#wellness tourism India

[holidaymyplanet]

India offers a wide variety of tourism packages catering to all types of travelers. Whether you're looking for cultural, adventure, or wellness packages, this article will guide you through the best options to experience the diverse offerings of India.

[treatian123]

Explore Wellness Tourism in India with Treatians

Looking for wellness tourism in India? Treatians offers a comprehensive range of medical tourism services that ensure seamless travel for your healthcare needs. Whether it’s advanced treatments or holistic health packages, we connect you with top hospitals and expert doctors in India. Experience stress-free planning and personalized assistance with Treatians as you embark on your wellness journey. Explore more today!

[no-passaran]

Genocide experts warn that India is about to genocide the Shompen people

Who are the Shompen?

The Shompen are an indigenous culture that lives in the Great Nicobar Island, which is nowadays owned by India. The Shompen and their ancestors are believed to have been living in this island for around 10,000 years. Like other tribes in the nearby islands, the Shompen are isolated from the rest of the world, as they chose to be left alone, with the exception of a few members who occasionally take part in exchanges with foreigners and go on quarantine before returning to their tribe. There are between 100 and 400 Shompen people, who are hunter-gatherers and nomadic agricultors and rely on their island's rainforest for survival.

Why is there risk of genocide?

India has announced a huge construction mega-project that will completely change the Great Nicobar Island to turn it into "the Hong Kong of India".

Nowadays, the island has 8,500 inhabitants, and over 95% of its surface is made up of national parks, protected forests and tribal reserve areas. Much of the island is covered by the Great Nicobar Biosphere Reserve, described by UNESCO as covering “unique and threatened tropical evergreen forest ecosystems. It is home to very rich ecosystems, including 650 species of angiosperms, ferns, gymnosperms, and bryophytes, among others. In terms of fauna, there are over 1800 species, some of which are endemic to this area. It has one of the best-preserved tropical rain forests in the world.”

The Indian project aims to destroy this natural environment to create an international shipping terminal with the capacity to handle 14.2 million TEUs (unit of cargo capacity), an international airport that will handle a peak hour traffic of 4,000 passengers and that will be used as a joint civilian-military airport under the control of the Indian Navy, a gas and solar power plant, a military base, an industrial park, and townships aimed at bringing in tourism, including commercial, industrial and residential zones as well as other tourism-related activities.

This project means the destruction of the island's pristine rainforests, as it involves cutting down over 852,000 trees and endangers the local fauna such as leatherback turtles, saltwater crocodiles, Nicobar crab-eating macaque and migratory birds. The erosion resulting from deforestation will be huge in this highly-seismic area. Experts also warn about the effects that this project will have on local flora and fauna as a result of pollution from the terminal project, coastal surface runoff, ballasts from ships, physical collisions with ships, coastal construction, oil spills, etc.

The indigenous people are not only affected because their environment and food source will be destroyed. On top of this, the demographic change will be a catastrophe for them. After the creation of this project, the Great Nicobar Island -which now has 8,500 inhabitants- will receive a population of 650,000 settlers. Remember that the Shompen and Nicobarese people who live on this island are isolated, which means they do not have an immune system that can resist outsider illnesses. Academics believe they could die of disease if they come in contact with outsiders (think of the arrival of Europeans to the Americas after Christopher Columbus and the way that common European illnesses were lethal for indigenous Americans with no immunization against them).

And on top of all of this, the project might destroy the environment and the indigenous people just to turn out to be useless and sooner or later be abandoned. The naturalist Uday Mondal explains that “after all the destruction, the financial viability of the project remains questionable as all the construction material will have to be shipped to this remote island and it will have to compete with already well-established ports.” However, this project is important to India because they want to use the island as a military and commercial post to stop China's expansion in the region, since the Nicobar islands are located on one of the world's busiest sea routes.

Last year, 70 former government officials and ambassadors wrote to the Indian president saying the project would “virtually destroy the unique ecology of this island and the habitat of vulnerable tribal groups”. India's response has been to say that the indigenous tribes will be relocated "if needed", but that doesn't solve the problem. As a spokesperson for human rights group Survival International said: “The Shompen are nomadic and have clearly defined territories. Four of their semi-permanent settlements are set to be directly devastated by the project, along with their southern hunting and foraging territories. The Shompen will undoubtedly try to move away from the area destroyed, but there will be little space for them to go. To avoid a genocide, this deadly mega-project must be scrapped.”

On 7 February 2024, 39 scholars from 13 countries published an open letter to the Indian president warning that “If the project goes ahead, even in a limited form, we believe it will be a death sentence for the Shompen, tantamount to the international crime of genocide.”

How to help

The NGO Survival International has launched this campaign:

From this site, you just need to add your name and email and you will send an email to India's Tribal Affairs Minister and to the companies currently vying to build the first stage of the project.

Share it with your friends and acquittances and on social media.

Sources:

India’s plan for untouched Nicobar isles will be ‘death sentence’ for isolated tribe, 7 Feb 2024. The Guardian.

‘It will destroy them’: Indian mega-development could cause ‘genocide’ and ‘ecocide’, says charity, 8 Feb 2024. Geographical.

Genocide experts call on India's government to scrap the Great Nicobar mega-project, Feb 2024. Survival International.

The container terminal that could sink the Great Nicobar Island, 20 July 2022. Mongabay.

[Maps] Environmental path cleared for Great Nicobar mega project, 10 Oct 2022. Mongabay.

[southasiavoyage]

Yoga Meditation Classes in Rishikesh. Rishikesh is a hub and Yoga City of India in Uttarakhand. Login: https://www.southasiavoyage.com

[seo-vasudev]

Maven Socials: Explore India’s Hidden Gems

Namaste, fellow adventurers! Are you yearning to explore the vibrant tapestry of India, a land steeped in ancient traditions, mouthwatering cuisine, and breathtaking landscapes? Look no further than Maven Socials, your one-stop platform for curating unforgettable experiences right here in your own backyard.

Maven Socials isn’t just another travel company. We are a passionate community dedicated to unlocking the magic of India, from the snow-capped Himalayas to the sun-drenched beaches of Goa. Whether you seek serenity in an Ayurvedic retreat, tantalize your taste buds on a culinary adventure through bustling street markets, or crave the thrill of exploring ancient ruins, Maven Socials empowers you to design the perfect Indian itinerary tailored to your desires.

