On June 22, 1985,
Air India flight 182 left Montreal en route to Delhi with 329 passengers aboard, most of them Canadian. Four hours later,
an explosion in the baggage compartment destroyed the plane, killing all on board. Premiering tonight on CBC television,
this documentary (trailer) recounts the final hours, days and weeks before the plane disappeared off Irish radar screens. It reveals the story of how Canada’s first major counter-terrorism operation failed to thwart the conspiracy and details the errors that resulted in the world’s most lethal act of aviation terrorism before Sept. 11.
(previously on MetaFilter) [more inside]
posted by netbros
on Jun 22, 2008 -
31 comments
Rare Kishore Kumar Songs is a website dedicated to the music of legendary Bollywood
playback singer and comic actor
Kishore Kumar. There are hundreds of songs, many with other Bollywood legends, such as Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar. There are also songs by Kishore's son Amit. All songs and videos are in Real Player format and in low quality.
posted by Kattullus
on Jun 16, 2008 -
9 comments
Auroville Funded by Governments all over the world, the city of
Auroville is an ongoing experiment 'whose stated purpose is to realize human unity in diversity' through yoga. Unfortunately, it seems the 'rule free' society has attracted some of the least welcome of humanity's outliers, namely
child sex tourists.
[more inside]
posted by asok
on May 27, 2008 -
16 comments
The real secret to producing superheroes (bollywood or otherwise) is to start them young, really
YOUNG.
(Link to single video)
posted by sk381
on Apr 27, 2008 -
48 comments
Eviction Slip :"In the spring of 2003 about 8,000 tribal people and low-caste farmers living in the Kuno area of Madhya Pradesh, India, were summarily uprooted from the rich farmlands they had cultivated for generations and moved to 24 villages on scrub land outside the borders of a sanctuary created for a pride of six imported Asiatic lions."[
via]
posted by dhruva
on Apr 16, 2008 -
4 comments
The Mexican kitchen's Islamic connection :"When Mexico’s leading writer, Nobel Prize laureate Octavio Paz, arrived in New Delhi in 1962 to take up his post as ambassador to India, he quickly ran across a culinary puzzle. Although Mexico and India were on opposite sides of the globe, the brown, spicy, aromatic curries that he was offered in India sparked memories of Mexico’s national dish, mole (pronounced MO-lay). Is mole, he wondered, “an ingenious Mexican version of curry, or is curry a Hindu adaptation of a Mexican sauce ?” How could this seeming coincidence of “gastronomic geography” be explained ?"
posted by dhruva
on Apr 9, 2008 -
53 comments
Limited nuclear war would damage ozone layer. Apart from the human devastation, a small-scale nuclear war between India and Pakistan would destroy much of the ozone layer, leaving the DNA of humans and other organisms at risk of damage from the Sun's rays,
say researchers at the
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.
Michael Mills at the LASP and his colleagues used computer models to study how 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs would affect the atmosphere.
They say that their scenario – in which each country launches 50 devices of 15 kilotons – is realistic, given the countries' nuclear arsenals.
"The figure of 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs compares pretty accurately to the approximately 110 warheads that both states reportedly possess between them," agrees Wyn Bowen, professor of non-proliferation and international security in the War Studies Group at King's College, UK.
Here is an
earlier 2006 report by Michael Mills about the devastating effect even a limited nuclear war would have on the ozone layer.
posted by KokuRyu
on Apr 9, 2008 -
55 comments
The Great Tantra Challenge -
"On 3 March 2008, in a popular TV show, Sanal Edamaruku, the president of Rationalist International, challenged India’s most “powerful” tantrik (black magician) to demonstrate his powers on him. That was the beginning of an unprecedented experiment."
posted by Burhanistan
on Mar 25, 2008 -
64 comments
First, a bit of an
introduction to the game of
Cricket (youtube) for those of us who may not be
familiar with the
sport. Next, a few
clips (1, 2, 3, 4) on how
awesome the
Gentleman's Game can be (and you thought we didn't do anything but roam around in our white pants and cotton shirts...). But, if that wasn't enough for you, then here's a taste of
Twenty20 Cricket (the
fast,
fast paced version of the game), and the new
DLF Indian (pdf) Premier League. (This is in addition to the
One Day Matches, which were instituted to bring in a bit more excitement into the game during the 1970's, prior to which the match only consisted of
Tests. However, some purists still maintain that the game would've been better served had it not been
commercalized to the extent that it has, and still prefer the leisurely pace of the original format to its current incarnation.)
[more inside]
posted by hadjiboy
on Mar 20, 2008 -
56 comments
Queens of
Carnatic singing:
Nithyasree Mahadevan:
1,
2 and
3.
Sudha Ragunathan:
1,
2,
3 and
4. And the legend of the legends,
M.S. Subbulakshmi, in her film appearances from decades past:
1,
2 and
3, and as an elder stateswoman of Carnatic vocal artistry:
1,
2,
3 and
4.
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Mar 15, 2008 -
13 comments
Oh, I say old chap--do you mind not going all "
immigrant" on me, and spitting all over the place? Thank you very
much.
(how Britain proposes to solve the problem of integrating its migrant population)
posted by hadjiboy
on Feb 6, 2008 -
109 comments
He's probably the
first person you'll see if you've ever been to an Indian Train Station. Not as
dramatic as has been immortalized on screen, but certainly no less
forgettable either. He is one of many who waits for his turn to carry your
luggage on his head, or his shoulders, and maybe even around his neck. He has
dreams and ambitions too, and just wants to earn a
decent enough living. But it can get
tedious at times, especially with the odds stacked against
him.
[more inside]
posted by hadjiboy
on Jan 26, 2008 -
14 comments
Wombs for rent: "Anand's surrogate mothers, pioneers in the growing field of outsourced pregnancies, have given birth to roughly 40 babies. More than 50 women in this city are now pregnant with the children of couples from the United States, Taiwan, Britain and beyond. The women earn more than many would make in 15 years."
posted by mr_crash_davis
on Dec 30, 2007 -
134 comments
The Roma Journeys - contemporary photographs of Roma life in Hungary, India, Greece, Romania, France, Russia, and
Finland by Joakim Eskildsen. For more photo essays and info on the Roma, see two superb prior posts by
plep and
taz.
posted by madamjujujive
on Nov 15, 2007 -
26 comments
