Author Archives: Ennis Singh Mutinywale

The World’s Worst Airports to Sleep in: Any Airport in India

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There’s a new list of the best airports to sleep in, for those who are too busy or too thrifty to check into a hotel room. The best of the best? Singapore’s Changi airport. The worst? Anywhere in India, which is as bad as PNG’s Port Moresby airport where there was a gang shoot-out in the terminal.

Worst Airport(s) – This was toughy. I certainly could not narrow it down to just one in this case. First up, everybody please put their hands together for Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea), an airport in which one of our contributors witnessed 7 seven being killed in a gang shoot-out. When in Port Moresby, be sure you’re wearing your bullet-proof vest and run. And then there are the airports in the Mid-East and India section where we have received MANY Hellish reviews. As there are so many to choose from, I am also giving the Worst Airport(s) award to the entire country of India who only has one airport rated “good”, but only because it was a better alternative to actually sleeping in one of their hotels. Unacceptable seating, foul odours, filth, fleas, safety, and general hassles have resulted in India’s 8 year reign of the Worst Airport(s) Title. Travellers beware: when sleeping in one of India’s “fine” airports be sure you have your own bug spray, air freshener and disinfectant or just go to the nearest bar and drink the pain away.[cite]

The list is an equal opportunity critic, American airports are not spared from its scrutiny either. The first runner up for worst is Boston’s Logan airport, and the fourth runner up was Chicago’s Om Hari airport. [via bookofjoe] Continue reading →

Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai, Free Tibet Bye-Bye (updated)

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After decades of advocating Tibetan independence, India now accepts Chinese control of Tibet, much to the chagrin of thousands of Tibetan refugees in Dharamsala. [CSM]

I’m disappointed, but not at all surprised to hear this news. Like any newly popular teenager, India is kicking its penniless lover out of bed for a wealther swain. India has ended its support for a free Tibet, and is seriously cozying up to China. It’s getting increased commerce, a new border agreement, China’s acceptance of India’s invasion and annexation of Sikkim, and China’s tacit consent of how India treats its own domestic independence movements.

The kissy-face between India and China today is a substantial change from the four decades of frosty relations between the two countries. Why? It’s all about the benjamins, ‘natch:

India’s bilateral trade with China touched $13.6bn last year with the balance of trade reportedly favouring Delhi. The two sides were surprised with the growth in bilateral trade as it was a mere $1bn a decade ago. Experts say with this rate of growth, China may soon overtake the US as India’s largest trading partner. Indo-US trade stood at about $20bn in 2004. [BBC]

Bilateral investment is going up as well, and mainly in one direction:

Indian investments in China crossed $100m last year. On the other hand, China feels the Indian economy is not opening up to Chinese investments, which remain at a mere $20m. With the Indian side now favouring 100% foreign investment in the construction sector, Beijing hopes to increase its presence in India. [BBC]

With increased commerce comes … cheesy lines from politicians:

On a visit yesterday to India’s technology capital of Bangalore, Premier Wen urged Indian software companies to come to China and take advantage of his nation’s manufacturing capabilities. “Cooperation is just like two pagodas, one hardware and one software,” Wen said. “Combined, we [India and China] can take the leadership position in the world.” [CSM]

[Somebody please get Premier Wen some game! We’re dying here.]

Is this a good idea for India? Should it trust China even as it plans to build a jet fighter with Pakistan? How much does India in fact trust China? Well … Continue reading →

Banana Birth Control

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Remember how everybody in 7th grade would snicker in SexEd when the teacher would put a condom on a banana? Well, Indians are far thriftier than that. Instead of wasting a perfectly good condom on a banana, they use the condoms to weave a sari, and use just the banana as birth control. Well, kinda:

India’s western state of Maharashtra has told banana and sugar cane farmers they will not get water for irrigation if they have more than two children. The state’s water minister says the move will help curb the rising population and solve water shortages. The bill also requires all banana and sugar cane farmers, regardless of child numbers, to use drip or sprinkling systems of irrigation within five year or lose their supply. The bill is targeting the crops because of the large amount of water they require. The upper house of the state’s parliament has backed the bill and it will go to the lower house on Monday. If the bill is approved into law it will not apply to farmers who already have more than two children. Maharashtra is agriculturally one of India’s most advanced states but has suffered bad droughts … that have led to hundreds of farmers committing suicide. [Note: Quotes out of order from the original BBC article]

Would this have been half as funny if I had posted about sugar cane? Continue reading →

A brown Pope? The long odds on Bombay’s Cardinal Dias

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01dias.jpg With the passing of the Pontiff, there is an outside possibility that the next Pope will be Bombay’s Cardinal Ivan Dias. As with the Olympics, the Indian is the long shot. According to the Associated Press, bookies have listed the odds as 16:1 against him; the only online betting agency I can find gives the odds at 47:1 right now.

