The wild heat.
Severe Heat Wave Grips Many Parts Of India
Friday, 26 June 2009
Dogs join daily wage laborers and rickshaw pullers as they take rest seated over wet sand to keep off the heat in New Delhi, 26 Jun 2009A severe heat wave sweeping across the plains of India has claimed at least 100 lives. It has also led to power and water shortages in many parts of the country, including the capital, New Delhi.
As temperatures hovered around 44 degrees Celsius across northern, eastern and central India, officials in several states reported scores of heat-related deaths. Many of the victims belong to India's poorest states such as Orissa and Jharkhand.
In Orissa, hospitals opened special wards for heat stroke victims.
High temperatures are common starting May, but seasonal monsoon rains usually bring some cooling showers in June. However there has been no respite from the scorching weather due to poor rains in recent weeks.
The impact of the prolonged heat spell has been aggravated by acute power and water shortages in many parts of the country.
In New Delhi, angry residents in parts of the city have held street protests to draw attention to the dry taps and lengthy power outages.
Purnima Mehta, who lives in Delhi's posh south, reports power outages for up to six hours a day.
"Lack of power leads to immense discomfort for everyone, and of course water is a basic necessity, and without that how can any household function?" Mehta asked.
Officials say there is little they can do to ease the situation. Levels in water reservoirs are dire, and power stations are unable to cope with the massive surge in demand as air conditioners work overtime.
New Delhi's chief minister, Shiela Dikshit, has warned of tough days ahead if monsoon rains do not arrive soon, and is asking people to conserve both water and power.
The warning came after officials forecast that monsoons are likely to be "below normal", and the maximum shortfall will be in northwestern India.
Minister of Earth Sciences Prithviraj Chavan said this week that government officials are monitoring the situation that may arise due to the deficit in rains.
"There are many implications about irrigation, about electricity generation, about drinking water and steps to mitigate that would be taken," Chavan said.
Officials have resorted to a variety of measures to cope with the situation. In New Delhi, summer vacations in schools have been extended by one week to protect school children from the blazing sun. In Punjab - a relatively rich, agricultural state - the state government has ordered that air conditioners in government offices should be turned off so that power can be conserved to pump water to farms. In Andhra Pradesh, the government has drawn up plans for cloud seeding operations if rains are delayed further.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
A CHILD was pulled alive from rough seas after a Yemeni Airbus A310 jet carrying 153 people crashed as it came in to land in the Indian Ocean island nation of Comoros yesterday.
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Yemenia plane crash
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It was the second time in less than a month that an Airbus had crashed into the ocean, and immediately there were calls by the EU for a worldwide blacklist of unsafe airlines.
French authorities said the Yemeni carrier had been under surveillance and that problems had been reported with the jet.
Bodies and wreckage from the Yemenia Airways flight were spotted in the sea near the archipelago's capital, Moroni.
Hopes there would be survivors among the 142 passengers and 11 crew on Flight IY 626 were realised when a five-year-old child was plucked from the sea and taken to hospital, officials said. In Yemen's capital, Sanaa, Yemenia's deputy managing director for operations, Mohammed al-Sumairi, said three bodies had been recovered. But there was no word on other survivors.
Fishermen had also found wreckage, passengers' handbags and other effects, said rescuers in Comoros.
Yemeni aviation official Mohammad Abdel Kader said it was too early to speculate on the cause of the crash."The weather was very bad ... the wind was very strong," he said.
Witnesses said they saw the jet trying to land at Moroni airport, but then disappear.
"It looked to me as though the plane was having difficulties landing," said former civil aviation chief Mohamed Yahya, adding that its engines were making a noise as though it was in trouble.
Flight IY626 had started in Paris early on Monday, with passengers boarding a more modern Airbus A330-200 for the flight via Marseille to Sanaa, where passengers switched to the Airbus A310 for the journey to Djibouti and Moroni.
Moroni international airport lost contact with the jet just before it was due to land in bad weather, said airport director Hadji Mmadi Ali.
French civil aviation officials said 66 passengers were French. Three small babies were also among the passengers. France sent two navy ships and a plane from its nearby Indian Ocean territories to help the rescue.
Airbus, which is still reeling from the crash of an Air France A330-200 into the Atlantic on June 1 with 228 people on board, set up a crisis cell and sent investigators to the Comoros.
The European plane-maker said the jet that crashed off Moroni was made in 1990 and had been operated by Yemenia since 1999.
EU Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani called for a worldwide blacklist of unsafe airlines like that in the EU.
"If we want to achieve better safety I'm convinced that we need to have a worldwide blacklist; the European blacklist works pretty well in Europe," he said.
France's Transport Minister, Dominique Bussereau, said inspectors had noted numerous faults on the Airbus and Yemenia was being closely monitored by EU authorities, although it was not on the blacklist.
He also said the crashed aircraft had been banned from French airspace several years ago because of "irregularities".
Yemen's transport minister, Khaled al-Wazir, said the Airbus was checked in May and had no technical faults.
Airbus said the jet had accumulated about 51,900 hours in the air from 17,300 flights.
Yemenia, created in 1978, is 51 per cent owned by the Yemeni government and 49 per cent by Saudi Arabia.
AFP
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Yemenia plane crash
A Yemenia plane carrying 150 passengers disappeared in the Indian Ocean as it prepared to land in...
Views today: 1043Sorry, this video is no longer available.
It was the second time in less than a month that an Airbus had crashed into the ocean, and immediately there were calls by the EU for a worldwide blacklist of unsafe airlines.
French authorities said the Yemeni carrier had been under surveillance and that problems had been reported with the jet.
Bodies and wreckage from the Yemenia Airways flight were spotted in the sea near the archipelago's capital, Moroni.
Hopes there would be survivors among the 142 passengers and 11 crew on Flight IY 626 were realised when a five-year-old child was plucked from the sea and taken to hospital, officials said. In Yemen's capital, Sanaa, Yemenia's deputy managing director for operations, Mohammed al-Sumairi, said three bodies had been recovered. But there was no word on other survivors.
Fishermen had also found wreckage, passengers' handbags and other effects, said rescuers in Comoros.
Yemeni aviation official Mohammad Abdel Kader said it was too early to speculate on the cause of the crash."The weather was very bad ... the wind was very strong," he said.
