Summary: The Kumari, a flesh-and-blood goddess, is revered by both Hindus and Buddhists in Nepal as a protector of the land and defender of all living beings. This program traces the mythological underpinnings of the Kumari and presents the living tradition of Kumari worship, including the Kumari selection, the secret preparation rituals, and Kumari-related festivals and ceremonies. It also discusses...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Situated by the bank of the holy Ganges, Varanasi, also known as Kashi and Benares, is one of the oldest living cities in the world. Founded approximately 3,000 years ago, the city is the religious and cultural capital of India-considered by many to be the holiest place on earth. Every year Hindus in great number go there to die, believing that cremation in that place of renewal provides an...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Containing nearly a sixth of the world's population, India is home to almost a billion people, more than half of whom live in rural villages. This program provides an overview of topics such as the caste system as it exists in the holy Hindu town of Varanasi and the massive pilgrimages to Allahabad, where millions of Hindus come to ritually bathe at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Over 100 million children worldwide have never spent a day in school. One in four does not complete even five years of basic education. Now, 182 nations have promised to provide access to free and compulsory education for every child in the world-by 2015. To test the reality of that sweeping commitment, this Wide Angle installment profiles children in Japan, Kenya, Benin, Brazil, Romania,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: In 2003, the Wide Angle program Time for School profiled children in seven countries-Afghanistan, Benin, Brazil, India, Japan, Kenya, and Romania-as they started their first year of school, often in the face of great adversity. Three years later this Wide Angle episode returns to visit each child, updating the progress of their educational and personal development. The similarities and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: The 2009 installment in Wide Angle's Time for School series reenters the lives of seven students in seven different countries, offering a glimpse of the worldwide battle to get what most American children take for granted: a basic education. These riveting case studies in India, Afghanistan, Kenya, Benin, Brazil, Japan, and Romania feature young teenagers embracing academic challenges that...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: Indentured servitude, however dehumanizing, played a role in the colonization and development of early America. But its 21st-century incarnation, the practice of debt bondage, contributes virtually nothing to the common good of southern Asia. This program examines the plight of workers in India's rural areas, exposing the conditions in which they toil to pay off staggering personal debts. More...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: Bangalore's booming IT business lures so many new professionals every year that a separate industry has sprung up to help them settle in. But Bangalore also has more than 1,000 slum areas, and that is where most newcomers, arriving from poverty-stricken rural villages, will end up. This program explains why so many of India's poor continue to migrate to cities like Bangalore, the challenges...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: The Changpa people live cut off from the rest of the world on a barren, 4,000-meter-high plateau in the southeast of Ladakh, in the Kashmir Himalayas. Here, livestock must search far and wide to pry something edible from the earth. Inhospitable as it is, the region is also home to a living treasure: Changpa goats, which grow a fine wool - but only at extremely high altitudes and in bitterly...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: The consequences of armed conflict are complex and long-lasting. Using Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, and Afghanistan as points of departure, this program examines some of the economic, environmental, and social impacts of conflicts at the national and international levels. Topics include the pernicious phenomenon of child soldiers; the plight of refugees and internally displaced persons; thorny...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Almost every major bank and electronics company on the globe has an office-or posh, sprawling campus-in Bangalore. How did the city become a world-class business center, and in what ways has its development impacted the people living there? This program looks at the factors contributing to Bangalore's success, the complications of rapid growth, and the impact of a new middle class on a...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program examines India's immense child labor problem and the fight against it. The video contrasts this nation's status as the world's largest democracy with the fact that, inside its borders, 80 million children work physically exhausting jobs for minuscule wages. Incorporating interviews with Shanta Sinha, founder of the organization known as MVF, the video illustrates how the group...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006