Kolkata (India)

TV Picks: 'Futurama,' 'The Hustle,' child activists, 'Wilfred'

2013-06-13 16:16:00

"Futurama" (Comedy Central, Wednesdays). Science fiction and comedy are "like that." (Writer crosses fingers to indicate closeness.) Each takes emerging facts to their extreme, often absurd conclusions; both are fundamentally philosophical —...

Review: 'The Revolutionary Optimists' go inside impoverished India

2013-04-18 16:31:00

The inspiring documentary "The Revolutionary Optimists" profiles a memorable quartet of youngsters from India whose attempts to effect change in their impoverished neighborhoods — as well as within themselves — offer a vital snapshot of...

The typewriter lives on in India

2011-09-01 00:00:00

It's a stultifying afternoon outside the Delhi District Court as Arun Yadav slides a sheet of paper into his decades-old Remington and revs up his daily 30-word-a-minute tap dance. Nearby, hundreds of other workers clatter away on manual typewriters amid...

Fire at Indian hospital kills 89, injures dozens [Updated]

2011-12-09 04:36:24

William A. Rusher dies at 87; conservative theorist and publisher of National Review

2011-04-20 00:00:00

William A. Rusher, a leading theorist and organizer of the modern conservative movement who helped William F. Buckley Jr. build the National Review into one of the American right's most influential journals, died Saturday at a retirement home in San...

'A Dead Hand: A Novel' by Paul Theroux

2010-01-27 00:00:00

Paul Theroux's contribution to the revival of contemporary travel writing is so seminal that casual readers may be inclined to forget that most of his rather astonishingly prodigious output has been literary fiction. "A Dead Hand: A Crime in Calcutta" is...

PASSINGS: Jyoti Basu, Joe Shannon

2010-01-18 00:00:00

Jyoti Basu Communist statesman of India Jyoti Basu, 95, a veteran communist leader who in 1996 came close to becoming India's prime minister, died Sunday in Calcutta of multiple organ failure, a party spokesman said. Basu became chief minister of West...

Cuisines of two Indian cities

2007-07-11 00:00:00

ON the Indian restaurant circuit, it's mainly generic Indian fare on the menu, with a heavy northern bias. To experience the diversity of India's culinary landscape, your best bet is to be invited to someone's home. Happily, recent cookbooks such as...

Ali Akbar Khan dies at 87; sarod player helped bring Indian music to U.S.

2009-06-20 00:00:00

Maestro Ali Akbar Khan, the master Indian musician and composer who was a pivotal figure in introducing the music of his homeland to the West, has died. He was 87. The legendary sarod player and teacher died of kidney failure Thursday night at his home...

George Platt, theatrical producer

2012-10-09 15:14:00

George Platt, a former New York theatrical producer who became a promotions director for a garden supply firm, died of renal failure Oct. 6 at Envoy Rehabilitation and Nursing in Pikesville. He was 90 and lived in Owings Mills. Born in Baltimore, he...

Friday morning news from around the world

2011-12-09 03:28:00

Years after vanishing in Iran, retired FBI agent appears in hostage video: 'Please help me' WASHINGTON (AP) -- The family of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who vanished years ago in Iran, issued a plea to his kidnappers Friday and, for the first...

Fire at Indian hospital kills 89 as staff flees

2011-12-09 20:16:00

KOLKATA, India (AP) — Fleeing medical staff abandoned patients to a fire that killed 89 people Friday as black smoke poured through the seven-story hospital in this city in eastern India, officials said. Six administrators were arrested....

One of the many bookshops of the College Street old book market in Calcutta, India.

2013-02-19 15:19:12

Firefighters evacuate a patient from a hospital after it caught fire in Kolkata. Fire swept through a hospital in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata on Friday, killing at least 40 people, most of them patients, officials said.

2011-12-09 00:00:00

At a workshop in eastern India, an artisan carries a clay face of a sculpture of the Hindu deity Durga. The annual Durga Puja festival, which will start this year on October 14, is one of the most prominent Hindu festivals in India.

2010-08-02 00:00:00