Word: mumbai
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...trial of Sabahuddin Ahmed for his work in facilitating last year's Mumbai massacre reveals an uncomfortable truth about India. Unlike his fellow accused, the Pakistani gunman Mohammad Amir Ajmal Qasab, Sabahuddin is Indian and for five years he was an alleged one-man sleeper cell hiding in plain sight. Even though he was arrested almost 10 months before the Mumbai attack, Sabahuddin had allegedly managed to provide enough information in terms of directions and diagrams to allow the terrorists to launch their assault with "absolute precision...
...island. At about the same time the movie was disappointing U.S. audiences, a handful of Indian travel agents began pushing "divorce tourism" - package deals designed to help clients salvage their vows while getting away from it all. Six months ago, Viresh Hirjee, chief executive of KV Tours & Travels in Mumbai, pioneered the field by sending customers on holiday with marriage counselors in tow. "We are trying our best to bring the couple together," says Hirjee, but, he cautions, "We are not destiny changers...
...operators like Hirjee, divorce tourism is an opportunity to rack up some good karma and shake off a bad run for India's travel industry. Just when business was recovering from the double whammy of the global recession and last year's terror attacks at two prominent Mumbai hotels, a swine flu epidemic struck. Business for tour operators is down 30% from last year, according to Kamlesh Anand Amin, secretary for the Enterprising Travel Agents Association, an industry group. (Read TIME's cover story about the state of marriage in America...
...Indian tour operators are famously adaptable. They've offered trips tailored to medical tourism and religious excursions, and leveraged the international success of Danny Boyle's Oscar-winning film with a Slumdog Millionaire tour of Mumbai's shanties. "We have to be innovative or else you reach a saturation point," says Amin, who also runs Mumbai-based tour group Transway International...
When Boyle, the film's director, visited Mumbai last week, he too expressed his concern at the situation. "The Jai Ho trustees have been unstintingly generous with their time and expertise ... we hope that their ongoing efforts will help to ensure a happy and stable future for our two young stars," he said in a statement. "For that to happen, the children's families will, however, need to honor their part of the bargain, and we are disappointed that Azhar and Rubina's school attendance remains patchy...