It's obvious by what I've written in the past (here and here as well.) that I don't think highly of India's economic prowess, writ large and I don't believe any of the hype when it comes to India's economic miracle. But Quax makes a point about Kerala that deserves further comment.

Quax brings up the point about the matrifocal ethnicity in Southern India, namely the state of Kerala. And he's right: Kerala is different from the rest of India. I'm not sure what makes Kerala different: the prevalence of Christianity, the relative freedom of women in the state, years of Communist rule, and the forward looking and commercial character of Muslims there? Perhaps it's a combination of all four. Needless to say, Kerala was the cleanest, least intimidating and most upwardly mobile of Indian states, even more so than the miracle city of Bangalore. And I found the Muslims in Calicut to be the most forward looking of any Muslims I've ever encountered, outside of pockets in Turkey and those in North Tehran.

Their daughters were educated, free to pursue a love match--not an arranged marriage and not relegated to a very real purdah extant in many places in India. It's the sort of place where a young Indian woman can have lunch with a strange foreign man and no one raises an eyebrow. I'm not sure how much of this is due to the fact that the area around Calicut has been integral to the global economy for two thousand years--ships have plied the monsoons from East Africa to the Malabar Coast since very early Roman times, bringing pepper an other spices to the West in exchange for gold, or how much of it is due to the tolerance between Hindus, Christians and Muslims. There is much more history to this area than meets the eye.

More after the jump.

People love to talk about how India is a rising power in Asia:

Upshot: America is done. Our once-great empire is cooked. Not only is China (and India, fast behind) about to stomp all over everyone in economic power and resource abuse, they already own a huge chunk of our debt, manufacture most of our holidays and build almost everything we like to buy. And that includes the device you are reading this on right now. Oh well. We'll always have football.

I'd submit to any writer who just looks at the raw statistics on Indian growth rates to actually visit the place. Take a look at the crumbling infrastructure. Reality looks a lot different on the ground.

Yes, I realize it is only a throwaway sentence by the writer, but still, it's propagating a meme that doesn't represent reality.

Now, there is a case to be made about China. I've seen a great deal of the country and there is a very real energy to succeed and get ahead there. And while many Chinese are mired in poverty, it isn't the kind of nasty, pervasive, grinding poverty to be found in India. In India if you are born poor there is virtually no chance you can rise in society. Not so in China. (Not to idealize the life of the poor in China, mind you. It's still extremely difficult to find real upward mobility in China. In India on the other? For all intents and purposes, such a concept doesn't even exist.)

Furthermore, culturally speaking the Chinese are much better when it comes to cultural or societal innovations than India is. For example: arranged marriages are still the norm in India. And the place of woman is rotten. In China? Not likely. Especially as the idea of romantic love spreads among young female factory workers with a disposable income. (Again, not to idealize often gruesome working conditions for these young women, and yet.)

India when it comes to culture, is probably the most extremely conservative place I have ever visited. Indians like to think they can compete with the Chinese, but they cannot. And we shouldn't buy the tripe that India is an emerging economic power. The only reason we do business with India is wage-arbitrage. It's cheaper to pay an Indian twenty five cents an hour for something a well-educated American would ask fifteen dollars or more for.

And yes, I realize I am a white, post-Colonial man of European descent making cultural judgments. Having visited both countries multiple times I am quite comfortable doing so.

Jim Yardley | Barsur, India | October 31

NYT - At the edge of the Indravati River, hundreds of miles from the nearest international border, India effectively ends. Indian paramilitary officers point machine guns across the water. The dense jungles and mountains on the other side belong to Maoist rebels dedicated to overthrowing the government.

“That is their liberated zone,” said P. Bhojak, one of the officers stationed at the river’s edge in this town in the eastern state of Chattisgarh.

