Content about India
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s president has branded his U.S. allies as corrupt, wasteful and contemptuous of Afghan lives. Once he even threatened to join the Taliban. Nonetheless, Hamid Karzai signed a deal that could keep thousands of U.S. troops in his country for years.
Despite his rhetoric, Karzai needs international support if Afghanistan is to survive economically and avoid descending into civil war like it did when the Soviets left two decades ago.
LONDON — The number of measles deaths worldwide has apparently dropped by about three-quarters over a decade, according to a new study by the World Health Organization and others.
Most of the deaths were in India and Africa, where not enough children are being immunized. Health officials estimate about 9.6 million children were saved from dying of measles from 2000 to 2010 after big vaccination campaigns were rolled out more than a decade ago. Researchers guessed the number of deaths fell during that time period from about 535,300 to 139,300, or about 74 percent.
Cancer is a matter of life and death, but raising money for cancer research can be fun and games.
Kappa Phi Gamma, a South-Asian sorority, held a carnival-themed kickoff rally for C.A.R.E. Week, the organization’s weeklong fundraising effort. C.A.R.E Week, short for Cancer Awareness: A Real Effort, continues through Friday with restaurant fundraisers, a candlelight vigil and a male pageant.
Through music and public speaking, students petitioned Wednesday night for the removal of a 2012 Olympic sponsor responsible for a 1984 tragedy.
UT’s first Jamnesty featured two speakers as well as two musical acts. The event, held on Gregory Plaza from 6 to 10 p.m. on Wednesday, was hosted by UT’s chapter of Amnesty International, which is a global organization dedicated to enforcing a standard for human rights worldwide.
SEOUL, South Korea — Material that can be used to make nuclear bombs is stored in scores of buildings spread across dozens of countries. If even a fraction of it fell into the hands of terrorists, it could be disastrous.
Nearly 60 world leaders who gathered Tuesday in Seoul for a nuclear security summit agreed to work on securing and accounting for all nuclear material by 2014. But widespread fear lingers about the safety of nuclear material in countries including former Soviet states, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran and India.
NEW DELHI — A Tibetan exile lit himself on fire and ran shouting through a demonstration in the Indian capital Monday, just before a visit by China’s president and following dozens of self-immolations done in China in protest of its rule over Tibet.
Indian police swept through the New Delhi protest a few hours later, detaining scores of Tibetans.
The man apparently had doused himself with something highly flammable and was engulfed in flames when he ran past the podium where speakers were criticizing Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit.
UT students gather on the West Mall to celebrate Holi, the annual Indian festival of colors.
Today’s war on terrorism originated from an idea pushed by a president that terrified his country, said award-winning journalist Seymour Hersh.
Hersh, contributor for The New Yorker and Pulitzer Prize winner, visited campus Thursday evening to give a progress report on the state of the global war on terrorism as this year’s speaker for the 2012 Julius and Suzan Glickman Lecture.
TEHRAN, Iran — In defiant swipes at its foes, Iran said Wednesday it is dramatically closer to mastering the production of nuclear fuel even as the U.S. weighs tougher pressures and Tehran’s suspected shadow war with Israel brings probes far beyond the Middle East.
Iran further struck back at the West by indicating it was on the verge of imposing a midwinter fuel squeeze to Europe in retaliation for a looming boycott of Iranian oil, but denied reports earlier in the day that six nations had already been cut off.
NEW DELHI — Israel blamed Iran on Monday for bomb attacks on its diplomats’ cars in India and Georgia, heightening concerns that the Jewish state was moving closer to striking its archenemy.
Iran denied responsibility for the attacks that appeared to mirror the recent killings of Iranian nuclear scientists that Tehran blamed on Israel.
The blast in New Delhi set a car ablaze and injured four people, including an Israeli Embassy driver and a diplomat’s wife; the device in Georgia was discovered and safely defused.
In front of a wall of mirrors, about 15 people shake their hips and heads to the latest Bollywood songs, showing off the shoulder shake made popular by Bollywood/Hollywood fusion movies like “Bend It Like Beckham” and “Bride and Prejudice.” The dancers’ smiles sneak in after catching their breath in between dance moves that leave no limb behind.
Volunteers from the Association for India’s Development laid down under white shrouds next to the West Mall on Friday to urge students to sign a petition to remove the Dow Chemical Company from sponsoring the 2012 London Olympics.
