fort in New Delhi. India’s air monitoring centre on May 8, 2014, has dismissed data released by the World Health Organisation that showed New Delhi’s air as among the dirtiest worldwide, saying the finding was biased and misleading The air in New Delhi is more polluted than in Beijing, according to an international report that quantifies pollution levels, confirming […]

Here’s the best way to understand the new India in 30 seconds. Watch this commercial—or better yet, if you don’t understand Hindi, read on.A smarmy-looking politician addresses a rural gathering, promising to give the people access to water. His speech is interrupted by a boyish young man, a villager, who pulls out his smartphone and plays a YouTube video for all to see: it’s the same politician, making the same […]