Visa issues have once again thrown this blogger into a deep mess. Dealing with bureaucracy everyday for the past few weeks has led to a sort of mind-paralysis that makes any writing impossible. That’s the reason for this hiatus, and it looks like it shall continue for another week or so. Big ranting post on visas and embassies coming up soon..
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“It’s all about death in India these days…”
Life is a little complicated right now, and this means that blogging has been slow. This shall continue to be the case for the next few days. However, I will try and find sometime in between crisis to come back here and talk about a lot of things that I have been wanting to put out there.
First amongst these is my friend Shivam Vij’s take-down of the Indian media’s coverage of the killings in Kashmir of demonstrators when police and paramilitary forces opened fire on them. The dead were mostly Kahmiri youth between 9 and 22 years. Shivam points out [...]
Arroz con Arroz
Visa troubles are (hopefully) safely out of the way, and that means I am able to finally update you on the Globalistan CD launch in Berlin the week before.
Johannes Heretsch, Berlin based DJ, got in touch with Globalistan in April to co-operate on a ‘world-music’ CD. Being huge fans of independent releases, we were only too happy to co-operate. ‘Sounds from Globalistan’ had its CD release in Berlin’s Admiralspalast, with live performances from artists like Cherif Hamiche, Nomad Soundsysem, Meriem Hassan Group and Mil Santos. All of these guys are featured on the CD, and are awesome performers.
Globalistan also had [...]
The Joys of Mitfahrgelegenheit
Backpackers and students traveling across Europe would no doubt be aware of Mitfahrgelegenheit. The German based car-pooling service is one of the cheapest ways to travel around in the Schengen zone, and also one of the most entertaining.
I used to ‘mitfahr’ pretty often a couple of years ago, but since then short trips to Germany have been few, and for longer distances airlines are anyway more convenient. However, this week finding myself low on cash and needing to go to Berlin, I decided to look up for a carpool on a convenient time. This is how I landed up with [...]
Democracy, Torture and Zhou Zuohai
On 31st May, the Chinese government released guidelines that banned the admissibility of evidence obtained under torture in criminal convictions. This came a few weeks after the revelation of the seemingly bizarre, yet not completely uncommon, case of Zhou Zuohai. Zhuo was released after being imprisoned for 11 years in Shanqqi, on charges of murder, when his alleged victim was found alive in his village. He was imprisoned on the basis of his confession of the crime. A couple of days after he was released the authorities admitted that the confession was obtained under torture. Zhuo described his beatings: the [...]
“It is more horrible to wait for your killers than to be killed”
(An edited version of this article appeared in Caravan India today)
When I met Aslan Daudov, a 30-year-old Chechen asylum seeker whose name has been changed here on his request, he was afraid that he would be deported within a couple of hours to Poland. He was not as concerned about Poland’s negligible acceptance rate of Chechen asylum seekers; but was terrified of a much worse fate: that he might be kidnapped by agents of the Chechen government, tortured and killed.
We met in a crowded café in Vienna’s Westbahnhof train station. Midway through our conversation Aslan indicated that we should leave. [...]
Life of a Nomad
From the edges of the Mongolian plain to the heart of the North African desert, nomadic people create new crossroads between tradition and modernity… a photo essay from National Geographic on nomadic life: Nomads Gallery
Why the Auto-Rickshaws of Delhi Should Stay
(Guest post by Simon Harding)
As every Delhite knows, taking an auto journey in the capital is not a pleasant experience. Drivers speed off at the very mention of your home or office, leaving you stranded on the roadside. When an auto-wallah finally agrees to go where you want, he steadfastly refuses to run by the meter and instigates a minute or so of stressful haggling. You arrive at your destination frazzled, irritated and over-charged. This situation has not gone unnoticed. Chief Minister, Sheila Dixshit recently announced plans to phase out the auto-rickshaw [...]
Xinjiang, not Baghdad
Excellent photo-essay- Vanishing China- on Chinas Xinjiang province, previously known as China’s Turkestan, home to Uighur and Uzbek minorities, and the stage for extended anti-Beijing protests in 2008.