Features

Bangladesh's Shahbag movement still on, claim leaders, activists (12:32)
By Sahana Ghosh
Dhaka, May 22 (IANS) Directed at channeling the "patriotic spirit" of youngsters in Bangladesh to create a "secular youth force", the Shahbag movement, that peaked in February and March with tens of thousands of protesters and torchlight processions, is "not dead" and "lives on" sans the noise and the fury, its leaders and participating activists claim.

Dhaka's rickshaw army - commuters' 'best option' (With Images) (13:08)
By Sahana Ghosh
Dhaka, May 21 (IANS) With a hoot and a honk, meandering through Dhaka's famed traffic snarls, the legion of psychedelic rickshaws that are an essential part of Bangladesh's capital have a new claim to fame - they ferried protestors for free from parts of the city to the site of the revolutionary Shahbag movement during its peak in February and March.

Prayer, spirituality gets the doctors' nod (10:22)
By Azera Parveen Rahman
New Delhi, May 21 (IANS) Hardly anyone doubts the power of prayer and almost everyone has a turnaround tale - maybe personal, or of someone else's - that credits the "miracle" to a prayer. Now while science and spirituality may not always see eye to eye, holistic treatment is now finding greater acceptance, and spirituality, among everything else, is recommended by doctors as part of the healing process.

Unravelling the Indian curry (Food Feature) (13:22)
By Monish Gujral
Since childhood, being born in a North Indian Punjabi family, I have been fond of curries - spicy chicken curry or tangy vegetable tangy curry accompanied with rice or a crisp tandoori roti oozing with white butter. Then, there are a plethora of exotic curries such as Kerala's raw mango curry, green or red Thai curry, Indonesian curry or Burmese curry

Robotics, kick-boxing, horse-riding camps for children this summer (Trend Feature) (13:02)
By Prathiba Raju
New Delhi, May 19 (IANS) Thirteen-year-old Amandeep Singh learnt to paint during the last summer vacation. This year, he has set his mind on kick-boxing, for which he is actively encouraged by his middle-class parents. His sister Simran, who is two years his senior, told her working parents that she wants to take up pottery - and wants to take it up as a career later in life.

Crying need for judicial reform, more judges and better infrastructure (12:42)
By Parmod Kumar
New Delhi, May 19 (IANS) Justice delayed is justice denied. Nowhere this rings truer than in India where a staggering 30 million cases are said to be pending in the country's courts today. And to tackle this intimidating problem requires comprehensive judicial reform, more judges of quality and improvement of the judicial infrastructure, jurists say.

Asia's sex imbalance is going to have huge consequences (The Funny Side) (08:54)
By Nury Vittachi
Asia will one day be filled with "millions of men desperate for women", researchers warned last week.

Lunch-hour love shacks a rage in Vietnam (Feature) (13:08)
Hanoi, May 16 (IANS) On a cloudy noon, a man in office outfit with dark glasses and a woman in a sun-resistant cloak with a mask muffling her head entered a room at a mini hotel in Vietnam's capital Hanoi. About an hour later, they checked out, again covertly.

Educating the Muslim girl child - in a Mughal-era structure (16:08)
By Meha Mathur
New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) Functioning in a Mughal-era structure near Jama Masjid in the capital's old quarters is the Balak Mata Centre of Jamia Millia Islamia, one of India's oldest universities. The centre, located in Matia Mahal, provides education and vocational training to deprived Muslim girls and women.

Indian cinema big on high-end fashion: Falguni and Shane Peacock (Interview) (13:52)
By Nivedita
New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) Big-budget Indian movies are setting trends in high-end fashion and costume designing, say Falguni and Shane Peacock, who have designed for the likes of Britney Spears, Katy Perry and Jennifer Lopez as well as Priyanka Chopra and Bipasha Basu back home.

Small US town is big draw for democracy lovers (Feature) (With Images) (12:36)
By Arun Kumar
Gettysburg (Pennsylvania), May 12 (IANS) This small town just an hour and a half drive away from Washington has a population of a mere 110,000. But every year three million people from India and all over the world come visiting.

70,000 km around the world in six months - to document the diaspora (Travel Feature) (12:44)
By Azera Parveen Rahman
New Delhi, May 10 (IANS) There are an estimated 25 million people of Indian origin settled across the globe. In perhaps the first such attempt to document the story of the non-resident Indian, two travel enthusiasts are now set to embark upon a path-breaking six-month adventure "to connect with Indians living abroad" and record their lives and experiences while staying with them.

