India

http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Asia/India/State_of_Rajasthan/Jaipur-1096978/Things_To_Do-Jaipur-Monkey_Temple-BR-1.html

it was my third visit to India, I went when I was a hippy haired 18 year old, and pretty much hated the place, but having been back twice since I love it.

Go see the fort too and visit Puahkar and laugh at the hippies. if you have the time go out as far as jaiselmir.

Don Lucknowe to thread!

if I go, I'm definitely going to Jaipur given that my friend is getting married there. what's it like to fly between Delhi and Jaipur? what's the food like?

Any tips as to what we should/shouldn't see? Please bear in mind that:

a) Diwali kicks off midway through our stay. The area is mostly Catholic but there's a substantial Hindu population so there must be something going on.

b) Ecstacy-fuelled psytrance beach parties are well and truly beyond the pale.

As for Goa, I had a very civilised holiday there a few years ago. Anjuna market is the business, there are spice farms and plantations to visit. Old Goa is worth a look (basillicas and the like) and it's a very naturally beautiful part of the world so take some inland trips into the forests to see waterfalls and the like. Most of all, though, it's one of the most chilled places I've ever been to. Dinner of lobster and indian sauces on the beach were wonderful. The towns are funky - Margao's got some cool shops and good restaurants. I stayed mostly in South Goa - the north is where all the big hotels are. There is one restaurant called the Banyan Tree somewhere in the north, which if you fancy a more expensive night out is so so worth the investment. Diwali is amazing but I was in Rajasthan for it and have no idea what you'd find in Goa.

I just spent 2 weeks in India and a week in Thailand studying agriculture and biofuels. I just received my first ever camera for Christmas, so my skillz definitely aren't up to par, but nonetheless here are a few pictures:

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India1.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India2.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India3.jpg

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India4.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India5.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India6.jpg

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India7.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India8.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India9.jpg

rad

post more if you've got

This is the kind of traffic safety sign we can all stand behind:

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India10.jpg

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India11.jpg

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India12.jpg

I've got more but I'm resizing them right now.

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India13.jpg

Inside a bio-diesel plant:

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India14.jpg

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India15.jpg

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India16.jpg

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India17.jpg

at a tea plantation:
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India18.jpg

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India19.jpg

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India20.jpg

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India21.jpg

that traffic sign is so noize

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t214/ZachRScott/India22.jpg

The rest that I have are either of even worse quality than those above, or from Thailand.

Wow, those are great Z S. Whereabouts were you?

I had a phone call from somebody I met in Kolkata this morning, asking if I was going back any time soon. Answer: no.

:(

In India, we were mainly in Hyderabad, Coimbatore, and Coonor, which is famous for its tea plantations. I guess technically I saw Mumbai, but we were only there for 3 hours before we had to catch a flight. I did manage to pay a cab driver 300 rupees to drive me around Mumbai for a few hours to see the sights, which ended up being a look at the Arabian Sea from about 100 yards away, and dozens of hotels that he claimed were 5 stars. :)

I have to go a wedding in Bangalore next month and I'll have 3-4 extra days to spare. What do you guys recommend I should check out in that region?

Anybody have anything for baaderonixx? Or for me? I might be taking a job in Bangalore in a few months, right now mixture of excitement and nervousness at the prospect. I have a couple of friends there though so that tips it more towards the former...

Here are my own India Cliche pics (wish I knew how to post them properly, keeps going wrong).
http://completelyinthedark.com/main.php?g2_itemId=708

http://completelyinthedark.com/main.php?g2_itemId=14000

and the only pic I have ever taken that I like

http://completelyinthedark.com/main.php?g2_itemId=1514

Nice!

I am slooooowly posting the photos from my 5 1/2 months over there way back in 2009 (I did in fact take the job mentioned upthread). Mostly architecture tourism but some "daily life" snippets people might like?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorcasino/collections/72157622539325347/

Fave so far:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5109/5651584123_2889312604_z.jpg

Mine are from ages ago too, just trying to sort stuff out and see what is worth keeping.

where was that one taken? It looks like Bedrock.