This comprehensive guide delves into the heart of Maven Socials, equipping you to navigate our platform and discover the hidden wonders of India:

A Treasure Trove of Indian Delights: Immerse yourself in the rich tapestry of Indian culture, each region boasting unique experiences. Explore the majestic forts of Rajasthan, wander through the bustling bazaars of Delhi, or marvel at the architectural brilliance of the Taj Mahal. Mavensocials curates itineraries that cater to every interest, ensuring you experience the true essence of India.

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Wellness Getaways for Body and Soul: Indulge in restorative Ayurvedic retreats designed to rejuvenate your mind, body, and spirit. Explore yoga ashrams nestled in the serene foothills of the Himalayas, detoxify at a luxury spa nestled in the verdant jungles of Kerala, or learn ancient meditation techniques from a renowned guru. Maven Socials curates the perfect wellness escape for every need.

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Thrilling Escapades for the Adventurous Soul: Are you an adrenaline junkie seeking adventure? Maven Socials ignites your adventurous spirit with experiences that will take your breath away. Go white-water rafting down the Ganges River, trek through the breathtaking valleys of Kashmir, or embark on a wildlife safari in the jungles of Ranthambore National Park. We curate itineraries that push your boundaries and create memories you’ll cherish forever.

Building a Community of Like-Minded Maven Socials: Connect with fellow India enthusiasts on the Maven Socials website. Share stories, swap travel tips, and forge lasting friendships with passionate explorers from across the country. Our vibrant community allows you to learn from others and inspire fellow travelers with your own experiences.

Beyond Inspiration: Crafting Your Dream Indian Journey with Maven Socials

Maven Socials goes beyond showcasing breathtaking destinations. We empower you to co-create your dream Indian itinerary. Our expert travel consultants work closely with you to understand your interests, budget, and travel style. They tailor experiences that reflect your unique desires, ensuring an unforgettable adventure that truly captures the essence of India.

Ready to embark on your next unforgettable journey within India with Maven Socials? Explore our website to discover a world of curated experiences and unlock the travel maven within you!

Let Maven Socials be your guide to a world of transformative experiences within India. It’s time to start collecting memories, not just souvenirs!

[alshifahealth]

Cancer defeat through Therapy

CAR T cell therapy, a groundbreaking form of immunotherapy, is revolutionizing cancer treatment. This innovative therapy harnesses the power of the body's immune system to target and destroy cancer cells.

CAR T cell therapy involves genetically modifying a patient's own T cells to recognize and attack cancer cells. This process begins with the collection of the patient's T cells through a process called leukapheresis. These T cells are then genetically engineered in a laboratory to express chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) on their surface. These CARs enable the T cells to recognize specific proteins, or antigens, found on the surface of cancer cells.

Once the CAR T cells have been engineered, they are expanded in the laboratory to generate a large population of cancer-fighting cells. These modified CAR T cells are then infused back into the patient's bloodstream, where they can seek out and destroy cancer cells throughout the body.

CAR T cell therapy has shown remarkable success in the treatment of certain types of blood cancers, such as leukemia and lymphoma. Patients who have failed to respond to traditional treatments, such as chemotherapy or stem cell transplantation, have experienced dramatic and often long-lasting remissions following CAR T cell therapy.

Despite its remarkable efficacy, CAR T cell therapy also comes with potential risks and side effects, including cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and neurotoxicity. These side effects can range from mild to severe and require careful management by healthcare professionals.

As research in CAR T cell therapy continues to advance, scientists are exploring its potential applications in treating other types of cancer, including solid tumors. With ongoing innovation and improvements in technology, CAR T cell therapy holds immense promise as a transformative approach to cancer treatment, offering hope to patients facing even the most challenging diagnoses.

Connect with us at Alshifa Healthcare Services

Or WhatsApp us at +91 7669 900 900

[rawahealth]

Rawa Health Services

Our medical tourism company in India offers a wide range of medical specialties to meet the diverse needs of our patients. From cardiology and neurology to oncology and orthopedics, we provide access to top-rated doctors and hospitals across all medical fields. Our network of medical professionals is trained in the latest techniques and technologies and has extensive experience treating a range of conditions. Whether you are seeking preventative care, diagnostic services, or specialized treatment, our team of medical experts can provide you with the care and attention you need. We are committed to ensuring that our patients receive the highest quality medical care, and we work tirelessly to ensure that you have the resources and support you need to achieve optimal health outcomes. Trust us to connect you with the best medical specialists in India, and to provide you with the personalized care and attention you deserve.

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[determinate-negation]

“Prior to October 7th, between 170-200,000 Palestinians worked in Israel (roughly 75% with work permits—with around 90% of these permits going to Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank). After October 7th, nearly all Palestinian workers were fired, their work permits revoked, and their range of movement, already limited, restricted even further. The economic damage has been immense particularly in construction and agriculture, where the majority of Palestinians had been employed (it is an aspect of Zionist cruelty that Palestinians—a highly educated people—should be confined to low-wage manual labor employment in two of the primary economic sectors which have been used to advance their dispossession). To provide the starkest example: the construction industry, which accounts for 6-7% of Israeli GDP was, as of December 2023, operating at only 30% of its pre-October capacity, and fully half of all building projects were on hold.

Although business interests were able to pressure the government to allow a paltry 8–10,000 Palestinians back to work in December, the short- and long-term solutions to the problem of Israeli dependence on Palestinian labor (and, indeed, for the Zionist it has always been a problem) appears to be the increasing importation of foreign workers from Asia and Eastern Europe, particularly Thailand and India. It should be noted that Israel has used debt—the result of exorbitant “placement fees” charged by recruiters in workers’ home countries—to trap many foreign workers in hyper-exploitative working conditions enforced by geographic isolation. This is the paradigmatic form of modern slavery. Even if cheap imported labor were to get the construction industry back on track, the war has also resulted in the downgrading of Israel’s credit rating, a sharp decline in imports and exports, the almost complete pause of its tourism industry, a snowballing cancelation of arms deals the world over and, in the case of Turkey, trade relations as well, yielding an almost 20% contraction of its annualized GDP.

