Ambi ride in the UK
How many of you can boast to have been driven around in an Ambassador car in the UK? I don’t think there are too many of you out there. I was purely lucky. I had first heard of Adrian Shooter (in picture above) and his garden railway about 10 years ago in my hometown Siliguri,…
Nepal to legalise homosexuality and same-sex marriages, says law minister
“[The bill] shall be our effort to grant equal status to homosexual and heterosexual relationships,” he said in reply to questions from Scroll.in. “The Muluki Ain is 160 years old and the last serious amendment to was [made] 50 years ago. Efforts are under way to revise it and give it a new progressive face.”
Modi must deliver on his promises to Nepal
India’s relationship with Nepal, or for that matter any of its neighbours, has not been that smooth in the past few years. Somehow or the other an “arrogant” India has managed to irk its neighbours with its “big brother attitude”. During my Nepal visit some years ago, I was surprised to see how China had…
Once upon a time in Muzaffarnagar
It has been almost a year since the western UP riots. I visited Muzaffarnagar in March this year when preparations for the upcoming general elections had just begun. I spoke to many riot survivors, especially women and children, who were still languishing in large numbers in both officially designated and unofficial camps. I wrote my…
Of all the BJP’s about turns, I like this one best
Did you notice the difference in the tone of the BJP on the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) before and after the general elections? Well, the party which was vehemently opposed to the exchange of enclaves has now said it is working towards building a “political consensus” on the matter. What a welcome change this is!…
Read more Of all the BJP’s about turns, I like this one best
Crib deaths point to under-age marriages, women’s health woes in Bengal
West Bengal has a very high incidence of under-age marriages. In some districts the prevalence rate of under-age marriage is so high that every second bride is a minor. In its profile of West Bengal state, Unicef points out that almost half of female teens are pregnant by the age of 19 and more than 60 per cent of pregnant women are anaemic. It further says that the number of institutional deliveries is less than half the total; and one third of women do not receive the recommended three antenatal checkups during pregnancy and only two thirds get post-natal care within two weeks of delivery.
Of CEO’s murder and jute industry crisis
It has been the season of bad news from West Bengal for some time now. By now you must be well versed with the names of legends like Tapas Pal. In this post, I share two of my recent pieces that I did on the gruesome murder of a CEO at a jute mill 35…
City in grip of football fever
A limp German flag hangs from a string at Ballygunge Phanri (in South Calcutta) on a rain-soaked day. I ask the taxi-driver to slow down for me to take a picture of it. I wanted to mail it to my friends in Germany. “They will be happy to know their team has supporters here,” I…
Going Nense! Nense! at Maracana
I had a great chance to visit Brazil in 2007. It was a cultural exchange programme–the Rotary Group Study Exchange programme–and I was part of a five-member team to tour the oh-so-fantastic Rio-de-janeiro for a month. I spent a week each with a Brazilian family in different cities of the state. Those who have been…
Anuradha Sharma 