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	<title>Asian Window</title>
	<link>http://www.asianwindow.com</link>
	<description>Your ticket to India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the rest of South Asia</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:54:31 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<item>
		<title>Salman Ahmad, lead singer of Pakistani band Junoon, on Sufism, jihad and peace</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Sally Quinn in The Washington Post:
There is something unusually compelling about his combination of total coolness, gentle innocence and self-deprecating humor. At 46, he still has a child&#8217;s heart. At last year&#8217;s Brookings Institution conference on Muslim-American relations, in Doha, Qatar, he sort of owned the place: With every appearance, he was immediately surrounded by [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/entertainment/salman-ahmad-lead-singer-of-pakistani-band-junoon-on-sufism-jihad-and-peace/</link>
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		<title>Like his brother, Vindi Banga quits after missing top job</title>
		<description><![CDATA[From The Times:
They are both Indian-born, both called Banga, they both climbed the ladder of western corporate capitalism and they have both been denied (so far) a foothold on the highest rung. Vindi Banga, a top executive director of Unilever, yesterday followed his younger brother in quitting a multinational after failing to land the chief [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/business/like-his-brother-director-vindi-banga-quits-after-missing-top-job/</link>
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		<title>A rationalist challenges a Tantric guru</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
and here
Sceptic challenges guru to kill him live on TV. Jeremy Page in The Times:
When a famous tantric guru boasted on television that he could kill another man using only his mystical powers, most viewers either gasped in awe or merely nodded unquestioningly. Sanal Edamaruku’s response was different. “Go on then — kill me,” he [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/faith/a-rationalist-challenges-a-tantric-guru/</link>
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		<title>A fight sequence from a South Indian movie</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
via Our Delhi Struggle
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/india/a-fight-sequence-from-a-south-indian-movie/</link>
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		<title>The goddess of Taliban country</title>
		<description><![CDATA[H.M. Naqvi at GlobalPost:
The southern swath of Baluchistan is anything but godforsaken. It is, I learn, hallowed land: When Kali, the Dark Mother of the Hindu religion, the Goddess of Death, shattered millennia ago, her torso landed in the mountains.
Baluchistan, then, is not simply hallowed; it is one of the holiest tracts in Hindu mythology. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/afghanistan/the-goddess-of-taliban-country/</link>
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		<title>Mahabharata: A conversation</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Ashis Nandy and Gurcharan Das discuss the Mahabharata (in three parts: part 1, part 2, part 3; total ~25 mins). Via Shunya&#8217;s Notes
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/books/mahabharata-a-conversation/</link>
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		<title>White skin, black mask</title>
		<description><![CDATA[March 13 marked the death anniversary of Lee Falk, creator of The Phantom aka Kit Walker, the Ghost Who Walks, the man who cannot die. In Outlook, Kai Friese reprises the legend:

Some thirty-five years ago[1], the Indian publishing firm of Bennett and Coleman introduced the Phantom comic books that would fill the misspent afternoons of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/books/white-skin-black-mask/</link>
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		<title>Let Pakistan make its own progress</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Nadia Naviwala, a student at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a former national security aide in the U.S. Senate, in the International Herald Tribune:
More women are finishing college and getting jobs, and they have traded traditional baggy shalwars for trousers and capris. The city has been aggressively transformed by a mayor so impressively [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/pakistan/let-pakistan-make-its-own-progress/</link>
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		<title>India&#8217;s disjointed prosperity</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Tim Sebastian, television journalist and chairman of the Doha Debates, in the International Herald Tribune:
New Delhi: When Madan Lal began work here among the madness, color and chaos of the Janpath pavement, Richard Nixon was in the White House and there wasn’t a main street shop anywhere in the world selling computers.
At the age of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/india/indias-disjointed-prosperity/</link>
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		<title>Why India loves Facebook</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Tunku Varadarajan at The Daily Blog:
The social-networking giant has opened its first-ever office in Asia—in the country where being all up in one another&#8217;s business is practically a birthright.