With these numbers, it could be said that Israel’s present genocide against the Palestinians harms both its short-term and long-term economic interests, sacrificed for the drive to extermination. But the enforced economic obsolescence of the Palestinians must be understood as integral to the drive for their extermination. Employing the brute force of siege, Israel has succeeded in cutting many Palestinians off from much of the global economy—now, entirely in the case of Gaza, and increasingly so in the case of the West Bank. Even those who are able to run businesses with international clientele face delays or de facto bans from cash-transfer sites like PayPal, and imports, exports, and access to certain goods are all controlled and restricted by Israel. These restrictions limit access to raw materials, affecting the types of industry Palestine is capable of sustaining, and limiting prospects for economic development.

Palestinians' limited access to the global economy in turn nurtures a dependency on Israeli goods and employment. But this dependency cuts both ways—Israel has grown dependent on Palestinian labor, which renders Palestinians necessary to the functioning of the Israeli economy and also creates barriers against their total social exclusion (not only in the sense that this labor requires social interaction with the Israeli populace). As Bataille writes in The Psychological Structure of Fascism, “money serves to measure all work and makes man a function of measurable products. According to the judgment of homogenous society, each man is worth what he produces.” In capitalist society, productivity becomes the prerequisite to admittance to social life. To totalize race-based social exclusion, then, the target population must be rendered economically obsolete. “As early as 1895,” Fayez Sayegh notes, “Herzl was busy devising a plan to ‘spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment.’”

Nazi Germany understood this as well: the 1938 “Regulation for the Elimination of the Jews from the Economic Life of Germany” completed the work begun three years prior by the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped Jews and other groups of their citizenship and enshrined racial classification and separation into law. “The Jewish middleman,” Adorno and Horkheimer write, “fully becomes the image of the devil only when economically he has ceased to exist.” In apartheid society, in which the target population is seen as subhuman, or at least undeserving of rights or consideration, the wage remains one of the last means of verifying their humanity: beasts may be productive, but they do not earn a wage. The attempted elimination of Palestinian labor from the Israeli economy marks one of the final steps on the way to their full dehumanization in the Zionists’ eyes, one that prepared the way for the present mass extermination.

Zionism is not, then, a race-based system of economic exploitation at its core, though it does benefit from such exploitation: it is, first and foremost, a program of land acquisition. We can see the dual attack on Palestinian economic self-determination and land ownership in Israel’s routine destruction of Palestinian olive groves. Settlers, often armed or otherwise protected by armed agents of the state, uproot, burn, or cut down olive trees, with increasing frequency since 2019. The aim is to drive Palestinians from their land by destroying the subsistence produced by the land itself and nurtured over centuries by Palestinian farmers, in an effort to “Judaize” the area. As Palestinians flee from unchecked violence, forced from their land at the barrel of a gun, Jewish settlements appear in their wake, strictly illegal but in practice facilitated by the state until they are eventually recognized and assimilated into the legally regulated regime of property. (The whole cycle of legalizing illegal settlements, in any event, is something of a formality as their existence and proliferation is the entire raison d’être of the Zionist project.) When Palestinians refuse to leave and cannot be forced, they are murdered.”

Jake Romm, Elements of Anti-Semitism: The Limits of Zionism in Parapraxis Mag

[neuroticbookworm]

Engagement of QL Fandom in Indian Queer Media

I was tagged by @lurkingshan and invited to respond to an ask she received from @impala124 that noted the absence of India in the Asian queer media spaces and discussions, and questioned the reasons behind it. @starryalpacasstuff has also responded to it in a great post (check out the reblog additions for a treasure trove of Indian queer media recs), discussing, among many things, Korea’s culture export aiding their queer media ventures, access to Indian queer media, and the quality of Indian queer media. @twig-tea’s addition discussed the ease of access of Thai BLs via YouTube and how it prompted Korea and Japan to re-enter the genre.

My thoughts on Indian queer media are complicated and involve several detours to understand Indian media culture, its economic power, and how it navigates international viewership. For context, I am an Indian cinephile who grew up watching a wide variety of Indian media in terms of both language and genre. I naturally transitioned into watching Western content as globalization of the 2010s brought HBO and Comedy Central to Indian screens, and later sought out queer media, Asian media and Asian queer media on the internet.

Indian Media Industry - A Primer

I know there are a lot of countries right now that produce QL media, so I am gonna mainly consider Thailand, Japan, and Korea, the three countries most prolific with ql, for the purpose of this discussion. All of these countries, while regionally diverse, have managed to considerably homogenize in language and culture over the course of history and colonization. India, on the other hand, is still significantly and distinctly diverse in language, culture, religion, food, media styles, social norms, and on and on. India has 22 official languages and thousands of regional ones that are used in various capacities everyday. This diversity is then reflected in the media produced by India, with multiple powerhouse film industries dominating box offices simultaneously. Bollywood is the biggest one and obviously well known internationally, but Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi, Bengali-language film industries are successful in their own right and consistently produce box office hits and self-sustain in the larger Indian media landscape. This makes domestic media highly regional in India. Even today, in the age of social media, it takes a box office success to the tune of hundreds of millions of rupees for a film to break out of its domestic audience and cross over into other Indian states.

This diversity has also led to the different industries developing media styles unique to them. I watched this video a while ago of a creator documenting his experience of dipping toes into Indian Cinema for the first time, and he ends up covering three movies from three different industries, because the pathos of each of them is so fundamentally different yet effective in their own ways. This diversity also applies to the television industry, both traditional cable TV soaps, and the modern shows made for streaming sites. And all of this, *waves hands*, presents a set of challenges like no other country faces for both Indian queer creators and Indian queer media audiences.

The Challenges for Creators

Since the Indian media industry is not a big monolith and is made up of multiple film industries, queer creators who are trying to get their foot in the door will face a unique uphill battle in whichever regional industry they’re trying to break into. And trying to research, learn, and understand each and every single one of them will take me and my non-existent research team years, so the simpler thing to do would be listing the factors that have worked for other countries to foster their media industries to produce QL content, and discuss if India could replicate them. The list goes like this:

Japan’s rich history in yaoi

Thailand’s use of BL as a soft power to promote tourism

Korea’s culture export via kpop and other media

While India does have religious mythology that discusses sex, gender and queerness, it is often subtext with a lot of intersectionality. Does Ardhanarishvara represent fluid gender, or a symbol of harmony, or both? The debates are endless. Japan’s yaoi roots are as deep as they are explicit. And this rich history could be why the Japanese domestic audience is open to queer media even when the country is still conservative.

