Betwa Sharma

Ravi grabs a table on the terrace of a dimly-lit café so that street noise can muffle our conversation. He is a gay man who cheats on his wife with other men. "This is my life," he says. "Do I like it? No." The 39-year-old sales agent, big-built and clean-shaven,...

Canadian youth activists in Durban organized a bake-sale to protest against the government's pro-oil company polices that appear to be dictating its performance at the U.N. climate talks in Durban. Their plan was to make enough money so that the Canadian government would represent "people instead of polluters. "Oil companies...

As government delegates attended the first meetings of the 17th climate change negotiations being held in Durban, civil society members kicked off the "Occupy Durban" movement in a small green lawn close to the conference hall. "This is in solidarity with the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street movement,"...

Colorful lingerie and risqué poetry describe the frustration of a sexually dissatisfied Iranian woman in a video called Every Night Three Kisses by artist Negar Behbahani. "When everything is over in the first twelve seconds, every night this confounded countdown," says the protagonist.

Behbahani, who is from Iran, had to...

More cables from WikiLeaks this week shifted India's lively political scene into the chaotic gear. Allegations of bribery by the government led to disruption of the parliament's regular sessions and calls for the resignation of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

On Friday, Home Minister P....

Sanjay Kumar, a Hindu, was recently told to leave his home in Delhi because his wife is a Muslim and the landlord wanted her out. The young broker, who finds houses for people in the city, wasn't too surprised since he often has to tell his Muslim clients --"no vacancy."...

Equipped with a new set of light bulbs, a group of rural women are ditching kerosene oil lanterns, increasing their income and getting more study time for their children -- all with one solar energy experiment.

"Now life goes on even after it is dark outside," said Leela Devi, pointing...

(On the railway tracks in Bihar), India--The supremo train in India, called the Rajdhani Express, chugged sluggishly across the chaotic state of Bihar. It was running late by seven hours, which wasn't half bad since other trains were delayed by 15 hours or a day because of the thickening fog....

The life sentence handed to Indian activist, Binayak Sen, for committing treason has been condemned by the Indian public as well as intellectuals like Noam Chomsky and Amartya Sen. The judgment of the Indian court is being described as brazen injustice.

"The process is the punishment....

CANCUN, Mexico -- The annual climate change conference in Cancun winds down; meet the real planet envoys whose work does not revolve around the ifs and buts of working out a climate change treaty.

10-year-old Alek Howland has a very clear idea of the kind of planet he wants his...

"Once upon a time, long, long ago, in a faraway land called India, I used to be a virgin," Radhika Vaz tells an audience over tea and cake.

"The second thing that I learned was that many, many men would not consider marrying a girl if she did not bring...

In the wake of accusations of political lobbying and inappropriate behavior for a reporter, Barkha Dutt, often described as India's Christiane Amanpour, defended herself before a panel of journalists in a first-of-a-kind grilling on Indian television.

In recent weeks, leaked government tapes of conversations between a corporate...

The jury is still out on whether Indian journalists engaged in political lobbying or if the things they said were acceptable in the course of haggling for information with their sources.

The media controversy has led to attacks and counterattacks but it has bypassed serious introspection on the...

This is the second part of a two-part series. Read the first part here.

Meet the Parents

After 10 year of their "queer" children being together, the parents met only a few months ago during the month of Ramadan. Deen's parents were fasting, but they were happy to...

A shadow has been cast over the Indian media -- the bastion of the nation's democracy. A telecom and political scandal rocking the country has now sucked in top journalists but the media coverage of this new twist is timid -- a simple Google search shows that.

A few bloggers...

Elizabeth

In college, Elizabeth Clark fell in love with a very butch woman, but only a few years later her lover wanted to live as a man.

This posed a dilemma for Elizabeth, because Deen's physical transformation could strip away her queer identity. The girl-girl couple would look like...

Even as President Barack Obama endorsed India's candidacy for the U.N. Security Council, he scolded New Delhi for not being tough on its neighbor Burma that has just pulled off dodgy elections, which are also the first in nearly two decades.

"Faced with such gross violations of human rights,...

A Scottish comic books writer is telling one of the world's oldest stories as a new-age, sci-fi mythical narrative. The animated television series and video game, the creators say, will be like a "Psychedelic Lord of the Rings with Star Wars technology."

Unlike the Greek tragedies, the West...

A former child soldier, Manju Gurung's ordeal began at age 13 when she was kidnapped by Maoist guerrilla forces who regularly held recruitment programs in schools near her village in central Nepal under the "One Family, One Member" campaign.

Five years later, Gurung described building roads and tilling the land...

This story has been updated since its original publication.

For people interested in donating to Ketura, go to the official Shands Children's Hospital page. Under "Donation Designation," select "Other" and write in "Ketura Malvoisin."

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WARNING: This article contains very graphic images.

(This piece has been written...