Pierre Salignon | Oct 26

Humanitarian Practice Network - In early July 2009, following on from the closing weeks of fighting between the Sri Lankan army and Tamil Tiger rebels (LTTE), a Times journalist raised the alarm on the mortality rate in the internment camps, opened by the Sri Lankan government. The article reported 1,400 deaths a week in Manik Farm camp, which then held around 280,000 people. Presenting no methodology or basis for this figure, and without naming any names, the journalist cited “a humanitarian source” [1]. This was a serious accusation, corresponding to a rate of 7 deaths per 10,000 persons per day. The emergency threshold applied in crises stands at 1 per 10,000 per day. In other words, according to The Times’ survey the internally displaced in Manik Farm were dying en masse, “mainly due to the sanitary conditions", deprivations and a lack of assistance.

Unsurprisingly, the Sri Lankan Ministry of Health’s version of events differed from the British journalist’report. According to a bulletin covering the period 15th June to 15th July 2009, an average of 5 to 6 people died every day in Manik Farm camp - a mortality rate of under 0.25 deaths per 10,000 per day (the official national average in Sri Lanka stands at 0.15 per 10,000 per day)[2]. Despite the ferocity of the fighting during the conflict’s final weeks, the Sri Lankan authorities found no cause for concern in the camps in June and July – when the Times was concluding the opposite.

How can such troubling and contradictory estimates be explained? Given the lack of access to more specific data, we should turn to other sources. What do NGOs and others present in the field have to say?

Kolkata | Oct 27

Reuters - Hundreds of Maoist guerrillas stormed a high-speed train in eastern India on Tuesday and were battling security forces, police said.

The Rajdhani Express, one of the country's most prestigious passenger trains, was stopped by the guerrillas in eastern West Bengal state.

"About 300 Maoists have stopped the Rajdhani Express and have pulled out the driver," Dilip Mitra, a police officer, told Reuters in state capital Kolkata.

The Maoists, who have stepped up violence across eastern and central India, had asked passengers to get off the train, local TV channels said.

"One policemen has been injured and we are currently engaged in a battle with the rebels," Mitra said.

Maoist rebels regularly attack goods trains and have in the past even hijacked a few local passenger trains in remote districts of India before fleeing.

The Maoist rebellion began four decades ago championing the cause of poor peasants in the east, but has now spread to about 20 of India's 29 states, with the rebels targeting police and government property in hit-and-run attacks.

Hua Hin, Thailand | Oct 24

AFP - Myanmar's prime minister told Asian counterparts on Saturday that the ruling military government could relax the conditions of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's detention, a Japanese official said.

The Nobel Peace laureate had "softened" her attitude towards the military regime since her house arrest was extended in August for a further 18 months, the official quoted Myanmar premier Thein Sein as saying.

But while Thein Sein announced at a regional summit in Thailand that Myanmar also wants elections next year to be "inclusive", he would not say if Suu Kyi would be allowed to participate, the official said.

"(Myanmar's government) believes that Aung San Suu Kyi seems to have softened her attitude towards the authorities," Japanese delegation spokesman Kazuo Kodama quoted Thein Sein as telling leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China, Japan and South Korea.

Kodama said that the Myanmar regime "thinks if Aung San Suu Kyi maintains a good attitude it is possible that the Myanmar authorities will relax the current measures.

"The Myanmar government is... making preparations to make (next year's) election (an) inclusive election. The Myanmar government would like to ensure all the stakeholders will take part in such a process."

Colum Lynch | New York | October 23

WaPo - The State Department's top war crimes official called on Sri Lanka on Thursday to conduct a "genuine" investigation into alleged war crimes by Sri Lankan troops and Tamil rebels during the bloody final months of the country's 25-year-long civil war.

The appeal by Stephen Rapp, the U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues, came hours after his office presented Congress with a detailed account of alleged atrocities during the conflict that suggests both sides may have violated international law and committed crimes against humanity.

Oct 20

Asia Times - China, by issuing residents from Indian-administered Kashmir visas different from those given to Indians from other parts of the country, is treating the disputed area as a sovereign entity. This is a surprising departure from Beijing's traditional policy of leaving the Kashmir issue to India and Pakistan to resolve. Delhi suspects a hidden agenda.