India has 16,694,000 Catholics who make up 1.54% of the country’s population. This makes it 16th in the world in terms of the number of Catholics per country. However, India does not have alot of leverage in the selection process for the new Pope. India has five Cardinals, only three of whom are eligible to vote. Cardinals Duraisamy Simon Lourdusamy and Simon Ignatius Pimenta are over 80, and are excluded from voting by an age limited introduced by Pope John Paul II himself. The remaining three Cardinals are Cardinal Ivan Dias of Mumbai, Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil of the Kerala based Syro Malabar Church, and Cardinal Telesphore Placidus Toppo of Ranchi.

The speculation about an Indian Pope seems to have emerged when that most religious of magazines, Businessweek, stated that Cardinal Ivan Dias (described simply as “a friend of Mother Teresa”) was under consideration for the top job.

According to the Calcutta Telegraph:

Dias, the archbishop of Mumbai, is among 13 cardinals believed to be in the running. Twenty-six years ago, the Vatican created history by anointing John Paul II, a Pole, the first non-Italian to be elected to the top post in over 400 years. There is now speculation if history will be made again by naming the first Indian and, possibly more important, the first non-White. Whether or not Dias is chosen, there is a likelihood that a non-White could actually become the Pope because several of the cardinals being tipped for the post are from Latin America and Africa. Dias’s office had earlier dismissed as “rubbish” the speculation that he was a candidate. The Catholic Bishops Conference of India spokesman, Fr Babu Joseph, said: “The Indian Church will be happy and proud if the next Pope comes from the country. But these (about Dias’s prospects) are speculative reports. The papal election does not happen just like that.” Dias has a few factors going for him. For instance, he has been a Vatican diplomat for 33 years in various parts of the world before coming to Mumbai in 1997 as the archbishop. He knows 17 languages, mostly European, and even speaks Korean. Above all, like Pope John Paul, he is orthodox, and is relatively young at 69 by Vatican standards. [Telegraph]

Continue reading →

Clowning around with the victims of tragedy

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Patch Adams, he of the eponymous (and lousy) Robin Williams movie, has gone to Sri Lanka to visit the survivors of the tsunami. patchadams.jpg

Dr Adams brought a troupe of 30 clowns performing juggling, unicycle riding and puppet shows to hospitals and relief camps in the country’s south. The troupe sprayed wards with soap bubbles and performed a puppet show for children suffering from cancer. As he bounded into children’s wards, one doctor asked: “Is that man looking for the psychiatric ward?” Dr Adams has also taken his clowns to Bosnia, Africa and Afghanistan. [Note: this text is exercepted and rearranged compared with the original BBC article ]

While Adams may be a … wee bit eccentric, other studies confirm the claim that laughter is good for your health. It turns out, for example, that laughter improves your cardio-vascular capacity. Unfortunately, there is no news from the laughter club movement, even though it started in India a decade ago, and now has 3,500 clubs world wide.

Continue reading →

M / F / E

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Shashwati brings our attention to the news that the Indian passport will now recognize a third sex:

The new “Passport Information Booklet” relating to instructions for filling up application forms, states, “In case of Male / Female option, please write M or F in the box space provided. For eunuch, please write ‘E’ in this box.” … “Sexuality today is no longer restricted to male and female,” said Vivek Diwan, of Lawyers Collective. “Earlier, when hijras applied for a passport, their applications would be rejected on grounds that they were neither male nor female. This is a step in the right direction.” [cite]

But can they get insurance in Tamil Nadu? More seriously, what happens when they get to a country that doesn’t recognize a third sex – how will they be classified there? Will they be classified into Male or Female and let in, or turned away for the very same bureaucratic reasons that stopped them from getting passports in India earlier? Continue reading →

Just a little to the left …

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India isn’t the same place it used to be. Literally.

A seismologist in India says that the country has moved closer to Indonesia due to the massive earthquake which triggered the tsunami in December. Dr Vineet Gahlaut said that India had shifted a few centimetres eastwards. The expedition reveals the geographical distance between India and Indonesia – the epicentre of the deadly earthquake – has been reduced by between five metres and 15mm. The amount of movement depended on the closeness of different areas to the epicentre of the quake, Dr Gahlaut explained. [BBC]

You see? The tsunami has brought the people of India and Indonesia closer together. Continue reading →

Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and …

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Mittal.jpg … Lakshmi Mittal are numbers one, two and three in this year’s Forbes’ billionaires list.

