Oh the pride and joy of it all! There is an elegant gentleman, sinuous in his tailored suit, a wristband gleaming; here is the same figure painted in his Indian royal attire, with teardrops of diamonds dangling from succulent pearls.

:: via nytimes.com

Indian election authorities Thursday granted what they called an independent identity to intersex and transsexuals in the country's voter lists. Before, members of these groups -- loosely called eunuchs in Indian English -- were referred to as male or female in the voter rolls.

:: via cnn.com

On the southernmost tip of the Maldives lies the island of Gan, a tiny patch of coconut palms and powdery white beaches. It was here that Britain set up a secret naval base in 1941, building airstrips and vast fuel tanks to support its fleet in the Indian Ocean during the Second World War. The RAF then used it as a Cold War outpost until 1976, when the British withdrew and the officers’ quarters were converted into a resort called Equator Village. Now, 33 years later, India is preparing to reopen the base to station surveillance aircraft, helicopters, and possibly ships, to monitor Chinese vessels in the Indian Ocean. Under a deal signed in August, India is also installing radar across the Maldives, linked to its coastal command.

:: via timesonline.co.uk

More than half of India's 1 billion people are men. And, with the growth of India's middle class, they are a massive potential market. The giant cosmetics industry has spotted this statistic. India's shop shelves are now stacked high with male skin-whitening creams. Whitening has long been common practice among Indian women, but men would never admit to using whitening creams.

:: via npr.org

Underworld don and India's most wanted criminal Dawood Ibrahim is the 50th most powerful man in the world, according to the first-ever such list complied by Forbes magazine. Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar has been ranked at no. 50 in Forbes list of 'The World's Most Powerful People'. Describing Dawood is as the 'boss of Mumbai-based organised crime syndicate D-Company', Forbes says he reputedly oversees international drug trafficking, counterfeiting, weapons smuggling; suspected Al Qaeda associate; the US declares him a global terrorist, UN tried to freeze his assets'.

:: via rediff.com

Enforcement Directorate confirmed the existence of former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda's 1.3 billion dollar Swiss account details. According to documents available with Enforcement Directorate an associate of Madhu Koda deposited this sum in his account on June 2009.

:: via samachar.com

Growing up in pre-liberalization India, I embraced Ayn Rand as the one who best articulated a philosophy that rang true to my naturally entrepreneurial mind. Capitalism, meritocracy, individualism, self-correcting market economics, innovation, excellence, integrity, fairness, work-ethic, justice--many of the values that I worship are also those that Rand celebrates in her fiction through her unforgettable characters. But as I have developed a deeper understanding of how capitalism works today, I am beginning to see flaws that are unlikely to correct themselves.

:: via forbes.com

In the documentary Love in India, director Q (a.k.a. Kaushik Mukherjee) asks a lot of questions but never quite arrives at stable answers. What exactly is love in this country of the Kama Sutra? How can you reconcile the nation's prudishness with its ancient preoccupation with sex?

:: via sfappeal.com

The lyrics in some Pakistani rock songs reflect widespread views among educated young fans that the West is more of a problem than the Taliban for Pakistan.

:: via nytimes.com

‘I only cook when it can potentially lead to sex,” says Aasif Mandvi, “The Daily Show” correspondent and co-writer and star of “Today’s Special,” which opens the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival tonight at the Paris Theatre. This means that all the hot and heavy slicing and dicing he appears to have mastered in the film won’t help him get laid.

:: via nypost.com