Homosexuality has been illegal in India since 1861, when British rulers codified a law prohibiting “carnal intercourse against the order of nature.”
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The ruling applies only to India’s capital city but it will force the national government to either appeal the decision to the Supreme Court or repeal the law nationwide, lawyers said.
Americans are used to receiving calls from India for insurance claims and credit card sales. But debt collection represents a growing business for outsourcing companies, especially as the American economy slows and its consumers struggle to pay for their purchases.
Armed with a sophisticated automated system that dials tens of thousands of Americans every hour, and puts confidential information like Social Security numbers, addresses and credit history at operators’ fingertips, this new breed of collectors is chasing down late car payments, overdue credit card debt and lapsed installment loans. Debt collectors in India often cost about one-quarter the price of their American counterparts, and are often better at the job, debt collection company executives say.
“Are you sure that’s all you can afford?” one operator in a row of cubicles asks politely. “Well, how do you take care of your everyday expenses?” presses another.
“One hundred thirty million U.S. families will get a tax rebate this season” as part of the new economic stimulus package, Manu Sharma, the team leader, explained to a roomful of top-earning collection agents, most in their 20s.
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Start bringing up the rebate during calls, he told them. “This gives you an advantage so you can increase your wallet share,” he went on. “Get them set up on minimum balance arrangements” based around their tax rebates.
Manju Muddanna, 27, who uses the name Michelle Green when she is on the phone, is one of Encore’s best collectors.
Hijras appear in positive roles in Indian mythology, but modern society has tended to be less tolerant. A majority are shunned by their families. Many find it impossible to obtain conventional jobs and turn instead to begging and sex work for a living.
“Transgenders in India are seen as immoral and evil,” Rose said, calmly leafing through the script of her first show — an interview with a prostitute about her recently published autobiography. “I will break that image by being articulate, intelligent and a bit like the girl next door.”
“This is a radical development,” she added. “There have been transsexuals in Indian movies, but always as the object of ridicule or as villains. This is the first time in the history of Indian television that a transgender person has been featured as a television anchor.”
The channel was not searching for controversy, but executives were so impressed by Rose’s screen presence and determination to fight prejudice that they agreed instantly to give her a show despite her lack of experience.
Rose said she had no desire to shock, but just hoped that she would be watched.
“As a person, I am very open, but this is a big television channel which goes out to millions of people,” she said. “We don’t want any bad reaction.”
She said she felt it would be fine to talk about hormone therapy and her coming sex change operation. But discussing her true feelings about marriage, for example, would still be too much of a taboo.
Aside from the obvious problems such as increased congestion on already crowded roads, there are the minor details such as driver education and training, and perhaps trying to implement some organization to the chaos. Oh, and law enforcement. That might be helpful.
Never mind that none of the six adult members of the household knew how to drive. No sooner had the car arrived than Mr. Sharma, 34, took it for a spin and knocked over a friend. His brother slammed into a motorcyclist, injuring no one but damaging the bumper. The brother was so scared that he no longer gets behind the wheel, except on Sundays, when the roads are empty.
“We bought it first, and then we thought about driving,” Mr. Sharma confessed.
Indians are rushing headlong to get behind the wheel, as incomes rise, car loans proliferate, and the auto industry churns out low-cost cars to nudge them off their motorcycles. They bought 1.5 million cars last year. By some estimates India is expected to soar past China this year as the fastest-growing car market.
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In his first driving lesson, Mr. Sharma had more immediate worries in mind. Sharing the road with him were a bicyclist with three cooking-gas cylinders strapped to the back of his bike, a pushcart vendor plying guavas, a cycle rickshaw loaded with a photocopy machine (rickshaws often being the preferred mode of delivery for modern appliances).
There were also a great many pedestrians, either leaping into traffic in the absence of crosswalks or marching in thick rows on the sides of the road in the absence of sidewalks. At one point, a car careered down the wrong side of the road. Then a three-wheeled scooter-rickshaw came straight at Mr. Sharma, only to duck swiftly down a side street. At least this morning there was no elephant chewing bamboo in the fast lane, as there sometimes is.
With a population of nearly 16.5 million, New Delhi now adds 650 vehicles to its roads each day. At last count, there were 5.4 million vehicles in all, a more than fivefold increase in 20 years; scooters and motorbikes still outnumber cars two to one.
Pity the walker in the city. Half of all fatal road accident victims are pedestrians, according to the police. Every now and then, a homeless person sleeping on the street is run over. Last week, a speeding car banged into a policeman standing at a traffic checkpoint and didn’t bother to stop; the officer was critically injured.
New Delhi issued more than 300,000 driver’s licenses last year, which could be seen as either a feat of bureaucratic efficiency or Indian ingenuity. At one city licensing office this week, the test, which took about a minute, consisted of turning on the ignition and driving in a wide circle.
These passengers are also part of a great migration that is changing the world. Goldman Sachs, which has published projections about the Indian economy, predicts that 31 villagers will continue to show up in an Indian city every minute over the next 43 years — 700 million people in all. This exodus, with a similar one in China, helped push the world over a historic threshold this year: the planet, for the first time, is more urban than rural.
To ride the Pushpak Express from Lucknow, in Uttar Pradesh State in northern India, to Mumbai is to see a snapshot of that global metamorphosis.
