1 India confronts attitude to women (The Guardian) Bollywood actor and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai has attended the Cannes film festival 10 times, but her appearance on the red carpet next week is set to be her most talked about. The cause of a controversy raging in India lies not with her latest film – Rai is there to promote a cosmetic brand rather than a new movie – but instead, bewilderingly, with recent photographs which suggest that, six months after giving birth to a baby girl, Rai has yet to regain her pre-pregnancy figure. Many in India are asking whether the November 1, 1973-born woman routinely referred to as the most beautiful in the world, has an obligation to her fans to lose weight.
The criticism of Rai's post-pregnancy figure has been fierce. "Aishwarya is like a goddess," said Showbusiness columnist Shobhaa Dé. "She is held up as the ideal of beauty and so there is an expectation on her to look perfect at all times." The image that sparked the storm in India showed Rai in the back of a car on her way to a party being thrown for the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, where Ban is believed to have asked her to be the global face of the UN's girl child campaign. The Indian media, though, was less interested in the job offer than the fact that Rai looked like a 38-year-old woman who had recently given birth.
One website posted a video, complete with elephant sound effects, entitled "Aishwarya Rai's shocking weight gain", which has been seen more than 500,000 times. The criticism has started a debate about Bollywood's attitude towards women and motherhood. "But people are confused because they don't know whether to glorify Aishwarya. India has long grappled with the question of what beauty means, but in an age of global media Indians are familiar with western celebrities and how quickly some of them appear to regain their pre-baby bodies. Rai's appearance at Cannes could be an important cultural moment. "It could be a turning point in making us stop and review the absurd expectations we have of our female celebrities," said Dé.
2 Men may be ready to wear prints (The Guardian) Gather round, men: your plain shirts and discreet dark jeans are looking a trifle tired. This season, it's all about print. From Hawaiian shirts to floral Dr Martens, patterns are on everything. Not since the 1980s – when it was all about the Manchester indie-rave scene and Versace’s baroque designs – has print in menswear made fashion headlines.
Cut to now and Prada is selling floral trousers that riff on golfing slacks and printed shirts that whiff of 1950s Americana. Topman's retro paisley-print catwalk pyjamas sold out in February. Clumpy Dr Marten boots have been given a floral print remix for Liberty. Burberry is backing tribal print trousers, GQ has included these in its patterned trousers spread this month while Zara is selling Aztec-inspired backpacks. To say that print is enjoying a comeback is an understatement.
3 Italian economy plunges more (Johannesburg Times) Fresh data shows that a recession in Italy, the eurozone's third-largest economy, deepened in the first quarter and Moody's agency slashed the ratings of its top banks. The economy contracted by 0.8% in the first three months, according to an initial estimate from the Istat agency, after a shrinkage of 0.2% in the third quarter and of 0.7% in the fourth quarter. "The key factor is austerity, which is weighing heavily on consumption and investment," said Chiara Corsa, an economist at UniCredit. Corsa said she expected a further contraction in the second quarter followed by a stabilisation in the third.
4 Goodbye to China, country of contradictions (Melissa Chan, former English correspondent of Al Jazeera in Beijing whose Press credentials were recently revoked by the Chinese government) I'd like to start with a good memory of China. It was late morning in the autumn of 2009, and our team was on our way to an interview out in the countryside north of Chongqing in central China. We'd driven through many villages before, but something about the bustle of this village compelled us to slow down our car and hop out for a look. Everyone seemed so happy. There was a festive atmosphere, as if it was Chinese New Year. This was quintessential China - the daily proceedings of hundreds of millions, going about their business and working to create better lives for themselves. The place was at once traditional and modern.
A sad memory of China came later on the same day. Our team met and interviewed Yi Dade, a fisherman who had managed to do very well for himself. That was not the case for many other farmers, many of whom have been increasingly left behind by China's economic development. Unfortunately, his successful fisheries business had caught the attention of local gangs, who bribed officials, and proceeded to seize his property on the banks of the river. The showdown took place during a birthday party for one of Mr. Yi's sons. Two boatloads of men armed with machetes, poles, and axes drew up, jumped ashore, and attacked family and friends. In 15 minutes, Mr. Yi's fortunes had changed. His second son was dead, and his fourth had severe blows to the head that meant permanent brain damage. This was lawlessness in China, a land where some officials look the other way.
Yi Dade told me his tale while his wife sat next to him, weeping quietly and whispering repeatedly to herself, "My son was just a child." Incredibly, someone had thought to take pictures as evidence in the aftermath of the attack, and I examined the photographs of the stunned victims, the bright red of fresh blood pouring from their heads, confused expressions on their faces. Their bewildered looks seemed to ask, "How could this possibly happen to us? How could our government allow something like this to happen?"
