India

If you're a big fan, you already knew what was coming in the season finale. But it didn't make it any easier -- or less heartbreaking -- to watch. The majority of the Season 3 "Downton" finale, or the "Christmas special" as its called in the U.K., took place in Scotland, where the whole family (minus Branson) visits the Highlands home of the Dowager's niece, Susan, and her husband, Shrimpy. Most of the trip included bagpipes, hunting, more bagpipes and Scottish reel dancing. But more on that later (and more on O'Brien meeting her Scottish lady's maid doppelganger)

Wedding date: Feb. 9, 2013 Her story: Megan Quick, 36, grew up in Oaklyn, N.J. She is a registered nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Her father, Michael, works for Susquehanna Bank and her mother, Doreen, is a retired medical receptionist. His story: Aaron Shirk, 39, was born in Vietnam and lived in various countries. He is a computer engineer for Bill Me Later in Timonium. Both of his parents - Peter Shirk and Roxie Gilmore - worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development.

SRINAGAR, Kashmir -- From sandbagged bunkers that line the winding streets in this old city, Indian troops watch nervously for the enemy: Muslim separatist guerrillas who dart forward, tossing grenades or loosing bursts of automatic-weapons fire before vanishing into the bazaars.For India, ruling Kashmir is much like an occupation: an army and police force of at least 300,000, bunkers everywhere, search operations that paralyze daily life and shoot-to-kill orders.Kashmiri human rights groups say that two-thirds of the 30,000 people killed in the five-year conflict have been civilians.

Johns Hopkins is working with a company in India that is opening a network of clinics throughout the country. Johns Hopkins doctors and faculty will advise Bharat Family Clinic on development of clinical programs and help with facility design. Hopkins employees will also advise on operations of the new chain.  The chain of primary and secondary care clinics will be developed over the next ten years with the first slated to open in November. The new facilities will adopt the outpatient primary care procedures and protocols of Johns Hopkins Community Physicians, the hospitals doctors group.

Baltimore money manager T. Rowe Price Group said Wednesday that it finished acquiring a 26 percent stake in India's oldest mutual-fund company, an effort to expand in a large and growing market. T. Rowe spent $142.4 million buying into UTI Asset Management Co. Ltd. Because of a change in exchange rates, that was about $4 million more than what T. Rowe estimated in November that it would pay. - Jamie Smith Hopkins

For America, India's moment has come. After decades of stubborn wallowing in postcolonial insularity and soft socialism, the world's largest democracy has been spawning deeper, more diverse ties to the world. Its economy has been booming, creating a large and aspiring middle class. Its millions of well-educated English speakers have been in high demand for their high-tech skills. Its trade with the United States has been growing by more than 20 percent a year. And today in New Delhi, President Bush begins a summit that could mark an important turning point in forging a stronger U.S.-India relationship as a counterweight to China's rising power and Pakistan's uncertain direction.

For doing the right thing, V. P. Singh's minority coalition government of India may fall in a vote of confidence on Wednesday. He is protecting the rights of minority Moslems against virulent fundamentalism within the Hindu majority. He is upholding not only the law but the secular vision -- so necessary to unite a huge population -- on which modern India was founded.By sending police to protect the Babri Mosque at Ayodhya and arresting a political ally to stop a march on it, Mr. Singh has taken on the Hindu nationalism that put him on top of a shaky coalition last December.

Durable, strong leadership is what India needs, but is not what India is getting. Circumstances and the Congress Party would not allow that.P. V. Narasimha Rao, who was named prime minister and given four weeks to form a government, is 69, recently had a heart bypass operation, did not seek re-election to Parliament and must do so soon, has been loyal the late Prime Ministers Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, lacks a power base in the nation or Congress Party and...

Painter Lois Borgenicht made a recent trip to India, and the results for her art can be seen in her current show at Resurgam. In oils and pastels, her still lifes reflect the images, the patterns and the light she encountered. But there are other influences reflected in these creations as well. Some of the objects and figures recall the studio of her stepfather, the painter Warren Brandt. Borgenicht, who studied at the Boston University School of Fine Art, has recently shown work at the Trenton City Museum and will be shown in a coming exhibit at Government House in Annapolis.

NEW DELHI - As Indian and Pakistani soldiers trade heavy artillery fire along the Line of Control dividing disputed Kashmir, an open military confrontation between the two nuclear rivals appears likely unless the United States is able to compel Pakistan to crack down on terror groups tied to its intelligence service. The United States' critical role is reinforced by its military presence in Pakistan and by its warming relations with India. If India were to militarily retaliate against Pakistan for its continuing proxy war through surrogate terror groups, it will put the United States in an anomalous position of having to insulate its forces in Pakistan from the fighting and balance its ties with both rivals.

