The small classroom is abuzz with conversations in Persian. But it ends as soon as a young woman in salwar-kameez enters and starts teaching English. Meet Aarzoo Hussain, an Afghan national, who is fiercely independent and wants womenfolk from her country to lead a free life too. Hussain is happy that her family chose to come to India and she is away from the land of "tyranny and subjugation".

Kerala's gastronomic delights like appam, puttu and karimeen curry are set to test the American palate soon. The popular American TV programme "No Reservations", in its sixth season, has reserved an entire episode for Kerala cuisine.
 

The historic Ridge, which was the only promenade for the  British colonial rulers when Shimla was their summer capital and rests on the city's water supply system, is buckling under human pressure and heavy rains.
 

For Delhi Police constable Dileep Singh, a day's work means manning the streets for 14 hours at a stretch with little protection from the rains that have lashed the capital for the last few weeks . It also means irregular lunch hours and not being able to meet his family members for days.
 

The Sherpas of Nepal, the hardy mountaineering people made famous by Tenzing Norgay Sherpa, the first man to summit Mt Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary, are demanding that the Nepal government stop their vilification as a people given to many, and even incestuous, marriages.
 

Does the phrase 'last nail in the coffin' give you the shivers? Then you should meet the folks who solemnly kneel over the wooden casket with a raised hammer. The undertakers or 'caxiãokar' as they are called in Goa have moved up in social order over the years.

What the government could not, civil society is stepping in to do. Students in Delhi are busy doing their bit to clean up the Yamuna river, the city's lifeline, ahead of the Commonwealth Games - planting saplings along its banks and holding workshops and street plays to enthuse people to participate in cleaning up the polluted river.