Flipping through her wedding album, a 30-page collection of glossy photos with sugary captions such as "Perfect Match," Sandeep Kaur grimaces as she recalls her wedding last year to a young man from Brampton. There was no problem with the celebration itself, mind you. There was more than enough mutton, fish and chicken for several hundred guests.

:: via thestar.com

When no one was around, Jassi Kaur quietly slipped into her niece's room, where the 19-year-old woman sat huddled in a corner sobbing. Angry relatives had confronted her for one reason: she had a boyfriend. "It was awful," Kaur recalls. She cradled the girl, told her everything would be fine. It wasn't

:: via thestar.com

I FELL in love with India when I was a child. My parents were both born in Bombay, and we went back to India frequently. Last Nov. 26, I was in Mumbai to meet with some clients. That day marks an anniversary that I like to think of as my new lease on life.

:: via nytimes.com

India is admired on the cricket pitch and for Bollywood blockbusters. But in the social studies classes of 16-year-old boys, there seems to be more suspicion than curiosity about their rapidly progressing neighbor to the East. When asked if anyone in a class of 50 students wanted to travel to India, the reply comes back as a loud unanimous "No!"

:: via npr.org

Three generations of Grewals live in their five-bedroom pebble-dashed house under the Heathrow flight path in Windsor. For two months this summer it was also home to 28 cameras, 37 microphones, several miles of cabling and a production crew hiding in the back garden. Twelve months after the Hughes family allowed their bickering, moaning and heroic teenage slouching to be captured for national posterity The Family is back. This year Channel 4 has picked the first British Indian family to undergo the rigours of hard line reality TV surveillance.

:: via guardian.co.uk

Race is an insensitive issue in China. The sighting of someone who is not of the majority Han race does not stop conversation here, but sparks comments of all sorts – of surprise, wonder, bewilderment and defensiveness. Being cautious about what one says about colour or heritage in China is seen as silly and blinded. That is not to say that talking about race in China is a dialogue suffused with respect. For example, during the late summer, Luo Jing, a resident of Shanghai of mixed-race descent (her father an African-American, her mother is Chinese) appeared on a television talent show that was seen across China. The farther Lou advanced in the contest, the louder the voices and vitriol became, especially against her mother for having slept with a black man and producing what many Chinese saw as an impure prodigy.

:: via guardian.co.uk

They are the hottest tickets in town: invitations to the first official dinner at the White House. The Obamas' guest of honor on Nov. 24 will be Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Some invites already have gone out but many wannabe attendees are still waiting …somewhat anxiously. Will they make the cut? This being the Indian community—one of the most affluent and successful immigrant groups in the U.S.—everybody thinks they're a Somebody.

:: via wsj.com

There are hardly any new major railway stations constructed these days with the exception of two new train stations that have come up in this region in the last few years: the Srinagar Railway Station and the Lhasa Railway Station.In Lhasa all sign boards have bold Chinese characters by regulation, with small Tibetan script underneath – a move as severe as the attempted imposition of Marathi-only signboards in Maharashtra.

:: via wsj.com

More than 60 years after partition, India and Pakistan are still struggling to find a way to live peacefully side by side. Santosh Madhok is still haunted by the memory of her terrible train journey. But she believes the time has come for India to look to the future, not the past. "Well, it's better to forget, because one can do nothing about it now," she says. "So it is better to forget and forgive."

:: via npr.org

A week before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and United States President Barack Obama's first high-level talks in Washington, India got a 'shocker' from Obama via Beijing. The joint statement issued by US and China, after the talks between Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao, declared that..

:: via rediff.com