Witnesses said they saw the jet trying to land at Moroni airport, but then disappear.
"It looked to me as though the plane was having difficulties landing," said former civil aviation chief Mohamed Yahya, adding that its engines were making a noise as though it was in trouble.
Flight IY626 had started in Paris early on Monday, with passengers boarding a more modern Airbus A330-200 for the flight via Marseille to Sanaa, where passengers switched to the Airbus A310 for the journey to Djibouti and Moroni.
Moroni international airport lost contact with the jet just before it was due to land in bad weather, said airport director Hadji Mmadi Ali.
French civil aviation officials said 66 passengers were French. Three small babies were also among the passengers. France sent two navy ships and a plane from its nearby Indian Ocean territories to help the rescue.
Airbus, which is still reeling from the crash of an Air France A330-200 into the Atlantic on June 1 with 228 people on board, set up a crisis cell and sent investigators to the Comoros.
The European plane-maker said the jet that crashed off Moroni was made in 1990 and had been operated by Yemenia since 1999.
EU Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani called for a worldwide blacklist of unsafe airlines like that in the EU.
"If we want to achieve better safety I'm convinced that we need to have a worldwide blacklist; the European blacklist works pretty well in Europe," he said.
France's Transport Minister, Dominique Bussereau, said inspectors had noted numerous faults on the Airbus and Yemenia was being closely monitored by EU authorities, although it was not on the blacklist.
He also said the crashed aircraft had been banned from French airspace several years ago because of "irregularities".
Yemen's transport minister, Khaled al-Wazir, said the Airbus was checked in May and had no technical faults.
Airbus said the jet had accumulated about 51,900 hours in the air from 17,300 flights.
Yemenia, created in 1978, is 51 per cent owned by the Yemeni government and 49 per cent by Saudi Arabia.
AFP
1 July 2009
Refugees, asylum seekers and Australia: some cold hard facts
by Andrew Bartlett
The website of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) contains all the statistical data anyone could want on refugees, asylum seekers, returned refugees, internally displaced and stateless people around the world.
There are many different ways to analyse this data, but a few clear-cut aspects are worth emphasising. First, Australia consistently ranks near the top of industrialised nations in receiving refugees who waiting resettlement — often, but not always, in refugee camps.
Second, the reason Australia can appear so generous with offshore resettlement is because Australia consistently ranks near the bottom of industrialised nations when in comes to people arriving and seeking asylum. The controversies that erupt when a few hundred refugees arrive in boats can be seen as all the more irrational when contrasted to the tens of thousands who arrive year after year seeking asylum in some European countries which are far smaller in population and size.
A report in October 2008 showed that Iraqis were still by far the top nationality arriving in developed countries seeking asylum. Third on that list is China, which most Australians do not realise is our top source country for asylum seekers, because almost none of them arrive by boat. Instead, they arrive by plane on various temporary visas and apply for asylum later.
But the burden on all industrialised countries is insignificant when placed against poorer countries. 80 percent of the world’s refugees are in developing nations — most of them in insecure, unsafe or tenuous situations. The host countries obviously have far fewer resources to handle these numbers.
The single fact that sticks out most obviously of all is that the numbers of people in these desperate situations is huge and is likely to stay that way. The UNHCR’s global trends report for 2008 estimated “the number of people forcibly uprooted by conflict and persecution worldwide stood at 42 million at the end of last year.”
And things have got worse in the first part of 2009 with “substantial new displacements, namely in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Somalia.”
People on the move from Pakistan include many originally from Afghanistan who have already been waiting for years in insecure situations for it to be safe to return. Australia tends to be a destination country for some who originate in Pakistan/Afghanistan or Sri Lanka.
This graph from the Possie in Aussie blog shows clearly that “the main reason why flows of asylum seekers decreased under the Howard government — they decreased around the world.”
Let’s not forget all these stats and trends are before the full effects of climate change start to be felt. A recent story in The Economist quoted the view of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) that there will be 200 million “climate-change induced migrants” by 2050. At the moment, the global community can’t even agree on how best to label such people — with many rejecting the refugee terminology — let alone how to handle them.
The policy dilemmas thrown up by this situation are huge. In one sense, there is no full solution, short of world peace and an end to poverty globally. But the least we could do is stop pretending we can just block them all out.
Policies which try to put up a wall or restrict the ability to seek asylum can work for a while — unlike those who seek to make life unpleasant for people after they arrive, which have no effect other to inflict injustice on the innocent (often at public expense) and impede their long-term ability to integrate. But this quickly becomes a race to the bottom. The worst excesses of the Howard era are now being surpassed by countries like Italy, intercepting and returning refugees to Libya — whose human rights record — including returning refugees to danger — is dismal at best.
Eventually Australia is going to have to engage more directly with the large numbers of displaced people in our region. Spending money in an effort to use Indonesia as a holding pen so refugees don’t risk their lives on boats coming to Australia may work for a while, but it is untenable in the long term if refugees waiting in Indonesia are not able to find safe resettlement within a reasonable period.
An even bigger concern is the horrendous treatment many asylum seekers and displaced people are subjected to in Malaysia. These appalling and systematic human rights abuses have received little attention in Australia until recently, but we can’t continue to turn a blind eye. This post from a Malaysian blog documents some of that terrible treatment. It also notes “There are 171,000 refugees in Malaysia, fleeing persecution in their home countries.”
Australia has recently started taking in some refugees from Burma, including most recently Rohinya people from western Burma. This is very welcome, but it also means public awareness of how many of these refugees are treated by surrounding countries in our region will grow. It will present a diplomatic and human rights challenge for Australia.
A report just released by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute — called The Human Tide — reinforces the need for us to stop denying the obvious in the hope we can somehow make it all go away.
The report’s author, Dr Mark Thomson, says:
“The principal cause of people seeking refuge is events which cause them to seek refuge; unrest in one part of the world or another.”
“Will this stop in the future? No. There will always be parts of the world where there are problems and where people will try and seek safety offshore.”
It’s time we ditched the fear and loathing approach that has lain beneath so much of Australia’s political psyche over so many years, and gave a rational approach a go. It wouldn’t hurt us — and it very probably would reduce the hurt suffered by people who are already suffered more than enough. We did it in the Fraser era in respect of refugees from Vietnam and that worked out well.