Thailand’s rise as a major player in the QL industry is remarkable, but there is a case to be made that the country’s media industry was directly and indirectly boosted by the government’s interest in establishing revenue from tourism, and exporting culture to international audiences via food and media. While the revenue from tourism in India is substantial, the Indian economy is not built on it. And the Indian media industry is thriving and regularly makes bank with their already established content models, so the producers have a pretty low incentive to deviate and fund queer media.

I bet every coin I own that not a single one of us on this hellsite have successfully eluded the allure of Korean media in our lives. The Korean media industry is a well-calibrated machine that shall and will target every single human into funneling their time, attention and money into the Korean culture and economy. And I think queer creators looking to make queer content in Korea would’ve had good incubation in an industry that was looking to make as much content as possible. And once again, while Indian movies have significant international box office collections, that is not where the Indian media industry, and just India in general, makes its money. The priorities are just not the same. And to be perfectly honest, India is nowhere near the level of Korea at producing and exporting television shows to international audiences.

All of this is a long winded way of saying that the conditions required to foster a QL industry in India are not the same as what we have seen work so far from the other major players. And sadly no one has really figured out the winning formula yet.

These are just a few reasons, and I haven’t even discussed nepotism and how painful class mobility is in India, making it even harder for new queer creators to break into the industry. There’s a reason why movies with queer representation like Badhaai Do, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga, and Kapoor & Sons all feature characters in the upper middle class or above. Hell, they’re even played by actors whose portfolio is already filled with daring and experimental roles, or by first- or second-gen nepo babies who would literally have nothing to lose from the potential backlash for playing a queer character. Poor, queer characters in Indian media have never been a part of a fluffy romance as far as I know. They are reserved for the gritty dramas where intersectionality of queerness, poverty, class and caste could be examined.

The Challenges for the Audience

And once again, all of this, *aggressively waves hands*, makes things harder for even the domestic audience to engage with Indian queer media, let alone international audiences. Kathaal - The Core, a 2023 Malayalam movie about a queer man in his fifties coming out of the closet and contesting in his village body elections, was a box office success in Kerala, and I can tell y’all with complete certainty that not many people outside of Kerala would’ve even heard of it. And this was not some small indie venture – in fact, the lead characters were played by Mammootty and Jyothika, who are both absolute legends in their own right in the South Indian film industry.

Super Deluxe was a 2019 Tamil-language black comedy film that tells four interwoven stories that run in parallel, and one of the stories is about a trans woman who, pre-transition, was married and had a son. She returns to her family as her post-transition self after years of disappearance, and the film engages in conversation around sex and gender, through the innocent questions of her young son. The movie is gorgeously made, and outrageously sharp and witty in its commentary on society’s views on sex, morality, religion and family. And once again, I don’t think it is well-known outside of the domestic and international award-circuit audiences it was promoted to (last I checked, it was available to domestic audiences on Netflix).

Sometimes, even the domestic audience might miss the queer representation in their regional media when it is indie enough to not get aggressively promoted. The Hindi-language anthology movie from Netflix, Ajeeb Daastaans (2021), featured a story where two women from different caste and social class meet at the workplace (the sapphic story, Geeli Pucchi, starts at 1:17:05, if anyone wants to check it out). It served biting commentary on the intersectionality of queerness, misogyny, caste and class. And once again, I’ve never found a person with whom I could discuss it with (other than my mom, with whom I watched it).

And sometimes, even when a massive show with queer representation is well promoted and well received by critics, it still manages to fly under the radar in Indian queer fandom spaces. Amazon Prime India spent a lot of coin on the show Made in Heaven (2019) – and it was worth it. The show follows the lives of two wedding planners, Tara and Karan. Karan is closeted (except to his close friends) for most of the show, but after he makes some powerful enemies in his line of work, he gets publicly outed, which puts him on the path of dealing with his family’s shades of acceptance, queer rights activism, and reconciling with an old friend. The car scene in episode 9 made me cry, and yet I’ve never read a word about this show from Indian QL fan blogs here on Tumblr.

Following every film and TV show that releases in one language, across all modes and platforms, and keeping an eye out for queer representation is hard enough. Doing it in multiple languages is downright impossible. And then personal preferences come into play. Personally, I enjoy nearly all genres of media, but I am primarily an angst monster, so I seek out and watch sad shit on the regular. All four examples I’ve listed in this section are good queer representations, but they are deeply sad, rage-inducing, heartbreaking and realistic. If one wanted to watch an Indian queer romance that’s inside the bubble, I’m not sure if they can even find one – I have certainly not come across any. Even the queer Bollywood movies designed for a box office run, paying homage to iconic Bollywood romance sequences, were still outside the bubble. When a niche audience like the QL fandom collides with a complex media-churning machine like the Indian media industry that is fundamentally not designed to cater to them, all we get is a lot of puzzled looks and question marks.

A Thought Experiment On The Future Of Indian QLs

Now that I have established the challenges, I want to engage in a little thought experiment – if we were to receive a steady stream of Indian QL content, what would it look like, and how can the fandom engage with it?

If we are looking for content from a stable production entity for Indian queer media, like Thailand’s GMMTV, Japan’s MBS Drama Shower, and Korea’s Strongberry, we would be waiting for a long time, at the very least a decade or two. What we could get are small indie queer shows like Romil and Jugal, squirreled away in a streaming platform exclusive to India and only accessible internationally via VPN. Another example is the list of sapphic shows @twig-tea shared with us a while ago, here. These are gonna be low budget, probably-not-great-quality shows reminiscent of early GMMTV.

Another variety of QL content we could get are the Bollywood queer romance films and TV shows. They will be cheesy and tropey and romantic, and might interact with the bubble, but probably mostly from the safety of an upper middle class setting. This means they would eventually run out of fresh perspectives they could tune into in their limited scope and the stories might turn stale and repetitive (I’m deriving this from the general state of things in the Indian media landscape over the last couple years). International access might be a little easier than the previous case, but not as easy as going to YouTube and hitting play.

