Srivastava’s family has an important message:

[Srivastava] was rebuilding her life, setting herself on a road to recovery from alcohol abuse and toward a career in public relations or event management, [her sister Ritu] Adams said. Others saw Srivastava, petite at less than 95 pounds, as “drop-dead gorgeous,” but her sister’s low self-esteem prevented her from seeing herself as beautiful, Adams said.

She suspects that contributed to her sister staying in an abusive relationship. Police investigators are piecing those details together, Adams said. The family simply wants Nupur’s story to resonate with others.

“Tell them that it can happen to anybody,” Veena Srivastava pleaded.

“She was doing so good,” Adams said of her sister’s fresh start. “Maybe she was afraid to leave him. There are a lot of women who probably won’t speak out because they’re ashamed of their past, but that shouldn’t matter.

“People say, ‘It can’t happen to me.’ Guess what? It happened to my sister.”

Update: That link either moved or is now broken. For more information, please try here.

Tasneem’s work with international news and advocacy organizations has resulted in a very rapid spread of the news of his detention, which will be an embarrasment to the Bangladeshi military authorities. HRW has released a statement with an account of the nocturnal visit from agents claiming to be with the “joint task force.” HRW links to a 2006 report on torture and extrajudicial killings by the Bangladesh Rapid Action Battalion to which Tasneem contributed. All this contributes to the obvious fears for him and reminds us of the peril faced by others who may not have the benefit of such a rapid international outcry.

UPDATE: Tasneem Khalil was released this evening, local time. Per Drishtipat:

Update 9:11:33 pm BDT
Tasneem is meeting with Mahfuz Anam in his office alone. Staffers in office say he looks physically ok, but badly shaken up. He is being taken home to his wife by DS staff after the meeting with MA.

Note also this earlier update:

Update 7:10:15 pm BDT
Senior Daily Star office are huddled in office, including Mahfuz Anam. MA has released a statement. Excerpts: ” “I contacted the authorities concerned and was informed that him being questioned was not due to his journalistic work and had nothing to do with his functions at The Daily Star…. In fact, it was because of the contents of his personal blog and some SMSs he had sent recently…. Following my discussions with the authorities and because of the caretaker government’s commitment to the policy of freedom of the media, it was agreed that he would be released tonight.” Full statement is not online on DS website yet.

But today marks the official sesquicentennial commemoration of the start of the Mutiny/Rebellion/War, and by way of launching the conversation, I present three different takes that are in the news today. First we have Mani Shankar Aiyar, India’s Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, who gave the official start to a youth march from Meerut to Delhi a couple of days ago. His remarks to a RediffNews correspondent emphasized the secular nature of the uprising; he observed that India today can learn from the uprising the importance of pluralism, secularism and religious understanding:

The significance of 1857 for today’s youth is that it makes you realise that we all are one people in spite of our diversity.

The freedom-fighters who revolted against the British in 1857 were mostly Hindus in Meerut. After disobeying their British superiors they went straight to the Mughal king, Bahadur Shah Zafar, and made him their king.

They had no ill-feeling for the Mughal king though he was a Muslim. This is the kind of secular bonding these soldiers had in them.

Our young generation must remember that united we stand, and though we are a diverse people we have to maintain our unity. That is what the message of 1857 was to all Indians. …

This is another message that Bahadur Shah Zafar and the freedom-fighters of 1857 wanted to pass on to the future generations. No matter what your religion and region be, respect all religion and maintain harmony. …

We have to remember the fact that India has the second largest Muslim population in the world. We have more Muslims than in Pakistan and Bangladesh but we Indians live together peacefully and I am proud to say all Muslims are my brothers.

Next up is the White Mughal himself, William Dalrymple Saheb. You knew he’d turn up somewhere! In an opinion piece today in the Guardian he argues that 1857 bears lessons for certain other interventions and occupations that Britain might happen to be involved in today. Here’s one of the similarities he points out:

The British progressed from removing threatening Muslim rulers to annexing even the most pliant Islamic states. In February 1856 they marched into Avadh, also known by the British as Oudh. To support the annexation, a “dodgy dossier” was produced before parliament, so full of distortions and exaggerations that one British official who had been involved in the operation described the parliamentary blue book (or paper) on Oudh as “a fiction of official penmanship, [an] Oriental romance” that was refuted “by one simple and obstinate fact”, that the conquered people of Avadh clearly “preferred the slandered regime” of the Nawab “to the grasping but rose-coloured government of the company”.

Dalrymple concludes:

Yet the lessons of 1857 are very clear. No one likes people of a different faith conquering them, or force-feeding them improving ideas at the point of a bayonet. The British in 1857 discovered what the US and Israel are learning now, that nothing so easily radicalises a people against them, or so undermines the moderate aspect of Islam, as aggressive western intrusion in the east. The histories of Islamic fundamentalism and western imperialism have, after all, long been closely and dangerously intertwined. In a curious but very concrete way, the fundamentalists of all three Abrahamic faiths have always needed each other to reinforce each other’s prejudices and hatreds. The venom of one provides the lifeblood of the others.

