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from India Insight:
Is Kasab’s death enough closure in the Mumbai attacks?
"If you hear the sound of a bullet, kneel, and if you have to move, then crawl, don't run."
Those are not the first words you 
want to hear when you arrive to cover an assignment -- but then this wasn't just any assignment. I was at Nariman House in Colaba to cover the attack that came to be known as 26/11.
On Wednesday, four years later, that story finally got some sort of closure, after the lone gunman captured during the Mumbai attacks was hanged. But for those who were a part of those dark days of 2008, whether real closure will come because of this one act of justice is a tough question to answer.
India is no stranger to militant attacks and Mumbai has seen many incidents targeting several of its icons -- the stock market, the local train system and the Taj Mahal hotel. Every attack brings a new set of questions and very few answers.
from Money on the markets:
No solution in sight for bipolar Indian stocks
(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author, and not necessarily those of Thomson Reuters)
As the end of 2012 approaches, investors will likely remember this as a bipolar year for Indian markets.
from India Insight:
No criticism please, we are Indians
(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author, and not necessarily those of Thomson Reuters)
When I signed up for a Facebook account four years ago, a friend warned me it was "dangerous for your sanity" -- of course, she meant it in terms of the time I would spend peeking into other people’s lives (She was right). But on Monday, for 21-year-old Shaheen Dhada, that phrase took on a whole new meaning.
from India Insight:
Aung San Suu Kyi’s India visit: Killing softly with her words
Myanmar's pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi's trip to India last week was more than a homecoming of sorts to a country where she went to school and college, and which shaped her political beliefs. It was also about repairing ties frayed by New Delhi's abrupt decision in the mid-1990s to engage with the military junta in Yangon after decades of support for her campaign. She ended up reminding the world's largest democracy of how far it had strayed away from the ideals of the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, in the pursuit of realpolitik.
For a country which has prided itself on something bordering on "Indian exceptionalism", and fighting for equality and non-discriminatory policies on the global stage as well as the voice of the downtrodden in the initial decades since it won independence in 1947, the gentle admonishment from Suu Kyi must have rankled. Gandhi wouldn't have countenanced such a policy shift towards a military regime that brutalised its own people, she said, whatever the compulsions. She was saddened that India had taken a path different from hers, despite their shared colonial history and close ties between the independence leaders of the two countries, she told The Hindu in an interview ahead of the trip.
from India Insight:
Woman’s death poses tough abortion questions for India and Ireland
(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author, and not necessarily those of Thomson Reuters)
The death of a 31-year-old Indian woman in Ireland after doctors refused to give her an abortion has sparked protests in her home country of India as well as in Ireland.
from India Insight:
Indians: inherently unhygienic? Indian writer touches third rail
(Any opinions expressed here are the author's own. They are not necessarily those of Thomson Reuters)
My Indian friends and I joke around a lot about me as the typical white American guy visiting India. Cows! Con men! Colors! Most people I've met in India have restricted their reactions to my westerner-in-the-east experiences to gentle teasing. When I stuck a picture of a man urinating in public on my Facebook page, calling it one more picture of what you see everywhere you go in India, people weren't as patient. What was I doing? Insulting the nation? Focusing on the ugly because it's what all the westerners do when they visit India? Why does India provoke such visceral reactions in visitors?
from India Insight:
The emerging world’s education imperative
(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author, and not necessarily those of Thomson Reuters)
Official delegations from the world’s nine most populous developing countries just met in New Delhi to discuss a subject vital for their countries’ futures: education. The meeting of ministers and others from Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan, known as the E-9, is the latest in a series of encounters held every two years to fulfil the pledge of “education for all” by 2015.
from Expert Zone:
US-India strategic partnership set to grow in second Obama administration
(The views expressed in this column are the author's own and do not represent those of Reuters)
The re-election of President Barack Obama is likely to be more promising and fruitful for the growing strategic partnership between India and the United States. During the second Obama administration, his India policies are expected to be upgraded further and there would possibly be more tangible outcomes from policy pronouncements made in the last four years.
from India Insight:
Madhya Pradesh chief minister exorcises English, exercises investors
(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author, and not necessarily those of Thomson Reuters.)
Shivraj Singh Chouhan appears to be tying himself into a linguistic knot. The chief minister of Madhya Pradesh on Saturday said that the English language is a ghost that India must exorcise, according to the Press Trust of India newswire. Even though only a small number of people speak English, these people have managed to show that you need English to be successful in whatever you do, Chouhan said.
from India Insight:
India stepping up to the challenge of post-2014 Afghanistan
Racing through the deserted streets of Kabul at nighttime, you are likely to be stopped at street corners by policemen once, twice or even more. If you are a South Asian, as I am, their guard is up even more. "Pakistani or Indian?" the cop barks out as you lower your window. When I answer "Indian", he wants me to produce a passport to prove that, and as it happens, I am not carrying one. So I am pulled out of the car in the freezing cold and given a full body search, with the policemen muttering under his breath in Dari that everyone goes around claiming to be an Indian, especially Pakistanis.
To be an Indian in Kabul is to be greeted warmly wherever you go, whether it is negotiating a security barrier or seeking a meeting with a government official. There is an easing of tensions (in Afghanistan, the fear uppermost in the mind is that the stranger at the door could be an attacker and you don't have too long to judge), Bollywood is almost immediately mentioned, and your hosts will go out of their way to help.
