India

This summer, hair weaves are taking a turn for the kinky, the curly and the wavy. Why is this news? When black women first started sewing hair onto their scalps during the 1990s en masse, the resulting shoulder-length bobs were as much about achieving a smooth texture as it was about having length. Fabulous hair was defined as long and straight. However, as more black women have come to terms with their natural curl pattern, store-bought tresses are trending toward the fuzzy rather than the flat-ironed.

"Eat Pray Love" will be an intense spiritual experience for many who see it - they will end up on their knees, praying for its merciful end. After eating their $8 investment. As for love, ladies, do your marriages a favor and leave your husbands out of it (or drop them off at "The Expendables"). "Eat Pray Love" is adapted from the bestseller that in book form lay abandoned on our nightstand for many months. My wife could not finish it, although she is usually eager to read whatever narrative of growth/healing/inspiration Oprah endorses (almost as if living with me is not sufficiently inspirational)

SIGN UP for naked yoga and you won't need trendy labels such as Lululemon or Athleta. All you'll need is a yoga mat, maybe a towel and a willingness to get naked. Bridge pose? In this class, no tight clothing will be in your way. You may, though, feel self-conscious about having your bare crotch on full display. That's enough to make anyone go "ommmm. " Classes are usually segregated by sex, such as the monthly, all-male Naked Yoga Philly that takes place Tuesday night in Center City.

I always dreamed of experiencing the beauty and stark contrasts of India, and the perfect opportunity presented itself when I learned of Rotary International's role in the fight against polio. Once a killer and crippler worldwide, polio is now endemic to only four countries - India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. Each month, on National Immunization Day, Rotarians and public health workers throughout those countries immunize children under age 5 with the oral vaccine, aided by visiting Rotarians from around the globe.

Days after the tsunami, as the body count escalated and food, water, and medical help were yet to reach most of the stricken, the government of India made waves by declining foreign offers of help. "We have adequate resources to meet this challenge," said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Much of India's middle class welcomed the statement as a sign that the nation had finally tossed away its begging bowl. "It undoubtedly gives a shine to India's image," exulted the Telegraph, a newspaper in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta)

Shekhar Kapur's Bandit Queen, the subject of enormous controversy in India, is a searing and powerful indictment of the exploitation and abuse of women and the caste system that hinges on a true, if incredible story. Kapur's blunt and stunning picture is based on the autobiography of Phoolan Devi, a child bride who was abandoned by her husband and became an outcast. Eventually, she took up with a gang of bandits and came to lead them, becoming both a folk hero and a symbol of hope and defiance for millions of low-caste peasants.

Tell your friends you want to travel to India, and you're not just stating a wish, you're administering a Rorschach test: Their responses say more about them than about the country itself. Some of my friends were as enthusiastic as I was about the prospect of seeing such a contradictory, colorful, historic and diverse country, and they badly wanted to come along. Others, however, thought I had lost my mind - they wondered how I could relax or "have fun" after traveling many hours and time zones, only to land in an impoverished, dusty, confusing or even dangerous country.

No one ever accused Norman Lewis of converting his home in Essex, England, into a petty prose factory. No less a novelist than Graham Greene has called him "one of the best writers, not of any particular decade, but of any century. " In addition to penning novels, Lewis tries his hand at travel writing from time to time with considerable result. A Dragon Apparent and Golden Earth are considered classics of the genre. And now, we have the pleasure of watching him in action again, this time in A Goddess in the Stones: Travels in India (Henry Holt & Co., hardcover, $22.95)

SunGard, the Wayne-based data-disaster recovery company, said its SunGard Availability Services unit is expanding in India with two new workplace recovery facilities. The company said the move follows the signing of a contract with a major international bank, which it did not identify. The new centers are in Thane, near Mumbai, and Noida, near New Delhi. Together they will employ more than 600, SunGard said.    - Reid Kanaley

About 200 African students staged an angry protest yesterday against a directive that all foreign students in India be tested for AIDS - a policy that the students condemned as "medical apartheid. " The government's directive, issued in August but only recently implemented, affects India's estimated 25,000 African students, who make up more than half the foreigners studying in India. The issue has become a major embarrassment to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who last month was host of an international conference on African development and who has been outspoken in his condemnation of South Africa's white- minority government.

