It’s Indy mania! Stay tuned to the TakePart blog over the next week to see the Top 10 Ways Indiana Jones Saved the World and how you can be just like Indy and save it too! Each new entry will have action links that allow you to do what Indy did - in the comfort of your own home of course. For now, here’s are first entry:

1) Stopping Child Labor in The Temple of Doom:

When a town full of children are missing, Indiana Jones comes to the rescue. After crash landing in India, a small village claims that a valuable stone is missing (along with the children) and our amazing Jones gets down to business and in the process finds out the children aren’t really missing… They’re working in a mine!

Speaking of the mine - here’s a classic scene from the flick.

To find out how you can be like Indy click HERE >>>

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Mike Myers’ new comedy “The Love Guru” is creating a furor amongst many Hindus. Based on the trailer of the upcoming summer movie, many Hindu leaders are claiming the film lampoons their religion and throws around many Hindu terms frivolously. Some Hindu groups have even requested that India’s Central Board of Film Certification and Ministry of Information ban screenings of the movie entirely in India, home to the majority of the world’s 1 Billion Hindus.

Bhavna Shinde of the Hindu organization Janjagruti Samiti and Sanatan Society for Scientific Spirituality, based in Mumbai, was quoted as saying in the Indian press:

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“Deluxe” is a new exhibit of photographs, video and sculpture by visual artist Stuart Hawkins. The installation presents the stark contrast between the developing world and the elite vacation resorts found along coastlines and elsewhere in many developing countries.

Hawkins worked with local artists in Kolkata, India to create oversized prop sculptures of items typically found at a luxury resort, such as the giant hotel bed seen in the photo, enormous tennis courts and rackets, and a supersized beach umbrella. The props are then placed in less opulent settings indicative of the developing world and photographs are taken of local Kolkata residents doing improvised performances with the items. After the shoot, the materials from the props were taken apart and recycled back into the community in Kolkata as carpets, insulation, tents and tables. According to the press release:

“The realm of the elite is re-contextualized, resituated, and re-built with the hands of many and not a few.”

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“Amal” a new independent feature, directed by Richie Mehta and starring Rupinder Nagra, has won the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. Shot in Digital Video on the streets of New Dehli, the narrative follows a humble autorickshaw driver - the title character, Amal - as he happily plies his trade on the streets of India’s capital. Things change though when he comes across a passenger who changes his life.

According to the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles program:

“This charming fable examines the true nature of happiness in a society obsessed with speed, technology and monetary wealth. In AMAL, Mehta introduces the rarest of heroes, one whose spirit will undoubtedly leave an indelible impact.”

Director Richie Mehta tells more about “Amal” below:

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The Civil Rights Movement is one of the most moving and transformational chapters of Black history so it’s appropriate to highlight it during Black History Month. And it is hard to imagine the Civil Rights Movement without the songs people sang during the good and the bad, during the rallies, sit ins, marches, arrests and beatings. In the face of violence, the songs were not just tools of inspiration but tools of non-violent resistance. While there were too many songs too count, these stand out as among the best.

1. We Shall Overcome was a gospel song, which became a civil rights anthem during a strike in Charleston in 1946. One of the women walking the picket line outside of the American Tobacco Company, started singing the spiritual. Zilphia Horton, the co-founder of the Highlander Research and Education Center, learned the song and taught it to Pete Seeger, who taught it to other folk singers, including Guy Carawan who performed it and taught it at the founding meeting of the Civil Rights Organization SNCC ( Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.) The song then became an anthem not only for the Civil Rights movement in the United States, but for South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement, North Ireland’s independence movement, and many other independence movements in countries including India, Bengal, Czechoslovakia. Listen to Mahalia Jackson sing We Shall Overcome:

2. Oh Freedom is an anti-slavery spiritual that was sung by slaves. It is fitting that in 1963, this freedom song inaugurated the March On Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where 250,000 would rally for civil rights and labor rights, and where Martin Luther King would deliver his legendary I have a Dream speech. On the morning of August 28th, the protesters gathered at the Washington Monument, where Joan Baez sang Oh Freedom, immortalizing the song for generations to come.