The third and final variety are the gritty dramas with heavy social, cultural, religious, gender and class commentary that Indian cinema industry has always made, and has upgraded in the recent years to include queerness. Once again, the access will be hard, but if we are looking for queer stories that also show the audience what it is like being queer in India, beyond the glitz, the glam and the colors of pre-packaged Indian experience often sold to the West, this is where we will find it. Most of it will be sad, but we are a sad bunch who constantly make sad shit, so it will be on brand for us.

And all of these different varieties of content are gonna need to be picked up and promoted by the Indian folks in the QL fandom who are tuned into these regional industries. India not being a cultural monolith that is easy to package and ship is precisely why we have all these beautiful and crazy and sometimes even contradictory styles of media that are offered for us to explore. And therefore, the fandom engagement on Indian QL content would also vastly differ from the fandom engagement for Japan, Thailand and Korea. A dedicated fandom captain might not emerge, but rather, a collective group of folks tuning into and promoting finds from their regional industries would be the way to go. In addition, if this content is not available in English, we would need fan subbers to provide translation expertise to even make it accessible, something we see often for Japanese media on Tumblr.

I know from observation that watching media in a different regional language could sometimes be as foreign to Indian audiences as watching media from other countries. The language, traditions, mannerisms, social mores and food would all be different from region to region, but I guess it would be a good litmus test to observe how well the fandom acclimates to a culture that is so eye-wateringly diverse and not as constantly promoted to them.

When I was texting @waitmyturtles discussing how we can approach answering this question (remember when this all started with a question, some two thousand-ish words ago? Yes, that question), at a point in our conversation I exclaimed "Ugh, everything in India is too complicated!" This long-ass post of mine is in no way the complete account of why things are the way they are in the Indian queer media landscape. But all I know for sure is that it’s not simple. And I really do not want anything related to India to be simple, because being unbearably frustrating and complicated is not a bug, but a feature of India. The road to Indian QLs is unique, but I will do my best to check the paths and share and recommend them to my friends whenever possible. And I invite my fellow Indian QL fans to do the same.

[withnofreetime]

HETALIA ☆ WORLD STARS (515)

America really likes to... to be himself (please, admire the car and a "Thank you very much" to my sister, somehow she did it!)

Translation notes at the end: ‘cuz I took a lot of “creative freedoms(?)” and sometimes I forgot the meaning of words (“kanji”). Warning: I don’t know Italian (thanks Reddit), German (my sister knows), French (a bit) and Chinese (ref. Chinese friend).

T/N:

Page 1.

Italia + Pikachu, Itachu or Pikalia, but the last sounds horrible.

"Il faut que jeunesse se passe", the literal and no literal meaning is: "Youth must have its fling", in other words, "let America be America, let him have fun".

"后生可畏". I wasn't sure whether to add Chinese, but if others can, why not China? I really love this Chinese proverb, and I also like to study Confucius (little story) so it's a double prize! A friend of mine told me that in her school they make them read the teachings of Confucius, so… he's pretty popular!

"The hero always arrives late!", this is pretty obvious and well-know, but to be a little more academic: The Hero's Journey. After overcoming the "abyss/defeat", the hero returns transformed to save the day! At the very last minute! Like… the format that all cliché Hollywood movies use.

Page 3.

"Mitico": "great", "fantastic", "brilliant", etc.

"The specified Cost":

France: 1.94% less, I searched, but I couldn't find how much of France's PIB is spent on tourism.

Page 4.

Italy's PIB, it's in euros, but, as in France's case, it has to be converted into dollars to be considered as approximation.

In 2023, the Italian government spent between 40-60 million dollars on tourism, which coincides a little bit with the "-41 in cost" in the letter, I guess.

Page 5.

"Ungeheuer", "monster". I agreed to translate Hetalia with the condition that I have fun, no matter if the words come out of nowhere.

In tourism: America (3) and Italy (4).

Page 6.

"1st Place, America". So I assume his cards will have something to do with that:

1) Technology. Japan (1) and America (2) are the most technologically advanced countries by far.

2) Wall Street. Who doesn't know the place? It is the economic centre of the world... for now.

3) Film Industry. Hollywood is the largest, richest and most important "corporation".

4) NASA. And the other private American companies. I wouldn't say they are number one, but they are well-known.

5) Army. China (1), India (2) and America (3), by number of soldiers.

Against Germany, Italy and Japan (technology):

1) Cars, but unlikely. In order of revenue: (1) Volkswagen, Germany, (2) Toyota, Japan and (3) Stellantis, Netherlands.

2) Engineering. Most of them are either Japanese or German companies.

3) Germany is good and top 5 in 2.

America is really the number one, although most of them are for not-so-good things. It must be its size and diversity, I think, and the two world wars.

"Non è vero?", "It's not true?" or, in this case, "Isn't it?"

Is there a problem/error? Please say so! And thank you for your support!

[rayspookyhistory]

✧༺┆✦The Matriarchal Societies✦┆༻✩

Matriarchal societies, where women occupy primary power roles in political, social, and economic realms, have existed across various cultures and historical periods. Distinguished by matrilineal descent, communal decision-making, and significant female authority, these societies present alternative models of social organization.

Characteristics of Matriarchal Societies

Matrilineal Descent

A hallmark of matriarchal societies is matrilineal descent. Family lineage, property, and titles are inherited through the mother’s line, ensuring continuity and stability as women control familial and economic resources. Matriarchs play central roles in family organization, often making key decisions about marriage, property distribution, and household management.

Political Authority

Women in matriarchal societies frequently hold significant political positions such as chiefs, queen mothers, or council leaders. Their leadership is active and involves governance and decision-making. Community councils, typically composed of elder women, guide community policies and resolve disputes, ensuring that women's perspectives are central to governance.

Economic Control

Women typically control property and land, managing and passing them down to their daughters. This economic power underpins their social authority and community status. They oversee the allocation of resources within the community, ensuring equitable distribution and the well-being of all members.

Cultural and Spiritual Roles

Women often serve as spiritual leaders, shamans, or priestesses, conducting important rituals and ceremonies. As custodians of spiritual knowledge and cultural traditions, women preserve and transmit cultural heritage through storytelling, education, and ritual practices, maintaining the community's identity and values.

