60 years ago, when the constitution of India was adopted, our freedom fighters hardly expected the unity to remain fragile 60 years later. We stand united in our love for ‘miley sur mera tumara’ for it’s star value and…wait! Before I can finish my latest news on our unity, there were a few interruptions, mostly controversies this video generated. But, watch the video first…

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Now back to the latest news, (only 10 or 20 min old) depending on whether you watched the second part of the video or not.
Raj Thackeray condemned …

It is a truth universally acknowledged in India that a politician bereft of an issue to express his indignation over, would concoct one out of thin air. The moment such a concoction is introduced to the mango citizens (aam janta if you are wondering), the Indian news-media congregates to take a swig out of the barrel and proceeds to get high.

This familiar scene is playing out currently in India. In what has to be the most WTF evoking “It happens only in India” type occurrences that I have seen since moving back home, an innocuous exchange on Twitter (see image below) between a journalist and the most famous Indian recipient of the Colbert Bump in dominating newsprint and airwaves. It has politicians jostling among themselves to express their displeasure and the media, not one to be left behind, has been fanning the flames mentioning twits and twats every minute of the day for the past 24 hours and counting.

This is a real spirited performance. What’s especially touching about this piece is that almost all the performers in this group are daily wage brick kiln workers, from Berhampur, Orissa.  Typically Indian daily wage workers live on anywhere between 40 Rupees to 60 Rupees a day, according to the Indian govt. stats in 2003-2004. (Roughly earning somewhere between 82 cents – $1.25 a day), with men earning more than women and children for the same job.
The physically challenged performers put up a great show too, and the choreography and the …

Is 25 years enough? India inc., has opted to import the power engines for India’s indigenous aircraft and has invited bids from European and American companies.
This comes after the indigenous Kaveri engine failed to pass muster even after two decades of development at a cost of Rs 2,839 crore. While the first 20 Tejas will be powered by GE-404 engines, the next six Tejas Mark-II squadrons (16-18 jets in each) will have the new more powerful engines. Link

That’s approximately 6 billion USD over 25 years, not adjusting for inflation (very …

We @ Über Desi love macacas, even the ones living on trees. So when National Geographic ran this cute story of a female monkey in India, we could not resist blogging about it. [Nat Geo]
Mani, a female monkey in Kerala and her baby apparently help the locals herd goats. This is a story of how outsourcing and health care can work in perfect harmony.
Mani’s relationship with the farmers started when they provided her with free healthcare.
Gopal, Shepherd- “No training of any kind was given to her. When we first saw …

School was never this much fun. Martial arts teacher rides a bike over his students’ outstretched hands. Not content, he drives over a plank …….. with a girl underneath it. Of course, these events occurred with the consent of the parents of these students.
[BBC] (images from BBC)

A few days back Mumbai was inundated by heavy rains and is the case every year, heavy flooding. The following sequence of events supposedly unfolded on that particular day at the Milan Subway in the Western suburbs of Mumbai. (extracted from a Powerpoint sent by Sandeep via email)

Aircel billboard with an actual inflatable raft attached to it. The text on the billboard minces no words “In case of emergency cut rope”.

Of course, as is the custom every year, it rained, real bad, and the roads flooded especially near Milan subway.

Enterprising …

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 …

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 …

Press report
April 27, 2009

Uberdesi Institute of Unfine Arts.
With the latest advances in the science of shoe flinging across the globe, we are pleased to announce a new diploma program that is open to domestic and foreign students of all races, gender and age.Our introductory brochure will give you more details about the program.

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/000200904072026.htm
History:
Shoe flinging has traditionally  been an Asian concept, where you are taught that your own foot is the dirtiest part of your body and since a shoe or other footwear covers it, it’s the lowliest form of …

About 4 months back, we blogged about NRI grooms and their marriage prospects going down the drain with the stock market. WSJ concurs.
Without rehashing some of the points from the earlier post, here’s the top 10 tips for potential grooms.
1. Do your research. Go prepared. You will be asked to expound on the effects of the economy on the job market, your job, your prospective bride, her parents’ chances on travelling to the U.S, etc.
During a two-week wife-hunting trip to India in December, Mr. Marwaha interviewed 20 potential brides in …

Translation: “Farmer is king”. This seems to be the mantra of rural India these days. [Boston]
Rural India shiningimg: via Boston.com
In the 2004 elections, the BJP came out with the now infamous “India shining” slogan. Big mistake. Rural India was still catching with it’s urban half. Urban India was indeed shining, rural India not yet.
The result: the BJP received a drubbing in the general elections at the hand of the rural electorate, which by the way accounts for over 70% of the total electorate. This time around the boot is on …

Feet up, laying back, texting (or SMSing, if you so prefer) while cruising down the road on the bike, this is how we roll -desi ishtyle (Anantha via Twitter)

You often had them with lunch or dinner. Sometimes with chai or snacks. Sometimes in the middle of the night, when everyone was fast asleep you tiptoed across the kitchen and dug into the dabba containing fried papads from dinner.
Fry ‘em or roast ‘em, Lijjat papad which for long has been a staple diet of Indian households, turns 50. [BBC] (via Über Desi’s twitter)
She seems more agile and active than her grandchildren.
“I don’t want to stop working,” she says with youthful determination.
Mrs Popat is the only survivor of a group …

… do charas. [TOI] (Sidhu via email)
Alliance Francaise is French for cultural promotion through the use of recreational drugs. Ok, I’m kidding, Alliance Francaise in India “assures the coordination of cultural, teaching and administrative activities of all Alliance Françaises in India”. The head of the same decided to take it a step further and partake in some extra-curricular refreshments, i.e. charas. Personally, I could care less and think that prosecution of such recreational drugs reeks of more moral policing but the fact remains that in India by the law of …

The Election Commission (EC) of India says no to a minister’s blog and before bloggers cry “freedom of speech”, this was a great decision by the EC. [TOI]
The minister was reportedly (mis)using the state’s resources, his blog was on the police department’s website, and the minister was reportedly using his blog for advertising himself for the upcoming elections. Any private citizen using his/her employer’s resources would probably meet a similar fate at the hands of the employer. You are free to blog about yourself or any other topic under the …

Mumbai man allegedly cheats on his wife with other men and slaps her. The wife registers a police case against him and takes him to court – for being gay.
How sad is it that
a) someone can still be prosecuted for their sexual orientation and
b) the wife does not even see herself as a victim of physical abuse.
[TOI]

Bharatmatrimony unviels a facial search feature with it’s own unique desi twists (and prejudices). [linky] (via Patrix’s twitter)
Men can search for women who resemble their favorite female Bollywood stars and further filter by, you guessed it, language, religion and caste.
Women may do the same, but in the true fashion of our patriarchal society, the males get a break in the looks department. It’s not all movie stars with A.R.Rahman and Abhinav Bhindra thrown in for relief in the looks department. It’s not that these two guys look like trolls or …