Slumdog Millionaire

I watched Slumdog Millionaire last night and it made the list of my favorite movies. The story is about an orphan child from the slums of Mumbai who loses the girl of his dreams and still searches for her when he’s 18 years old. The young man, Jamal Malik, makes it on India’s “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” show and successfully answers the questions while getting flashbacks of his past. When the first part of the show is over for the day, the local police arrest him because they assume he cheated. In order to prove his innocence, Jamal shares the story of his life. He talks about his childhood in the slums, the escape with his older brother and the girl he has always loved: Latika.

… Maybe it was all just meant to be. 

The capital …

Delhi is the third largest city of India with a population of about 14 million.  The city is a central location in Indian history and several great empires have been ruled from Delhi, which has left monuments and ruins throughout the capital.

 

Slums and shantytowns fill the outer edges of Delhi, while middle class suburbs are located mainly in the south. Government buildings, embassies and houses are located in New Delhi.

There are many contradictions and variations in Delhi, which is mainly a city of migrants. Although people migrated from all over India, each regional community has retained its own cultural identity.

Photo: Slums in outer Delhi

The Story of India

"The Story of India" is a six-part documentary for PBS and BBC. I have seen the first and second part (which was shown a few days ago). The DVD costs about 35 US dollars, but the different parts of the movie are also available to view for free on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpsGTR_ETg8). I highly recommend it to everyone interested in the country, since it demonstrated the past and present. 

I have finally booked my flight to India for the summer. I will be leaving July 1st and returning August 4th.

Update and News

[Islamabad] Pakistandi Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said he wanted the international community to help control tensions between Pakistan and India.

Shortly after Gilani’s remarks, US vice president-elect Joe Biden arrived in Islamabad to talk to the leaders of Pakistan.Gilani said that the world shouldn’t let tensions between India and Pakistan intensify.

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[New Delhi] About 55,000 white-collar workers have been striking since three days, which has resulted in a severe fuel shortage in India. The fuel shortage exacerbated in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and other cities

According to the Associated Press, more than half of gas pumps are dry and more than 150 flights were delayed.

 

A nation of rich and poor

There are roughly 300 million middle-class consumers in India. However, about the same number of people live (or try to live) below the poverty line. In fact, 35% of the population lives on less than 1 US dollar a day. India has more poor people than the continent of Africa. A small proportion of the population is astoundingly wealthy, of which many belong to the princely classes. The country has the most billionaires in Asia.

India on the news

It was hard to miss what happened in Mumbai, India, at the end of last year. Several terrorist attacks killed at least 164 and injured more than 250 people. The Trident Hotel, the Taj Hotel and the GT Hospital were three of the places attacked. Train services had to be shut off because gunmen fired aimlessly at the CST station. Other transportation vehicles, such as taxis, were not safe either, as one was blown up on the road.

India has blamed Pakistan for the attacks in November, but Islamabad has denied the accusations and wanted to see proof.

Now, the situation seems calmed down and transportation vehicles are running again.

News in India for today, January 6th, are fortunately not as extreme. India's rupee has weakened after it has reached a one-week high yesterday.

On the lighter side, in New Delhi, Air India dismissed 10 hostesses for being overweight. According to the airline staff, there still is an opportunity for the hostesses to cut weight.

The country itself

The Past

The recorded history of India goes back to the Indus Valley Civilization 5,000 years ago. The Aryans from Central Asia settled along the Gangetic Plains of northern India around 1500 BC. Soon after, a very distinctive culture developed that continues to be part of the living tradition in India today. The Indo-Aryans divided society into four "varnas" (castes), which has over time changed into a system of inherited discrimination and continues to have a hold on the culture. Although discrimination is banned by law, it often gets displayed by society and politics.

People 

There are no racial stereotypes to define the country. India's society has been continually influenced by rebellions, reforms and outside sources. North Indians are often light-skinned (some say "wheat-complexioned"), south Indians are usually darker and east Indians have Mongoloid features. There are also over 70 million Indians that belong to a variety of tribes.