Andrew Buncombe | Oct 7/Oct 17

The Independent - The president of the Maldives is desperate for the world to know how seriously his government takes the threat of climate change and rising sea levels to the survival of his country. He wants his ministers to know as well.

To this end, Mohamed Nasheed has organised an underwater cabinet meeting and told all his ministers to get in training for the sub-aqua session. Six metres beneath the surface, the ministers will ratify a treaty calling on other countries to cut greenhouse emissions.

Ahead of the meeting, scheduled for 17 October, cabinet members have been squeezing into wet-suits and practising their underwater skills. The President was not present at the first session, held over the weekend, because he is already a qualified diver.

Mr Nasheed, a former political prisoner who was elected President last year, has made the issue of climate change one of his most pressing priorities. Earlier this year, The Independent revealed his plan to transform the Maldives into the world's first carbon neutral country within 10 years. The leader of a nation made up of 1,200 atolls, 80 per cent of which are no more than a metre above sea level, he has also established a fund to seek an alternative homeland, possibly in Sri Lanka, India or Australia for its 330,000 citizens.

UPDATE Oct 17: Maldives cabinet makes a splash
The government of the Maldives has held a cabinet meeting underwater to highlight the threat of global warming to the low-lying Indian Ocean nation. w/video

Oct 11

AFP -

The United States on Friday called on the Sri Lankan government to allow Tamil refugees displaced by recent fighting to move freely around the country.

Assistant US Secretary of State Robert Blake, who is focussed on US relations with central and southern Asia, "emphasized the importance of the government allowing freedom of movement for IDPs," or internally displaced people, read a State Department statement.

While the Sri Lankan government "has made some progress easing camp congestion, registering IDPs, and expanding access by humanitarian organizations, much remains to be done," Blake said.

Blake also "underscored the importance of political reconciliation" in Sri Lanka, where some 250,000 people who were displaced by fighting between troops and Tamil Tiger separatists have remained in the state-run camps since the rebels were defeated in May.

In order to reach a lasting peace, the Sri Lankan government must "promote justice and political reconciliation for all parties and dialogue with all parties, including Tamils inside and outside Sri Lanka, on new mechanisms for devolving power."

Sri Lanka "must also seek to improve human rights and accountability," he said.

** Sri Lanka military budget raised
** Monsoon threatens Sri Lankan refugees with 'humanitarian disaster', warns UN
** Sri Lanka ruling coalition sweeps regional polls
** No sir, no sir, but give us three bags full

Gethin Chamberlain | Delhi | Oct 4

The Observer - India's growing status as an economic superpower is masking a failure to stem a shocking rate of infant deaths among its poorest people.

Nearly two million children under five die every year in India – one every 15 seconds – the highest number anywhere in the world. More than half die in the month after birth and 400,000 in their first 24 hours.

A devastating report by Save the Children, due out on Monday, reveals that the poor are disproportionately affected and the charity accuses the country of failing to provide adequate healthcare for the impoverished majority of its one billion people. While the World Bank predicts that India's economy will be the fastest-growing by next year and the country is an influential force within the G20, World Health Organisation figures show it ranks 171st out of 175 countries for public health spending.

Malnutrition, neonatal diseases, diarrhoea and pneumonia are the major causes of death. Poor rural states are particularly affected by a dearth of health resources. But even in the capital, Delhi, where an estimated 20% of people live in slums, the infant mortality rate is reported to have doubled in a year, though city authorities dispute this.

Emily Wax | Washington | Sept 26

WaPo -

In the ballroom of a five-star hotel here, executives from Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin, the world's biggest arms supplier, threw a candlelight reception one recent night to woo Indian defense experts as their country embarks on a major military shopping spree.

India plans to spend an estimated $100 billion on defense over the next decade to modernize its Soviet-era arsenal. With its growing military footprint, India is steering away from traditional ally Russia, its main weapons supplier, and looking toward the United States to help upgrade its weapons systems and troop gear.