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Our second installation of the TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is here give you the very best of Katie, Nicole, Giulia, Gina and Kerry! More blogs means more to love this Valentine’s Day week, and more social action means a healthier and happier world for everyone. Check out our most popular posts of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites.

Katie:

5 Ways to Take Action and Get Action On Valentine’s Day

Top 10 Guilt-Free Valentine’s Day Jewelry Gifts: Show Your Valentine You Have a Heart

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Nicole:

Kiva: Microlending to Change Lives

Top 10 New Releases to Inspire Social Change

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Giulia:

Alicia Keys Uses Grammys to Help Keep a Child Alive

V-Day Celebrates Its 10 Year Anniversary!

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Gina:

Top 10 Movie Characters That Make A Difference

Art As Politics In “The Silence Before Bach”

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Kerry:

Tap Project Gets Donations Flowing For Safe Global Water

Levon Helms’ “Dirt Farmer” Wins Grammy Gold

This Valentine’s day, as I promised readers last week, you don’t have to choose between buying your loved one a diamond necklace made by enslaved children, or a hemp necklace made under humane conditions (probably in Berkeley). And if you’ve seen Blood Diamond, whose trailer is above, or Gem Slaves, or Congo’s Curse, both made by IRIN, I have a feeling you’re not going to want to taint your valentine with blood-made jewelry. So here is a list of 10 great Valentine’s Day jewelry gifts that will let you glitter guilt-free. Make sure you come back tomorrow to check out my next top 10 Valentines Gifts with Heart list. For now, let’s talk about jewelry, starting with the most affordable and working our way up:

1. The Men’s Leather Cuff Bracelet from Global Exchange’s Fair Trade store is made sweat-free in Thailand and costs only $15 so you won’t have to sweat over the price of the gift or the circumstances under which it was made.
2. The Red Tie Necklace is made by the Tara cooperative in Deli, India and available at Ten Thousand Villages for only $16. Beautiful, unique, made of sparkling red glass beads, the red tie necklace will make your valentine want to tie the knot with you.

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Contrary to popular belief, I do not follow sports. But every now and then, sports, by virtue of its popularity, accessibility, and (I’ve heard, though not experienced) entertainability highlights a social, cultural or political problem, bringing it to a broad, far-reaching audience in a way few other media could.

Such is the case of the cricket scandal, which I saw first hand (through TV) while I was in India last month. First,  India’s cricket player Harbhajan Singh was accused of calling Andrew Symonds, a Jamaican player (the only Jamaican player) on Australia’s team a “monkey.”

Then cricket fanatics blame the umpire, who sided with Symonds, and happened to be Jamaican too, and burn him in efegy.

Yesterday, a Cricket judge cleared Singh of the “racial abuse charge” and said Symonds had provoked his opponent (into being a racist?). And the case seemed closed. Until the same judge said that he shouldn’t have cleared Singh. But he did because of human error. Sound complicated? It is. Read more here.

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Who doesn’t love Bollywood? The saccharine romance stories, the epic song and dance routines, and the fantastically gaudy costumes and set designs? Pakistan’s forbidden love affair with Bollywood films may soon be allowed to flourish, with government MPs now considering the removal of the current ban, which dates back to the 1965 war between India and Pakistan. Theater owners are keen on getting rid of the ban, but some Pakistani filmmakers are worried that lifting it might hurt their own industry. Click here to read the full article from the BBC.

You can also do your part to promote open and free media by taking action at Freepress.net:

Indian PM Manhoham Singh visited Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing to sign an agreement that will increase economic and military ties between the two countries. The countries have agreed to double trade from 30 billion in 2007 to 60 billion in 2010, while India has asked China to address certain trade imbalances which they feel favor China. The two countries are also expected to schedule a second joint military venture, the first taking place in December of last year. There have also been pledges to resolve border disputes originating in 1962 over Himalayan territory.

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