Hampi. Super super beautiful and awesome place.

http://completelyinthedark.com/main.php?g2_itemId=14012

colourful old chap in Jaipur.

eagerly awaiting the day my daughter is old enough to take to India

diwali from space
http://img.ibtimes.com/www/data/images/full/2011/10/25/179500.jpg

holy cow, is that really real?!

a few from my last trip several years ago

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2145/1924001470_f2e80b8a36_z.jpg

spice market in Pushkhar
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2420/1923228643_f0494b2d3f_z.jpg

er wait no that was the paint stall

outside the ladies room at the Mumbai Airport
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2340/1924109516_47467e1bd1_z.jpg

bullfight in Goa (this was totally rad/scary)
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2162/1923270229_299469ecb9_z.jpg

this guy was lol. "why should I give you a deal? you will not be coming back tomorrow."
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2286/1924087102_613df86c4d_z.jpg

Supreme Court recriminalizes gay sex:

http://www.bilerico.com/2013/12/shocking_india_supreme_court_reinstates_sodomy_law.php

I've been feeling shitty and nihilistic about the State Of The World, and reading these reports and op-eds on the rise of Hindu nationalism is making it worse.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/opinion/sunday/sonia-faleiro-india-free-speech-kalburgi-pansare-dabholkar.html?_r=1

In August, 77-year-old scholar M. M. Kalburgi, an outspoken critic of Hindu idol worship, was gunned down on his own doorstep. In February, the communist leader Govind Pansare was killed near Mumbai. And in 2013, the activist Narendra Dabholkar was murdered for campaigning against religious superstitions.

These killings should be seen as the canary in the coal mine: Secular voices are being censored and others will follow.

While there have always been episodic attacks on free speech in India, this time feels different. The harassment is front-page news, but the government refuses to acknowledge it. Indeed, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence is being interpreted by many people as tacit approval, given that the attacks have gained momentum since he took office in 2014 and are linked to Hindutva groups whose far-right ideology he shares.

Earlier this month, a leader of the Sri Ram Sene, a Hindu extremist group with a history of violence including raiding pubs and beating women they find inside, ratcheted up the tensions. He warned that writers who insulted Hindu gods were in danger of having their tongues sliced off. For those who don’t support the ultimate goal of these extremists — a Hindu nation — Mr. Modi’s silence is ominous.

This is a turning point for India, a country that has taken pride in being a liberal democracy and that often adopts a high-minded tone when neighbors fall short of the same standards.

When the liberal Pakistani politician Salman Taseer was assassinated in 2011, the Indian journalist M. J. Akbar, now the national spokesman for the Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., chided, “If Salman Taseer had been an Indian Muslim, he would still have been alive.” In the run-up to the 2014 general elections in Bangladesh, India expressed concern over the future of the country’s democratic institutions.

We should be worrying instead about what’s happening in India, and recognize that it could go the way of the very neighbors it criticizes. As Nikhil Wagle, a prominent liberal journalist based in Mumbai, told me, “Without secularism, India is a Hindu Pakistan.”

The murders in India share striking similarities with the killings of four Bangladeshi bloggers this year. But while there was a global outcry over what happened in Bangladesh, India is hiding behind its patina of legitimacy granted by being the world’s largest democracy.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/03/inside-bishari-indian-village-where-mob-killed-man-for-eating-beef

The minister has arrived. The motorcade fills the unpaved street. Policemen who were slumbering in the early autumn midday heat stir, straighten, then spring into action, clearing the way with their canes for this most important visitor. Mahesh Sharma, India’s minister of culture, is preceded by a small aide in a purple shirt and followed by a large grey-suited bodyguard.

Sharma has come to “condole” the family of Mohammed Akhlaq, a 50-year-old labourer beaten to death by a mob in his small two-storey home in the centre of Bishara village, about an hour’s drive beyond the outskirts of Delhi, India’s capital, last Monday night.

The mob that killed him believed that Akhlaq and his family, who are Muslim, had eaten meat from a cow, an animal considered sacred by the 80% of the Indian population who follow the Hindu faith. Akhlaq and his son were dragged from their beds and beaten with bricks. The father died; the son is fighting for his life in hospital.

Sharma is the local member of parliament as well as a minister. “It was important for me to come. I am the democratic representative,” the 56-year-old former doctor told the Observer. Outside, a media scrum filled the courtyard of the Akhlaqs’ home.

Sharma’s visit is more important than a simple courtesy to his constituents. His Bharatiya Janata party, Hindu nationalists, stormed to power in a landslide victory in May 2014, unceremoniously dispatching Congress, which had ruled India for most of its 68 years as an independent country, to the political margins.

The BJP is led by Narendra Modi, whose appeal is based on his promise to bring economic development and opportunity without sacrificing India’s cultural identity. Exactly what this means has been fiercely debated since Modi’s victory.

