18 Feb
Thousands of charmers still perform across India despite the law
Some 1,000 snake charmers have staged a rally in eastern India, protesting against a law that has made their profession illegal.
Playing their flutes, they marched in the city of Calcutta, demanding the right to perform with live snakes.
Shows featuring cobras and other snakes have been banned in India since 1991.
13 Feb
To counter a disturbing trend of right-wing Hindu thugs beating up women going to pubs or wearing clothes they don’t approve of, Bangalore-based Alternative Law Forum (ALF) has launched a satirical campaign to support India’s “Pubgoing Loose and Forward Women”.The Pink Chaddi Campaign asks women to send pink chaddis (underwear) to the ALF to forward to one of the bullying organisations, the Shri Ram Sene, which has threatened to attack couples found celebrating Valentine’s Day.
Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward Women (Thanks, Rishab!)
13 Feb
Does your Pepsi lack pep? Is your Coke not the real thing? India’s Hindu nationalist movement apparently has the answer: a new soft drink made from cow urine.
The bovine brew is in the final stages of development by the Cow Protection Department of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), India’s biggest and oldest Hindu nationalist group, according to the man who makes it.
Om Prakash, the head of the department, said the drink – called “gau jal”, or “cow water” – in Sanskrit was undergoing laboratory tests and would be launched “very soon, maybe by the end of this year”.
“Don’t worry, it won’t smell like urine and will be tasty too,” he told The Times from his headquarters in Hardwar, one of four holy cities on the River Ganges. “Its USP will be that it’s going to be very healthy. It won’t be like carbonated drinks and would be devoid of any toxins.”
The drink is the latest attempt by the RSS – which was founded in 1925 and now claims eight million members – to cleanse India of foreign influence and promote its ideology of Hindutva, or Hindu-ness.
Hindus revere cows and slaughtering them is illegal in most of India. Cow dung is traditionally used as a fuel and disinfectant in villages, while cow urine and dung are often consumed in rituals to “purify” those on the bottom rungs of the Hindu caste system.
In 2001, the RSS and its offshoots – which include the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party – began promoting cow urine as a cure for ailments ranging from liver disease to obesity and even cancer.
The movement has often been accused of using more violent methods, such as killing 67 Christians in the eastern state of Orissa last year, and assaulting women in a pub in Mangalore last month. It also has a history of targeting foreign business in India, as in 1994, when it organised a nationwide boycott of multinational consumer goods, including Pepsi and Coca Cola.
The cola brands are popular in India, now one of their biggest markets, but have struggled in recent years to shake off allegations, which they deny, that they contain dangerous levels of pesticide.
Mr Prakash said his drink, by contrast, was made mainly of cow urine, mixed with a few medicinal and ayurvedic herbs. He said it would be “cheap”, but declined to give further details about its price or ingredients until it was officially launched.
He insisted, however, that it would be able to compete with the American cola brands, even with their enormous advertising budgets. “We’re going to give them good competition as our drink is good for mankind,” he said. “We may also think of exporting it.”
Comments by some readers of the original article ……………… (Please read them all under original article, they are worse than the soft drink idea itself……)…link at bottom
its disgusting.
rubina, birmingham, uk
hummmm, why didn’t I think of that…..it is plenty free around Canada….just not sure how you market pee…
Laura, Okanagan Falls, Canada
Please.
John , Detroit, USA
shahbaz, London, UK
It is too early for everything to start, this looks like a idea thought by RSS but how much will it work and they carry forward the work needs to be seen. Competing against Coke or Pepsi is no joke. Even if everythong goes right, launch is successful market has been captured it will be way to go.
Sudeepto Saha, Bhopal, INDIA
Maybe they should call it Bovrine
Alan, Barnsley, UK
Nothing new if you’ve been living in India’s cow belt (as I have), where fresh cow urine can be had from stalls at crafts fairs, along with “medicinal” pellets of cow dung.
So they’ve decided to globalise operations now. Raise your glasses, folks!
Salim Yusufji, Jabalpur, India
There should be a lot of very healthy children in rural parts of Africa. They go to the cattle ponds and collect this stuff for drinking water every day. Perhaps they can bottle and export it!
Bob, London, Canada
It will wash down a curry better than six pints of lager!
Peter Appleby, BOBLINGEN, GERMANY
This is crazy…ppl are actually trying to defend a urine made drink. why would one want to drink urine of cows, even if its healthy. If cokecola and pepsi r so bad…dont drink have water or juices but drinking urine is not sane (its madness)!! Plz realize what u r drinking!!!
Najeeb Jamali, Karachi, Pakistan
And after I have drunk this product, no doubt my urine will be a wonderful healthy product too. I have been looking for a way to make a small fortune. Please send your money to me, the first bottle to the highest bidder! A truely recycled product!
Original Article With Photos and More Comments if you dare to look
4 Feb
– Well, it’s official — sort of. India’s ultra low-cost laptop was formally announced Tuesday, although product details were sketchy at best. According to an InformationWeek report, the “Sakshat” laptop will have 2GB of memory, Wi-Fi, wired Ethernet, and will use a miserly 2 watts of power. The device will initially cost $20, but is slated to drop to $10 within six months as production ramps up.
The rest of the laptop remains a mystery, however. Key tech specs such screen size, processor, storage, and battery life weren’t released, and we’ve yet to see an official photo of the vaporous hardware. It’s a fair guess to say that the Sakshat, if it’s for real, will use a barebones version of Linux open source software as its operating system.
But is it really possible to build a $10 laptop? India’s education ministry has been a major player in the development of the Sakshat, InformationWeek reports, and it wouldn’t be a shocker if the laptop’s hardware costs are heavily subsidized by the Indian government. By comparison, the One Laptop Per Child Foundation (OLPC), which has struggled to produce a low-cost notebook for children in developing countries, has managed to squeeze its hardware costs down to $188 per laptop, give or take a few bucks. Unless the Sakshat is made of cardboard and kite string, it’s hard to imagine it being anything other than vaporware. And until Indian officials roll out an actual model for the world to see — and hopefully test — skepticism will remain high.
Then again, OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte has discussed the possibility of building a $75 laptop, so perhaps the Sakshat isn’t so far-fetched after all. But 10 bucks? Unlikely.
The Manilla Folder 
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