Haagen Dazs opens no-Indians-allowed store in Delhi.

Ice cream brand Häagen-Dazs recently opened its flagship store in India at Delhi's Select Citywalk mall in Saket. The Banner read "Exclusive preview for international travelers. Access restricted only to holders of international passports." (The last sentence in fine print) Who ever thought this was a clever piece of marketing needs to reconsider their career path asap. I would patently refuse to patronize or even enter an establishment that has such a racist, inflammatory and outrageous policy. With my sweet tooth and appreciation of good ice-cream I was actually looking forward to their entry in India, but I doubt I will ever buy this product. We've lived some 60 years without this feeling, but somehow I'm brought back to "Indians and dogs not allowed." This is complete bullshit.
Haagan Daz is not such an exclusive product after all, go anywhere else in the world and you'll see avg. middle class people eating it .I would not compare it to the exclusivity of owning a say Tag-Heuer. Secondly if the owner wanted to create exclusivity, he/she should have charged a serious premium that would only allow only certain people to consume it. But to ban Indians in India from walking into the store is complete sh*t. Do the people who favor free business think that any private company should be allowed to discriminate like this ? Some people not being able to get ice-cream is very different to a specific race not being able to get ice-cream. Ice-cream is not important, but equality is. The irony is that Haagen Dazs itself is a foreigner in Delhi. So the odd thing about the whole episode isn't that a foreign company is banning the locals from partaking, but that a local business owner is banning the locals from partaking. Does that mean he can't eat his own products ? Haagen Dazs doesn't owe anything to Indians, nor does it have any vested interest in the feelings or welfare of Indians. The only reason Haagen Dazs is in India at all is because it's a good place to make money. This is the end logic of unrestricted corporate globalization. Multinational businesses can operate anywhere they like without having any sensitivity at all to the area in which they operate.
It’s a different matter if these guys did that in their house. It’s their house, they can do what ever they want. However, This is a public place – a mall built with Indian money, by an Indian. What happens if the place gets vandalized ?? Then they expect protection from the Indian Police who employ Indians and who are paid for by the Indian Tax payer. Taking that into account, These a-holes have no right to place a banner like that. Its offensive as hell. Those who support the right of Haagen Dazs to racially discriminate based on a philosophy of private property rights and market freedom are making one of the strongest possible arguments against free-market capitalism. Choice is a deceptive word. You cant have a choice or right to do everything you want. For example, I don’t have a right to kill someone else. I don’t have a right to take someone else's property, and I don’t have a right to propagate inequality and racism. You shouldn't need a passport for an ice-cream in any country - let alone your own.

Siddhagiri museum,Kaneri,Kolhapur. Mah

Siddhagiri Gramjivan Museum (Kaneri Math) at Kaneri near Kolhapur,Maharashtra is a unique museum,probably the only one of its kind in India. The museum is called ‘Siddhagiri Gramjivan (Village life) Museum’.Around 400 km south of Mumbai.Children studying gurukul style in the shade of a tree, farmers having lunch in the fields, cowherds milking their cows...The scene is that of a typical Indian village -- yet not a soul stirs.

This museum showcases different aspects of Gramjivan (village life). ‘Gram’ means ‘village’ and ‘jivan’ means ‘life’ in Marathi language. This initiative was dream project of Mahatma Gandhi, visually and symbolically created through the vision and efforts of Siddheshwar Trust. The history of self-sufficient village life before the invasion of Mughals in Maharshtra is depicted here in the form of sculptures.Each sculpture is life-like and has a multi dimensional effect and lifestyle theme.
Unlike Madame Tussauds where wax is the main material, all the 1,000-plus images at Siddheshwar Museum have been made of rocks and bricks, stuffed with wire gauze. The images were shaped with wet cement by nearly 80 skilled masons. After the cement dried and solidified, a team of around 60 artists took over with a battery of colours. The bare minimum lighting used enhances the effects to present a natural appearance.Despite the extreme hot, cold and rainy conditions in southern Maharashtra,the museum images have withstood the ravages of the climate in the past two years since it was set up.

The museum is spread over 7 acres area and has almost 80 scenes which showcase more than 300 statues. The surrounding countryside is beautiful and is surrounded with lush greenery. Every aspect of village life has been depicted in this museum. It is a perfect blend of fact, powerful imagination and enormous hard work in getting the life-like expressions of the whole village.They painted the finest details on each subject, whether human or animal or the environment around.

There were 12 ALUTEDARS (12 main profession-based castes i.e. Professions performed from generation to generations by families) and 18 BALUTEDARS, who provided equipments to all villagers to fulfill their day-to-day necessities (domestic as well as professional).

Click here to check some the images from the place