Spectrum

New Delhi (CNN) — When 33-year-old Ashoo Mongia visits the supermarket it’s rarely for stocking up his fridge for the week. As head of a cow protection enforcement team, he regularly scours Delhi grocery stores and outdoor markets for food products containing cow beef.

For the last 15 years, Mongia and his team of 120 Delhi-based volunteers have thrown themselves in a battle that pits India’s billon-dollar meat industry and growing underground beef trade against Hindu traditionalists keen on preserving the holy status of cows.

“The cow is our mother, it’s our duty to protect her,” said Mongia, who monitors and raids hundreds of stores, butcher shops and slaughterhouses suspected of carrying, selling or slaughtering India’s blessed bovines. “We do this because we believe in what the cow represents in our country, our culture and in the Hindu religion.”

This year, India will displace the United States as the world’s third largest beef exporter, behind Brazil and Australia. In just the first half of 2012, India exported $1.24 billion worth of meat, and a 30 percent growth in revenue from 2010 exports is projected by the end of the year, according to a U.S. Beef Export Federation study.

While the bulk of Indian exports is buffalo meat bound for Middle East and Southeast Asian markets, the growing middle class in Arab countries has sparked a new craving for cow beef…

Visit CNN International to continue reading.

Twenty-six-year-old  USC student Jayson Kellogg explains the images and messages found in his self-published book, Children of War, where he explores the impact of the war on his colleagues and ordinary Iraqis he often encountered.

Part of an ongoing project that will explore the extent to which universities and colleges are ready to take on the next wave of American soldiers returning from war, this short slideshow will accompany a radio documentary piece that will air next month on KQED’s The California Report.

If the spheres of fashion and religion seem disparate and distant, it is 22-year-old Jagmeet Sethi’s Connecticut-based apparel company TurbanInc that has brought the two seemingly distinct worlds together.

“The power of fashion is universal and when we dress ourselves, we often think, ‘What am I saying to the world when they look at me today?’” said Sethi. “With that in mind, we wanted to combine one of our most routine methods of expression with confidence, self-love and pride in being Sikh.”

Born and raised in Queens, New York, Sethi, who was among the 500,000 Sikhs then living in the United States, was consistently the mistaken target of discrimination stemming from the lack of knowledge and ensuing confusion of Sikhs with Muslims or Arabs. That confusion is what ultimately led to the death of Balbir Singh Sodhi, a Sikh who was the first person believed to have been murdered in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks. More than a decade later, in December, another bloody assault on a 56-year-old Sikh preacher in Fresno confirmed that the group remains a mistaken target of anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States…

Visit the Times of India to read the complete piece.

When a video of U.S. Marines urinating on the dead bodies of Taliban fighters became international headline news last month, national dialogue around the incident centered mostly on its impact on U.S.-brokered peace talks, the safety of military personnel in the region, and the military culture that some argue contributed to the dehumanizing act. Largely absent from mainstream news media coverage, however, was any meaningful attempt to understand how the global Muslim community viewed the desecration of the corpses.

What took place in January was not unique. In 2010 images of a group of U.S. Army soldiers dubbed the “kill team” posing with mutilated Afghan corpses emerged and were eventually published in Rolling Stone magazine. Now, just over a year later, a similar war crime has been committed by American Marines, sparking a fresh but familiar conversation about how the psychology in and around war is not well understood by the American public.

It is indeed an important conversation to be had, particularly if there is any sincere interest in helping the latest and largest wave of U.S. troops that left Iraq in December transition back to civilian life. What is equally important, however, is a discussion around the recurring theme of desecrating the dead in a Muslim country…

Click here to read the full article on American Public Media’s OnBeing.org.

LOS ANGELES–When local fashion firm Pinup Girl Clothing tried to ramp up production of its vintage-inspired apparel recently it hit a snag: It couldn’t find anyone to do the work.

The company spent a year trying to add 12 people to its 32-person manufacturing team in downtown Los Angeles. As the search dragged on, Pinup Girl fell two months back in its production schedule.

“There just aren’t a lot of people out there who have the skills that we’ve been able to find easily elsewhere in the world,” says Laura Byrnes, Pinup Girl’s founder. “It’s still a problem for us,” she says, adding, “Most of the sewers that you do find working are still in countries like Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala where there are still sewing factories.”

Pinup Girl’s problem illustrates one of the puzzle’s of today’s slumping labor market. Unemployment in Los Angeles County, for example, has been stuck at or above 12 percent for more than three years. California has the second highest unemployment in the nation at 11.7 percent, after Nevada’s 13.4 percent. But as some industries try to expand, they’re bumping up against a workforce that lacks the right training. Even in a city with legions of unemployed, some firms still can’t fill spots for good-paying jobs.

