Nothing distracts Rishi Shiv P when he is writing computer code. The five-year-old’s eyes remain fixed on the screen and his little fingers dance across the keyboard, as he unfurls drop-down menus and builds nested loops.
Lata’s expression that day was a mix of delight, surprise, disbelief, and pride. She had made it through the Marriott interview. She could not wait for Monday and her first day of work.
Do you know Hindi? If you want to understand Narendra Modi’s speech at the UN today, you better learn the language quickly.
It’s the economy, stupid. That’s why Narendra Modi is about to become prime minister of India because Indians, rightfully, believe he can make India work, both figuratively and literally. India needs to create more than 50 million jobs in the next five years to just employ the young that will come of age in the next five years. Keep that number in mind as results are announced on Friday.
India’s national elections are just five months away, but the ruling Congress Party already looks in tatters. Congress has held power in Delhi for nearly a decade and decisively lost four state elections in results announced over the weekend. The main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), won a majority in three states and a plurality in the fourth. That would normally be the major news of the election.
Shweta Katti wants to attend Bard College in the US this fall, but she’s hardly the typical foreign student from India. She grew up in Kamathipura, India’s largest red-light district in Mumbai. In 11th grade, an education nonprofit moved her to an apartment to help her better concentrate on her studies. As she was thinking about colleges, she met a US diplomat who happened to be an alumnus of Bard College.
People in India are now kissing each other in public, the New York Times reported last week. The story—which began with the requisite “India may be the birthplace of the Kama Sutra…”—was mocked among many Indians and described by at least one outlet as a “real stop the press moment.” The website, Firstpost.com, wrote a biting piece ridiculing the New York Times for not just insinuating that Indians previously didn’t kiss in public, but also in private. With a population of a billion people and counting, Indians seem to be doing just fine with kissing—and everything thereafter.
A headline from today’s New York Times tells us just how bad it’s gotten in Greece: “Oil Tax Forces Greeks to Fight Winter as Ancients Did.” Austerity measures are forcing Greeks to live like their fabled brethren. Whether or not it stays in the euro zone, the country is likely to endure a decade (or decades) of hardships. At this point, Greece’s financial problems are insurmountable, and each solution applies a small Band-Aid to a fatally-wounded patient. Selling assets has proven futile as they would garner just a small fraction of the $400 billion Greece needs.
Rahul Gandhi should need no introduction. He is the great-grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister; the grandson of Indira Gandhi, the country’s second longest serving prime minister; and the son of Rajiv Gandhi, prime minister from 1984 to 1989. In fact, for more than half of India’s Independence, a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family has been prime minister (the Gandhi family is unrelated to Mahatma Gandhi). Over the next few days, a reshuffle of the ruling Congress party’s cabinet is planned. According to some news reports, Rahul Gandhi will be elevated to the No. 2 position of the party.