In raw dollars, no one had a better year that Lakshmi Mittal. The London-based, Rajasthan-born steel baron was the biggest dollar gainer on this year’s listing of the world’s billionaires, adding $18.8 billion to his net worth. That took him to $25 billion, sufficient to vault the 54-year old Mittal a full 59 places up the billionaire ranks, making him the third-richest man on the planet. [cite]

That puts him just ahead of Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud and the head of Ikea. He is roughly 35 times as wealthy as the Queen of England. Rumors persist that he is planning to marry Famke Jansen and change his last name to Onatopp. Similar rumors persist that you can get in touch with Mr. Mittal by leaving a comment in this blog asking for his email address, and that Bill Gates is giving away money to anybody who forwards chain emails claiming to be from him.

Read Forbes on Mittal, or see our previous posts about him: World’s biggest steel company will be desi-owned, Forbes names India’s richest. Continue reading →

Drumming up some cash

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Authorities in the city of Rajahmundry in Andhra Pradesh state are sending drummers around to create a noise outside homes until [tax] evaders cough up. Officials say they recouped 200,000 rupees ($4,600) on the first day. Harried residents emerged from their homes to be told by accompanying tax collectors to pay up or continue facing the music. [The Municipal commissioner] … said he was confident people would pay up to avoid embarrassment as everybody now knew that the drums meant there was a tax evader inside. [BBC]

If this fails, they can always play classical music, rock or rap to pound the scofflaws into submission. Continue reading →

The award for the most sepia film goes to …

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This morning, I had a vision of a meta-awards ceremony, one that honored all things brown at the Oscars. Although the Oscars aren’t until later tonight, desis are lousy at keeping secrets (what’s the last successful desi surprise party you went to?), so I’ll let you know what was inside the brown envelope:

  • Award for the brownest movie goes to … The Little Terrorist. How much browner can you get than a movie about Indo-Pak conflict and cricket at the same time? The star is a former street child who was taken in by an organization founded by Mira Nair after the success of Salaam Bombay, so this movie gets bonus brown movie points. Better still, the movie is a testiment to desi frugality and ingenuity:
    • With little cash to fund his project, Kumar’s hopes rested on a short script with a strong message. He posted the script on the internet, asking people to help him make the film even though he couldn’t pay for their services. Kumar was also keen to cast non-professional actors, a technique he admired in Iranian film. “Around 15 people turned up from all over the world. I met most of them for the first time on location in Rajasthan,” says Kumar. [BBC]
    This is India’s first entry in the short film category since 1979, and the first short film to get a commercial release in India.
  • The award for the brown-themed movie with the best chance of winning goes to … Born Into Brothels. A documentary about prostitutes’ children who take photos of their lives, it’s already won almost every other documentary prize out there. It will be hard for the Academy to resist a movie about the transformative power of film, even if the kids are taking `still’ rather than `moving’ pictures. [There is controversy about the film, including whether it can even be considered a documentary, but I don’t think it will have an impact on its Oscar chances.]

  • The award for stealth brown entry goes to … the South African film Yesterday, a tragedy about an HIV positive South African woman facing death. The movie is noteworthy for having been shot entirely in Zulu, despite dire warnings that nobody would show or watch a film that was in a vernacular language. The film’s producer is Anant Singh who worked with director James Darrell Roodt on films like Place of Weeping, Sarafina! and Cry, the Beloved Country. Anant Singh will also be working on the movie version of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, starring Morgan Freeman as Mandela and directed by Shakhar Kapur.

  • The award for the brownest member of the academy goes to … Ashutosh Gowariker, the director of Oscar nominee Lagaan. It’s funny to me that the Academy has put an old-school Bollywood guy like Gowariker on the film jury at the same time that the Little Terrorist’s Ashvin Kumar is saying things like
    • “I hope my film starts a trend encouraging alternate and experimental film-making. That way people can discover that there is more to Indian cinema than Bollywood [BBC]“
  • The award for the lamest Oscar rumor goes to … the claim that Ash might be presenting at this years Oscars if her film with Paul Berges (Gurinder Chadha’s husband) doesn’t run over schedule. Huh? Do or do not. There is no try with the Oscars. Does anybody think the producer of tonight’s show is going to leave that one hanging? But if I’m wrong, I’m sure you’ll see photos here tomorrow …

See also previous SepiaMutiny posts on The Little Terrorist, Born into Brothels, and Gowariker and the Oscars . Continue reading →