India

Corruption is rampant in the upper echelons of India, ranging from the government to corporations. It's not too surprising because India is a country where it's common to bribe people to get things done. Although petty bribery is said to have lessened since 1991, says The Washington Post, it still frequently occurs.

Bribing seems to be quite complex since it isn't really legal. How do you go about paying someone off if there are no set standards to follow? The website IPaidaBribe.com attempts to answer all lingering bribery questions for those living in India. For example, to get a rough estimate of how much to bribe, visitors will see how much other people paid in instances like bribing off a police officer for not having a license or getting your kid into college. However, readers need to keep in mind that the content is all user generated, which means it isn't very reliable.

It's not as dubious as it sounds — the site also encourages you to write about experiences when you didn't have to bribe. I think IPaidaBribe.com revolves around the idea of making bribery transparent, and it's not really a how-to website for slipping people cash under the table.

After going through some comments and reading about how one user had to bribe a police officer to clear his father's name after a false charge of theft, I feel pretty lucky that bribery isn't part of our culture here in the US.

With new census data, India is once again under scrutiny for its unbalanced sex ratio. There are 914 girls for every 1,000 boys (under age 6), the lowest girl to boy ratio since 1947. This is a startling statistic when you consider the global average is 1,050 girls for every 1,000 boys, and there are countries like Latvia with a shortage of men. One way India has tried to remedy this is with stricter enforcement on abortions of female fetuses — according to a 2006 study there are an estimated half a million female fetuses aborted each year — but it doesn't seem to have made a dent in the stats.

If you're wondering why there are more boys than girls in India, it comes down to some of these reasons:

• Married Indian women are pressured to produce male heirs.
• Men are viewed as the breadwinners and family leaders.
• Girls require pricey dowries to be married (and most likely an extravagant wedding).
• Cheap and easily accessible ultrasounds make finding out the sex of the fetus easy, leading to abortions of females.
• Some wealthy Indians believe their status gives them the right to choose the sex of their children.

This cultural mindset, devaluing human life based on sex, has led to Indian girls being neglected and even killed. And with the help of modern technology, it's a scary path for the country. This may be a wake-up call for government officials to get more involved, but I really think unless there are some drastic changes within the culture, and possibly a rethinking of traditions like dowries, I don't know if a shift is possible. What do you think?

If you think the American wedding-industrial complex is out of control, consider India's. In the midst of rising food prices, some say 15 percent of the country's food grains are being wasted at over-the-top nuptials. As its growing middle class feasts on extravagant, yet traditional, wedding banquets, India's poor struggle to eat enough thanks to rising food costs.

The country's Food and Consumer Affairs Minister believes the price of food is rising partially due to the fact that so much food is wasted at luxurious weddings, so now the government is considering a plan to regulate marital celebrations. India's policy would take cues from Afghanistan, where the government is also cracking down on super-sized weddings.

It's hard to imagine wedding guest lists to be of national interest, but in Afghanistan lawmakers want to limit weddings to 300 guests and require a $4.50 per head maximum. In Afghanistan, the concern is not about wasted food, but rather for young grooms who are going into debilitating debt thanks to societal pressure to throw an impressive wedding celebration. In a country where the annual income is only a few hundred dollars, the average wedding costs around $20,000 and grooms are expected to invite 600 people. While it might not be realistic, elopement sounds like an appealing option to me.