As the world's largest democracy, India is seen as the most dependable U.S. ally in a part of the world that also includes Afghanistan and Pakistan, both of which are racked by Islamist insurgencies. But India's expanding military ambitions, and the U.S. role in selling this nuclear-armed nation more firepower, is starting to worry its neighbors, especially perennial rival Pakistan. India also has ongoing border disputes with another Asian giant, China, which defeated it in a short 1962 war.

New Delhi | Sept 26

DPA - India is preparing for a massive offensive against Maoist guerrillas in two states worst-hit by the insurgency, news reports said Saturday.

Federal Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram Friday began a tour of the central state of Chhattisgarh where six police and nine Maoist rebels were killed in combat last week, the NDTV network reported.

Close on the heels of his visit, the militants killed a son of a lawmaker in the state on Saturday, the report said.

Chidambaram said the federal government will extend 'all support' to counter and defeat the Maoist militants in what would be a 'long-drawn fight.'

The operation would involve nearly 20,000 specially trained personnel drawn from the paramilitary and state police forces, the DNA newspaper reported. Nearly 35,000 troops are already deployed in the states to counter the rebels.

Andrew Buncombe | Sept 24

The Independent - Like Romeo and Juliet, Naveen and Sonam would do anything to be married. But in their story, it was others who died. Here, they confess to Andrew Buncombe

Sonam Dagar's first mistake was to fall in love with the boy next door. Her second was to continue their illicit, outlawed relationship after her family had warned her off in no uncertain terms. And her final error was to believe that an act of violence – an extraordinary, calculated night of mass murder – would allow her and her lover to be together.

The 19-year-old and her boyfriend have been detained by Indian police after confessing to murdering seven members of her family – her mother, father, grandmother, brother and three cousins – in a move they believed would allow them to marry in contravention of local custom that forbids people belonging to the same clan or gotra from becoming man and wife.

After drugging her family's food with sedatives slipped into the flour used to make their evening chapattis, the couple looped a rope around the necks of their victims and – each of them taking one end – strangled her relations one by one.

New Delhi | Sept 20

DPA - A man in an eastern Indian state gave away his 18-year-old daughter to another gambler after losing in a game of cards, the Times of India reported Sunday.

Locals in a village in West Bengal said the man identified only as Ismail staked his daughter after he had already lost all his money.

'A desperate Ismail said he would continue playing and staked his daughter,' the report said, adding 'As luck would have it, Mustafa beat him again and walked away with the protesting girl'.

The village council informed local police about the incident, who have launched an investigation to trace the girl.

Family members said Ismail gambled frequently and was an alcoholic and they had thrown him out of the house after the incident.

Sudha Ramachandran | Bangalore | Sept 18

Asia Times - A proposed trip by the Dalai Lama in November to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, part of which China claims as its territory, has ruffled feathers in Beijing. The visit by the Tibetan spiritual leader could lead Sino-Indian relations, already tense over alleged Chinese incursions into Indian territory, to deteriorate even further in the coming months.

"We firmly oppose Dalai visiting the so-called 'Arunachal Pradesh'," Jiang Yu, the spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry, told Reuters this week. China claims around 90,000 square kilometers of territory in India's northeast, roughly approximating Arunachal Pradesh. It regards the area as "disputed territory" and refers to it as "Southern Tibet".

With India indicating that it will not buckle to Chinese pressure on the issue as it has in the past, a war of words and heightened tension along the nation's frontiers is on the cards. "Arunachal Pradesh is a part of India and the Dalai Lama is free to go anywhere in India," India's Minister of External Affairs S M Krishna said on Wednesday.

Arunachal Pradesh is India's eastern-most state. During the 1962 Sino-Indian border war, China advanced deep into the state, and after briefly occupying it, withdrew. It has continued to lay claim to the area, expressing this in increasingly strident language and alleged intrusions in the last couple of years. It objects to any Indian assertion of sovereignty over Arunachal Pradesh.

Andrew Buncombe | Delhi | Sept 18

The Independent - It sounds too good to be true. But if Indian scientists are correct, hundreds of millions of people across the subcontinent could benefit from a specially-developed strain of rice that "cooks" simply by being soaked in water.

