December, 2012 | ModeShift

The Wreckage Wrought By A Marauding Minority

by Keith SchneiderDecember 26, 2012December 6, 20146

Along the Champs Elysees on Christmas Day, nobody worried about getting gunned down in the street, or about a marauding minority political party bent on wrecking the nation. Photo/Keith Schneider PARIS — Along the Champs Elysees’ on Christmas night, an angels’ envy of rope-thin LED halos — colors shifting from red to blue to white — circled the trees and lit the broad boulevard where thousands of people strolled carefree. Nobody worried about the sick …

In Newtown Massacre, the Manifest Danger of Deceit and Delusion

by Keith SchneiderDecember 23, 2012June 18, 20140

In India, and around the world, people now question the credibility and character of American governance. Photo/Keith Schneider NEW DELHI, India — America seems, finally, to be getting it. The Newtown massacre changes things. Just how much and how fast is unpredictable. But we are different today than we were on December 13, the day before the killings. The age and number of children murdered. The blood-exploded serenity of a wealthy New England town. The …

In Newtown Massacre, the Manifest Danger of Deceit and Delusion

by Keith SchneiderDecember 22, 2012December 25, 20122

In India, and around the world, people now question the credibility and character of American governance. Photo/Keith Schneider NEW DELHI, India — America seems, finally, to be getting it. The Newtown massacre changes things. Just how much and how fast is unpredictable. But we are different today than we were on December 13, the day before the killings. The age and number of children murdered. The blood-exploded serenity of a wealthy New England town. The …

TII: This is India

by Keith SchneiderDecember 20, 2012December 29, 20126

In Korba, a coal mining town in Chhattisgarh, India the colors and energy of a vital and perplexing nation are ever vivid. Photo/Keith Schneider RAIPUR, Chhattisgarh, India — This striking nation, with cities full to the brim with people, and a lavish countryside wired together by kidney-jostling roads lined with mango trees, is a treasure of surprises and paradoxes all its own. In nearly a month of travel here, to India’s capital New Delhi, its …

Newtown Massacre Is Part of Global Trend: Protect The Rich, Crush The Children

by Keith SchneiderDecember 16, 2012June 18, 20143

In Sichuan Province, southwest China, boys leave classrooms at the end of the day in a country where school can be hazardous. Photo/Keith Schneider RAIPUR, Chhattisgarh, India — News of the Newtown massacre reached this city of jammed streets and honking bedlam as part of the shock wave that struck the United States, and then swept around the world. As the ritual of sorrow and weeping commenced in America and here, the next thought that …

Rice, Wheat, and Water Serve Up Equal Helpings of Punjab’s Wealth and Risk

by Keith SchneiderDecember 14, 2012December 14, 20120

Haryana, in northeast India, has one of the highest per capita incomes among India’s 28 states. Neighboring Punjab also ranks at the top. The most important reason: the huge wheat and rice harvests, the latter processed and stored in this mill in Naraingarh. Photo/Keith Schneider NARAINGARH, Haryana, India — The first rain in six months, and a stout and cold wind whipped at the black plastic covering stacks of grain Thursday morning at the Shivshakti …

Haverford and Shabbat Service in New Delhi

by Keith SchneiderDecember 8, 2012December 17, 20120

Abigail Wacker, a Fulbright scholar and fellow Haverford alum, class of 2010, with me at the Judah Hyam Shabbat evening service in New Delhi. Photo/J. Carl Ganter NEW DELHI — Abigail Wacker’s red Haverford College sweatshirt was the second thing I noticed early Friday evening at the Judah Hyam Synagogue here in India’s capital city. The first was the group of students sitting next to her earnestly listening to Ezekiel Isaac Malekar, the congregation’s spiritual …

Teeming Life in New Delhi’s Slum Hut Neighborhoods

by Keith SchneiderDecember 6, 2012December 6, 20120

Bribery, payoffs, cuts of the action, under the table — the steady flow of cash to get things done in India, big and small, is itself an economy of opportunity for the rich and the poor. Corruption is a social and political issue rising in priority, as this sign in East Delhi shows. Photo/Keith Schneider NEW DELHI — Across the street from the dirt entrance to Vasant Kunj men and boys worked the many hoses …

Delhi’s Jews

by Keith SchneiderDecember 5, 2012December 20, 20122

Next to the Judah Hyam Synagogue, New Delhi’s only Jewish temple, lies an 80-year-old cemetery. Photo/Keith Schneider NEW DELHI — When I was a kid growing up in White Plains, New York it seemed my whole world was Jewish. At the time there were about 5 million Jews in the United States (there are 6.5 million today) and about half lived in and around New York City. Most of my friends were Jewish. Rosh Hashanah …