Andrew Bartlett is a blogger for Crikey and is also a Research Fellow in the Migration Law Practice Program at ANU.
Refugees, asylum seekers and Australia: some cold hard facts
by Andrew Bartlett
The website of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) contains all the statistical data anyone could want on refugees, asylum seekers, returned refugees, internally displaced and stateless people around the world.
There are many different ways to analyse this data, but a few clear-cut aspects are worth emphasising. First, Australia consistently ranks near the top of industrialised nations in receiving refugees who waiting resettlement — often, but not always, in refugee camps.
Second, the reason Australia can appear so generous with offshore resettlement is because Australia consistently ranks near the bottom of industrialised nations when in comes to people arriving and seeking asylum. The controversies that erupt when a few hundred refugees arrive in boats can be seen as all the more irrational when contrasted to the tens of thousands who arrive year after year seeking asylum in some European countries which are far smaller in population and size.
A report in October 2008 showed that Iraqis were still by far the top nationality arriving in developed countries seeking asylum. Third on that list is China, which most Australians do not realise is our top source country for asylum seekers, because almost none of them arrive by boat. Instead, they arrive by plane on various temporary visas and apply for asylum later.
But the burden on all industrialised countries is insignificant when placed against poorer countries. 80 percent of the world’s refugees are in developing nations — most of them in insecure, unsafe or tenuous situations. The host countries obviously have far fewer resources to handle these numbers.
The single fact that sticks out most obviously of all is that the numbers of people in these desperate situations is huge and is likely to stay that way. The UNHCR’s global trends report for 2008 estimated “the number of people forcibly uprooted by conflict and persecution worldwide stood at 42 million at the end of last year.”
And things have got worse in the first part of 2009 with “substantial new displacements, namely in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Somalia.”
People on the move from Pakistan include many originally from Afghanistan who have already been waiting for years in insecure situations for it to be safe to return. Australia tends to be a destination country for some who originate in Pakistan/Afghanistan or Sri Lanka.
This graph from the Possie in Aussie blog shows clearly that “the main reason why flows of asylum seekers decreased under the Howard government — they decreased around the world.”
Let’s not forget all these stats and trends are before the full effects of climate change start to be felt. A recent story in The Economist quoted the view of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) that there will be 200 million “climate-change induced migrants” by 2050. At the moment, the global community can’t even agree on how best to label such people — with many rejecting the refugee terminology — let alone how to handle them.
The policy dilemmas thrown up by this situation are huge. In one sense, there is no full solution, short of world peace and an end to poverty globally. But the least we could do is stop pretending we can just block them all out.
Policies which try to put up a wall or restrict the ability to seek asylum can work for a while — unlike those who seek to make life unpleasant for people after they arrive, which have no effect other to inflict injustice on the innocent (often at public expense) and impede their long-term ability to integrate. But this quickly becomes a race to the bottom. The worst excesses of the Howard era are now being surpassed by countries like Italy, intercepting and returning refugees to Libya — whose human rights record — including returning refugees to danger — is dismal at best.
Eventually Australia is going to have to engage more directly with the large numbers of displaced people in our region. Spending money in an effort to use Indonesia as a holding pen so refugees don’t risk their lives on boats coming to Australia may work for a while, but it is untenable in the long term if refugees waiting in Indonesia are not able to find safe resettlement within a reasonable period.
An even bigger concern is the horrendous treatment many asylum seekers and displaced people are subjected to in Malaysia. These appalling and systematic human rights abuses have received little attention in Australia until recently, but we can’t continue to turn a blind eye. This post from a Malaysian blog documents some of that terrible treatment. It also notes “There are 171,000 refugees in Malaysia, fleeing persecution in their home countries.”
Australia has recently started taking in some refugees from Burma, including most recently Rohinya people from western Burma. This is very welcome, but it also means public awareness of how many of these refugees are treated by surrounding countries in our region will grow. It will present a diplomatic and human rights challenge for Australia.
A report just released by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute — called The Human Tide — reinforces the need for us to stop denying the obvious in the hope we can somehow make it all go away.
The report’s author, Dr Mark Thomson, says:
“The principal cause of people seeking refuge is events which cause them to seek refuge; unrest in one part of the world or another.”
“Will this stop in the future? No. There will always be parts of the world where there are problems and where people will try and seek safety offshore.”
It’s time we ditched the fear and loathing approach that has lain beneath so much of Australia’s political psyche over so many years, and gave a rational approach a go. It wouldn’t hurt us — and it very probably would reduce the hurt suffered by people who are already suffered more than enough. We did it in the Fraser era in respect of refugees from Vietnam and that worked out well.
Andrew Bartlett is a blogger for Crikey and is also a Research Fellow in the Migration Law Practice Program at ANU.
India opposed to 'reinventing' Doha negotiations talk
My understanding of this is that a lot of smallfarmers in India are going to starve if this deal goes down the way that some member nations appear to be pushing for.
D RAVI KANTH / Paris June 29, 2009, 0:47 IST
India is committed to an “early” deal in the stalled Doha trade negotiations if it addresses the “legitimate developmental concerns” of developing countries in a balanced way, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma told Business Standard in a wide-ranging conversation.
“Our government is fully committed to an early breakthrough in the Doha agreement based on December 2008 draft texts in agriculture and industrial goods. It must be a balanced agreement that addresses the legitimate concerns of developing countries,” he said.
“India is opposed to ‘reinventing’ the Doha negotiating process at this late hour,” Sharma said, arguing that Doha talks were based on a multilateral framework.
The US has now demanded what are called bilateral negotiations to provide clarity on what it is getting from key emerging countries. Many developing countries have opposed this demand on the ground that it would undermine multilateral solutions to global trade problems.
“Further I have made it clear that Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) is not for negotiation as it concerns the livelihood of poor farmers,” Sharma maintained, squashing rumours that India is prepared to give up on this vital developmental flexibility for which it waged a major negotiating battle all these years.
The US and leading farm exporting countries like Australia, Uruguay, Thailand and Malaysia are opposed to having a flexible SSM that would enable developing countries, like India and China to impose safeguard duties for countering unforeseen surges in imports of major food products.
“Further, the developed countries,” said Sharma, “will have to revisit the subsidy dossier in the Doha agriculture package, as several outstanding issues remain unaddressed.” The US has repeatedly claimed that the subsidy dossier is almost completed as there are no substantive issues to address, a claim that Argentina recently challenged.