Historical and Contemporary Examples

The Hopi (Native Americans)

The Hopi people, residing in north-eastern Arizona, follow a matrilineal system where clan membership and inheritance pass through the female line. Women own the land and homes, and they play significant roles in agricultural activities. Female elders influence decision-making processes, particularly regarding community welfare and cultural traditions.

The Ashanti (West Africa)

The Ashanti people of Ghana practice a matrilineal system in which lineage and inheritance pass through the mother's line. The Queen Mother holds significant political influence, including the authority to select the Asantehene (king). Women are key figures in trade and local markets, controlling the distribution of goods and resources.

The Baganda (Uganda)

In Buganda, a kingdom within Uganda, women hold crucial roles in the matrilineal descent system. The Namasole (queen mother) has substantial political influence and advises the Kabaka (king). Women manage household economies, control land inheritance, and are active in agricultural production, ensuring the community's sustenance.

The Mosuo (China)

Located near Lugu Lake in the Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, the Mosuo people practice a unique form of matrilineal descent. Extended families live in large households managed by the matriarch. The Mosuo have "walking marriages," where men visit their partners at night and return to their maternal homes in the morning. Children remain with their mothers, and maternal uncles play significant roles in their upbringing. Women control the household economy, manage agricultural activities, and are involved in local trade and tourism.

The Khasi (India)

The Khasi people of Meghalaya in north-eastern India follow a matrilineal system where property and family names are inherited through the female line. The youngest daughter, known as the "Ka Khadduh," inherits the ancestral property and is responsible for taking care of the elderly parents. Khasi women play central roles in household management, local commerce, and cultural rituals.

The Igbo (Nigeria)

Among the Igbo people of Nigeria, certain communities practice matrilineal descent, particularly in the inheritance of property and titles. Women are influential in trade and local markets, actively participating in community decision-making processes. Female-led organizations and associations play crucial roles in maintaining social order and cultural traditions.

The Minangkabau (Indonesia)

The Minangkabau, located in West Sumatra, are the world's largest matrilineal society. Property and family names are inherited through women. Women manage the household and family inheritance, while men handle external political relations. The role of "Bundo Kanduang" (the revered mother) symbolizes female authority and wisdom. Women play central roles in cultural ceremonies, such as weddings and funerals, reinforcing their social status and authority.

The Tuareg (Sahara Desert)

The Tuareg people, living in the Sahara Desert across Mali, Niger, Algeria, and Libya, practice matrilineal descent. Property and family tents are inherited through the female line. Women have significant autonomy and can initiate divorce. They control family wealth and manage household affairs. Women are custodians of the family's history and traditions, passing down cultural knowledge through oral traditions and music.

The Trobriand Islanders (Papua New Guinea)

The Trobriand Islanders of Papua New Guinea follow a matrilineal system where lineage and inheritance are passed through the mother’s line. Women control the distribution of yam, a staple crop that signifies wealth and social status. Female leaders, known as "dauk," play essential roles in community decision-making and cultural rituals.

The Iroquois Confederacy (North America)

The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) society, located in the north-eastern United States, is matrilineal, with clans led by elder women known as Clan Mothers. Clan Mothers have the authority to nominate and depose male leaders (sachems). They play a vital role in maintaining the Great Law of Peace, which governs the confederacy. Women are central to agricultural practices, growing the "Three Sisters" crops (corn, beans, and squash), which are crucial to the community's sustenance.

Modern Implications and Interpretations

Matriarchal societies offer models of gender equality and demonstrate that societies can thrive with women in central roles. These societies challenge the notion that patriarchal structures are necessary for social stability. The emphasis on matrilineal descent and female authority helps preserve cultural traditions, ensuring the continuity of community identity. Women's control over resources often leads to more sustainable and equitable economic practices, benefiting the community as a whole.

Challenges and Misconceptions

Common misconceptions suggest that matriarchal societies simply reverse the power dynamics of patriarchy, with women dominating men. However, these societies often emphasize balance, cooperation, and mutual respect between genders. Patriarchal societies may resist the idea of matriarchy, viewing it as a threat to established power structures, leading to the marginalization and misrepresentation of matriarchal communities.

Matriarchal societies provide valuable insights into alternative social structures where women hold central roles in political, social, and economic spheres. These societies demonstrate the viability of matrilineal and matriarchal systems, offering models for more balanced and equitable gender dynamics. Understanding these societies broadens perspectives on power distribution, gender roles, and cultural practices, challenging the dominance of patriarchal paradigms in historical and contemporary contexts. They highlight the potential for diverse forms of social organization that prioritize cooperation, sustainability, and equality.

[beguines]

The Indian state has already begun to evict indigenous communities from their homes. In late 2020, tribal communities received notice that labeled their homes as illegally occupying forest land. Their homes were demolished. This bears an eerie resemblance to Israel's targeting of Bedouin communities of Naqab, where Israel gave the lands of these communities to Jewish settlers and the military. The logic of Bedouin dispossession was premised on the fact that as nomads, they had no right to the land.

In Kashmir, these communities were living on lands that the Indian state wanted to use for the development of tourist infrastructure. Part of the plan is to transfer agricultural land to Indian state and private corporations. Kashmir has already lost 78,700 hectares of agricultural land to non-agricultural purposes between 2015–19. This decline in agricultural land—which a majority of Kashmiris still rely upon as the foundation of their economy—will disempower farmers, result in a loss of essential crops, make Kashmir less agriculturally self-sufficient, and create grounds for economic collapse in the near future. It is of course, only when Kashmiris are economically devastated that India's job in securing their land will be made even easier.

Alongside the destruction of agricultural land, the Indian government has also been charged with "ecocide" in Kashmir, which, "masked under the development rhetoric . . . destroys the environment without care, extracting resources and expanding illegal infrastructure as a way of contesting the indigenous peoples' right of belonging and using the territory for their own gain." During the lockdown in late 2019, the valley saw unprecedented forest clearances. In June 2020, the Jammu & Kashmir Forest Department became a government-owned corporation, allowing it to sell public forest land to private entities, including to Indian corporations. The rush to secure and extract Kashmir's resources has typically come at an immense cost to the region's vulnerable ecology, prompting local activists' fears that a lack of accountability will almost certainly exacerbate the climate crisis in South Asia. Just as Israel has secured control over Palestinian resources, India's stranglehold of Kashmir's natural resources and interference with the environment will ultimately make Kashmiris dependent on the Indian state for their livelihoods.