China is a country of contradictions. One minute you marvel at the speedy transformation, the new wealth, the great hope of many. Another minute, and in this case powerfully felt because it can all happen in one day, you're disgusted by the corruption, the systemic problems of a one-party authoritarian state, and the trampling of individual human rights and dignity.
5 A baniya in my backyard (Tahir Mehdi in Dawn) Baniyas (banker, money-lender community) do not evoke anything positive in me. They represent the unforgiving meanness of self-interest. They count people in amounts and see societies as markets and are always intent on cashing in on every opportunity. I did not borrow this image of a baniya from texts. The image, in fact, was painted over centuries with each stroke of it representing my own painful experiences. It only got worse when the Raj decided to side with him and made agricultural land an exchangeable, or foreclosable, commodity. The ruthless market economy had already jolted my average villager whose economy was rooted deep into the subsistence slumber. As he frantically struggled to cope, the baniya pulled the land from under him. The simmering hate boiled over into rage and fury.
My later day text books some how managed to transform this deep-etched image of a baniya into a relief of a Hindu which then went on to be hung as a picture title ‘an Indian’. Have you ever watched the Independence Day play in your neighborhood school? A boy dressed in a dhotee and a shiny bald head but with a small head of hair dangling funnily on one side of the skull represents India. He is a traitor who ditches poor Muslims to side with an oppressive white man. It is a theatrical rendering of the narrative: all Indians are Hindus and all Hindus are baniyas. Persons like me had to make efforts to de-educate themselves and unlearn the most important of their political lessons. I wrote in my homework copy a million times – all Indians are not Hindus and all Hindus are not baniyas.
6 10-year jail for Kuwait tweeter (Dawn) Kuwait’s appeals court has upheld a 10-year jail term for a tweeter found guilty of insulting the Gulf state’s ruler and calling for the overthrow of the regime. Orance al-Rasheedi was tried on charges of spreading false news about Kuwait to undermine the oil-rich country’s image and calling for regime’s overthrow in video footage on YouTube, the court ruled. It said he had also used the social networking site Twitter and YouTube to publicly insult the emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, who is protected against criticism by Kuwait’s constitution.
The lower court sentenced Rasheedi to 10 years in jail in October. He can still challenge the verdict before the supreme court whose rulings are final. Kuwait has in the past several months clamped down on Internet activists who allegedly break the country’s laws, especially by committing religious offences. The courts have already jailed several such activists and others are awaiting trial.
7 Politics pays in India, sometimes (The Wall Street Journal) The recent electoral misfortune of Kumari Mayawati in India’s Uttar Pradesh state had an interesting side effect: It gave us a glimpse into her personal fortune. While filing her nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament, Ms. Mayawati declared her assets to be worth $22.25 million. This represents a doubling of her wealth from 2007 making the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh very, very wealthy, even by rich country standards.
The rapid growth in her wealth could be down to her investing acumen (in which case even Warren Buffett might want to get advice from her) but Indian criminal investigators have different ideas. In a long-running inquiry into Ms. Mayawati’s alleged “disproportionate assets,” the Central Bureau of Investigation claims that her accumulation of assets is inconsistent with the legitimate means through which she could have earned income. Ms. Mayawati applied to the Supreme Court for the inquiry to be quashed. The court has reserved judgement on her request. She contends that her wealth is all from legitimate sources and the case against her a “political vendetta.”
High profile cases such as these understandably fuel the Indian public’s skepticism about the how their elected officials make money. In another development, the 2G spectrum scam is again in the news with the release from jail of former telecom minister A. Raja, who is alleged to have profited illicitly from the sale of the second-generation mobile spectrum. Mr. Raja denies any wrongdoing. A new as yet unpublished study by economists Ray Fisman, Florian Schulz and Vikrant Vig tracks the declared assets of politicians running for office in Indian state level elections since 2003. Perhaps surprisingly, they found that candidates who successfully ran for a seat in the state assembly (both backbenchers and ministers) did only slightly better in terms of asset accumulation than the candidates they defeated.
8 ANZ chief sees eurozone breakup (Sydney Morning Herald) ANZ chief executive Mike Smith said the breakup of the eurozone was “quite likely” as countries in the region's south would have to decouple from the currency union in order to become competitive. A left-wing party opposed to the austerity pact is leading opinion polls after last week's elections failed to form a government. Fresh elections may take place in Greece on June 10 - at the earliest. “The issues in Europe are going to be very difficult to manage and it's not clear what the answer will be,” Mr Smith said. “On the one hand you need a proper transfer union, and that seems very difficult for the German voter to accept," he said. "Or countries in the south are going to have to become detached from the euro, because otherwise how can they ever become globally competitive?,” he said.
