Pico Iyer has a great column in a recent issue of Time that highlights India Becoming. “Impressively lucid and searching,” he calls the book. “In his clarity, sympathy and impeccably sculpted prose, Kapur often summons the spirit of V.S. Naipaul.”

According to a recent study by Yale and Columbia universities, India has the most toxic air in the world. The study also produced a composite index of environmental indicators, on which India ranked in the last ten. Depressing, frightening, and rings all too true for many of us who live next to steaming garbage dumps or in over-crowded cities.

According to a Chinese government report, the country’s urban population for the first time topped 50%. In India, 70% of the population is still rural. Yet another reason why the frequent coupling of these two (future?) world powers is simplistic and mistaken.

Things are getting hairy at the Jaipur Lit Fest, with protests and threats surrounding Salman Rushdie’s visit. For many writers–myself included–this is yet another sad chapter in what feels like a rising tide of intolerance and illiberalism in the country. Will threats of violence succeed in keeping Rushdie away? I hope not. See this artice on the Jaipur controversy; and this earlier piece, by Basharat Peer, on “India’s Free-Speech Crisis.”

A great piece by Suketu Mehta in this week’s Newsweek.  A couple of exclusive interviews really offer insight into Raj Rajaratnam the man, and particularly how his South Asian background and milieu have shaped him. I’ve often wondered, while watching this case, why Rajaratnam didn’t take a plea bargain. Now I think I understand better.

I still own some of the Tintins that my father used to read to me when I was a boy. I grew up on the exploits of this intrepid and mysterious (because we know so little about his private life) reporter. I find myself laughing at Calculus or Jolyon Wagg or the Thompson twins as hard today as I did thirty years ago. Few things give me as much pleasure in life as reading Tintin to my two boys every night before they go to sleep.

So it is with some trepidation (but tremendous excitement) that I intend to go see Spielberg’s “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn” this winter. My trepidation is heightened by the contradictory reviews I’ve been reading–some glowing, others scathing. I plan to take my boys–but I hope that the Hollywoodization of these comics won’t spoil the sense of innocence and purity that I (and I think they) still attach to these books.

In the meantime, for those less ambivalent about the whole thing, here’s a brilliant preview. And, for Indian readers, did you know that Tintin has now been launched in Hindi?

Great, in-depth political reporting. An excellent profile of Manmohan Singh and his government, from Vinod Jose in Caravan Magazine. You rarely get to read such behind-the-scenes political reporting in India. His account of the discussions and debates within the government during the summer of 1991 is particularly interesting. It would be great to see a whole book on that fateful summer–a kind of Bob Woodwardian analysis of the key players (and their compunctions and interests) who so radically remade India.