Experts at the Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI) in Orissa who have developed the grain were inspired by so-called soft rice, or komal saul, that grows in the north-east Indian state of Assam. Traditional recipes call for such rice to be soaked overnight in water, then eaten with mustard oil and onions.

Until now, these low-yielding grains have not grown outside the north-east, but the scientists at CRRI have managed to develop a hybrid of a traditional soft rice with a high-yielding variety of regular rice. The result has been called Aghunibora.

The institute's director, Dr TP Adhya, said field trials of the new hybrid were already positive, suggesting that it could be grown in different climates across India. "This is the first time soft rice has been grown anywhere else," he said. "We are testing it now and it is growing here in Orissa where the humidity is very high and the temperature range is higher than in Assam."

The aim, he said, was to produce a grain that would allow people across the country to prepare the rice "simply by putting it in water". In a country where malnutrition remains rampant, the grains could prove a crucial weapon against hunger. For all of the advances made by India's economy since the liberalisation of the early 1990s, the country has a third of the world's malnourished children.

I really dislike this kind of travel writing. You have to read the whole article to get a sense of the kind of snarky criticism she's making. But it's basically, I'm too old and don't have enough time to travel properly and so I am going to travel around the world in 29 days and slam those hippie backpackers and all their immersing in cultures bullshit.

Look, I applaud people who go out into the world, but if you're going to come back and get up on your high-horse about how Teh awesome you are don't do it in the pages of the Washington Post. There is nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with being a tourist. Just don't be an asshole, don't build up a strawman, like this:

There is an accepted template for what's called RTW travel. You must do it slowly -- say, at least six months or a year. You must get off the beaten path, disdaining all those things that regular tourists are there to see, such as renowned museums or the Great Pyramids. You should probably carry a backpack, stay in the cheapest place in town and wash your clothes in the sink.

I met lots of people doing the RTW first class. That's cool! Hell, if I'd the money I would have stayed in better hotels on semi-regular basis, just to decompress. But sheesh, don't 'dis the whole 'off the beaten path' thing. As a matter of fact, you can get off the beaten path even when you are on the well-trudged one. But that's a whole nuther post. Bottom line: getting off the beaten path is about a mind-set first and foremost, not about a destination.

More importantly, the point of getting off the beaten bath, at least to me, is to avoid propagating bullshit memes like this one:

I can't imagine that the idea was new to him, living as he does in a nation synonymous with high-tech. But he acted as though it was. The helpful hotel concierge who had accompanied us to the airport showed him our passports and explained over and over that we didn't have paper plane tickets, just electronic ones. That wasn't enough. The guard wanted a ticket.

Key word: synonymous. It's synonymous because she didn't investigate the truth of the matter, instead she took the Friedman-way-out. It's just lazy. Period. Repeat after me: there is absolutely nothing high-tech about India. It's propaganda put out by executives who hope to make the whole wage-arbitrage, job shifting thing more palatable to folks back home. Had she 'gotten off the beaten path' she'd have observed this.

I guess in the end I just didn't like the tone of smug, self-satisfaction of the article.

Our very own Padraig Colman made The New York Times yesterday, with his always excellent coverage of the Tamils of Sri Lanka.

Dielle D'Souza | Sept 7

Press Association - Left without money due to failing crops, debt-ridden farmers in Bundelkhand, Uttar Pradesh, have reportedly been selling their wives to money lenders for Rs 4,000 - 12,000 (£50-150).

The more beautiful the woman, the higher the price that she fetches, it was claimed.

The deals are allegedly being settled on a legal stamp paper under the heading "Vivaha Anubandh" meaning Marriage Contract. Once the new "husband" is tired of the woman, she is allegedly sold to another man.

New Delhi | Sept 1

DPA - An Indian Army soldier was killed Tuesday when Pakistani troops fired from across the line of control that divides the disputed Kashmir region between India and Pakistan, a news report said.