The criticism of Rai's post-pregnancy figure has been fierce. "Aishwarya is like a goddess," said Showbusiness columnist Shobhaa Dé. "She is held up as the ideal of beauty and so there is an expectation on her to look perfect at all times." The image that sparked the storm in India showed Rai in the back of a car on her way to a party being thrown for the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, where Ban is believed to have asked her to be the global face of the UN's girl child campaign. The Indian media, though, was less interested in the job offer than the fact that Rai looked like a 38-year-old woman who had recently given birth.
One website posted a video, complete with elephant sound effects, entitled "Aishwarya Rai's shocking weight gain", which has been seen more than 500,000 times. The criticism has started a debate about Bollywood's attitude towards women and motherhood. "But people are confused because they don't know whether to glorify Aishwarya. India has long grappled with the question of what beauty means, but in an age of global media Indians are familiar with western celebrities and how quickly some of them appear to regain their pre-baby bodies. Rai's appearance at Cannes could be an important cultural moment. "It could be a turning point in making us stop and review the absurd expectations we have of our female celebrities," said Dé.
2 Men may be ready to wear prints (The Guardian) Gather round, men: your plain shirts and discreet dark jeans are looking a trifle tired. This season, it's all about print. From Hawaiian shirts to floral Dr Martens, patterns are on everything. Not since the 1980s – when it was all about the Manchester indie-rave scene and Versace’s baroque designs – has print in menswear made fashion headlines.
Cut to now and Prada is selling floral trousers that riff on golfing slacks and printed shirts that whiff of 1950s Americana. Topman's retro paisley-print catwalk pyjamas sold out in February. Clumpy Dr Marten boots have been given a floral print remix for Liberty. Burberry is backing tribal print trousers, GQ has included these in its patterned trousers spread this month while Zara is selling Aztec-inspired backpacks. To say that print is enjoying a comeback is an understatement.
3 Italian economy plunges more (Johannesburg Times) Fresh data shows that a recession in Italy, the eurozone's third-largest economy, deepened in the first quarter and Moody's agency slashed the ratings of its top banks. The economy contracted by 0.8% in the first three months, according to an initial estimate from the Istat agency, after a shrinkage of 0.2% in the third quarter and of 0.7% in the fourth quarter. "The key factor is austerity, which is weighing heavily on consumption and investment," said Chiara Corsa, an economist at UniCredit. Corsa said she expected a further contraction in the second quarter followed by a stabilisation in the third.
4 Goodbye to China, country of contradictions (Melissa Chan, former English correspondent of Al Jazeera in Beijing whose Press credentials were recently revoked by the Chinese government) I'd like to start with a good memory of China. It was late morning in the autumn of 2009, and our team was on our way to an interview out in the countryside north of Chongqing in central China. We'd driven through many villages before, but something about the bustle of this village compelled us to slow down our car and hop out for a look. Everyone seemed so happy. There was a festive atmosphere, as if it was Chinese New Year. This was quintessential China - the daily proceedings of hundreds of millions, going about their business and working to create better lives for themselves. The place was at once traditional and modern.
A sad memory of China came later on the same day. Our team met and interviewed Yi Dade, a fisherman who had managed to do very well for himself. That was not the case for many other farmers, many of whom have been increasingly left behind by China's economic development. Unfortunately, his successful fisheries business had caught the attention of local gangs, who bribed officials, and proceeded to seize his property on the banks of the river. The showdown took place during a birthday party for one of Mr. Yi's sons. Two boatloads of men armed with machetes, poles, and axes drew up, jumped ashore, and attacked family and friends. In 15 minutes, Mr. Yi's fortunes had changed. His second son was dead, and his fourth had severe blows to the head that meant permanent brain damage. This was lawlessness in China, a land where some officials look the other way.
Yi Dade told me his tale while his wife sat next to him, weeping quietly and whispering repeatedly to herself, "My son was just a child." Incredibly, someone had thought to take pictures as evidence in the aftermath of the attack, and I examined the photographs of the stunned victims, the bright red of fresh blood pouring from their heads, confused expressions on their faces. Their bewildered looks seemed to ask, "How could this possibly happen to us? How could our government allow something like this to happen?"