Tens of thousands of sewing jobs fled to Asia more than a decade ago, attracted by low labor costs and booming supply. The rampant outsourcing sparked a sharp decline in job prospects for highly skilled textile workers. In 1996, apparel manufacturing in Los Angeles Country employed 105,00 people. In 2009, that number had fallen to 48,000…

Read the rest of the piece on American Public Media’s Marketplace.org

From a dimly lit shop in Echo Park emerge music lovers, not with CDs in hand or iPods peeking out of pockets, but with an all-but-extinct music medium under arm—vinyl.

Large music stores across America have struggled to keep their businesses afloat amid the rise of digital music sold online. But long-time friends Neil Schield and Sean Stentz did not let that stop them from taking a risk in April 2009 when they opened Origami Vinyl in Echo Park.

More than a year and a half later, the vinyl boutique is not only open seven days a week, but also remarkably busy seven days a week. Drop by any evening during the weekday and the store is bustling with young music fans eager to get their hands on newly released albums. In-store performances of up-and-coming local artists keep foot traffic heavy well into the evenings.

“We opened with the idea of being that local record store,” said Stentz. “We decided to go with new vinyl as well as local vinyl, specifically because there wasn’t anyone doing that in this area.”

The area Stentz refers to is the rapidly gentrifying Echo Park district. Once a predominantly working class Latino community, the Echo Park neighborhood has seen an influx of young twenty-somethings who are actively contributing to the area’s alternative culture.

Set against an eclectic array of independent bookstores, small coffee shops and local provocative street art, Origami Vinyl’s success comes in part from its appeal to a young crowd that is known for challenging mainstream practices, including digital music downloads.

The rest of Origami Vinyl’s success can be attributed to the widely unforeseen resurgence of records.

From 2007 to 2008, record sales in the United States and Canada rose by 124% according to the Recording Industry Association of America. In 2009, more than 2.1 million vinyl records were sold, an increase of more than 35%, according to Nielsen SoundScan, an information and sales tracking system for music and music video products in the United States and Canada.

“We’re seeing major labels put much more effort in doing vinyl releases for a lot of their major artists, which wasn’t really happening so much six to seven years ago,” said Stentz. “CD sales still outsell vinyl to no end. It’s not like vinyl is taking over CDs, but it’s growing as a niche market and it’s something people are going back to.”

With a sign reading “Open noon ‘til late everyday” displayed prominently on their door, some music aficionados make it a point to visit the store at least once a week so not to miss out on regularly added new releases.

“I feel like in the ‘90s when I was buying CDs and first getting into music, you couldn’t find any decent records,” said Britt Brown, a regular customer who visits the store weekly. “There was just stuff from the ‘70s, no cool new bands. But now, everything is on vinyl and so there’s just unlimited options.”

Vinyl customers say that the biggest lure lies in the warmer sound quality and social experience, two key elements that are sacrificed when listening to music with an iPod, for instance.

“Vinyl is very social,” said Neil Schield, founder of Origami Vinyl. “Generally, if you have people over, you’re hanging out in your living room. Putting on a record is much more interesting than throwing on your iPod and throwing it on random.” The resurgence of vinyl has also contributed to an increased demand for turntables.

“I’m seeing more and more people come in here who get enticed by the whole experience,” said George Jensen, a customer associate at Yes, We’re on Vacation, a recently opened record store in Silver Lake. “If someone really wants to do well and help the vinyl resurgence, they should make a really good affordable turntable. For a decent turntable it’s at least $150. We’re going to start refurbishing old turntables to sell for a cheaper price.”

Beyond the sudden revival of vinyl is another unanticipated phenomenon—the success of the small, independent boutique business model versus the giant music superstore. The music industry is proving that small businesses and big business can in fact peacefully coexist.

While Amoeba Records, the music mega store chain with stores in Berkeley, San Francisco and Hollywood, which carries old, new and used record collections is thriving, so too are the smaller boutiques that typically house select music genres that cater to particular crowds.

“People just dig the boutique. If you’re into a certain genre of music, you know exactly where to go to find it and you can interact with people who share that same interest in genre. There’s a really big social movement behind this,” said Jensen.

Origami Vinyl’s Schield agreed. “I think that [the social experience] was lost on a lot of people who were just listening to music with their ear buds and their iPods,” he said.

While small vinyl stores are profiting off of an old music medium, the digital age still plays a key role for the businesses. Yes, We’re on Vacation and Origami Vinyl have Facebook pages where they announce record release dates, upcoming in-store performances and special discount dates. The Internet has helped both vinyl stores engage existing and potential customers, which both stores agree has been significant in keeping business steady.

While these boutiques have in large part turned away from modern technology, their marketing strategies belong to the digital era. Old and new, vinyl, according to Jensen, “has definitely got its groove back.”