China and India are facing a cancer crisis, with smoking, belated diagnosis and unequal access to treatment all causing large-scale problems, experts said on Friday.

In a major report, published in The Lancet Oncology, more than 40 specialists warn that Asia’s big two emerging giants are facing huge economic and human costs from the disease.

More: China and India Face Huge Cancer Burden

India may have set its sights on Mars and is aspiring to become a key global player, but its ambitions are in stark contrast to some of the realities it faces. One of the most shocking truths has come to light with the Global Survey Index mentioning the country as being home to half of the world’s modern slaves. This slavery ranges from severe forms of inter­generational bonded labour to forced and servile marriage, the worst forms of child labour and commercial and sexual exploitation.

In 2012, the Indian government banned all types of labour for children under the age of 14, making hiring a child a punishable offence. The ban followed the implementation in 2010 of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, popularly known as the RTE, which states that all children between the ages of 6 and 14 have the right to free schooling. Yet two years on from the child-labour ban, despite much talk, there has been little visible result on the ground. There are two main reasons behind the failure.

More: IT’s Time for India to Tackle Poverty and Child Slavery

India has a problem with slavery, a very serious problem that rarely seems to merit discussion. The Global Slavery Index estimates that India is home to half of the world’s modern slaves. More than 100,000 young people are believed to be working in conditions of domestic slavery in Delhi alone. They are tricked into leaving their homes with promises of a better life in the capital, only to be sold to placement agencies who sell them on again to families. The stories they tell are of unimaginable abuse: rape, beatings, imprisonment and a life of penury.

Part of India’s problem is the rise of its middle class, who demand servants to ease their busy lives.

Read more: thenational.ae

S.T. Joshi, a Seattle writer, has written or edited more than 200 books, and part of his work focuses on atheism and agnosticism. Credit Matthew Ryan Williams for The New York Times

The atheist writer S. T. Joshi, 55, born in India, raised in Indiana and now living in Seattle, has written or edited more than 200 books, including a novel of detective fiction, a bibliography of writings about Gore Vidal and numerous works about H. L. Mencken.

He edits four periodicals, including Lovecraft Annual, the major review of scholarship about the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft; The American Rationalist, a journal for unbelievers; and The Weird Fiction Review, which is what it sounds like. He once spent years scanning into his computer — and typing what could not be scanned — every word ever written by Ambrose Bierce, about six million total.

And this month Mr. Joshi got a call from a friend who works for Barnes & Noble, asking if he could edit a new edition of “The King in Yellow,” the 1895 collection of supernatural stories by Robert W. Chambers. It seems that the book was a major inspiration for “True Detective,” the popular HBO series. “I am one of maybe three people in the world who knows anything about Robert W. Chambers,” Mr. Joshi said, by way of explanation. His new edition will be out in April.

More: Spreading the Word on the Power of Atheism

Our Goals

According to the 2013 UNICEF Report on Improving Child Nutrition - The Achievable Imperative for Global Progress, one-third of the world’s under nourished children are in India and an estimated 61 million, half of the total child population in the country, are stunted due to chronic undernutrition.

While progress towards reducing child underweight in India has been made, it has been uneven. The 2010 UNICEF Report on Progress for Children: Achieving MDGs with Equity highlights that in India, the prevalence of underweight in children below five years in the richest 20 per cent of the households decreased from 37 per cent in 1992 to 25 per cent in 2006, whereas the corresponding reduction in the poorest 20 per cent households was negligible, from 64 per cent to 61 per cent.

via unicef india

More: First 1,000 Days » United Nations in India

Earlier, the 70-year-old ex-president was brought to the court from a military hospital in Rawalpindi in a heavily-protected convoy. He sat in witness box and stood briefly when addressed by the judge. But Musharraf did not speak.

When Justice Arab asked him how he was feeling, he replied with a smile on his face that he was “good”. He remained in the court for 20 minutes and was taken back to the hospital, where he was admitted on January 3 after complaining of chest pain while traveling to the court for hearing.

The trial against Musharraf is related to his suspension, abrogation and subversion of the constitution after imposition of emergency rule in November 2007.

