By Erica Lee Nelson NEW DELHI – In India’s Islamic family law codes, a man can divorce his wife via email, or from another city without her knowledge. By simply saying the “talaq” (the Arabic world for divorce) three times, he can end his marriage in seconds and kick his wife out the same day. [...]
By Erica Lee Nelson NEW DELHI – From small beginnings less than 40 years ago, India’s national space program has come far. Now, it just has 238,855 miles to go – all the way to the moon. Chandrayaan-1, India’s unmanned moon mission set for 2007, would make India the fourth country to reach the moon, [...]
By Erica Lee Nelson WASHINGTON DC – A Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) signed by the U.S. and China this week to improve the safety of Chinese food exports opens the possibility that the U.S. government will ultimately ease scrutiny for the covered high-risk Chinese food items in a way that it has refused to offer [...]
By Erica Lee Nelson WASHINGTON DC – House Domestic and International Monetary Policy Subcommittee Chairman Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL) March 20 promised to quickly act on a bill that would attempt to give U.S. states more flexibility to enact measures that encourage divestment in companies that conduct business in foreign countries with questionable human rights [...]
By Erica Lee Nelson WASHINGTON DC – The European Commission is embroiled in an internal fight over two pending applications for the cultivation of two genetically modified (GM) corn varieties that both received safety clearance from the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) in 2005. The fight is triggered by Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, who has [...]
By Erica Lee Nelson WASHINGTON DC – Agencies within the Bush administration are wrestling internally on how to handle the Food and Drug Administration’s approval for market release of cloned animals to produce meat and milk, according to sources familiar with a White House meeting conducted this week. The FDA is poised to release its [...]
By Erica Lee Nelson NEW DELHI – A visitor to the New Delhi railway station could not be faulted for thinking nothing has changed. Tobacco stains still speckle the platforms, bleary-eyed migrants are sleeping on the floor and the stink of garbage rises up from the tracks. But with a few minutes wait, the tracks [...]
By Erica Lee Nelson NEW DELHI — With American special forces training in its remote jungles and indigenously-developed helicopters and cruise missiles ready to hit the international market, India’s defense establishment is breaking down old barriers and gaining influence in the world scene. Even before a bilateral nuclear deal comes up for approval by Congress, [...]
By Erica Lee Nelson NEW DELHI — Years of affirmative action have upended India’s caste system to the point where some upper-caste Brahmins are reduced to working as porters and pedaling rickshaws, while almost half the places in universities will soon be reserved for lower castes and tribal people. Ramesh Jha, a Brahmin, came to [...]