After participating in a series of ministerial meetings on the margins of the annual Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s annual session in Paris on Thursday and Friday, commerce minister spoke to Business Standard about his assessment on the state of play in the Doha trade talks and his bilateral meetings.
“I have introduced specific language that global trading system must be fair, equitable and addresses the legitimate aspirations of the developing countries in the India, Brazil and South Africa declaration,” Sharma stated, arguing that any outcome in the Doha talks must satisfy these three requirements.
“India is all for re-energisng the Doha talks but not re-inventing them all over again,” he repeatedly said, suggesting that there should be no confusion on where India stands on this issue.
“There is no question that we will accept a new negotiating arrangement at this point and I have insisted that multilateral negotiations must resume on the basis of the draft texts issued in December 2009,” Sharma clarified, adding that his suggestion was accepted.
But much would depend on what happens at the G-8 plus five leaders meeting in Italy next week when the US will push hard for a specific bilateral route in addition to the ongoing multilateral talks to conclude the Doha talks. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will attend the G-8 meeting in which China, Brazil, and South Africa have decided to oppose any change in the Doha negotiating process.
India and its key allies — Brazil, China, South Africa, and Argentina — have also opposed the US’ demand to start what are called focused bilateral negotiations to extract more concessions from developing countries.
“It would be unreasonable and unrealistic to assume that further unilateral concessions from developing countries will be forthcoming, especially in the context of the current economic crisis,” India, Brazil and South Africa said in their joint statement.
At the Paris meeting, Argentina, China, Brazil and South Africa also took a strong stand on sectoral tariff elimination for industrial goods as pushed by the US, which wants key emerging countries to join the sectoral talks on chemicals, electrical and electronics, and industrial engineering goods.
All these four countries vehemently opposed demands on sectoral tariff elimination maintaining that the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration clearly stipulated that participation in these talks is “voluntary” and not mandatory.
My understanding of this is that a lot of smallfarmers in India are going to starve if this deal goes down the way that some member nations appear to be pushing for.
D RAVI KANTH / Paris June 29, 2009, 0:47 IST
India is committed to an “early” deal in the stalled Doha trade negotiations if it addresses the “legitimate developmental concerns” of developing countries in a balanced way, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma told Business Standard in a wide-ranging conversation.
“Our government is fully committed to an early breakthrough in the Doha agreement based on December 2008 draft texts in agriculture and industrial goods. It must be a balanced agreement that addresses the legitimate concerns of developing countries,” he said.
“India is opposed to ‘reinventing’ the Doha negotiating process at this late hour,” Sharma said, arguing that Doha talks were based on a multilateral framework.
The US has now demanded what are called bilateral negotiations to provide clarity on what it is getting from key emerging countries. Many developing countries have opposed this demand on the ground that it would undermine multilateral solutions to global trade problems.
“Further I have made it clear that Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) is not for negotiation as it concerns the livelihood of poor farmers,” Sharma maintained, squashing rumours that India is prepared to give up on this vital developmental flexibility for which it waged a major negotiating battle all these years.
The US and leading farm exporting countries like Australia, Uruguay, Thailand and Malaysia are opposed to having a flexible SSM that would enable developing countries, like India and China to impose safeguard duties for countering unforeseen surges in imports of major food products.
“Further, the developed countries,” said Sharma, “will have to revisit the subsidy dossier in the Doha agriculture package, as several outstanding issues remain unaddressed.” The US has repeatedly claimed that the subsidy dossier is almost completed as there are no substantive issues to address, a claim that Argentina recently challenged.
After participating in a series of ministerial meetings on the margins of the annual Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s annual session in Paris on Thursday and Friday, commerce minister spoke to Business Standard about his assessment on the state of play in the Doha trade talks and his bilateral meetings.
“I have introduced specific language that global trading system must be fair, equitable and addresses the legitimate aspirations of the developing countries in the India, Brazil and South Africa declaration,” Sharma stated, arguing that any outcome in the Doha talks must satisfy these three requirements.
“India is all for re-energisng the Doha talks but not re-inventing them all over again,” he repeatedly said, suggesting that there should be no confusion on where India stands on this issue.
“There is no question that we will accept a new negotiating arrangement at this point and I have insisted that multilateral negotiations must resume on the basis of the draft texts issued in December 2009,” Sharma clarified, adding that his suggestion was accepted.
But much would depend on what happens at the G-8 plus five leaders meeting in Italy next week when the US will push hard for a specific bilateral route in addition to the ongoing multilateral talks to conclude the Doha talks. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will attend the G-8 meeting in which China, Brazil, and South Africa have decided to oppose any change in the Doha negotiating process.
India and its key allies — Brazil, China, South Africa, and Argentina — have also opposed the US’ demand to start what are called focused bilateral negotiations to extract more concessions from developing countries.
“It would be unreasonable and unrealistic to assume that further unilateral concessions from developing countries will be forthcoming, especially in the context of the current economic crisis,” India, Brazil and South Africa said in their joint statement.
At the Paris meeting, Argentina, China, Brazil and South Africa also took a strong stand on sectoral tariff elimination for industrial goods as pushed by the US, which wants key emerging countries to join the sectoral talks on chemicals, electrical and electronics, and industrial engineering goods.
All these four countries vehemently opposed demands on sectoral tariff elimination maintaining that the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration clearly stipulated that participation in these talks is “voluntary” and not mandatory.
"Method" acting in India! :) I remember reading a lot about this style of acting, popularized by Strasberg at the Actor's Studio in New York City decades ago, back when I was in my early twenties. Its very famous and India, with its fabulous Bollywood industry, is the perfect place for a school devoted to this technique. Many noted faces in the west have been "method" trained-some have even won Oscars.
In an exciting new venture into the development of international acting talent, the prestigious Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, home of Strasberg's trademarked 'Method' acting training process, has announced a partnership with Optimus Management Group, of Hartford, Connecticut, to open the first Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute India, home of the burgeoning Bollywood film industry. The partners plan to open Strasberg Institute India in two locations, Mumbai and Hyderabad, by early 2010.