Before we go too far down that track, here’s a third perspective, from Rudrangshu Mukherjee in the Telegraph:

[I am] surprise[d] at the sudden burst of enthusiasm among historians about the great uprising. There is nothing like a state-sponsored anniversary to stoke the interests of historians in a subject. The adjective, state-sponsored, is used advisedly. In a country with as rich and as diverse a history as India’s, every year is an anniversary of something or the other. In June will come the 250th anniversary of the battle of Plassey. Is the Indian state celebrating that anniversary? The answer is no. The decision to celebrate the revolt of 1857 with some fanfare is based on the conclusion — put forward by some historians and accepted by the government of India — that the rebellion is worth celebrating because it represented India’s first war of independence.

Mukherjee argues that “1857 should be remembered but not commemorated,” because of the extreme violence of both the insurrection and the counter-insurrection.

The events of 1857 churned around a vicious cycle of violence. The rebels killed mercilessly without considerations of gender and age. Witness the massacre on the river in Kanpur where nearly the entire British population was killed in a spectacular show of rebel power. The British killed indiscriminately to punish a population that had transgressed the monopoly of violence that rulers have over the ruled.

He concludes:

Today, as the celebrations begin to mark the 150th anniversary of the rebellion, some questions need to be asked: is 1857 an occasion to celebrate? Can the Indian state uphold the violence that is inextricably linked to that year? Can the Indian state say that it is loyal to the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of non-violence, and in the same breath celebrate 1857 when so many innocent people, on both sides, were brutally killed?

The questions are important because in India, there is no mode of remembering without celebrating. We commemorate to remember, sometimes even to forget. Eighteen fifty-seven is an event to remember, as all events of the past are; it is an event to comprehend and analyse because, as Jawaharlal Nehru wrote, it showed “man at his worst”. That comprehension and analysis is best done outside the aegis of the State.

I present these three perspectives somewhat arbitrarily. I imagine there are many others and I hope people will share them, honest in their opinions and generous with their explanations.

The film is not just about a live meat market, according to its makers. It is a metaphor for the immigrant experience. Brook described the proliferation of live markets in and around New York City as an act of defiance against assimilation. It is an opportunity for immigrants to allow their American-born progeny to experience directly the culture of home by witnessing halal ritual slaughter.

I don’t know that I’d call that “defiance against assimilation” — it might just be evidence of a different kind of assimilation or, since the whole idea of “assimilation” is both so imprecise and so loaded, maybe we should just be talking about the constant process of formation of metropolitan culture in the era of globalization. In any event, the film earned an item in yesterday’s New York Times, in which the reporter visits the slaughterhouse:

All these creatures had arrived from farms and had taken up temporary residence at the Madani Halal slaughterhouse on 94th Avenue near 100th Street in Ozone Park, Queens. An occasional feather drifted to the concrete floor, and a stillness pervaded the air. [...]

Last week, the regulars drifted in, bypassing a large Pathmark on Atlantic Avenue for the quiet industrial side street where Madani sits in a squat red brick building. Most customers headed straight for the poultry. [Link]

In addition — and in an interesting bit of cross-promotion for the film, the slaughterhouse, and inter-community understanding — the producers held a “HalalFest” two Sundays ago:

To celebrate the films screening at the Tribeca Film Festival, the filmmakers threw a block party Saturday at the Madani Halal Live Lamb Goat and Poultry Market. Tables groaned with halal foods donated by local West Indian and Bangladeshi restaurants. Little girls lined up to get their faces painted and hands decorated with mehendi, or Indian body art. Kids flocked to a petting zoo while young men gathered for a pickup game of cricket on 94th Avenue. Live performances included music and dance from the Bangladeshi Institute of Performing Arts, Kashmiri-American band ZeroBridge, Guyanese singer Nadir, and hip-hop b-boy Fable Pabon and members of the Rock Steady crew. [Link]

I’m bummed I missed this! Did anyone here attend the event or at least get a chance to see the movie? Apparently it will be shown on PBS sometime later this year.

That’s from the official synopsis of a film called Americanizing Shelley that’s being released this weekend. It’s a production of something called American Pride Films, and stars Namrata Singh Gujral. It had its premiere at the Nashville Film Festival (wonderfully known as NAFF) a couple of weeks ago. Here’s the trailer:

In the video post here, Michelle Malkin endorses the film, describing a scene that is “highly unpopular in HollyWeird” and says that “for once, it will be worth shelling out the big bucks… to support a movie that supports America.” According to this website, the film is “riling the hate-America brigade.” It interviews Singh Gujral, who says she’s “not a political person,” although as Vinod noted here two years ago, she’s certainly been, er, honored in a political setting. As for the early reviews, the LA Weekly calls the film “minor but sweet,” while the Washington Post dismisses it for “embarrassingly low-rent production values.” Finally, although the film appears made for the mainstream U.S. commercial market, Variety opines that “screenwriter and star Namrata Singh Gujral will probably find her most appreciative aud among young Indian moviegoers who want something outside the arthouse.” Your thoughts?