A Lovesong for India Tales From East and West By Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Counterpoint. 224 pp. $26. Reviewed by Madhusree Mukerjee If these 11 exquisitely crafted stories are indeed love songs, they sing not so much of India as of the vulnerability of the human heart. Now in her 80s, acclaimed novelist and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala sketches, with a few deft strokes, the longings and losses of people she encountered or perhaps imagined during her sojourns in India, England, and now America.

The Inquirer will present one profile daily of participants in the May 6 Broad Street Run. The race is considered the country's most popular 10-mile run, attracting more than 40,000 people. They will race downhill from near Einstein Medical Center to the Navy Yard. Emily Holian, 20, a junior at the University of Delaware, will run her first Broad Street Run "for a little girl named Parul. " Emily decided the problems of the world couldn't wait for her to graduate.

Mandela gets hospital testing JOHANNESBURG - Former South African President Nelson Mandela was hospitalized for a test to determine what is behind an undisclosed stomach ailment, and the country's current leader said the much beloved 93-year-old icon was in no danger. Mandela, a Nobel peace laureate who spent 27 years in prison for fighting racist white rule, has officially retired and last appeared in public in July 2010. He became South Africa's first black president in 1994 and served one five-year term.

When the driver turned left onto the dirt road, we thought he'd made a mistake. On one corner a group of men stood beside a pile of burning trash; on another, women sold fish from a makeshift stall. The travel agent had booked us into a hotel at least two stars above what we had requested in Thanjavur, a temple city in southern India, but this bumpy road couldn't possibly be the right one. Finally the driver slowed down, and there, on the other side of a metal gate, stood our hotel - an upscale resort with stunning river views, manicured gardens, and a swimming pool.

NEW DELHI - Google India has removed web pages deemed offensive to Indian political and religious leaders to comply with a court case that has raised censorship fears in the world's largest democracy, media reported Monday. The action follows weeks of intense government pressure for 22 Internet giants to remove photographs, videos or text considered "anti-religious" or "antisocial. " A New Delhi court gave Facebook, Google, YouTube and Blogspot and the other sites two weeks to present further plans for policing their networks, according to the Press Trust of India.

Question: My husband has been taking Viagra for years. As you know, it is very expensive and there is no generic here in the United States. I heard on the radio that there is a much cheaper Viagra available. It is one-fourth the price of brand-name Viagra. What I received is "Fiagra. " It is from India. When I called the distributor, they said it's exactly the same. Have you heard of it? Is it safe? Answer: Viagra is not yet available in a generic form in the United States.

Oprah has brought joy to 1,170,938,000 souls this week on a whirlwind tour of India. The eighth wonder of the world checked out one of the other seven, the Taj Mahal, on Thursday. Her Oprah-Osity, who is shooting footage for Oprah's Next Chapter , also partied with Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan , Shahrukh Khan , and Aishwarya Rai and had a sit-down with jet-set celeb prophet for the jet-set crowd Deepak Chopra . The visit hasn't been without problems: Three of O's bodyguards were arrested after they had a run-in with a local TV crew.

A proposal to finance a move of Sunoco Inc.'s aging Eagle Point refinery from New Jersey to India is getting more unlikely each day. A spokesman for the Export-Import Bank of the United States, who said on Monday that the bank had issued a nonbinding letter of interest to the Indian project sponsors, said Tuesday the bank's staff actually did receive an application in December from Amerind Petroleum Private Ltd. The bank rejected the...

Reports of plans to dismantle and move Sunoco Inc.'s Eagle Point refinery from New Jersey to India appear to be greatly exaggerated. The Export-Import Bank of the United States has not agreed to finance the project, as an Indian entrepreneur claimed last year. "It's far from a done deal," bank spokesman Paul Cogan said Monday. "We've received no application. They're definitely overstating it. " In November, Amerind Petroleum Private Ltd. and the Andhra Pradesh state government signed a memorandum of understanding to reassemble the refinery in Visakhapatnam, according to Indian media reports.