INDIA SUMMARIZED

New Delhi :  “Blessed be the man who spares these stones and cursed be he who moves my bones,” reads Shakespeare’s epitaph. Sadly, curses don’t work anymore on land sharks who don’t care about moving the bones of even war dead. And what’s worse: nobody cares. Situated inside the busy New Sabzi Mandi market in Jahangirpuri, north Delhi—a scene of perennial chaos—is a memorial commemorating the Battle of Badli ki Serai fought during the Great Uprising of 1857 . It’s situated on a mound that has more or less remained unchanged since that fateful morning of June 8, 1857, when the 75th Regiment of Foot conducted a bayonet charge to capture a rebel battery that was raining hell’s fury on them. The charge broke up the rebel attack and the sepoys withdrew, abandoning their artillery. But many of the Scots who pressed home the attack didn’t make it alive. A memorial was erected on top of the mound, and the mortal remains of one officer and 19 men were interred underneath. And they’ve ...