Problem: India is currently experiencing a power outage affecting 620 million people, or about 60 percent of its population. Solution: Call BGE and wait, and wait and wait ... Marc Raim, Baltimore

As the world struggles to deal with its two largest foreign-affairs dilemmas, Syria and Iran, resolutely standing in the way are the BRICs. That's the acronym foreign-policy wonks use for the block of nations that routinely refuses to join the multilateral world of diplomacy, dominated by the United States and the West. They seem to glory in being contrary. The nations are Brazil, Russia, India and China. Russia and China, of course, routinely veto any United Nations Security Council resolution criticizing Syria, as they did for the third time last week.

The Rev. John F. Guidera, a Jesuit missionary who lived in India for six decades while retaining close ties with his Maryland benefactors, died of septicemia May 16 in Jamshedpur. He was 86. Born in Baltimore and raised in Govans, he was a 1943 Loyola High School graduate. He then entered the Jesuit seminary in Wernersville, Pa., and attended Weston College in Weston, Mass. "It was on a November evening in 1950 that the SS Chusan took him to Bombay harbor ... a young Jesuit far from his home in Baltimore, dispatched as a missionary to work for the rest of his life in the land of the poor, the leprotic, the dying and the hungry," a 1986 Evening Sun column said.

A shipment of Indian cumin seed contaminated with the larvae of a dead Khapra beetle, an invasive insect, never made it to McCormick & Co.'s Hunt Valley facility and was to be sent back to India, the spice maker said Tuesday. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agriculture specialists discovered the larvae and other seed contaminants during a search of the shipment at the port of Baltimore on April 17. The next day, the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed that the insect was a Khapra beetle, considered one of the most destructive pests, damaging grain, cereals and stored food.

This week "The Amazing Race"is all about hardcore competition. You think it was hardcore before? Have you ever seen a contestant stare death in the face, debate death versus a million bucks, and choose death? That's what I'm talking about.   Remember last week in Africa when JJ took his ball and went home and now he's dead to me? He's still mad. He'll even recap why he's mad, and Art will join in so we know that both of them are equally idiotic. Let's just forget about it and move on to India.

The Rev. Joseph M. Kennedy, a Jesuit priest who taught in India for 30 years, died of heart failure Feb. 12 at the St. Claude la Colombiere Community, his order's Roland Park retirement home. He was 88. Born in Baltimore and raised in Chevy Chase, he was a Gonzaga College High School graduate who attended Georgetown University before entering the Society of Jesus in 1942. He studied at the old Woodstock College from 1946 to 1949. As a seminarian, he was granted permission to become an Indian missionary.

McCormick & Co. Inc. said Wednesday it had entered into an agreement with a company in India to market and sell its basmati rice and other food products in the country. The Hunt Valley spicemaker expects to finalize the deal with Kohinoor Foods Ltd. later this year. McCormick said it will invest $115 and hold an 85 percent interest in the partnership. It will finance the deal through cash and debt. The joint venture will be named Kohinoor Specialty Foods India Private Ltd. Kohinoor sells its products in 350,000 retail stores in India and expects annual sales of $85 million this year.

A new McDaniel College partnership aims to give aspiring teachers in India a chance to earn a master's in education, as well as their teaching certification, on the Westminster campus. The partnership, with Mar Athanasios College for Advanced Studies in Kerala, India, would bring people who already have degrees in math or the sciences - and an interest in teaching - to McDaniel for "an accelerated and intensive" one-year version of its graduate education program, said Henry Reiff, dean of graduate and professional studies.

"Gas prices are outrageous. " Catherine Bell, a 66-year-old Social Security Administration retiree, was not happy Tuesday as she filled up her Chrysler at a Howard Street BP Amoco gas station in Baltimore. "You'll see when you get to retirement and you're on a fixed income. " The Baltimore resident reflects the feeling of a lot of Maryland motorists. Gasoline prices across the state and the nation are climbing fast, and motorists could see $4 a gallon at the pump in the coming months, fueled by demand in China and India and turmoil in the oil-rich Middle East, analysts say. The average price of regular unleaded gasoline in Maryland this month was $3.56 a gallon - nearly 20 cents more than in January and far above the $1.91 average in February three years ago. In Baltimore, the price averaged $3.59 last week, 50 cents more than a year ago, according to AAA Mid-Atlantic.

The dish: Paratha ($8) The Verandah, one of the many little shops along The Avenue in Hampden, serves three styles of parathas — essentially Indian stuffed flatbread. There's a ground turkey filling for the meat eater, a vegan job with avocado, potato and peas, and the vegetarian number with paneer and peas. I chose the paneer, mostly because I wanted to see how the Asian cheese worked in a pocket sandwich. The surface of Verandah's parathas have that marvelous mottled tandoori effect: patches of blackened, toasted and pale flour.