China is a country of contradictions. One minute you marvel at the speedy transformation, the new wealth, the great hope of many. Another minute, and in this case powerfully felt because it can all happen in one day, you're disgusted by the corruption, the systemic problems of a one-party authoritarian state, and the trampling of individual human rights and dignity.
5 A baniya in my backyard (Tahir Mehdi in Dawn) Baniyas (banker, money-lender community) do not evoke anything positive in me. They represent the unforgiving meanness of self-interest. They count people in amounts and see societies as markets and are always intent on cashing in on every opportunity. I did not borrow this image of a baniya from texts. The image, in fact, was painted over centuries with each stroke of it representing my own painful experiences. It only got worse when the Raj decided to side with him and made agricultural land an exchangeable, or foreclosable, commodity. The ruthless market economy had already jolted my average villager whose economy was rooted deep into the subsistence slumber. As he frantically struggled to cope, the baniya pulled the land from under him. The simmering hate boiled over into rage and fury.
My later day text books some how managed to transform this deep-etched image of a baniya into a relief of a Hindu which then went on to be hung as a picture title ‘an Indian’. Have you ever watched the Independence Day play in your neighborhood school? A boy dressed in a dhotee and a shiny bald head but with a small head of hair dangling funnily on one side of the skull represents India. He is a traitor who ditches poor Muslims to side with an oppressive white man. It is a theatrical rendering of the narrative: all Indians are Hindus and all Hindus are baniyas. Persons like me had to make efforts to de-educate themselves and unlearn the most important of their political lessons. I wrote in my homework copy a million times – all Indians are not Hindus and all Hindus are not baniyas.
6 10-year jail for Kuwait tweeter (Dawn) Kuwait’s appeals court has upheld a 10-year jail term for a tweeter found guilty of insulting the Gulf state’s ruler and calling for the overthrow of the regime. Orance al-Rasheedi was tried on charges of spreading false news about Kuwait to undermine the oil-rich country’s image and calling for regime’s overthrow in video footage on YouTube, the court ruled. It said he had also used the social networking site Twitter and YouTube to publicly insult the emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, who is protected against criticism by Kuwait’s constitution.
The lower court sentenced Rasheedi to 10 years in jail in October. He can still challenge the verdict before the supreme court whose rulings are final. Kuwait has in the past several months clamped down on Internet activists who allegedly break the country’s laws, especially by committing religious offences. The courts have already jailed several such activists and others are awaiting trial.
7 Politics pays in India, sometimes (The Wall Street Journal) The recent electoral misfortune of Kumari Mayawati in India’s Uttar Pradesh state had an interesting side effect: It gave us a glimpse into her personal fortune. While filing her nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Parliament, Ms. Mayawati declared her assets to be worth $22.25 million. This represents a doubling of her wealth from 2007 making the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh very, very wealthy, even by rich country standards.
The rapid growth in her wealth could be down to her investing acumen (in which case even Warren Buffett might want to get advice from her) but Indian criminal investigators have different ideas. In a long-running inquiry into Ms. Mayawati’s alleged “disproportionate assets,” the Central Bureau of Investigation claims that her accumulation of assets is inconsistent with the legitimate means through which she could have earned income. Ms. Mayawati applied to the Supreme Court for the inquiry to be quashed. The court has reserved judgement on her request. She contends that her wealth is all from legitimate sources and the case against her a “political vendetta.”
High profile cases such as these understandably fuel the Indian public’s skepticism about the how their elected officials make money. In another development, the 2G spectrum scam is again in the news with the release from jail of former telecom minister A. Raja, who is alleged to have profited illicitly from the sale of the second-generation mobile spectrum. Mr. Raja denies any wrongdoing. A new as yet unpublished study by economists Ray Fisman, Florian Schulz and Vikrant Vig tracks the declared assets of politicians running for office in Indian state level elections since 2003. Perhaps surprisingly, they found that candidates who successfully ran for a seat in the state assembly (both backbenchers and ministers) did only slightly better in terms of asset accumulation than the candidates they defeated.
8 ANZ chief sees eurozone breakup (Sydney Morning Herald) ANZ chief executive Mike Smith said the breakup of the eurozone was “quite likely” as countries in the region's south would have to decouple from the currency union in order to become competitive. A left-wing party opposed to the austerity pact is leading opinion polls after last week's elections failed to form a government. Fresh elections may take place in Greece on June 10 - at the earliest. “The issues in Europe are going to be very difficult to manage and it's not clear what the answer will be,” Mr Smith said. “On the one hand you need a proper transfer union, and that seems very difficult for the German voter to accept," he said. "Or countries in the south are going to have to become detached from the euro, because otherwise how can they ever become globally competitive?,” he said.
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