BY: MARIYA GUZOVA People living in Sikkim, India don’t have to make a trip to Whole Foods to get their hands on organic produce. That’s because the entire state now only farms organic food, the first in all of India.…
Proud mom posts India’s first gay marriage ad to prove a point about her son’s happiness
BY: LISA CUMMING Padma Iyer made history when she posted the first-ever gay marriage ad in a Mumbai newspaper’s matrimonial pages. The subject of the ad, her son Harrish Iyer, is a leading gay rights campaigner in India. What made…
This peaceful village overlooks the world’s most spectacular mountainside marijuana grow-op
BY: CAROLINE ROLF Nine thousand feet up the Indian Himalayas, small villages thrive on what little is able to grow there. What is able to grow in the wild has police searching the cliffs with saws to stop its illegal…
The dream-like world that inspired The Darjeeling Limited is even more magical in real life
BY: JESSICA BEUKER Even those who have never seen a Wes Anderson film are likely aware of his distinct and unique visual style – he creates dream-like worlds full of colour and life. The Darjeeling Limited tells the story of…
India’s living root bridges are both practical and beautiful (Photos)
BY: JESSICA BEUKER Meghalaya or “the abode of clouds,” in Northeast India is almost entirely covered in a beautiful lush forest that boasts an incredible biodiversity of mammals, birds and plants. Between the tall green mountains and the low tropical…
The Indian temple that is dedicated to a Hindu goddess – and 20,000 rats.
BY: JESSICA BEUKER Deshnoke, a small town in India, is home to a little temple dedicated to Karni Mata, a Hindu goddess. Legend says that Karni Mata’s stepson drowned in a pond while trying to drink from it. Karni Mata…
India is handing out LED lights to its residents to save the country billions in energy costs
BY: SWIKAR OLI India’s Ministry of Power has announced a major plan to switch 20 million light bulbs to LED, which will save the country $890 billion a year. Switching to the new bulbs costs less than half of what…
These colourful taxis are changing the lives of design students in India
BY: STEFANIE PHILLIPS Within the commotion of a fast-paced everyday life, taxi rides feel like a small blimp on the radar. They are simply a means of functionality to get from one place to another. But what if they could…
Meet the badass woman who motorbiked across India after everyone told her she couldn’t
BY: JESSICA BEUKER Roshni Sharma has been a biking enthusiast ever since her father taught her to ride a motorbike at the age of 16. So when a friend of hers — another avid biker — told her about his…
Fathers are tweeting beautiful selfies with their daughters to prove India’s proud of its women
Twitter has become a platform for social change in India, where thousands are posting a #SelfieWithDaughter to fight back against a social stigma that puts a boot to the face of unborn fetuses whose only injustice is failing to grow…
How this Indian official took a 24-year paid vacation
BY: TED BARNABY We’ve all played hooky: skipping out of school or work under the banner of illness, while secretly (and truthfully) prescribing to the occasionally necessary reasoning of “I just felt like it.” However, no soul on Earth can…
India Officially Recognizes “The Third Gender”. These Photos Show The Face of Transgender Struggle.
BY: SAHAR FADAIAN Cultural taboos, federal regulations, and family rejection have given the Transgender Women of South India little choices for survival. During the years that Sahar Fadaian lived in Bangalore, India she noticed that most “Hijra” have been defamed…
People swim with rotting corpses in Varanasi to cleanse themselves of sin
BY: ALEXANDER DOWNHAM Western Judeo-Christian values have morphed death into an aspect of life we run from. But in Varanasi, India, death is something to anticipate and embrace. Varanasi – one of Hinduism’s seven holiest cities – was built between…
The Gulabi Gang Of India: These Warrior Women Wear Pink And Fight Oppression
BY: LISA CUMMING A hurricane of pink is rumbling through India, and it has been for almost a decade now. The Gulabi (Pink) Gang, formally established in 2006, by Sampat Pal Devi in the Banda District of Uttar Pradesh is…