All of these shifts in land use reflect the "Srinagar Master Plan 2035," which "proposes creating formal and informal housing colonies through town planning schemes as well as in Special Investment Corridors," primarily for the use of Indian settlers and outside investors. Indeed, the Indian government has signed a series of MOU's with outside investors to alter the nature of the state by building multiplexes, educational institutions, film production centers, tourist infrastructure, Hindu religious sites, and medical industries. Kashmiri investors are no competition for massive Indian and external corporations and have a fundamental disadvantage in investing in land banks that the government has apportioned toward these purposes. Back to back lockdowns have resulted in massive economic losses for Kashmir's industries, including tourism, handicrafts, horticulture, IT, and e-commerce. Furthermore, "as with other colonial powers, Indian officials are participating in international investment summits parroting Kashmir as a 'Land of Opportunity', setting off a scramble for Kashmir's resources, which will cause further environmental destruction." India has always kept a close eye on Kashmir's water resources and its capabilities to generate electricity, while intentionally depriving Kashmir of the electricity it produces.

As more economic and employment opportunities are opened up to Indian domiciles, Kashmiris will also be deprived of what little job security they had. In sum, "neoliberal policies come together with settler colonial ambitions under continued reference to private players, industrialization and development, with the 'steady flow of wealth outwards.'"

Azad Essa, Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel

[mariacallous]

Through the twists and turns of the U.S. presidential race, immigration has remained one of voters’ top concerns. Former President Donald Trump has consistently made allegations about the supposed danger posed by migrants, including repeating a false claim that Haitians in Ohio were eating Americans’ pets. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign has touted the sharp drop in migrant encounters at the U.S. southern border in recent months as a sign of the White House’s control over the issue.

U.S. authorities’ encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border—when a migrant is apprehended by Border Patrol before they are generally expelled or allowed to enter asylum proceedings—fell from 249,741 in December 2023 to 58,038 in August. But while the White House has taken some unilateral steps to lower those numbers—such as a June presidential proclamation that severely restricted the ability to seek asylum at the border—Harris and U.S. President Joe Biden may owe just as much to countries such as Mexico and Panama.

In coordination with the United States, Mexico and Panama have constructed their own new barriers to northward migration in the last year. Those include a busing campaign to move migrants southward within Mexico, as well as fencing and deportation flights to tighten up the Panama-Colombia border. After Mexico stepped up the current campaign in January, U.S. border arrivals dropped by a whopping 50 percent in one month.

The chaotic discourse surrounding immigration in the United States obscures a broader story: The Western Hemisphere boasts an increasingly synchronous approach to managing migration. Through negotiations with Latin American countries, the Biden administration has helped develop a regional strategy that goes beyond enforcement to include steps such as creating new legal pathways for labor migration. The approach has won praise from organizations such as the Inter-American Development Bank and the U.N. Refugee Agency, even as migrant rights groups have also criticized some of its tactics.

At its core, the hemispheric strategy is straightforward, said its coordinator on the White House National Security Council, Marcela Escobari: “creating consequences for irregular migration—and for the smugglers preying on vulnerable migrants—while creating alternative lawful pathways.”

Before the recent decline in migrant encounters at the U.S. southern border, authorities were wrestling with a record influx; encounters soared to more than 2 million in both 2022 and 2023.

This increase has multiple causes. More than 7 million people have fled Venezuela in the last decade. Most reside in Latin America, while others have ventured toward the United States. Cuba’s economic crisis, meanwhile, prompted its largest emigration wave in history between 2022 and 2023. People have also fled violence and poverty in countries such as Haiti and Ecuador. And some migrants reach the U.S. border from starting points beyond the Western Hemisphere, having flown to Latin America from countries such as India, China, and Afghanistan to trek northward.

Smugglers often play a major role in encouraging migrants. “They sell the route like it’s adventure tourism,” said Ronal Rodríguez, a migration expert at the University of Rosario in Bogotá. Thanks in part to organized crime groups that see migrants as a revenue stream, the Darién Gap—the dangerous jungle border between Colombia and Panama—went from being considered mostly unpassable to becoming a migrant highway since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Historic migration flows have strained Latin American countries and their asylum and refugee systems for years. So governments started talking. In 2018, 11 Latin American countries gathered in Quito, Ecuador, to launch a series of negotiations on assisting Venezuelan migrants, pledging steps such as granting them legal status in host countries and connecting them with international aid.

Then, at the 2022 Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, 19 Latin American and Caribbean countries along with Canada and the United States signed on to a U.S.-conceived pledge for multipronged migration cooperation that included boosting enforcement, expanding legal pathways for migration, and stabilizing migrant populations where they currently reside.

The LA Declaration was conceived to apply to migrants of all nationalities, but some of the clearest examples of how it works in practice pertain to Venezuelans.

Countries such as Mexico, Costa Rica, and Belize have introduced visa requirements for Venezuelan visitors since 2022—an example of an enforcement move meant to deter illegal migration. But since October 2022, some Venezuelans have been able to apply to fly into the United States under a temporary protection mechanism called humanitarian parole, a new legal pathway. To stabilize migrant populations, the United States helps fund aid for displaced Venezuelans living in Colombia to discourage further migration.

The fact that the talks for the LA Declaration included countries from Chile to Canada marked a new chapter in Western Hemisphere diplomacy, said Diego Chaves-González of the Migration Policy Institute. Smaller regional blocs such as the Caribbean Community and Mercosur had in the past mostly conducted migration negotiations internally; now, they are swapping strategies. “These bubbles, in terms of migration, have burst,” Chaves-González said.

As a broadly defined strategy, the LA Declaration includes signatories that sometimes disagree about the fine print. Latin American countries have occasionally chafed at U.S. demands for greater migration enforcement in the hemisphere.

Even after Colombia, Panama, and the United States announced a joint campaign to “end the illicit movement of people” through the Darién Gap in April 2023, Colombian President Gustavo Petro told the New York Times that it was not his goal to stop migration through the gap; he said he would not send “horses and whips” to address a problem that Colombia did not create and instead blamed U.S. sanctions on Venezuela for exacerbating the issue. (The campaign ended after two months with little change on the ground.)