Founder and CEO of Optimus Management Group, Ahmed A Ahsan, and esteemed Bollywood director Rahuul Rawail have formed an exclusive partnership to operate the Lee Strasberg Institute in India. In a contract signed today with co-founder Anna Strasberg and CEO David Lee Strasberg, they have entered into an agreement to develop the first Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute India which will offer students the only sanctioned 'Method' training facility outside of the US. Currently, there are two Strasberg Theater and Film Institutes operating in this country; at their headquarters in New York City and in Los Angeles.
The Strasberg Institute India will be run by veteran Bollywood director Rahuul Rawail who has more than 30 films to his credit including some of the biggest blockbusters of the Indian cinema. Rawail is also keenly interested in the development of young talent. As CEO of the Institute in India, Rawail hopes to offer the next generation of talented Indian actors the chance to compete globally as the country continues to export more of its films and its stars to the international market.
Strasberg Institute India's co-founder, Ahmed A Ahsan, has grown the Optimus Management Group in Hartford, Connecticut into an award-winning company which provides management consulting and human resource solutions throughout the country. Ahsan was inspired by recent growth in the Bollywood film industry and decided to apply his business acumen to the development of a top-notch Acting School in India so that interested and talented young actors who couldn't afford the expense of studying abroad could take advantage of the best actors' training available. He also envisions the long-term potential for attracting a stream of production opportunities to Connecticut and North America. The development of the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute India is the first step in that direction.
ALSO READ: Now, a film on Shiney controversy!
In an exciting new venture into the development of international acting talent, the prestigious Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, home of Strasberg's trademarked 'Method' acting training process, has announced a partnership with Optimus Management Group, of Hartford, Connecticut, to open the first Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute India, home of the burgeoning Bollywood film industry. The partners plan to open Strasberg Institute India in two locations, Mumbai and Hyderabad, by early 2010.
Founder and CEO of Optimus Management Group, Ahmed A Ahsan, and esteemed Bollywood director Rahuul Rawail have formed an exclusive partnership to operate the Lee Strasberg Institute in India. In a contract signed today with co-founder Anna Strasberg and CEO David Lee Strasberg, they have entered into an agreement to develop the first Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute India which will offer students the only sanctioned 'Method' training facility outside of the US. Currently, there are two Strasberg Theater and Film Institutes operating in this country; at their headquarters in New York City and in Los Angeles.
The Strasberg Institute India will be run by veteran Bollywood director Rahuul Rawail who has more than 30 films to his credit including some of the biggest blockbusters of the Indian cinema. Rawail is also keenly interested in the development of young talent. As CEO of the Institute in India, Rawail hopes to offer the next generation of talented Indian actors the chance to compete globally as the country continues to export more of its films and its stars to the international market.
Strasberg Institute India's co-founder, Ahmed A Ahsan, has grown the Optimus Management Group in Hartford, Connecticut into an award-winning company which provides management consulting and human resource solutions throughout the country. Ahsan was inspired by recent growth in the Bollywood film industry and decided to apply his business acumen to the development of a top-notch Acting School in India so that interested and talented young actors who couldn't afford the expense of studying abroad could take advantage of the best actors' training available. He also envisions the long-term potential for attracting a stream of production opportunities to Connecticut and North America. The development of the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute India is the first step in that direction.
ALSO READ: Now, a film on Shiney controversy!
I was surprised by this particular article after a string of really negative reportage from the same author, but India can really captivate people :)
STEPHANIE NOLEN
Delhi, India — From Saturday's Globe and Mail
05:16PM EDT
.Four hundred years ago, Emperor Shah Jahan rode his elephant from his sprawling marble palace of an afternoon, out along Chandni Chowk, the street named for the moonlight that reflected in its tree-lined canal. Both sides of the road were lined with restaurants and stands selling chaat, small savouries. Shah Jahan, in addition to being a conqueror of peoples, a builder of cities and a patron of the arts, really liked a good snack.
Under his royal patronage, this jewel of a street became the snack capital of the world, a title it arguably continues to hold today.
At the spice market, mix essential seasonings – such as turmeric, coriander, cumin, cardamom, aniseed and cloves – used in favourite dishes in Old Delhi’s truly local food destinations.
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However, much else has changed from the emperor's era. The canal is paved over. The trees are a distant memory. The palaces and mansions of courtiers are tumbledown and ransacked. The royal elephant has been replaced by a honking, filth-spewing snarl of cars and trucks and buses and rickshaws and bicycles and bullock carts. Stinking drains drip into the streets, and while the moon still rises over Chandni Chowk, one is hard-pressed to spot it beneath the explosion of pirated electric wires and clouds of smog that blot out the sky.
But don't let any of that put you off. The snacks have endured gloriously well.
If you should find yourself with just one afternoon in Delhi – on your way to the beaches of Goa, a trek in the Himalayas, or meetings in one of the new high-tech centres – you can plunge into India's history by eating your way across the Old City, the first city, at the heart of the modern capital.
Delhi, it is often said, is in fact seven cities, one built on top of the next – from the first built by Hindu kings of the 10th century through to the tidy capital of the British raj. Each epoch left its architectural imprint here – and Salma Husain, the city's foremost food historian, explains that the successive empires left their mark on the food as well.
Once a researcher in India's national archives, Ms. Husain – a self-described foodie who hails from Mumbai – began hunting in manuscripts she translated from Persian for references to food. She quickly became fondest of Moghul-era documents, because the Moghuls brought the same more-is-more sensibility to cuisine that led to other of their creations, such as the Taj Mahal.
Ms. Husain's initial curiosity became a hungry obsession, and she travelled across India and then internationally, hunting for more manuscripts that made mention of food. She learned how the Moghuls brought Central Asian favourites with them as they conquered the area, but welcomed contributions from Persia and Afghanistan – early fusion, as it were.
Then she started eating in Old Delhi – and learned that, happily for today's visitor, it is still possible to sample much of what the emperors loved to eat, as long as you are prepared to make the trek into the heart of their city, or what is left of it.
Ms. Husain suggests you start out in late afternoon; you want to avoid the worst of the heat, and most of the street food vendors don't set up until 4 p.m. Take a taxi or an auto-rickshaw to the centre of Old Delhi, get out near Town Hall and, with the looming bulk of the Lal Qila, the Red Fort, behind you, head down the street in the other direction. To get in the mood for this adventure, begin where Chandni Chowk ends, at the spice market. Here, rows of stalls sell the essentials of Indian cookery: turmeric, coriander, cumin, cardamom, aniseed, cloves, red chili and black pepper. The discriminating Delhi shopper selects some of each and has them ground together into a masala, rather than buying one of the pre-mixed packets – there is, sniffs Ms. Husain, “a lot of adulteration” by unscrupulous spice merchants who slip some flavourless pepper in place of a pricier key ingredient.
