An internal debt crisis has prompted Zoroastrians in Mumbai to allow advertising billboards into an ancient funeral ground—sparking a split in the community. Zoroastrian dissdients say the signs—exhorting motorists to "Rev up your night life" by buying a popular model car—desecrate the sanctity of the grounds. Trustees who approved the billboards say they are needed to raise cash to maintain the Tower of Silence where the Parsi Zoroastrians have wrapped their dead in white muslin and left them to be devoured by vultures since 1673. "I have told people who are objecting, bring me three million rupees a year and I will stop the advertisements," said Burjor Antia, trustee with the Bombay Parsi Panchayat, local Zoroastrian council. (The Scotsman, May 30)

Leave it to Bollywood. Someone actually went and did it. At least "Springtime for Hitler" was satire. This wasn't, I don't think. Yesterday I was eating lunch at one of the fast-food curry joints in Little India (Lexington Ave. in the 20s) and the song-and-dance romantic extravaganza on the video screen was a (presumably unintentionally) surreal offering called Lucky, No Time for Love, that got more disturbingly bizarre the longer I watched. It is actually set in present-day/near-future Russia, but the visual references are all straight outta the Final Solution. Near as I could tell (the dialogue is in Hindi without subtitles, tho I'm not sure that even makes much difference) it concerns a Hot Young Thing named Lucky (Sneha Ullal) and her older Prince Charming (Salman Khan), the offspring of Indian diplomats caught up in the chaos when a fascist uprising breaks out, and their struggle to escape the country as Russia plunges into civil war. They find the time to repeatedly break into spontaneous song and dance while trudging endlessly through war-ravaged snowclad landscapes and fleeing and fighting off jack-booted Russo-Nazi thugs. (Prince Charming inexplicably has all the martial and acrobatic skills of a James Bond, tho I don't think we are ever told he is a secret agent.) This trailer emphasizes the goo-goo-eyes mushy scenes and dance routines, giving only fleeting glimpses of the cheerfully grim sets that dominate the second half of the film—including concentration camps and terrified peasants being forcibly transfered to God-knows-where in cattle cars. In fact, the big climax is Lucky's rescue by Prince Charming from a sealed box-car full of deportees with long white beards, babushkas and teary-eyed children. (Hey, as long as Hot Young Thing gets away, who cares about the rest?)

A Sri Lankan probe into rights abuses blamed on both security forces and Tamil Tiger rebels fails to meet international standards, foreign observers say. Experts appointed by the international community to observe the presidential commission's investigation charge the most serious abuses saw "hardly any noticeable progress." Topping the list is the massacre of 17 local staff of Action Contre La Faim (Action Against Hunger) in August 2006, called the worst attack on aid workers since the 2003 suicide bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad. In the days after the killings, Nordic truce monitors were prevented by security forces from reaching the site in the northeastern town of Muttur. They now say charge that security forces were behind the killings, which the government strenuously denies. The bodies have been exhumed and examined by forensic experts, but no arrests have been made. (Reuters, June 11)

Police in the Kashmiri city of Srinagar have found a propaganda CD by a group claiming to be "al-Qaida fil Hind" (al-Qaeda in India), with the aim of launching a jihad beyond the borders of Kashmir into all of India. The emergence of the organization is in keeping with a growing trend of militants in disparate places claiming to be part of an indigenous chapter of al-Qaeda. [India Times, June 9]

Five people, including a local militia jawan (infantryman), were killed May 31 in India's eastern state of Manipur in fighting with the Kuki Revolutionary Army. The so-called "ultra" ethnic guerilla group apparently attacked a patrol of the 7th Manipur Rifles battalion at Gapizang in Senapati district. (PTI, June 1) Meanwhile in western Rajasthan state, at least five are dead after nomadic Gujjars clashed with Meena tribals in Dausa district. Police in Jaipur said Meenas attacked Gujjar protesters who were blocking a road, sparking a clash with rocks and bamboo staffs. Meenas are said to oppose the Gujjar's demand to be recognized as a "Scheduled Tribe," which would give them access to government jobs and other benefits. The Rajasthan government has issued "shoot-at-sight" orders to put down riots. (BBC, June 1; Zee News, June 2)

New Delhi has rushed additional paramilitary forces to Assam following a bombing in Guwahati which left seven dead and 30 injured—apparently the work of the separatist United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA). Days earlier, the ULFA warned that it would step up attacks on Hindi-speaking residents of the eastertn state to retaliate against the death of several of its cadres in the hands of security forces. (Indian Express, Udayavani, May 27)

Security forces are on high alert in India's Punjab state as Sikh religious leaders called a bundh (general strike) to protest what they say is blasphemy by a breakaway sect. Schools, markets, businesses and transportation were paralysed across Punjab May 22. Sikh protesters also clashed with police in neighboring Haryana state, leaving one dead and dozens injured. The controversy began after Gurmeet Ram Singh, leader of the multi-faith Dera Sacha Sauda, appeared in a newspaper advertisement dressed in the attire of revered Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708), the tenth and last Sikh guru. (Deccan Herald, AFP, May 3)

India's intelligence agencies are examining a telephone card and cellphone supposedly recovered from a deactivated exlposive found at Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, scene of the deadly May 18 bombing. The card was reportedly purchased by one Shahed Bilal, said to be an operative of the Bangladesh-based Harkat ul Jehad Islami (Huji), which is in turn said to be linked to the Pakistan-based Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM).