liz hurley has a little naan in the tandoor (that sounds so much better when it’s “bun in the oven”, doesn’t it??) :

Hollywood bombshell Liz Hurley is expecting her second baby, with Indian boyfriend Arun Nayar, News of the World reported.

The model is expecting a sibling for her son Damian in February, it said.

Liz and Arun have been dating for 18 months following her split from Damian’s father Steve Bing.

A source close to Liz was quoted as saying: “Unlike Bing, Arun is happy at the thought of a new baby.”

via hindustan times and a bunch of gossip columns 😉 Continue reading →

Two young Kashmiri Muslims recently eloped against their families’ wishes and are in hiding. The village elders have ordered the man’s family to offer a bride and cash to the woman’s family and are allegedly holding the man’s family hostage to ensure compliance.

This takes the theory of vicarious liability to a whole new level. But merely taking them hostage stinks of rank amateurism. Why not follow the lead of Russian counterterrorism and send the couple a severed hand? That would really get the point across: love hurts, babe.

Swiss Army knife maker Victorinox is creating a line of high-end kirpans for Sikhs, saying premium knives should be treated with the same reverence as samurai swords (via Ennis):

“The first kirpan — with a handle made of solid gold and studded with diamonds and precious stones — will be presented to the Darbar Sahib at the Golden Temple in Amritsar before being rolled out in India, UK, US and Canada.”

Next up: a Victorinox kukri knife for Gurkhas.

Personally, I’d be happier with a desi Swiss Army knife with red chili and pickle dispensers. I’ve got no beef with ethnic cuisines and would never pull my knife on them. But I’d whip it out against continental, nouveau, and that anemic simulacrum, American vegetarian.

The new Indian government is unleashing universities from some of the pro-bribery, anti-intellectual freedom regulations the previous government imposed:

[Education minister Arjun Singh] has… scrapped a controversial order, also issued by the BJP government, that required private donations to public universities to be routed through a special government agency; and allowed India’s universities to seek collaborations with their foreign counterparts without obtaining the government’s permission. In addition, Mr. Singh has ordered the replacement of high-school history textbooks that the previous government had changed to reflect a Hindu-supremacist viewpoint.

Centralizing financial control over donor money? No prizes for guessing what the purpose of that was. Striking down the new regulations allows more intellectual freedom:

The academics were up in arms because they thought it was an effort to blatantly promote ministerial intervention and curb the autonomy of the universities.

And the education minister calls the reversion of textbooks ‘de-saffronisation.’ So far, the new Manmohan Singh government is doing good things.

No comment – MSNBC – Hindus Worry Over Christian, Muslim Growth.

BANGALORE, India – The leader of India’s Hindu-nationalist opposition on Tuesday voiced concern over the growth rate among minority Muslims and Christians, urging them to practice family planning to preserve the nation’s

The data released Monday showed the share of Hindus in the country’s 1.028 billion population fell from 82 percent in 1991 to 80.5 percent in 2001. The portion of Muslims increased from 12.2 percent to 13.4 percent and Christians rose from 2.32 percent to 2.34 percent.

“This imbalance is not good for the country,” Naidu said. “Family planning is the need of the hour for all people.”

Could the non-Hindu brown folks engage in a bit more “Family Planning”, please?!?!?!

As Vinod has posted, the Iraqi insurgents who took Indian truck drivers hostage were tokin’ the desert weed with their nonsensical Dr. Evil demands. And here I was thinking the coalition of the willing could fit on a 3x5 index card:

This shadowy group of kidnappers demanded that Indian troops immediately leave Iraq and stop assisting US forces… it was pointed out to the kidnappers that India had no troops in Iraq and was indeed vehemently opposed to the US invasion… The group maintained that the war had killed 250 women and children in Falluja and demanded the Indian [not U.S.] government pay compensation to the bereaved families.

Given their familiarity with underworld financing and general lack of recent employment, aging Bollywood stars jumped into the fray:

[The mediator] Sheikh Hisham al-Dulaimi has a passion for Bollywood… He has three wives and 12 children. He smokes cigars… if big Bollywood stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Asha Parekh and Dharmendra made a personal call to him pleading for the release of the three hostages, the three, in his words, “would be released today itself”.

The imprisoned drivers were more than willing to do their own stunts:

[T]he [Iraqi] guards are hopelessly trained. At the first sound of gunfire they usually run away… “My Iraqi security was pathetic. I shouted at him that if you cannot fire your gun yourself, teach me how to do it.”

More by Vinod here and here.

From the Beeb:

Angry eunuchs in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu are protesting against a state-run insurance company which they allege has refused to issue an insurance policy to a eunuch.
[snip]
A spokesman for the Life Insurance Corporation at their headquarters in Bombay (Mumbai) has denied that eunuchs will not be sold insurance.
But a senior official who requested anonymity told the BBC that, according to the company rules, only men or women can apply for insurance.
He said that, going strictly by the rules, applications from eunuchs are normally rejected.

I can just picture some desi bureaucrat looking at the boxes labeled “M/F Check ONE” and stamping denied across the form. Somebody please smack said bureaucrat silly, then send him to Bombay Dreams for re-education?