DUST & COLOR Developing thoughts in a developed world202-657-5755
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Erica Lee Nelson
Women Challenge India’s Islamic Law
AJMER – 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. Being so simple, divorce can [...]
Masala on the Menu: U.S. Chains Cater to Indian Tastes
NEW DELHI – Pizza, as we know it, was invented in 1889 in Naples, Italy, by Don Raffaele Esposito as a dish for his queen. The Peshawari Chana Paneer Pizza, a more recent innovation, was developed by Pizza Hut India’s marketing and research team, headed by Sanjiv Mediratta. The intended consumer? Anyone craving “The Great [...]
Vendy Awards: Honoring NYC’s Street Food
NEW YORK – Cars honk. Rain falls. Health officials pay surprise visits. Still, they keep on serving up hot, delicious food at prices that everyone who works in the nearby skyscraper office buildings—from janitors to managers—can afford. These are New York City’s culinary warriors, the famed street vendors who often start their days at 4 [...]
Lost in the Woods
EUREKA, CA – Count the rings inside the wood of the giant redwood tree. The thick one, in the middle, was formed around the time that Alexander the Great was conquering the world. The next, farther out, grew back when America first became a country. That outer one was made when man first walked on [...]
The Adoption Option
NEW DELHI – A typical day at Palna, a children’s home set amid lush gardens in New Delhi, is full of activity. An Indian couple sits down with their adopted son to discuss adopting a second child. A Western couple walks into the doctor’s office, cradling their new Indian daughter and getting medical advice on [...]
Sidewalk Flavors of Bangkok
BANGKOK – My most vivid memory of the steamy street cart vendors in Bangkok is red – flaming red chilies in nearly every dish, popping out of salads, underneath the chunk of chicken, slivered or whole or split down the middle. They sneak up on you, at first bite warm, then hot, then building to [...]
Doing Good is Good Business
NEW DELHI – The concept of corporate social responsibility began to gain popularity in mainstream Indian business thinking at the dawn of this decade. It was, like so many things, a modern avatar of an old idea. In ancient times, it was not just noblemen who undertook great public works. Businessmen also set aside a [...]
Seeking a Clean Sweep
ST. PETERSBURG, FL – The criminals prevail in Midtown every night. They are rarely caught. Often, they’re outsiders who leave calling cards: piles of shingles, broken furniture and stoves, tree branches, plaster, plastic bags. They are illegal dumpers, the biggest sanitation problem in St. Petersburg, say city officials. The dumpers’ crimes have spoiled city efforts [...]
Ford in Faridabad, Chevy in Chhattisgarh
NEW DELHI – In the 1920s, American cars dominated the tree-lined avenues of New Delhi and were commonly sighted in the new industrial centers of Mumbai. Ford Model Ts sped through the North and South Blocks of the Indian government complex and bumped their way out to every maharaja’s most far-flung hunting estate. Mohandas K. [...]
Can’t Stop the Beat: Bhangra on U.S. Campuses
WASHINGTON DC – Every spring, around the same time as the Baisakhi festival in Punjab, college students from across America gather in a historic theater a few blocks from the White House. Some hail from India, some from Pakistan, and others from New Jersey, but today they are united in a common purpose: bhangra. You [...]
Hills on Fire: Pennsylvania’s Pine Creek Gorge
GALETON, PA – The promise of a flaming fall and technicolor hillsides may be what brought us to Pennsylvania’s Pine Creek Gorge, but it’s the pure, rural American charm of the people in the area that will bring us back. Pine Creek Gorge — in a part of the country far from any shopping mall [...]
Clean Energy: The Civil Nuclear Agreement and Beyond
WASHINGTON DC – When the Indian ambassador to the United States, Ronen Sen, congratulated the organizers of the first Green India conference on “impeccable timing,” the entire crowd of political and business heavyweights at the mid-October event in Washington, D.C. had to laugh—partly out of good humor, but also with a bit of relief. Just [...]
India Aims to Map Moon
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, after the United States, [...]
India Fortifies Its Data Security
NEW DELHI – Employees of an outsourced call center in India coaxed Citibank account holders in the United States to reveal their personal identification numbers – and then siphoned $426,000 from their accounts, Indian police said. In the biggest scandal to hit the Indian outsourcing industry, 16 arrests have been made since April, and more [...]
A Fingerprint for the Future
NEW DELHI – Never underestimate the importance of a one-millimeter piece of flesh. It matters if you are going to jail, receiving rations, or late to work. It matters while going to the temple, trading in the market or flying to the US. The minute ridges of skin that make up your fingerprint are set [...]
New Partnerships for Prosperity
WASHINGTON DC – When U.S. President Barack Obama took office in January, the agenda waiting for his administration was daunting. Many wondered how, and when, he would be able to build on the closer ties established with India after the successful completion of the U.S.-India agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation in 2008. That speculation was [...]
South Asian Maoists Pose Growing Threat
NEW DELHI – (Published in May 2005) An indigenous Maoist movement known as the Naxalites has doubled its strength in two years, spreading over an area embracing roughly a quarter of India’s population and posing a growing threat to democracy and stability. The group’s influence had expanded from nine states and 55 districts in 2003 [...]
U.S.-China Food Safety Deal Could Give China Preferential Treatment
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 such trading partners as [...]
Quick Action Promised on Bill Supporting State Sanction Rights
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 records, such as Sudan. [...]
EU Commissioner Recommends Rejecting GMO After Scientific Approval
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 been working against the [...]
Administration Debates Trade Implications of Animal Cloning
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 risk assessment of the [...]
Indian Railways Runs Right Under Yadav’s Leadership
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 bring a fresh sight. [...]
Indian Military Gains Global Prestige
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, India is already reaping [...]
Affirmative Action In India Flips Caste Roles
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 New Delhi because he [...]