A senior army official said the firing came from across the line of control in the Mendhar sector of Poonch district, about 230 kilometres north-west of Jammu and Kashmir's winter capital Jammu, IANS news agency reported.

'It was unprovoked firing in which one soldier got killed,' the official was quoted as saying. He said the Indian side maintained restraint and the matter would be taken up with the Pakistani authorities.

Nirupama Subramanian | Sept 1

The Hindu -

A package of measures aimed at giving the Northern Areas of Gilgit-Baltistan a measure of administrative and political autonomy has opened up a domestic box of suspicions about the government's stand on Kashmir.

The Cabinet approved the measures, known as the Gilgit-Baltistan Empowerment and Self-Governance Order 2009, at a special meeting on Saturday. The order now awaits the approval of President Asif Ali Zardari.

Under the new system, the Northern Areas will have a province-like status without actually being conferred such a status constitutionally.

The region is to be renamed Gilgit-Baltistan, and will vote for a legislative assembly. A Chief Minister will govern the region, replacing direct rule by Islamabad.

It is to have a "supreme appellate court" to be headed by a chief judge, a public service commission, a chief election commissioner, and an auditor-general. Kashmir and Northern Affairs Minister Qamaruzzaman Kaira will function as the Governor.

The Northern Areas, seen by both India and Pakistan as part of the larger Jammu & Kashmir issue, have so far been ruled by fiat from Islamabad, with the Ministry of Kashmir and Northern Affairs its main link with Pakistan. The military has a big say in the governance of the region. Parliamentary elections do not extend to the Northern Areas. Its people are not citizens of Pakistan.

For the people of the region, it has been a bone of contention that Pakistan has treated them in a step-motherly way while according special status to "Azad Jammu and Kashmir," as Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) is known here.

Bangkok | Aug 29

AFP - Supporters of fugitive former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra Saturday postponed a mass rally planned this weekend after the government mobilised thousands of security personnel.

The so-called "Red Shirt" demonstrators, who want current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to dissolve parliament and call elections, had planned to gather in the heart of Bangkok on Sunday afternoon.

But after the government invoked a harsh internal security law to handle the gathering and began mobilising police and army troops, Red Shirt leader Jatuporn Prompan told AFP the rally would be held in a week's time.

"If the government imposes the Act again on September 5 then we will postpone the rally until September 12 and finally September 19," he said, adding that the government had over-reacted to their plans for a peaceful demonstration.

Jatuporn said the rally would definitely be held on September 19 because it marks the third anniversary of the coup that toppled Thaksin, whose allies were driven from government in December last year by the rival royalist "Yellow Shirt" movement.

RAIN

When I first moved to Sri Lanka from Ireland some seven years ago, a friend wrote to me asking if I missed the Cork rain. I replied that indeed I did – I missed its moderation. My first impression was that the rainy season in my new home lasted 13 months every year. I realise now that I was being hyperbolic but this is the first August that torrential rain has not been coming through my roof. A few years ago, there was one occasion when I woke up at about three in the morning to watch my slippers floating past me on the tide.

I am not being flippant here, merely trying to feel some empathy for those in the IDP camps in the north. How would I feel being in a tent in such weather? I spent a weekend in a tent in a sea of mud at the Glastonbury festival but I knew when it would end and there was the compensation of seeing Johnny Cash, Jackson Browne and Dwight Yoakam, among others, perform.

Karen DeYoung & Colum Lynch | Aug 16

WaPo - Sen. James Webb met with top officials in the hard-line military government of Burma on Saturday and arranged for the release of an American prisoner there, part of a mission that may open the door to further U.S. engagement, according to senior administration officials.

Accompanied by U.S. Embassy officials, Webb (D-Va.) traveled to the remote Burmese administrative capital of Naypyidaw to hold rare talks with the country's leader, Gen. Than Shwe. Webb also paid an hour-long visit to pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest. He was told that Burma would allow John W. Yettaw, 54, sentenced last week to seven years in prison for intruding on the Nobel laureate's heavily guarded home, to leave the country with him Sunday.