Chandrasiri Bandara, Sri Lanka's most popular astrologer, fears for his life because of a string of death threats that followed his bold forecast that Sri Lanka's president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, would be booted from office or killed. Bandara was charged with being a threat to national security and jailed for nine days for his premonition this summer.

:: via washingtonpost.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

Read and Write Volkswagen Touareg reviews and Volkswagen Touareg ratings at CarDekho.com.

:: via cardekho.com

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

Penn Masala is the world’s first Hindi a cappella choir, and its popularity has led them to perform internationally since their inception in 1996. Made up of 12 Indian-American students, the choir performs a fusion of popular American songs and traditional Hindi songs to create a unique a cappella experience. “Most of us grew up in the United States, but we’re still very much tied to the culture of our parents,” said Nikhil Marathe, the choir’s music director.

:: via dailytexanonline.com

The recession has been brutal for just about every segment of the population, but though the unemployment rate for Asian Americans has been inching upward, it has been far lower than the rates for whites, blacks, Hispanics or the nation as a whole. Among those groups, Asian Americans have had the lowest jobless rate every month since 2000. The unemployment gap — 7.5% for Asians in October, compared with 10.2% nationwide — stems from a combination of education benchmarks and cultural traditions that foster family support when someone is out of work. Work ethics and close family ties certainly are not unique to Asians. But when coupled with high educational levels, those characteristics contribute to a lower unemployment rate. Hispanics, for example, demonstrate similar work and family values but their population as a whole is not as educated as Asians. Cultural and family ties are strong in immigrant-dominated communities and are powerful when combined with income and education. "Despite their upward mobility, Asians are still a minority group and thus more closely connected to one another than a native-born Caucasian American," he says.You're much more on your own if you're a middle-income, native-born white American, especially in a big city.

:: via usatoday.com

Dancing has always been a part of Bollywood, often with huge casts performing set-piece numbers as the glamorous hero and heroine lip-synch love songs in improbable locations. But improved production values and an explosion in television dance shows in recent years have promoted dance from a second-best bit part to a viable - and potentially lucrative - career for aspiring young performers. In a sign of the demand, newspaper classified sections on any given day are filled with advertisements offering tuition to would-be dancers, and with it hopes of a starring role on the small or big screen. Jeetendra B. Singh ditched his job in the shipping industry to follow his heart rather than travel the world.

:: via independent.co.uk

Six people. Buried. In Detroit. Just six weeks ago, a record number of bodies lay unclaimed in the freezer of the Wayne County morgue. Some had been there for years. But now, the tally has fallen from 67 to 52 thanks to Shanti Das. The former New York-based music executive with Universal Motown Records raised the money to pay for six of those people to be interred.

:: via cnn.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

For someone who was unceremoniously dropped from the Bharatiya Janata Party government, Shobha Karandlaje seems extremely calm. Karandlaje, who started her political journey as a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh worker, rose through the ranks and earned the tag of 'Super Chief Minister' because of her proximity to Yeddyurappa.

:: via rediff.com