From the spice market, walk back west toward the Red Fort, along the congested sidewalks of Chandni Chowk. Begin your snacking on the sidewalk: Near Town Hall sit vendors with chaat – the name comes from the Hindi verb for “to taste” – such as kachori, small pastry shells holding masala potatoes. You can have a small plate for eight rupees, or two cents. There is, of course, the risk of belly troubles that always comes with street food, and this venture is not for the faint of stomach, but if you stick to the items that are solid and scraped into your pressed-leaf plate from a sizzling grill (rather than something such as gol gappa, pastry balls filled with watery coriander sauce), you should be fine.
For something a little more solid, head toward the fort, keeping an eye out for an alleyway that turns off from the right-hand side of the street – the landmark is a shop advertising “pure desi ghee.” Follow the alley through two twists and turns (or just ask anyone) to Pandit Gaya Prasad Shiv Charan. This hole-in-the-wall, established in 1872, was a favourite haunt of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and it remains a beacon for lovers of parantha – stuffed flatbread. That may sound like something of an oxymoron, but parantha are an elaborate treat: Wheat dough is kneaded together with a filling – anything from finely chopped eggplant to peas and cauliflower to shredded chilies and fennel seeds – and rolled flat, then fried. This shop offers a whopping 23 varieties of parantha, and each is served on a metal tray with coriander chutney, mint chutney, mixed vegetable pickle, paneer and potato curry, potato and fenugreek curry, and sitaphal – mashed, sautéed sweet pumpkin. Rip up your parantha (no one seems to manage to wait until it cools from the griddle, so there's some tossing it back and forth from hand to hand for the first few bites) to scoop up a mix of everything. Your bill here, for one tray of goodies and three parantha: about $1.
Leaving the paranthawallah, you can take a quick diversion to the right to visit one of Old Delhi's most magical streets – the gaudy and glittering market of wedding accessories. Tiny shops sell gold organza gift bags, gilt-dusted grooms' turbans, flower garlands, gem-encrusted saris and handy pop-up statues of the elephant god Ganesh. But soon head back to Chandni Chowk and proceed right, further toward the Fort – it's time for some sweets.
Just a minute or two along the right-hand side of the street is a shop called Ganthewala, founded in 1790 and run today by descendants of that first family. The original shop sold sweets, and in a bit of good public relations used to present them to Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar when he processed by on his elephant – or so the story goes. The emperor may or may not have enjoyed the sohan halva, for which the shop remains famous (a mix of wheat sprouts, sugar and ghee – clarified butter – with almonds, pistachios and cashews pressed on top as it hardens). But the elephant loved it and would stop outside, refusing to go further until she got her share. She would toss her head impatiently, and the jingling from her decorative harness gave the shop its name – ganthe is Hindi for bell. Her favourite sweet is sold today at $9 per kilogram.
But you may want to tuck your halva in your pocket and keep walking, for the treats at your next destination must be eaten fresh and hot to be experienced in their true, insulin-coma-inducing glory. Keep walking in the same westward direction, past the Sikh gurdwara (where, as with any Sikh temple, they will take you in and give you a hot meal and place to sleep, regardless of your faith, should you require). About 10 paces later, on the corner, is a tiny stand where the sole sign exhorts you to pay first before you collect your sweets. It's shop #130, the self-described Old Famous Jelabi Weallah. At the back of the closet-sized shop, the jelabi maker sits cross-legged on a stool, above a vast vat of sizzling ghee atop a propane burner. He holds a muslin sack with a hole cut in the corner, full of batter made of flour, sugar and egg. With a swirling motion of his wrist, he spins coils of batter into the oil where they form tight rounds. He flips them, flips them again, and a minute later lifts them golden from the ghee and plunges them into the adjoining vat of sugar syrup. Then just as quickly he flips them out again and – if your timing is right – onto a small foil plate. Mostly Delhiwallahs buy them by the kilogram ($7). They are crisp and airy and shockingly sweet.
“I'm the third generation,” owner Kailash Jain boasts. “The recipe is a secret, and I don't tell anyone.” Ms. Husain, who has made careful study of the issue, believes that his jelabi are the best in the city. Possibly anywhere.
To walk off the jelabi, hang a right at the shop off Chandni Chowk and plunge into the markets. The streets will twist and turn a bit, but keep to your general southerly direction and just ask anyone for directions to the Jama Masjid. This is the largest mosque in Asia; completed in 1656, it holds 10,000 people for Friday prayers. If you're not hungry again just yet, then check your shoes at the door and have a wander around inside.
Leave the mosque through the opposite side – you will find yourself on a wider street beneath a gate labelled “No. 1.” A small street will stretch north in front of you. Go about four metres and look for a tiny alleyway on your left. Can't spot it? Don't panic – just say the word Karim's. In fact, you probably won't get past the first syllable, and everyone on the street will point you through the crevice in the wall that leads to one of Delhi's most famous restaurants.
The founder of Karim's was a chef in the Moghul court who lost his job and fled for his life in 1857, the year of the Indian Rebellion, when the last Mughal king, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was dethroned. Haji Karimuddin moved to a small town in Uttar Pradesh in disguise, and scrambled for a way to make a living, but secretly passed the secrets of imperial cuisine on to his son. By 1911, a new generation thought it was safe to go back to Delhi, where a festival was being held to celebrate the coronation of King George V. He began with a roadside stand selling just two items, but within a couple of years had established a restaurant with the family name outside the gates of the great mosque, with the slogan “Serving royal food to the common man.”
