Desi ishtyle. [BBC]
The Hindustan Latex Family Planning Promotion Trusts (HLFPPT) had noble intentions when it rolled out around 3000 condom vending machines in Mumbai.
Over 3,000 condom vending machines have been installed in the city as a part of an HIV Aids prevention programme.
These machines are installed in areas where high risk people like truck drivers are likely to visit.
One of the guidelines is that a person should be able to procure one within 15 minutes. It is not easy to get people to use to condoms and take them from …

Turns out Obama heckler, Joe “You Lie” Wilson, is an Indo-phile of sorts. [DNA] [Y!]

When it comes to Wilson’s India connections, the clichés abound….
he had South Asian friends, ….
Wilson, who recounts positive experiences with South Asians as a child, was formerly co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans.
… promoted Diwali, …
He co-sponsored a bill — approved in 2007 in a far quieter vote than Tuesday’s reprimand against him — that recognized the religious significance of the Hindu festival of lights, Diwali.
… supported the Indo-US nuclear pact, …
Wilson was …

“A fool and his money are soon parted.”
Thomas Tusser (English Farmer and Writer 1524-1580)
Authorities in the desi-centric town of Leicester, England, are cracking down on tantriks, babas and their likes. [TOI] (Sidhu via email)
Authorities in the east Midlands town of Leicester, better known as ‘Little India’, have announced a campaign against such ‘babas’ and ‘tantriks’, most of whom have origins in the Indian sub-continent. Deputy mayor Manjula Sood said: “I have heard of people being asked for 500 pounds and more for prayers or talismans. They think a curse will …

That’s not a misprint. There are indeed African tribes in India. [BBC 1] [BBC 2]
Long before the first slave ships started supplying labour to the cotton plantations of the American south, and many centuries before the first Africans were brought ashore to the sugar estates of Brazil and the Caribbean, Africans were being sold as slave-soldiers for India’s princely states.

img: via BBC

People in the western states of India like Gujarat and Karnataka are probably familiar with the Siddi tribes in remote areas of those states. Students of Indian history …

People in a little village in Karnataka, India, are up to their tricks again, dropping toddlers off the roof of a religious establishment. We blogged about this earlier
, and I stand by my point. This is a silly superstition, which has no place in this day and age, and no, a blanket “culture” argument does not count. This ritual is nothing but reckless endangerment of unwilling children. In an ironic twist to this tale, in a rare show of unity and relgious harmony both Hindus and Muslims indulge in this …

The Roma Gypsies may very well turn out to be the first Indian immigrants to the West.
And what a journey it has been.
Historians agree that the Roma’s origins lie in north-west India and that their journey towards Europe started between the 3rd and 7th Centuries AD – a massive migration prompted by timeless reasons: conflicts, instability and the seeking of a better life in big cities such as Tehran, Baghdad and, later on, Constantinople.
Consisting of largely manual laborers and entertainers, they moved to the Middle East and from there to …

The Sri Lankan government arrested a famous astrologer who predicted that the president will be ejected from office. [BBC]
Chandrasiri Bandara announced last week that the government would flounder in September and October because of political and economic problems.
Police told the AP news agency that Mr Bandara told an opposition meeting that the prime minister would take over as president on 9 September and the opposition leader would become prime minister.
He was arrested on Wednesday night to investigate the basis of his prediction, police spokesman Ranjith Gunasekera said.
Investigating the basis of …

Walmart’s first store in India will be a wholesale store more along the lines of SAMS Club, largely targetted at wholesale buyers, aka, businesses and establishments. [Time]
Wal-Mart’s debut outlet, which will open in the city of Amritsar in northern India later this month, is a wholesale-only operation that will sell mainly to vegetable vendors, hospitals, hotels, restaurants and other companies.
Largely to bypass India’s restrictive commercial laws and to keep a low profile from politicians and activists, Walmart won’t even go by it’s own name. The store will be called “BestPrice …

Happy Fathers Day to all our readers, particularly to those who are fathers. On the occasion of Father’s Day comes this story about single men (straight or otherwise) using surrogacy as a means for parenthood. [TOI]
Rafa, a 38-year old Spanish teacher, recently celebrated the birth of his twin boys whom he fathered through artificial reproduction and a surrogate mother. The woman delivered Rafa’s twins in Anand.
The backdrop to this story is the fact that Rafa was a single male who had no intention of getting married or getting into a …

