by Jessica Mosby
-USA-

Charlie Barker is a guy who has it all – almost. He has a beautiful successful wife, a large New York City apartment, a loyal best friend, and a once-promising acting career that he is hoping to restart. The current lull in his professional life seems temporary; he is just waiting to be cast in the next big thing.

But the next big thing turns out to be a young woman freshly arrived in the Big Apple. Clea (played by Heather Gordon) sets her sights on Charlie (Stephen Barker Turner), and soon the two are involved in an affair. Charlie’s wife Stella (Daphne Zuniga) inevitably discovers the affair, and Charlie then finds himself alone and broke.

by Nusrat Ara
-Indian administered Kashmir-

My heart sinks as I look at the collage, carried by almost all the local newspapers, of children standing before judges in the local court. Looking forlorn and lost, the children are handcuffed and accompanied by police officials.

The newspapers report that the children were booked on charges of stone pelting. They had been kept in the local police station for a week before coming before a magistrate who directed them to a juvenile home, recently opened due to an outcry by human rights groups and civil society.

by Neeta Lal
-India-

In an innovative bid to fight gender discrimination, Satara district in India’s western state of Maharashtra recently witnessed a minor revolution. Over 285 Indian girls named Nakhushi, ‘unwanted’ in Hindi, by their disenchanted parents were rechristened in a state-organized ceremony.

Trussed up in their Sunday best, the girls were all smiles amidst the pop of camera bulbs. "My friends will be calling me with my new name now. And that makes me very happy. My earlier name made me feel worthless," 15-year-old Nakhushi, now renamed Muskaan or ‘a smile’, says into the TV camera.

by Leanne A. Grossman
-USA-

The noxious smell of rotten eggs regularly blows over the rural village of Berezovka, Kazakhstan. The fumes come directly from the Karachaganak Oil and Gas Condensate Field only five kilometers away, which emits toxic hydrogen sulfide during oil and gas extraction and refining.