Raghubir Goyal of the India Globe held up a basket wrapped in colored cellophane. “Mangoes from India arrived, and here is a basket for President Bush,” the reporter offered. “My question is: What message does mangoes bring, as far as India-U.S. relations are concerned?”

In return Snow had only this:

For one of the few times during the briefing, Snow smiled. “I don’t know. It is my first mango-related inquiry,” he admitted.

Undaunted by this callous official indifference, however, Mango Nationalism is, um, ripening among proud Indians and Indo-Americans here, if submissions from Fareed Zakaria, David Davidar, and Shashi Tharoor to SAJAforum are any indication. Apparently Tharoor thinks that American ignorance of true mangoes, while surely just as grave as our ignorance of cricket, is a more redeemable condition:

After years of penury, where what passed for mangoes in American supermarkets was a travesty of the term, we at last have the real thing! I used to believe that true mango lovers could sue American groceries for false advertising — the tasteless, fibrous, tart and flavor-challenged fruit they sold did not deserve the name of mango. Now we should urge every American we know to try a real Indian mango. They’ll never think of mangoes the same way again.

Full quotes from all three eminences plus a comment thread here. Mango pride is sweeping across the land. Will there be a backlash?

On less sweet a note, it seems that between production and transportation costs and the stranglehold exercised by Mexican mangoes (how dare they!) on U.S. distribution channels, Alphonsos may cost up to 10 times more than the plebeian mangoes currently available at your local yuppie food mart, tropical store or bodega. The pleasure of the Indian mango, it seems, shall be known by elite mouths only.

LONDON, May 1 — Omar Khyam, the ringleader of the thwarted London bomb plot who was sentenced to life imprisonment on Monday, showed the potential for disaffected young men to be lured as terrorists, a threat that British officials said they would have to contend with for a generation.

But the 25-year-old Mr. Khyam, a Briton of Pakistani descent, also personifies a larger and more immediate concern: as a British citizen, he could have entered the United States without a visa, like many of an estimated 800,000 other Britons of Pakistani origin.

The next graf is where the action is. In two tight sentences, it provides the scoop (Chertoff’s recent talks) and describes the problem as a “loophole,” a framing that, as you can see, percolated up to the headline, and thence to other papers, Google News links, and so on.

American officials, citing the number of terror plots in Britain involving Britons with ties to Pakistan, expressed concern over the visa loophole. In recent months, the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, has opened talks with the government here on how to curb the access of British citizens of Pakistani origin to the United States.

We proceed now to some analysis. The article plainly suggests that the reason Britain is resisting Chertoff’s proposals is that accepting them would be damaging to the governing Labour Party. Don’t take my word for it:

At the moment, the British are resistant, fearing that restrictions on the group of Britons would incur a backlash from a population that has always sided with the Labor Party. The Americans say they are hesitant to push too hard and embarrass their staunch ally in the Iraq war, Prime Minister Tony Blair, as he prepares to step down from office.

Let’s pause here and take a look at a British item on the same story. So far only the Guardian has picked it up (it will be interesting to see how the other broadsheets and tabloids cover if and when they do), so we’ll go with that. The headline is: “US ‘wants British Pakistanis to have entry visas.’” The first four grafs are as follows:

The American government wants to impose travel restrictions on British citizens of Pakistani origin because of concerns about terrorism, according to a report today.

In talks with the British government, the US homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, called for British Pakistanis to apply for a visa before travelling to the US, according to the New York Times.

The newspaper claimed that US officials were concerned about the number of terrorist plots in Britain involving citizens with ties to Pakistan.

It is understood that the British government is resisting any attempts to single out particular ethnic groups for travel restrictions. The Foreign Office has yet to comment on the report.

That’s the core of the comparison. The New York Times story then moves of to a recap of the Khyam trial, which has little to do with the United States per se — Khyam was sentenced for a UK plot and much of the evidence comes from his actions in travel back and forth between the UK and Pakistan. The Guardian story sticks to the headline topic and ends quickly.

Of course there’s a whole political and legal analysis to be done here about the very idea of corralling off an ethnically identified subset of citizens of a given country for the imposition of special travel restrictions. I would venture that the idea is absurd, sinister and unworkable, a bad-policy trifecta; but hey, what do I know. I do know, however, that describing the ability of UK citizens of a particular ethnic origin to enter the US on the same terms as other UK citizens a “loophole” is, wittingly or not, an appeal to prejudice and an insult to intelligence.

[UPDATE: The UK Foreign Office, and, somewhat less forcefully, the US government, repudiate the New York Times story.]