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March 4 (Bloomberg) — Until May 2007, Meera Devi rose before dawn each day and walked a half mile to a vegetable patch outside the village of Kachpura to find a secluded place. Dodging leering men and stick-wielding farmers and avoiding spots that her neighbors had soiled, the mother of three pulled up her sari and defecated with the Taj Mahal in plain view. With that act, she added to the estimated 100,000 tons of human excrement that Indians leave each day in fields of potatoes, carrots and spinach, on banks that line rivers used for drinking and bathing and along roads jammed with scooters, trucks and pedestrians. Devi looks back on her routine with pain and embarrassment. "As a woman, I would have to check where the males were going to the toilet and then go in a different direction," says Devi, 37, standing outside her one-room mud-brick home. "We used to avoid the daytimes, but if we were really pressured, we would have to go any time of the day, even if it was r...

If there was ever a need, the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) of India's damning reports on the depleted state of Indian military's readiness took the hot-air out of the myth of Pakistan Army specific 'Cold-Start Doctrine' (CSD). If CAG reports weren`t damaging enough, recent media reports of its feeble condition have made it the laughing stock. Rundown condition of the its legacy hardware has taken the sting out of its numerical superiority; a far cry from an aggressive strategy of the CSD. Some years ago, in an attempt to leverage its conventional superiority over Pakistan, the Indian Army announced a new offensive doctrine. The doctrine envisioned a quick mobilization of Indian strike formations without giving away battle indicators. In a 2004 military exercise, with a huge fanfare, live fire demonstrations and allot of ata-boy pats on their own backs, the doctrine was declared a complete success. In strategic terms, CSD was conceived to box the Indian civili...

A few days back, Mangalore, India witnessed an incident which has brought shame and utter disrespect for the so called Indian fundamentalists. Workers of the Shri Ram Sena (Lord Ram's Army) entered a pub and started beating up women who were partying. According to the Sena, all these activities, when done by women are unethical and against moral grounds of Indian culture. Women must not drink, smoke, dance in public places, and must be dressed in ethnic wear only, is what the Indian Fundamentalists, like the Sena think. When asked about the incident, women from metropolitan cities condemned it as an act of Hooliganism and Terrorism. Should we, the Youth take such acts quietly? No where in the culture does it specify that women should not be allowed to indulge in such social activities. Director Pooja Bhatt said that the act was akin to what the Taliban or a hardline group from Pakistan would do. More often than not, attacks on women are backed by so called cultural and religious re...

A nine-year-old tribal girl in eastern India has married a stray dog as part of a ritual to ward off an "evil spell" on her, Indian newspapers have reported. An Indian villager poses with his dog and Karnamoni Handsa The girl promised to "take care of the dog" The girl, Karnamoni Handsa, had to be married quickly because she had a tooth rooted to her upper gum, which is considered a bad omen by her Santhal tribe in the remote village of Khanyhan, about 60 kilometres (37 miles) from Calcutta. "Members of the village jury asked us to get her married to a dog or to face the bad omen," the girl's father was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency. The tribe elders said the marriage would not affect the girl's life, and that she would be free to marry again later and did not need to divorce the dog. "It will not spoil her future. We will marry her off to eligible bachelor when she grows up," the girl's mother told AFP. 'No regret...