Facebook and Indians have a magnetic connection. Everyone in my family in India except my father—who, at 77, is entitled to his suspicions of the medium—is a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/culture/why-india-loves-facebook/</link>
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		<title>Yoga guru to launch political party in India</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Yoga guru Baba Ramdev has announced his entry into politics. He said candidates from his party, named as Bharat Swabhiman, would contest elections for all 543 seats in the next Parliamentary elections.
From The Indian Express: &#8220;While vowing to stay away from elections himself, the guru said he would make sure that his proposed political party [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/health/yoga-guru-to-launch-political-party-in-india/</link>
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		<title>The last lions of India</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
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		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/india/the-last-lions-of-india/</link>
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		<title>VS Ramachandran: The neurons that shaped civilization</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
From TED Talks: Neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran outlines the fascinating functions of mirror neurons. Only recently discovered, these neurons allow us to learn complex social behaviors, some of which formed the foundations of human civilization as we know it.
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/science/vs-ramachandran-the-neurons-that-shaped-civilization-2/</link>
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		<title>A passage to world power</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Randeep Ramesh in The Guardian:
In my six years there, it was hard not to be infected by the hubris of India – a nation that feels part of history, an essential actor on the global stage. Yet even as I admired a country that had thrived as a democracy despite unbounded poverty, mass illiteracy and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/india/a-passage-to-world-power/</link>
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		<title>Fiction for a change</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The son of a Muslim father and a Sikh mother, Aatish Taseer is well-placed to explore Indian identity. David Mattin in The National:
In fact, Taseer’s novel is the more fully realised of the two. We follow our narrator, also called Aatish, and also returning to Delhi after years abroad, as he befriends a brash, ambitious [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/books/fiction-for-a-change/</link>
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		<title>The strange case of the twins of Kodinji</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In a village in Kerala, something extraordinary is happening. The phenomenally high rate of twins born there far exceeds the national average, presenting medical researchers with a mystery that is as yet unsolved. Vinita Bharadwaj in The National:
The latest survey, from December 2009, counted 265 pairs of twins in the village, which is home to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/health/the-strange-case-of-the-twins-of-kodinji/</link>
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		<title>Mian Muhammad Mansha: First Pakistani on the Forbes billionaires list</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Mian Mohammad Mansha is the first Pakistani on the Forbes list of billionaires. He is at #937 (out of a total of 1,011 billionaires listed), the same rank as India&#8217;s Vijay Mallya.
Ten of the 25 richest Asians are from India. Mukesh Ambani of India’s Reliance Group, with an estimate net worth of US$29 billion, is [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/business/mian-muhammad-mansha-first-pakistani-on-the-forbes-billionaires-list/</link>
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		<title>Forgotten victims Of great games</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Also see here and here

They would have called themselves Katis, but the Muslims surrounding them had for centuries called them Kafirs -- infidels -- and their land, thus came to be known as Kafiristan. C.M. Naim in Outlook:

One day in 1897, near the village Brumotul not far from Chitral, then a semi-independent Muslim state high [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/afghanistan/forgotten-victims-of-great-games/</link>
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		<title>The Mahajans</title>
		<description><![CDATA[One of India’s most powerful politicians is killed by his brother. Son goes on drug orgy, friend dies. Killer brother dies in jail. Now son gets married on reality TV. Here is a family that is stranger than fiction. Haima Deshpande in Open:
On a day when Rahul Mahajan upped the TRP ratings for a TV [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/india/the-mahajans/</link>
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		<title>Salman Rushdie and friends in conversation: The only subject is love</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Novelist Sir Salman Rushdie, Emory professor Dr. Deepika Bahri, filmmaker Deepa Mehta and writer Christopher Hitchens discuss love, sex, writing, stories and friendship. The conversation was inspired by Rushdie&#8217;s assertion in his 1999 essay on the anniversary of the fatwa that &#8220;love feels more and more like the only subject.&#8221; Emory University.