Karim's has a gritty, honest charm. On one side of the Ping-Pong-table-size courtyard is a small, raised room where bakers sit cross-legged rolling out and baking naan flatbread. Across from them is the charcoal grill where a cook uses a sheet of cardboard to flame coals beneath a dozen kinds of grilling kebabs. Customers are ushered to Formica tables in one of four rabbit-warren dining rooms, lit by fluorescent strips. Food comes quickly, served up by a battalion of worse-for-wear waiters: the spicy kebabs that the emperor loved best. Tender lamb ishtu, made with whole spices in thick gravy. And butter chicken – marinated in yogurt, cooked, then coated in butter and served in thick tomato sauce that a succession of diners exclaims is the best they have ever had anywhere. The naan is puffy, hot and buttery. Follow it with a small clay dish of firni (rice pudding) and a cup of chai. Dinner for two costs only about $8.
“Here, food became aromatic and wonderful, because it had the patronage of royalty,” says Ms. Husain, ordering up just one more kind of kebab for visitors, and then holding forth on which of its spices came from which part of the empire.
Four doors from Karim's, back toward the mosque, stands a rival restaurant, Al-Jawahar. It does not have Karim's royal past, nor the venerable reputation – but in Ms. Husain's carefully considered opinion its kebab and its parantha are in fact more authentic and even better. While Karim's sometimes draws in the odd tourist, at Al-Jawahar you will dine surrounded by sprawling Delhi families and tables full of bickering Koranic scholars.
If you can possibly bear the idea of eating any more, head back toward the street that runs along the mosque. In either direction, come nightfall, dozens of tiny dhaba fire up their grills: There is spicy chicken, roasted or fried, a particular favourite of Delhiwallahs; a variety of stuffed and fried breads; sugar cane juice, and dhuwan wali kheer, a smoked rice pudding.
Ms. Husain shakes her head at the jostling crowds and the dirt in the streets, the decrepit buildings and shrilling car horns. But when she samples from the roadside stands, she gives a brisk nod of approval. “It's authentic here,” she says. “It tastes like it used to.”
STEPHANIE NOLEN
Delhi, India — From Saturday's Globe and Mail
05:16PM EDT
.Four hundred years ago, Emperor Shah Jahan rode his elephant from his sprawling marble palace of an afternoon, out along Chandni Chowk, the street named for the moonlight that reflected in its tree-lined canal. Both sides of the road were lined with restaurants and stands selling chaat, small savouries. Shah Jahan, in addition to being a conqueror of peoples, a builder of cities and a patron of the arts, really liked a good snack.
Under his royal patronage, this jewel of a street became the snack capital of the world, a title it arguably continues to hold today.
At the spice market, mix essential seasonings – such as turmeric, coriander, cumin, cardamom, aniseed and cloves – used in favourite dishes in Old Delhi’s truly local food destinations.
.
However, much else has changed from the emperor's era. The canal is paved over. The trees are a distant memory. The palaces and mansions of courtiers are tumbledown and ransacked. The royal elephant has been replaced by a honking, filth-spewing snarl of cars and trucks and buses and rickshaws and bicycles and bullock carts. Stinking drains drip into the streets, and while the moon still rises over Chandni Chowk, one is hard-pressed to spot it beneath the explosion of pirated electric wires and clouds of smog that blot out the sky.
But don't let any of that put you off. The snacks have endured gloriously well.
If you should find yourself with just one afternoon in Delhi – on your way to the beaches of Goa, a trek in the Himalayas, or meetings in one of the new high-tech centres – you can plunge into India's history by eating your way across the Old City, the first city, at the heart of the modern capital.
Delhi, it is often said, is in fact seven cities, one built on top of the next – from the first built by Hindu kings of the 10th century through to the tidy capital of the British raj. Each epoch left its architectural imprint here – and Salma Husain, the city's foremost food historian, explains that the successive empires left their mark on the food as well.
Once a researcher in India's national archives, Ms. Husain – a self-described foodie who hails from Mumbai – began hunting in manuscripts she translated from Persian for references to food. She quickly became fondest of Moghul-era documents, because the Moghuls brought the same more-is-more sensibility to cuisine that led to other of their creations, such as the Taj Mahal.
Ms. Husain's initial curiosity became a hungry obsession, and she travelled across India and then internationally, hunting for more manuscripts that made mention of food. She learned how the Moghuls brought Central Asian favourites with them as they conquered the area, but welcomed contributions from Persia and Afghanistan – early fusion, as it were.
Then she started eating in Old Delhi – and learned that, happily for today's visitor, it is still possible to sample much of what the emperors loved to eat, as long as you are prepared to make the trek into the heart of their city, or what is left of it.
Ms. Husain suggests you start out in late afternoon; you want to avoid the worst of the heat, and most of the street food vendors don't set up until 4 p.m. Take a taxi or an auto-rickshaw to the centre of Old Delhi, get out near Town Hall and, with the looming bulk of the Lal Qila, the Red Fort, behind you, head down the street in the other direction. To get in the mood for this adventure, begin where Chandni Chowk ends, at the spice market. Here, rows of stalls sell the essentials of Indian cookery: turmeric, coriander, cumin, cardamom, aniseed, cloves, red chili and black pepper. The discriminating Delhi shopper selects some of each and has them ground together into a masala, rather than buying one of the pre-mixed packets – there is, sniffs Ms. Husain, “a lot of adulteration” by unscrupulous spice merchants who slip some flavourless pepper in place of a pricier key ingredient.
From the spice market, walk back west toward the Red Fort, along the congested sidewalks of Chandni Chowk. Begin your snacking on the sidewalk: Near Town Hall sit vendors with chaat – the name comes from the Hindi verb for “to taste” – such as kachori, small pastry shells holding masala potatoes. You can have a small plate for eight rupees, or two cents. There is, of course, the risk of belly troubles that always comes with street food, and this venture is not for the faint of stomach, but if you stick to the items that are solid and scraped into your pressed-leaf plate from a sizzling grill (rather than something such as gol gappa, pastry balls filled with watery coriander sauce), you should be fine.
For something a little more solid, head toward the fort, keeping an eye out for an alleyway that turns off from the right-hand side of the street – the landmark is a shop advertising “pure desi ghee.” Follow the alley through two twists and turns (or just ask anyone) to Pandit Gaya Prasad Shiv Charan. This hole-in-the-wall, established in 1872, was a favourite haunt of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and it remains a beacon for lovers of parantha – stuffed flatbread. That may sound like something of an oxymoron, but parantha are an elaborate treat: Wheat dough is kneaded together with a filling – anything from finely chopped eggplant to peas and cauliflower to shredded chilies and fennel seeds – and rolled flat, then fried. This shop offers a whopping 23 varieties of parantha, and each is served on a metal tray with coriander chutney, mint chutney, mixed vegetable pickle, paneer and potato curry, potato and fenugreek curry, and sitaphal – mashed, sautéed sweet pumpkin. Rip up your parantha (no one seems to manage to wait until it cools from the griddle, so there's some tossing it back and forth from hand to hand for the first few bites) to scoop up a mix of everything. Your bill here, for one tray of goodies and three parantha: about $1.