Your essential cut-out-and-keep guide to modern laughter (The Funny Side) (09:48)
By Nury Vittachi
Today, we're going to answer the much-asked question: How can adults communicate with young people? The answer is: They can't. So we'll move right along to another question of global importance, received from a reader named Suchin: "My dad said he once ate a curry so hot it burned through his body and set his chair on fire. Could this really happen?"

From monster to mom, TV's 'saas' gets a makeover (May 12 is Mother's Day) (13:34)
By Nivedita
New Delhi, May 9 (IANS) The cruel, manipulative mother-in-law out to exploit the devoted daughter-in-law was not too long ago the staple of films as well as TV soaps. Well, movies have moved on and so it seems has the small screen that is keeping pace with the changing times.

Indian brides go light, turn away from heavy outfits(Trend Feature) (With Images) (13:46)
By Ritika Arora
New Delhi, May 8 (IANS) Wearing heavy shimmering lehengas or saris in typical maroon or red shades for a summer-monsoon wedding is passe. An up-to-the-minute fashion statement is comfortable innovative bridal outfits made with nets, chiffons or chanderi silks in soothing shades like turquoise, green and rani pink.

He is fulfilling his dream of building houses for poor (11:24)
By Rahul Vaishnavi
New Delhi, May 6 (IANS) He is the brain behind several world-class and award-winning buildings that include airports and hotels in the US. Several milestones and achievements later, the dream of doing something meaningful for his home country has brought Indian American architect Harshad Patel to his roots, determined to provide low-cost houses to the country's poor.

Kerala physicians who keep alive traditional ayurveda (Feature) (11:32)
By M.R. Narayan Swamy
Thrissur (Kerala), May 5 (IANS) At age 74, ayurvedic physician Alathiyoor Narayanan Nambi still sees several patients daily, carrying forward a tradition his family has pursued for hundreds of years.

Want to keep stress at bay? Join a laughter club (May 5 is World Laughter Day) (09:18)
By Prathiba Raju
New Delhi, May 5 (IANS) As dawn breaks, a group of men and women standing in a circle in a neighbouring park twirl their arms in the air, waddle like penguins and start laughing. They are part of an increasing number of people who are choosing laughter therapy to cure distress.

Why toilet cleaners could soon be paid more than prime ministers (The Funny Side) (09:22)
By Nury Vittachi
An economist friend was tearing his hair out. He was trying to analyze a trend started by someone he scornfully described as "a billionaire who thinks we all live on one planet".

Guyana to mark 175th anniversary of arrival of Indians (12:30)
By Shubha Singh
Two ships sailing out of Calcutta (now Kolkata) port on the eastern coast of India, the Whitby and Hesperus, reached British Guiana (now Guyana) on the northern coast of South America on May 5, 1838 after a perilous sea journey that lasted 112 days. More than 17 decades later, Guyana - a part of the Caribbean - is set to hold commemorative functions in early May to mark the 175th anniversary of the arrival of Indians in the country.

Going under the knife for a perfect Facebook profile pic (11:16)
By Richa Sharma
New Delhi, April 28 (IANS) College student Shayna John was not happy with her nose. And to give it the perfect shape, she recently underwent nose correction surgery - all this for her profile picture on Facebook.

Gilt edged profits as online shopping goes viral (Business Feature) (12:18)
By Aditi Chandra
New Delhi, April 26 (IANS) You know online shopping has come of age in India when gold prices dip and coins are immediately made available in virtual stores to target not just the hip and tech savvy but also the traditional, hidebound homemaker who would otherwise head for the trusted family jeweller.

Why Boston killings got more coverage than any other story (The Funny Side) (10:38)
By Nury Vittachi
Many people noticed that the international media was shockingly selective in its news coverage this month. This columnist knows the mindset of foreign correspondents intimately, so here's an EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW on the subject that just took place in a dark corner of my imagination.

In Boston's Needham suburb, Chechnya echoes everywhere (13:28)
By Carl Schreck
Boston, April 23 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Echoes of Chechnya are everywhere at this small suburban Boston homestead. Traditional ram's wool hats hang on the walls, a computer monitor glows with the green of the Chechen flag, and the sapling of a medlar, an ancient fruit-bearing tree rare in America but common in the North Caucasus, awaits summer in a backyard garden.

The Tea-house project: Kolkata's Chinatown set for revival (Feature) (With Images) (11:38)
By Sahana Ghosh
Kolkata, April 23 (IANS) Discussions and debates in quaint Chinese tea houses over simmering cups of green tea in the snaking lanes of Kolkata's Chinatown may soon be a reality. A project aimed at preserving the heritage of the Indian Chinese community in the city and to create an eco-friendly and economically viable arts-heritage-food hub will provide a much-needed facelift to Chinatown.