Keyword: india

The 2011 Festival of Lights, Diwali, captured in photos and tweets from around the world.

In the annual north Indian festival of Karva Chauth, married Hindu and Sikh women don’t eat or drink from sunrise to moonrise in the hopes that their husbands will be blessed with longevity. While some local traditions differ, most women look at the moon through a sieve or a cloth before eating or drinking.

Now, though, if one company has its way, they can use their own phones instead of a sieve.

In an exclusive interview at Asia Society in New York (embedded below), Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen responded to news that former Indian president APJ Abdul Kalam would no longer be associated with the revival of Nalanda University, one of the oldest universities in the world.

Sen said the position of "visitor" — responsible for monitoring and reviewing the functions of a university in India — is meant to be held by the current president. "Now," Sen said, "Dr. Kalam decided that since he’s no longer president it would be only appropriate that it should go to the present president."

President Pratibha Devisingh Patil has agreed to be visitor, he said.

He also stressed that Nalanda is still in a "formative" stage. He added, "There has to be some kind of intelligent merging of the short-run challenges with the long-run challenges to be met."

Will the Gandhian activist succeed in creating a politically engaged middle class?