Languages in India are just as diverse as its' people. Next to the 17 major regional languages, there are said to be hundreds of different dialects. The four main languages of the south are supposed to be more different from another than Italian is from Spanish.

Religion

Religion influences almost every aspect of Indian life. Four of the major world religions were found in India: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. The main religion in India is Hinduism, with a population of over 80 percent. For many people, Hinduism isn't just a religion but also a way of life. The religion doesn't have a single book, God. From what I learned through my conversations, I came to understand that Hinduism is very diverse and cannot have a single definition. India has the reputation to be very spiritual and peaceful.

Facts (CIA)

Location: Southern Asia, bordering the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, between Burma and Pakistan

Country name: Republic of India/Bharatiya Ganarajya; India/Bharat

Government type: federal republic

Capital: New Delhi

Independence:  15 August 1947 (from UK)

Time difference: UTC+5.5 (10.5 hours ahead of Washington, DC during Standard Time)

Population: 1,147,995,904 (July 2008 est)

Ethnic groups: Indo-Aryan 72%, Dravidian 25%, Mongoloid and other 3% (2000)

Religions: Hindu 80.5%, Muslim 13.4%, Christian 2.3%, Sikh 1.9%, other 1.8%, unspecified 0.1% (2001 census)

Languages: Hindi 41%, Bengali 8.1%, Telugu 7.2%, Marathi 7%, Tamil 5.9%, Urdu 5%, Gujarati 4.5%, Kannada 3.7%, Malayalam 3.2%, Oriya 3.2%, Punjabi 2.8%, Assamese 1.3%, Maithili 1.2%, other 5.9%

Note: English enjoys associate status but is the most important language for national, political, and commercial communication; Hindi is the national language and primary tongue of 41% of the people; there are 14 other official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit; Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India but is not an official language (2001 census)

Birth rate: 22.22 births/1,000 population (2008 est.)

Death rate: 6.4 deaths/1,000 population (2008 est.)

Total area: 3,287,590 sq km 

Area - comparative: slightly more than one-third the size of the US

Border countries: Bangladesh 4,053 km, Bhutan 605 km, Burma 1,463 km, China 3,380 km, Nepal 1,690 km, Pakistan 2,912 km

Climate: varies from tropical monsoon in south to temperate in north

Natural resources: coal (fourth-largest reserves in the world), iron ore, manganese, mica, bauxite, titanium ore, chromite, natural gas, diamonds, petroleum, limestone, arable land

Natural hazards: droughts; flash floods, as well as widespread and destructive flooding from monsoonal rains; severe thunderstorms; earthquakes

Current environmental issues: deforestation; soil erosion; desertification; air pollution; water pollution; tap water is not potable throughout the country; huge and growing population is overstraining natural resources

Agriculture products: rice, wheat, oilseed, cotton, jute, tea, sugarcane, potatoes; cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goats, poultry; fish

Industries: textiles, chemicals, food processing, steel, transportation equipment, cement, mining, petroleum, machinery, software

Major infectious diseases: degree of risk: high

food or waterborne diseases: bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A and E, and typhoid fever

vectorborne diseases: chikungunya, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis, and malaria

animal contact disease: rabies

              

Source: Eyewitness Travel Guides "India"; CIA- The World Factbook (cia.gov)

A very diverse country ...

.. with a number of different languages (dialects), religions and behaviors. I have become interested in the country during my senior year in high school, while working on a research project about Hinduism. Besides researching, developing stories and watching documentaries, I met a very interesting person who has become a friend over the past year. My teacher had asked us to interview someone from the culture that we have decided to research. I contacted Dr Koti Sreekrishna, whose profile i found on the Cincinnati Temple website, and met up with him at a local Panera Bread the following week.

Now being a first-year college student at Ohio University, I went to a study abroad fair to learn about internships in India. I became interested in one internship in particular, presented by Jacksonville University (iep- International Education Programs). 

As it is now, I will be interning in Mysore, India, this coming july. The internship will last about 4 weeks and be focused on journalism.

Therefore, I would like to learn more about the country by researching and blogging about interesting facts about the culture, as well as providing the latest news and current situation of the country. In the summer, after my trip, I will write about my own experience.