Critics of the prime minister, who last month visited the US and received a warm welcome from President Barack Obama and Silicon Valley’s top executives, say that since Modi took power rightwing groups have felt empowered. They point to a series of incidents – including mass conversions, attacks on lorries transporting cows and acts of violence against members of India’s religious minorities – as evidence of a newly tense atmosphere. Political opponents allege, too, that there has been limited condemnation from senior officials. “The silence at the top ... is absolutely stunning,” Abhishek Singhvi, a Congress MP, told reporters following the murder in Bishara.

Sharma has been at the centre of the increasingly bitter debate. Like many senior members of the BJP government, including Modi, he has spent decades in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a conservative revivalist Hindu organisation that is a powerful political and cultural force.

In an interview last month, Sharma said India should be “cleansed” of “polluting” western influences so as to restore “Indian culture”.

Shocking that this could happen under the watch of someone banned until last year from entering the U.S. for severe violations of religious freedom...

It's a bleak situation imo but difficult to see what effect outside influence will have.

To combat this issue, India’s Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) is partnering with Google to launch a toilet-locator tool on Google Maps to help people find access clean public restrooms, International Business Times India reports. The tool will launch first in the Delhi metropolitan area, and works like searching for nearby restaurants or banks on Google. Users can type in “toilet,” “lavatory,” or Hindi words like “swach” and “shulabh” to see the closest restrooms in the area.

Results will include toilets located in malls, hospitals, and gas stations. MoUD and Google are relying heavily on users to help crowdsource data on whether a public toilet is clean, or notify them if the listed restroom is permanently closed.

Pretty crazy stuff

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/2E79/production/_87679811_80307045.jpg

Some disastrous news

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/dozens-feared-dead-himalayan-glacier-breaks-india-flooding-sweeps-dams-n1256956?cid=sm_npd_ms_fb_ma&fbclid=IwAR3S__UiZNXSVGK0tFYWPMJujTXkRLFE1o2oXJEUx0qDxvpr7-mdcnJGUis

Modi’s repeal of the anti-farmer laws is a humiliating defeat. Liberals claiming it’s because of upcoming elections do not understand that public opinion was shaped by a year of relentless farmers protests. This is Modi’s first public defeat. Its significance cannot be overstated pic.twitter.com/cOFMozGGJ8

— ashok kumar 🇵🇸 (@broseph_stalin) November 19, 2021

Great stuff.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-61042315

Fucking horrible.

Punjab Chief Minister openly drinks a glass of polluted water from a ‘holy river’ to prove that water is clean. Now admitted to hospital. pic.twitter.com/MH1OLwUlUw

— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) July 21, 2022

Amazingly not written by Thomas Friedman

“Mr. Modi, a Hindu nationalist and tech enthusiast, is a disrupter.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/31/world/asia/india-ukraine-russia.html

"Anwari Begum, whose husband was dismembered and killed by the mob in 1992, said she had never received justice for his death. “But I have made peace with it in the larger good,” she said. “If construction of the temple will bring peace here, I will stop asking for justice in the killing of my husband.”"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/22/modi-inaugurates-hindu-temple-on-site-of-razed-mosque-in-india

Modi will remain PM but his party unexpectedly lost tons of seats, will have to govern in coalition

Thought fake news would deliver a landslide for the fascists.

Interesting.

"“Building the Ram temple will not help me get a job. What will I do with the temple without a job?” said Raj Yadav, 29, who runs a cosmetics store in Ayodhya. He was frustrated that the BJP had not tackled unemployment and inflation and said that recruitment for jobs was “a complete mess”. “The BJP do not have any vision for the actual development of the country,” he said."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/05/how-voters-turned-again-narendra-modi-in-his-partys-heartland

them losing Ayodhya fucking RULES

william dalrymple's "the golden road: how ancient india transformed the world" seems to be getting very good press (and i see too that some of his earlier books are liked by ilxors)

what does the team think?

Read a few bits by him in the NYRB, it has always been good.

Nice to see how he has gone all out for Gaza on twitter, when many in similar positions have kept quiet.

Piece on the architect of Hindutva:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n01/raghu-karnad/sacred-geography

Amazing.

Zohran Mamdani when asked about Indian PM Modi visit New York. pic.twitter.com/NOyhQ1tPON

— South Asia Index (@SouthAsiaIndex) June 25, 2025

Excellent.