Leaving the paranthawallah, you can take a quick diversion to the right to visit one of Old Delhi's most magical streets – the gaudy and glittering market of wedding accessories. Tiny shops sell gold organza gift bags, gilt-dusted grooms' turbans, flower garlands, gem-encrusted saris and handy pop-up statues of the elephant god Ganesh. But soon head back to Chandni Chowk and proceed right, further toward the Fort – it's time for some sweets.
Just a minute or two along the right-hand side of the street is a shop called Ganthewala, founded in 1790 and run today by descendants of that first family. The original shop sold sweets, and in a bit of good public relations used to present them to Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar when he processed by on his elephant – or so the story goes. The emperor may or may not have enjoyed the sohan halva, for which the shop remains famous (a mix of wheat sprouts, sugar and ghee – clarified butter – with almonds, pistachios and cashews pressed on top as it hardens). But the elephant loved it and would stop outside, refusing to go further until she got her share. She would toss her head impatiently, and the jingling from her decorative harness gave the shop its name – ganthe is Hindi for bell. Her favourite sweet is sold today at $9 per kilogram.
But you may want to tuck your halva in your pocket and keep walking, for the treats at your next destination must be eaten fresh and hot to be experienced in their true, insulin-coma-inducing glory. Keep walking in the same westward direction, past the Sikh gurdwara (where, as with any Sikh temple, they will take you in and give you a hot meal and place to sleep, regardless of your faith, should you require). About 10 paces later, on the corner, is a tiny stand where the sole sign exhorts you to pay first before you collect your sweets. It's shop #130, the self-described Old Famous Jelabi Weallah. At the back of the closet-sized shop, the jelabi maker sits cross-legged on a stool, above a vast vat of sizzling ghee atop a propane burner. He holds a muslin sack with a hole cut in the corner, full of batter made of flour, sugar and egg. With a swirling motion of his wrist, he spins coils of batter into the oil where they form tight rounds. He flips them, flips them again, and a minute later lifts them golden from the ghee and plunges them into the adjoining vat of sugar syrup. Then just as quickly he flips them out again and – if your timing is right – onto a small foil plate. Mostly Delhiwallahs buy them by the kilogram ($7). They are crisp and airy and shockingly sweet.
“I'm the third generation,” owner Kailash Jain boasts. “The recipe is a secret, and I don't tell anyone.” Ms. Husain, who has made careful study of the issue, believes that his jelabi are the best in the city. Possibly anywhere.
To walk off the jelabi, hang a right at the shop off Chandni Chowk and plunge into the markets. The streets will twist and turn a bit, but keep to your general southerly direction and just ask anyone for directions to the Jama Masjid. This is the largest mosque in Asia; completed in 1656, it holds 10,000 people for Friday prayers. If you're not hungry again just yet, then check your shoes at the door and have a wander around inside.
Leave the mosque through the opposite side – you will find yourself on a wider street beneath a gate labelled “No. 1.” A small street will stretch north in front of you. Go about four metres and look for a tiny alleyway on your left. Can't spot it? Don't panic – just say the word Karim's. In fact, you probably won't get past the first syllable, and everyone on the street will point you through the crevice in the wall that leads to one of Delhi's most famous restaurants.
The founder of Karim's was a chef in the Moghul court who lost his job and fled for his life in 1857, the year of the Indian Rebellion, when the last Mughal king, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was dethroned. Haji Karimuddin moved to a small town in Uttar Pradesh in disguise, and scrambled for a way to make a living, but secretly passed the secrets of imperial cuisine on to his son. By 1911, a new generation thought it was safe to go back to Delhi, where a festival was being held to celebrate the coronation of King George V. He began with a roadside stand selling just two items, but within a couple of years had established a restaurant with the family name outside the gates of the great mosque, with the slogan “Serving royal food to the common man.”
Karim's has a gritty, honest charm. On one side of the Ping-Pong-table-size courtyard is a small, raised room where bakers sit cross-legged rolling out and baking naan flatbread. Across from them is the charcoal grill where a cook uses a sheet of cardboard to flame coals beneath a dozen kinds of grilling kebabs. Customers are ushered to Formica tables in one of four rabbit-warren dining rooms, lit by fluorescent strips. Food comes quickly, served up by a battalion of worse-for-wear waiters: the spicy kebabs that the emperor loved best. Tender lamb ishtu, made with whole spices in thick gravy. And butter chicken – marinated in yogurt, cooked, then coated in butter and served in thick tomato sauce that a succession of diners exclaims is the best they have ever had anywhere. The naan is puffy, hot and buttery. Follow it with a small clay dish of firni (rice pudding) and a cup of chai. Dinner for two costs only about $8.
“Here, food became aromatic and wonderful, because it had the patronage of royalty,” says Ms. Husain, ordering up just one more kind of kebab for visitors, and then holding forth on which of its spices came from which part of the empire.
Four doors from Karim's, back toward the mosque, stands a rival restaurant, Al-Jawahar. It does not have Karim's royal past, nor the venerable reputation – but in Ms. Husain's carefully considered opinion its kebab and its parantha are in fact more authentic and even better. While Karim's sometimes draws in the odd tourist, at Al-Jawahar you will dine surrounded by sprawling Delhi families and tables full of bickering Koranic scholars.
If you can possibly bear the idea of eating any more, head back toward the street that runs along the mosque. In either direction, come nightfall, dozens of tiny dhaba fire up their grills: There is spicy chicken, roasted or fried, a particular favourite of Delhiwallahs; a variety of stuffed and fried breads; sugar cane juice, and dhuwan wali kheer, a smoked rice pudding.
Ms. Husain shakes her head at the jostling crowds and the dirt in the streets, the decrepit buildings and shrilling car horns. But when she samples from the roadside stands, she gives a brisk nod of approval. “It's authentic here,” she says. “It tastes like it used to.”
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