Even so, Petro has gone along with other tenets of the LA Declaration, such as allowing the U.S. government to screen certain migrants in Colombia for refugee resettlement and refer them to information about other lawful routes via a program called the Safe Mobility Initiative.

The declaration’s goal of adding legal pathways has earned especially strong enthusiasm among Latin American governments. It has also allowed for a conceptual innovation, Chaves-González said: connecting migration management with countries’ labor market needs.

“Today, the labor force of the United States would be rapidly shrinking without immigration,” said George Mason University economist Michael Clemens, who advised the Biden administration on migration policy between 2021 and 2023. In Mexico, some of the country’s largest employers are cooperating to recruit migrants and refugees to fill their workforce needs. And in Colombia, migration was in large part responsible for saving the country’s coffee and flower industries over the last five years, Chaves-González said.

Voters often don’t realize migrants’ positive impact on host economies, Clemens said, because of incorrect measurement and false stereotypes. For a more complete accounting, he pointed to a July Congressional Budget Office estimate that the U.S. immigration surge since 2021—composed of groups such as asylum-seekers, undocumented people, and those admitted through executive parole—will add some $9 trillion to the economy over the next decade.

Eyeing not only humanitarian principles but also economic benefits, the Biden administration has paroled some 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans into the United States since 2022. Washington also worked with Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador to grow the number of temporary H-2 work visas issued to their citizens, from 9,800 in 2021 to around 27,000 in 2023.

Mexico, meanwhile, has issued work authorization to more than 17,500 asylum-seekers since 2022 and created an online platform to connect migrants with jobs. A nascent U.S. program called Labor Neighbors also aims to build a matching system between workers and jobs throughout the hemisphere, U.S. Homeland Security Advisor Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall said on Sept. 17.

Mexico has been an especially vocal advocate for new legal pathways. In a high-stakes December 2023 meeting where U.S. officials requested Mexican help stopping migrants moving northward, Mexican officials pushed for increased legal migration routes, they later wrote.

“Where we have to place our bet,” then-Mexican Foreign Secretary Alicia Bárcena said in June, “is on regular pathways for labor migration.”

The LA Declaration has gained praise inside and outside the Western Hemisphere. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi hailed a “growing convergence of views” in the hemisphere on migration, while the Danish and Swiss governments have funded research discussing whether the Safe Mobility Initiative could be replicated in Europe. “The current U.S. government has sought to create a positive agenda with the region when it comes to managing these [migrant] flows that are somewhat inevitable,” Brazilian diplomat Carlos Márcio Cozendey said.

Despite those accolades, some migration and human rights experts have also criticized actions taken under the scope of the declaration, which they say chip away at the international right to asylum.

Hemispheric actions since 2022 have in practice included more steps to restrict migration pathways than to create new ones, the University of Rosario’s Rodríguez said. New legal pathways often have strict cutoff dates, nationality requirements, fees, and documentation needs. Biden’s June proclamation was transparent about its intent to make it harder to claim asylum at the U.S. border, broadly restricting migrants’ eligibility for the second time in just over a year.

“With the Los Angeles Declaration, a lot of countries that had a policy of migrant reception are assuming the U.S. posture of migrant containment,” Rodríguez said. Chile, for example, announced “supposed pathways for formal migration, but people in humanitarian need can’t fulfill the requirements because they lack documents like passports,” he added.

Biden administration officials have pushed back against criticism of Washington’s border tightening. The U.S. asylum system “is not built for a higher volume of people” and the way it was being used by migrants was “destabilizing,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in September.

Strains on asylum systems across the world have led policymakers to increasingly bypass them in favor of other methods for handling protection-seeking migrants, Migration Policy Institute researchers noted in a July report. That includes the Biden administration’s use of humanitarian parole for certain Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans who might have otherwise tried to seek asylum at the border. The researchers argued for shifting “the focus of protection responses away from an exclusive reliance on territorial asylum and toward a diversified set of policy tools.”

While the U.N. Refugee Agency has encouraged the United States’ and its neighbors’ efforts “to develop a comprehensive response to forced displacement in the hemisphere,” it has also “expressed concern about measures that introduced restrictions on the right to seek asylum, potentially leaving many individuals in need of international protection without viable means to reach safety and at risk of being returned to danger,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

As the U.S. election approaches, the biggest question around regional migration cooperation is how much would survive a potential Trump presidency. Trump has remained neck and neck with Harris in polls as he pledges to carry out mass deportations, “suspend refugee resettlement,” and scrap an app that the Biden administration developed to allow some migrants to register for asylum screenings.

If Trump carries out an anti-migrant crackdown, “I do not think Mr. Trump is going to care, frankly, whether Latin American and Caribbean countries—or anybody else sending refugees and irregular migration—may be upset about this,” said Ronald Sanders, Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador to the United States and the Organization of American States.

While Trump could deal a heavy blow to the current approach, much too depends on other countries in the Western Hemisphere. It was during Trump’s presidency that countries such as Colombia and Brazil started to lead cooperation on hosting displaced Venezuelans despite the White House’s relative lack of engagement on the issue.

In 2018, Colombia granted regular status to nearly half a million Venezuelans, kicking off a wave of similar measures in other South American countries. The same year, Brazil launched a program to connect Venezuelan migrants with jobs that has since transferred more than 100,000 people from border areas. With help from both the government and private sector, Cozendey, the Brazilian diplomat, said Venezuelans “are absorbed around the country without turning into a problem.” The program has survived center-right, far-right, and left-wing governments.

Late last month in New York City, LA Declaration countries announced the creation of a new technical secretariat to ensure their work continues into the future. Colombia was appointed the group’s rotating chair for 2025.

“We have very important progress” in joint responses to migration, Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo said. “But still we have a lot of challenges.”

[rideboomindia]

Another milestone will be added in RideBoom journey of launching its bike taxi in the Indian city of Agra.

Agra, India, 23rd October 2023, ZEX PR WIRE, RideBoom, a leading transportation network company, is excited to announce the upcoming launch of its innovative bike taxi service in the city of Agra. With this new addition to its portfolio of services, RideBoom aims to provide convenient, efficient, and eco-friendly transportation options for residents and visitors of Agra.

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