by Abigail Wendle
- USA -

When Hamid Karzai became Afghanistan’s first democratically elected president in 2004, the new government established a constitution that proclaimed equality for men and women, promising to enforce international standards of human rights. But throughout his 5-year term, many have viewed the government as corrupt and ineffective, and the women of Afghanistan continue to be oppressed. The situation only seems to be growing worse now that President Karzai is up for re-election in August.

by Michelle Chen
- USA -

The landscape of Guiyu, a remote town in China’s Guangdong province, embodies a collision between past and future. Amid acidic plumes of smoke and vast mountains of trash, migrants scour for valuable scraps using their bare hands and simple tools. Yet Guiyu’s apocalyptic wasteland is a byproduct of the Information Age: the workers have eked out a living from dissecting cell phones, computers, televisions, and other toxic debris of the electronics industry.

by Jessica Mosby
- USA -

Anyone who thinks that documentaries are boring and stuffy should see The Cove – just to have their preconceived notions shattered. The film is 90 minutes of danger, covert operations, and thrilling feats with a big dose of environmentalism mixed in. It’s as if James Bond and the Ocean’s Eleven team joined up to stop the annual capture and slaughter of 23,000 dolphins in Taiji, Japan.

by Emma Sleeth
- India / USA -

Summer has begun here in southern India, which means that most days are in the high 90s or low 100s. It’s bad enough for my friend Val and the staff here at the Dean Foundation—all healthy and living in homes that have fans—but I can’t begin to imagine what it is like for our terminally ill patients. Our bedridden neighbors lie in their homes, day after day, developing puss-filled sores where their hot, damp skin makes contact with the dirt floors and ragged beds they are lying on. We visit them in their homes and dress their bedsores, cutting away tracts of dead skin and sluff the size—and depth—of a pack or two of playing cards and covering the wounds with anti-bacterial solutions, but many sores never improve because of the heat and slow pace at which old bodies heal.

by Megan Tady
- USA -

Connie Toops would be content photographing birds all day long. In fact, she’s made a business of it, working as a professional freelance nature photographer. Her office could be her backyard – she moved to the mountains of western North Carolina just to be closer to her subjects.

Connie’s work has appeared in magazines like Orion, and she’s even published her own book of photography. Yet these days, business is slow, and it’s not because the birds aren’t chirping – it’s because her Internet connection is crawling.

by Jessica Mosby
- USA -

On Wednesday, the United States will celebrate the 39th Earth Day. In honor of this annual call to environmentalism, I have chosen to preview two documentaries that premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival: No Impact Man follows one family’s year-long effort to live a more sustainable life in the middle of New York City, while Earth Days chronicles the history of the modern conservation movement. Both films are thought-provoking perspectives on our relationship with the planet.

by Lesley D. Biswas
- India -

Dennis Meredith has two sprawling bungalows on 15 acres of rich fertile country land in McCluskiegunj where he has spent his life nurturing a beautiful garden and orchard. Dennis has lived here since he was just a year old in the house his late father, Felex Meredith christened “The Hermitage.” For the past 59 years, Dennis has never considered leaving, but now a “For Sale” sign hangs over the entrance.

by Nora W. Coffey
- USA -

What do you call it when someone deceptively lures another into danger?

And if the deception involves telling a woman she’ll be “better than ever” to lure her into being drugged and strapped down before cutting out her sex organs, what would you call that?

Maybe female genital mutilation comes to mind, but the impact of the sanctioned violence against women I’m talking about is much more pervasive and far-reaching. And this crime is not only not criminal, some of the largest, most revered medical associations in the country support it, train others to do it, and their members profit from it. The crime I refer to is hysterectomy (surgical removal of the uterus) performed without providing the information required for informed consent.

by Mridu Khullar
- India / USA -

A theatre troupe consisting of unemployed job seekers, hawkers on the streets of Kolkata, India, and people who've been told they have no prospects in life, come together each evening to sing, dance and hone their acting skills.

Earning little more than Rs. 100 (US$2) per show, they perform in small theatres, villages, local parks, even on the roadside.

Their movements are perfectly coordinated, their dramatically delivered dialogues impressive. And it's only when you see the ropes placed strategically around the stage to demarcate the boundaries that you begin to question, that you look closer and realize—almost all the performers in the troupe of Anyadesh are blind.

by Afsaana Rashid
- Indian-administered Kashmir -

With soaring unemployment and a private sector still in troubled infancy, for the last few decades, government has provided the bulk of Kashmir’s jobs. Yet today this may be changing; on the heels of much-needed infrastructure development and technological innovation, a good number of entrepreneurs are taking the plunge into the generational traditions of horticulture and floriculture.

by Handan T. Satiroglu
- USA/Turkey -

“Technology allows us to separate ourselves from reality – moving people away from the real to the imagined, from the emotional to the controlled,” observes Derek V. Smith in an email interview.

The author of A Survival Guide in the Information Age sees a darker side to the proliferation of personal gadgets and the use of technology in daily life. “Escaping into technology, someone can create false worlds, identities and experiences.”

As I sit on a bus en route to my local university library, his words hit home. The few passengers on board are not participating in the here-and-now but are absorbed in a hypnotizing alternate universe of mutually exclusive cyber worlds.

by Jessica Mosby
- USA -

American Idol in Afghanistan? Seriously?

Afghanistan’s first competition/reality show, Afghan Star, is arguably the most popular – and controversial – television program in Afghanistan. Eleven million people, or one-third of the country, tuned in for the competition’s finale. And at least two of the finalists now fear for their lives.

by Charukesi Ramadurai
- India -

India is now the land of The Consortium of Pubgoing, Loose and Forward Women. Who would have thought?