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/books/salman-rushdie-and-friends-in-conversation-the-only-subject-is-love/</link>
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		<title>Deepa Mehta in conversation: The only subject is love</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Indian filmmaker Deepa Mehta and Dr. Matthew Bernstein, Emory Professor of Film Studies, discuss Mehta&#8217;s friendship with Salman Rushdie, her beautiful Elements film trilogy, issues of censorship in India and Mehta&#8217;s forthcoming adaptation of Rushdie&#8217;s novel &#8220;Midnight&#8217;s Children.&#8221; Emory University
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/books/deepa-mehta-in-conversation-the-only-subject-is-love/</link>
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		<title>The long and short of it</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Two decades of research into saris throw up some little-known facts about the versatile garment. Veena Venugopal in Mint-Lounge:

The sari, caught in a vicious knot of dropping demand and the slow death of weaving traditions, is Rta Kapur Chishti’s life mission.
Chishti, 61, started researching the handloom sari over 20 years ago. She travelled to all [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/books/the-long-and-short-of-it/</link>
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		<title>The catholicity of Sonia</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Aakar Patel in Mint-Lounge:
Born in December 1946, Sonia got her certificate at 18. She’s had no education since. Her important qualification is for English, but those who watch her on television are struck by how poor her English is. She cannot express complex ideas in it.
The Nehru-Gandhis were all dull students. Rajiv failed in Cambridge, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/india/the-catholicity-of-sonia/</link>
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		<title>Great Himalayan Trail: trekking&#8217;s holy grail</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
From The Guardian:
Have you got six months off? Do you fancy a long walk? If so, World Expeditions may have just the holiday for you. They have become the only trekking outfit to offer a guided trip along the first completed section of the Great Himalayan Trail (GHT).
Stretching for 1,700km along the length of Nepal, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/sport/great-himalayan-trail-trekkings-holy-grail/</link>
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		<title>Not just cricket – Bollywood treatment gives India its very own &#8216;Superbowling&#8217;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Click here to watch the IPL matches live on YouTube
The IPL, six weeks of razzmatazz and TV with a little sport, is predicted to double last year&#8217;s takings. Jason Burke in The Guardian:
It is already big and brash. It is about to get substantially bigger and brasher. At 8pm on Friday, hundreds of millions of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/india/not-just-cricket-%e2%80%93-bollywood-treatment-gives-india-its-very-own-superbowling/</link>
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		<title>Opening up to the world and its evils</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Akash Kapur in the New York Times:
Pondicherry: A dark wind blew into this sleepy, coastal town recently — it carried the threat of global terrorism, of bombs and gunmen and unprovoked attacks on soft targets.
On Feb. 13, people thought to be Islamic terrorists bombed a restaurant in the northern city of Pune, killing 17 people. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/economy/opening-up-to-the-world-and-its-evils/</link>
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		<title>Floating golf course to be built in Maldives</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Andrew Buncombe in The Independent:
The island nation of the Maldives, confronted by rising oceans and a landscape that is just a few feet above sea level, is poised to build a floating golf course and convention centre in what could be the first of a series of futuristic off-shore developments designed to confront the threat [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/environment/floating-golf-course-to-be-built-in-maldives/</link>
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		<title>Not your father&#8217;s Taliban</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Andy Borowitz at the New Yorker:
TALIBAN OVERHAUL IMAGE TO WIN ALLIES
The Taliban have embarked on a sophisticated information war, using modern media tools as well as some old-fashioned ones, to soften their image. . . . The dictates include bans on suicide bombings against civilians, burning down schools, or cutting off ears, lips and tongues. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/terrorism/not-your-fathers-taliban/</link>
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		<title>Kavi</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
‘Kavi’, American director Gregg Helvey’s short film (19 minutes) in Hindi about an Indian slave boy, has lost out the Oscar in the Best Short Film (Live Action) category to the Danish entry ‘The New Tenants.’
Read more at kavithemovie.com and here and here
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/movies/kavi/</link>
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		<title>Not just a woman</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Mint-Lounge says The Disobedient Girl by Ru Freeman (Penguin/Viking) is one of the most compelling books you&#8217;ll read this year. Ru Freeman was born into a family of writers in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Love in its many forms and interpretations—benevolent and malignant, sororal and maternal, instinctive and presumed—is the motif of Sri Lankan-origin writer Ru Freeman’s [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.asianwindow.com/books/not-just-a-woman/</link>
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