TresSugar

Picture It: Twirl Girls

Tara Sharp — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 11:10:00 PDT

Decked out in their brightly colored Punjabi frocks, Indian college girls perform a traditional "giddha" dance to celebrate the Teej festival. Hindu women take part in the three-day celebrations surrounding this fasting festival, which ushers in the rainy season and is dedicated to the goddess Parvati. See more photos of the girls celebrating the festival with singing and dancing now!

Picture It: Flower Power

Tara Sharp — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 12:28:00 PDT

An Indian woman arranges brightly colored floral garlands made for wedding decor at a workshop with Gramshree, an organization that supports local artisans and their traditional crafts. By working with local women, Gramshree's mission is to help foster sustainable economic and social growth in India's rural, low-income, and slum areas. See more pictures of the Indian women working on quilts, necklaces, and other cultural crafts.

Website Reveals How Much People Are Bribing in India

Emily Co — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 15:01:09 PDT

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.

Why Are There More Boys Than Girls in India?

Tara Sharp — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 12:20:52 PDT

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?

Picture It: Spring Cleaning

Colleen Barrett — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 12:50:46 PDT

Nobody welcomes Spring like Hindus. Much like Mardi Gras, Holi, the Spring festival of colors, celebrates mischief and merrymaking. But I'm going to wager it's the only religious festival that involves paintball-like rituals. Of course, it's not paint, but colored powdered and water. The tradition of throwing and smearing it on others dates back to the seventh century, and it's celebrated most jovially in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

Picture It: Laid-Back

Colleen Barrett — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 13:15:21 PST

Yogis from 36 countries kicked off the International Yoga Festival in Rishikesh, India, with over 300 people performing the ancient exercise together. Not enough to beat the 10,000 yogis who practiced in Central Park last Summer, but yoga isn't about competition, right? It's about judgment.

India Hopes to Feed the Poor by Banning Lavish Weddings

Annie Scudder — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:20:39 PST

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.

Bollywood's Makeup Man Collaborates With MAC

Miriam Lacey — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 09:57:45 PST

If you're a fan of the doe-eyed heroines of modern Bollywood cinema, then you should be excited that the man who makes up the likes of Aishwarya Rai, Kareena Kapoor, and Shilpa Shetty (who he's styling here) is collaborating with MAC on a new line that debuts in January. Mickey Contractor and MAC have put their heads together to create a full color collection with shades designed to focus on natural skin tones paired with bold lipstick or smoky eyes. The colors look lovely, especially the lipsticks and ivy-green eyeliner. To check out the whole collection, check out the gallery below:

View 10 Photos ›

Picture It: First Dance

Annie Scudder — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 04:00:03 PST

First Lady Michelle Obama dances during a cultural event at The Holy Name High School in Mumbai on Sunday. The Obamas are visiting India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan, on their Asia trip.

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The Myth of the Bollywood Actress Turned Hooker

TresSugar — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:00:23 PDT

After two Indian actresses were arrested for prostitution last month, an old story has made new rounds: actresses are available for the right price.

It starts with demand. Men love the Bollywood actresses who gyrate across screens barely clothed. They're the polar opposite of the country's real women, who are covered from neck to toe in baggy pants and tunics. And it doesn't help that the actresses are known for living with men outside of marriage, which to the uninitiated is one step away from prostitution.

Pimps capitalize on the myth. They approach potential clients with a book of A-list actresses to choose from. Of course, she's never available - "stuck on set" - so the pimp suggests an up-and-coming actress who's really a prostitute. They make their money, and the client falls asleep thinking he could have bedded a big name. I bet when he retells the story he does!

If that's not enough, pimps have connections in the film industry. They buy ad space and create advertisements for fake films to glorify an "actress" in the lead role. The movie never gets made, of course, but the sex worker's rate goes up a whole lot of rupees.

The real victims are B- and C-level actresses, though, who buy into the myth. While I'm sure they go into it for money, they also try it because they're told to. It's falsely considered part of the journey, like waiting tables or doing aspirin commercials. Maybe it isn't all that different from Hollywood?