Maoists never tire of styling themselves as the vanguard of resistance to the plunder of resources in the tribal-dominated regions, citing this as one of the justifications for "class warfare". But as the investigation into the gigantic Jharkhand scam progresses, it turns out they were party to the loot of natural resources, cornering a big share of booty from the "illegal mining" that allegedly thrived during Madhu Koda's chief ministership.

:: via indiatimes.com

The only checkpoint along the 2,000-mile border between India and Pakistan, WAGAH hosts a popular flag-lowering ceremony each day. Patriotic crowds on either side cheer their country's soldiers as they perform official exercises with formal precision and colorful dynamism, revealing more similarities than differences between the two nations.

:: via german-films.de

India Today's special section dedicated to the remarkable career of Sachin Tendulkar.

:: via indiatoday.com

Capturing Indian identity through the prism of Indian's new homelands. That is Preston Merchant's magnum opus. A New York-based freelance photographer, Merchant was enthralled by India at the outset of his career, and decided to look for its cultural progeny throughout the globe. He has been chronicling the Indian diaspora with his pictures for almost a decade now. His project, IndiaWorld, will culminate in a book, which he should complete in about a year.

:: via hindu.com

[Shakespeare plays translated into Punjabi]‘To be or not to be’ for him remains ‘jina ki nahin jina’ as it was for Shakespeare without the existential angst that later centuries have added. Final word on Shakespeare, “Ullu de pathhe nu anvain dang te chadhaiya hai, plot te labda nahin hai

:: via openthemagazine.com

One year ago, 170 people were murdered when 10 terrorists set off a barrage of gunfire and grenades in Mumbai, India, at two hotels, a railroad station and a Jewish center. Those harrowing hours are recounted in a new HBO documentary called Terror in Mumbai. Host Scott Simon speaks with CNN host and Newsweek international editor, Fareed Zakaria, who narrates the new documentary.

:: via npr.org

'The Fareed Challenge' is a weekly quiz that will test how much you know about what's happening in the world today...1) On this week's show, Fareed plays clips from an HBO documentary he narrated: "Terror in Mumbai." The Mumbai attacks of one year ago were perpetrated by Lashkar-e-Taiba. What does the group's name mean?

:: via cnn.com

Kash Gill, who as a boy rose before dawn to pick peaches in the broiling summer sun, has become the first Punjabi American mayor in Yuba City history.

:: via sacbee.com

First, do no harm. That’s the bottom-line rule of Jainism, one of the three major homegrown religions in India. To believers, all living things, from whales to humans to flu bugs, have souls and, karmically speaking, all souls are equal. If you go thrashing and stomping your way through the average day, as most of us do, you’re bound to be injuring something. And if you injure something, you injure everything, including yourself. This is how karma works. So it pays to move with care. Mohandas Gandhi, who used nonviolence as a political tool, learned a lot from the Jains. But in the West we still know little about them and even less about their art — brilliant little narrative paintings, sculptures of sleek nude saviors — which we tend to misidentify as Buddhist.

:: via nytimes.com

Srilankan government last month alerted India on a possible coup in Sri Lanka and sought its help to thwart it if it happened. Sri Lankans now know why their highly-respected war hero wants to quit his top military post and serve the people in some other capacity, possibly as their next President. According to a leaked version of what is said to be General Sarath Fonseka's retirement letter to President Mahinda Rajapaksa, it all boils down to the government's fears of a military coup and its mistrust of Sri Lanka's [ Images ] first and only serving four-star general.

:: via rediff.com