Shakespearean love tragedies are nothing new to the Indian psyche, a society in which non-traditional marriages were frowned upon. Numerous Bollywood and regional language movies have used Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet combined with lilting melodies as a sure shot formula for box-office success. The sad part as evidenced by this story is that such unions still are taboo in large sections of society, particularly Hindu-Muslim unions. [BBC]
Two star-crossed lovers committed suicide after the local village council, or panchayat, ordered them to annul their marriage or face death.
Amreen was Muslim and …

As things stand, socially, culturally and numerically, it’s a daunting task for most single Indian males to find sex in real life. Then you have Hindu nationalists and a veritable army of moral police who want to ban sex from the media. Now we have Microsoft doing the ultimate KLPD by denying sex on the last bastion of lonely desi males, Al Gore’s Internet.

In the wake of the mysterious Air France plane crash off the coast on Brazil, TOI online asks profound questions like “Did the Bermuda triangle cause this crash?”.

Most of all, you’ll see guys. Lots and lots of guys, in ill-striped shirts, in ill-fitting pants and ……….. balding heads
[Time] (Karthik via email)
No. We’re not talking about a bunch of desi guys sitting in an apartment having a few beers on a Saturday night or at a Diwali potluck dinner. In this case, the guys are a bunch of golf enthusiasts, mostly amateurs. From personal experience and with all due respect to my buddies, after a while these male bonding events turn into sausage fests and could use, ummmm, …

“And so it begins”
-King Théoden, Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers
Favorite desi hangout – now coming to the deshimg: via yahoo
It was bound to happen. The nation of price conscious customers and the store of everyday low prices. Walmart is opening its first store in the desh. [Yahoo!]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc is set to open its first cash-and-carry centre in India next week in a signal of foreign investor confidence in India just days after a reform-minded Congress-led coalition won an election.
Bharti Wal-Mart Pvt Ltd, a joint venture of …

File this under the “man bites dog” section. Kailash Singh, a resident of a village outside the holy Indian city of Varanasi, has ventured where no human has gone before – he has skipped the water, soap and even the toothbrush for the last 35 years. [Yahoo] (tip Karthik via email)
So what does Kailash do instead of showering?
Kailash “Kalau” Singh replaces bathing and brushing his teeth with a “fire bath” every evening when he stands on one leg beside a bonfire, smokes marijuana and says prayers to Lord Shiva
He even …

What it takes for an 8-sec announcement on television. Thank God for reporting that is not live…
Uber reporter – Chand Nawab, Indus News, Karachi….

Anantha (via Über Desi Twitter) points us to this inspiring underdog story by Malcolm Gladwell (of Tipping Point fame) of a desi basketball coach who used unconventional tactics to lead his vastly over matched team of eight graders to a successful season. [NewYorker] (via DeadSpin)
His strategy, play the full court press all the time. His reasoning for adopting the full court press was simple:
Ranadivé was puzzled by the way Americans played basketball. He is from Mumbai. He grew up with cricket and soccer. He would never forget the first time …

Sometimes I think that because the Western media is so focused on the egregious human rights violators like the Taliban, some gems of news from the des get unfairly hidden. I cannot believe at the idiocy that flourishes in the name of governance back in the des. The Committee on Petitions in Chennai in its “wisdom” ( and I use the world sarcastically) has decided..
that there should be no sex education in schools since “our country’s social and cultural ethos are such that sex education has absolutely no place in …

The votes are rocking and the birds are flipping. Raj points to this new pop culture trend in India – proudly displaying their middle finger after voting. There is absolutely no way these celebrities don’t understand the significance of showing the middle finger.

If any of our readers in India, have pictures of voters showing their ink-stained middle fingers send them to us and we will proudly do our bit for democracy by displaying them on here.

Thanks to a new ruling by The Election Commission of India, voting officials in certain polling stations are now marking middle fingers with the purple ink, instead of index fingers as in days of yore, making for some hilarious photo-ops. [TOI]
Amit Varma of India Uncut sees the gesture in the following picture as a huge “FU” from Indian politicians towards the electorate. In the meanwhile, famous American blog Boing Boing sees it as a huge “FU” from the Indian electorate directed to no one in particular. Reminds me of a …