More: Musharraf Appears Before Court in Treason Case - the Times of India

Krish Dulal, wikipedia commons, commons.wikimedia.org

The little known, and very intriguing story of the father of Nepalese democracy, and arguably its greatest modern political figure:

When India expelled the British in 1947, the Nepali people became more eager to introduce democracy to Nepal. As it was very difficult to organise a revolutionary political party inside Nepal, they used Indian territory to do so.

Now, Prime Minister Sushil Koirala has a great opportunity to follow in KP’s footsteps by writing a new republican constitution. KP’s contributions to the struggle for freedom and democracy in Nepal are a grand legacy, which all of our current politicians must strive to emulate.

More: Remembering KP Bhattarai

Addressing a gathering organised on the third death anniversary memorial of leader Bhattarai here in Lalitpur on Tuesday, leader Deuba reminded that the government led by leader Bhattarai in 2047 B.S. had brought the constitution within a year. Present government can also learn lesson from him, he reiterated.

read his bio here from wiki

The Top Seven Myths debunked in 2013 according to Discovery News!

Photo Via Discovery News article

This past year was a strange one, with a variety of popular beliefs being busted. Some were welcome news: Other myths left a funk like a fart-filled balloon when they burst. Here, in no particular order, are seven popular stories and myths busted in 2013, ranging from the scientific to the sublimely pseudoscientific …

Read more at Discovery News

“This is entirely right and entirely appropriate,” Fischer said of the law. “Same-sex behavior is unnatural, it is against the order of nature: you just look at the plumbing and you can tell that, what body parts are designed for what use and you can see right away that this is contrary to nature.”

I’m sure Bryan is very familiar with said plumbing. *ahem*

*ping*

YouTube

More: Fischer Hails India Supreme Court Ruling Outlawing Gay Sex: ‘This Is Entirely Right and Entirely Appropriate’

India’s Supreme Court recently upheld a law that criminalizes homosexul behavior with up to 10 years in prison. Of course, everyone’s favorite bigot is ecstatic.

What India's Supreme Court has done is entirely right. Homosexual conduct should be contrary to public policy everywhere.

— Bryan Fischer (@BryanJFischer) December 11, 2013

India's Supreme Court upheld a law passed by the elected representatives of the people. We need a Supreme Court which will do the same.

— Bryan Fischer (@BryanJFischer) December 11, 2013

Of course, India is a mostly Hindu nation. How does Fischer feel about Hindus? Do you have to ask?

[Hinduism] is a counterfeit religion,. It is an Eastern religion. It is, in essence, an occult religion. It’s a counterfeit, a false alternative to Christianity. It ultimately represents the doctrine of demons…

democraticunderground.com

But as long as those demon worshipers opress teh gays, Bryan’s cool with it I guess?

Watch the trailer for Menstrual Man here:

YouTube

Arunachalam Muruganantham had his light bulb moment when he was 29 years old, and holding a sanitary napkin for the first time.

Examining the cotton pads he was buying as a gift for his new wife, the Indian entrepreneur realized that the multinational company that produced them was probably spending cents on raw materials, and making a huge profit.

Women in Muruganantham’s village in Tamil Nadu, including his wife, would often forego these expensive pads for rags they used repeatedly through their cycles. Even more uncomfortably, sometimes they utilized husks or leaves during menstruation.

The exorbitant cost of the foreign-made pads cut into their families’ meal budget. Given a choice between fresh pads and fresh milk, they chose the latter.

A new movie, Menstrual Man, documents how, at great personal cost, Muruganantham created a cheap machine to address the persistent menstrual hygiene challenges for rural women on the subcontinent. But, as director Amit Virmani points out, the product’s traction may have more to do with social entrepreneurship than with health concerns.

[…]

Once Muruganantham had prototyped the machine, he needed testers. But his wife and other family members refused, as did girls at the nearby medical college. So Muru, as Virmani calls him, decided to become a tester himself.

He filled bottles with animal blood and attached tubes that would press the blood into his drawers as he biked and walked around town. His rural village shunned him, viewing this with suspicion. And his wife’s suspicions — that he was chasing medical college girls around town for something other than product testing — ended his marriage.

[…]

Read the rest here: ‘Menstrual Man’ Had an Idea to Help Indian Women : All Tech Considered : NPR