It doesn’t take much deduction to figure out that much of Jeffrey Eugenides’ new novel “The Marriage Plot” is rooted in Eugenides’ own 20-something experience.
The novel has brought a flurry of inquiry about how much of its events and characters are rooted in the informal group of writers, including Wallace and Franzen, that Eugenides became a part of in the early 1990s.
Chapal Bhaduri paints white dots along his forehead, cinches his waistcoat, ties peacock feathers to his wrist and slips on a pair of high heels.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA scientists are doing their best to tell us where a plummeting 6-ton satellite will fall later this week. It’s just that if they’re off a little bit, it could mean the difference between hitting Florida or landing on New York. Or say, Iran or India.
Pinpointing where and when hurtling space debris will strike is an imprecise science. For now, scientists predict the earliest it will hit is Thursday U.S. time, the latest Saturday.
The strike zone covers most of Earth.
China may not become the political and economic superpower that many expected in the next two decades, due to developing relations between India and the United States, said Daniel Twining, Senior Fellow for Asia at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
I am an international graduate student from India. I stay off campus. I do not own any UT merchandise. I do not know the college anthem and couldn’t care less about the Longhorn symbol. My life revolves around my apartment and my department.
I do not intend to rant. I simply want to make readers aware that some people, such as international graduate students, don’t get the UT experience that most take for granted.
The United States is experiencing its worst recession since World War II, and education will play a key part in the recovery, McCombs School of Business senior lecturer John Doggett said Thursday.
During his lecture for the Texas Enterprise Speaker Series, Doggett said the U.S. must admit it has a debt problem and dedicate itself to fixing it.
Doggett said the country needs to be aware of the metaphorical “ugly baby” that is our national debt and admit that the U.S. cannot sustain itself by running on creditors’ good graces.
The National Science Foundation awarded $1.4 million in grants to three universities, including UT, to study the impacts of technology on occupations.
UT has appointed a principal investigator, Diane Bailey, an associate professor in the School of Information, to travel to different countries and gather data on how technology has enabled people living in remote areas of the world to acquire skills needed for professional occupations such as banking, engineering, entrepreneurship and graphic design.
MUMBAI, India — Three coordinated bombings tore through the heart of India’s busy financial capital during rush hour Wednesday, killing 21 people and wounding 141 in the worst terror attack in the country since the 2008 Mumbai siege.
Bloody bodies were strewn in the dirt of Mumbai’s crowded neighborhoods and markets. Doors were ripped off storefronts, motorcycles were charred and a bus stop was shredded. After the blasts in three separate neighborhoods, police set up checkpoints and were put on high alert.
In India, a farmer takes his own life every 33 minutes because of the rise of corporations and the systemic problems in the country’s agriculture, said journalist P. Sainath during a talk Tuesday.
Sainath, a rural journalist for an English-language newspaper called The Hindu in India, told a group of around 50 people about the failure of mass media to report and analyze economic inequality in India during a lecture at the Flawn Academic Center.
A design graduate student hopes people will use a more natural alternative to environmentally harmful plates and containers.
Amrita Adhikary designed a system to make compostable dinnerware out of fallen areca nut palm leaves, which are native to India. She said she wanted to create a solution to the waste from the culture of high consumption.
“We do need a disposable option because of our lifestyle; we are always on the go,” Adhikary said. “We need to take food when we travel or pick up food at fast food restaurants.”
Abhijit Joshi, an alumnus of the Michener Center for Writers, has been distinguished as the Graduate School’s Outstanding Graduate Alumnus of the year.
Graduate studies spokeswoman Kathleen Mabley said the annual outstanding graduate award is given to students who get their master’s or doctoral degrees at UT and display exceptional achievements in their careers.
Anju Dhital fled to Austin almost one year ago after a bloody civil war in Nepal tore apart her country and her family.
A former teacher, she was forced to leave her country when members of the communist Maoist party threatened her for selling newspapers that criticized the uprising. They told her to leave or be killed, she said.
“I didn’t have anywhere to go,” Dhital said.
The revolutionaries hit her husband on the head so badly that he is now brain damaged, she said. Her mother fled to India, where she is now caring for Dhital’s 8- and 14-year-old sons.
Almost three decades after one of the world’s worst industrial disasters, UT students gathered Friday to remember the victims and add more pressure for Dow Chemical to take responsibility for the incident.
