Toilets are this season's hot dowry in India. Those women know what's up.

[A man dressed as Hindu deity Hanuman leads a procession of other gods during the Dussehra festival in Amritsar today. Image via Getty]

People have their panties in a twist because an Indian cosmetic company is selling their skin lightening cream by telling dark-skinned men they're ugly and will never get laid. Um, isn't the fact that this cream exists problem enough? [CNN]

Let's see, a technician working for one of the most powerful billionaires in India reports that somebody tried to sabotage the guy's helicopter to kill him, then the technician is mysteriously killed. Real, no movie:

The father of nine-year-old Slumdog Millionaire star Rubina Ali will not be charged with any crime for allegedly trying to sell her to undercover reporters for $300,000. Indian police couldn't track down the reporters.

The father of nine-year-old Slumdog Millionaire star Rubina Ali has been arrested for allegedly trying to sell her to an undercover reporter—but he says he's innocent, and it's all a setup. What's going on?

When it comes to things to throw at dirty politicians, there are so many options—tomatoes, furniture, urine-filled water balloons, etc. Why not think big? Alas, India is stuck in shoe-throwing rut. Biters!

Rubina Ali was plucked from the slums of Mumbai to star in Slumdog Millionaire, which went on to be a smash hit around the world. Too bad absolutely nothing good came of that!

Oscar front-runner Slumdog Millionaire has received some criticism of late for cultural insensitivity. Are these legitimate complaints, or are they accusations trumped-by by rival films trying to chip away at the Slumdog's awards buzz?

The world is always troubled. So why have fighting in the Gaza Strip and troop moves in Pakistan dominated the news? How disobedient these heathens are, after the Pope just called for peace.

Remember how we all got all mad at the Bush administration for fear-mongering after 9/11? They squandered international goodwill with a dumb war, and they tried to make us all afraid, all the time, so we'd keep voting for them, forever, to keep us safe? What bad, bad people, those Republicans. Anyways. On Good Morning America today, Dan Harris, reporting from Mumbai, announced to a sleepy Monday morning audience that the well-coordinated attack in India is basically guaranteed to be repeated here in America, like there is a 100% chance that terrorists will take over the next hotel you check into and kill your children, and al-Qaeda will do a thousand more 9/11s. Is it too late to vote for Rudy Giuliani? He'll protect us!!!

We don't know about you, but where we come from a "Thanksgiving massacre" is what happens to the Detroit Lions, not a disturbing, well-coordinated terrorist attack in the world's fifth-largest city, involving anywhere from two dozen to 50 terrorists, many of whom haven't been caught, who had no demands but death and destruction, leaving 170 dead so far. Here is your amusing Weekend Gawker listicle: our top four favorite horrific descriptions of the violence in Mumbai this week!

Wow, this is a proud mark of the global influence of the financially puny New York Times: a story it did in June has prompted one of the world's richest men to sue his own brother for more than $2 billion. Awesome! Anil Ambani says that his brother Mukesh (they each inherited half of the massive Indian conglomerate Reliance) smeared his good name in the Times, so he had no choice but to sue him, the Times, and two Indian papers for 100 billion rupees. Here's the offending passage that set him off:

There was a time when third world countries would rip off any Western product they wanted to. Because how much time were US companies really willing to invest wading through dusty Asian market stalls looking for bootlegs of their precious brand names? But things have changed! As China and India have grown into serious global economic powerhouses over the past decade, they've been forced to respect intellectual property laws in order to maintain good business relations with the West. Which makes this whole "Hari Puttar" thing a bit of a stretch. Warner Bros. sued an Indian film company for making a movie called "Hari Puttar," claiming that it was a ripoff of Harry Potter. They just lost the case in an Indian court. Home team advantage? Actually, when you hear the facts it seems more like sheer bullying or paranoia on Warner Bros. part:

Mattel, owner of the Scrabble brand outside of the United States, brought suit against brothers Jayant and Rajat Aggarwal, creators of Scrabulous, for copyright and trademark infringment. Delhi High Court judge S Ravindra Bhat has ruled that while Mattel couldn't claim copyright on the board design, it could defend its trademark. The Aggarwal brothers must not use the name "Scrabulous" in any form, including in links or source code.The popular Facebook application version had already been banned by the social network, both in the US and in India, but a new version called Wordscraper appeared, but now competes with official versions from Mattel and US rightsholder Hasbro. (Image by k1v1n)

Here's a throwback idea to revive the flagging newspaper industry: an 81-year-old Urdu paper in India is written entirely by hand! "I like it a lot," says a calligrapher there. "But there is no money in it." Oh. Shucks. [WSJ]

Ever since they started allowing kissing in Bollywood movies, boy, India's morality is going to straight to hell. The cow-filled conservative nation is seeing its Victorian standards of sexuality crumble in the face of racy foreign advertising. The prime offender? You guessed it: Axe Body Spray. Of course. The Indian government recently banned Axe's infamous "Chocolate Man" ad, which it sees as a symptom of cultural decline, along with all the new sexy billboards popping up across the country. Welcome to the First World, India: Where products are plentiful, sex is empty, and Richard Gere can kiss your women with abandon. After the jump, the ass-eating Axe ad that was too hot for Mumbai. There is no stopping it:

Nearly half of India's population lives on less than $1.25 per day. And yet Vogue India thought everyday Indians would be perfect models for a $10,000 Hermes handbag, $200 Burberry umbrella and $100 Fendi baby bib. The models' lack of teeth and shoes and their dirt flooring only made the products look all the more attractive to India's growing upper class, apparently. But thousands of indebted Indian farmers committed suicide over the past decade, leading one local newspaper columnist to call the ads "tacky... downright distasteful... [an] example of vulgarity." Vogue India editor Priya Tanna thinks her critics are being way too glum:

Click to viewThe government whose Ministry of Education dismissed Nick Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child computer as "pedagogically suspect" in 2006 is now backing a plan to design, build and sell a model priced at 400 rupees, or about ten bucks. The project was discussed at a conference in New Delhi by D. Purandeshwari, Minister of State for Human Resources Development. It goes without saying that the price will be held down by a government subsidy. As former OLPC engineer Mary Lou Jepsen explains in a Big Think interview, countries might look to subsidize laptop costs with money intended for textbooks. Here's an idea for you Objectivists: Instead of criticizing India's nanny state, ask every Obama supporter you know when he's going to announce a One MacBook Per Child plan.

When a business has completely saturated one market, it can either die out or expand into another market. I think it's safe to say that rap-as-pop-music has reached its tipping point in terms of US commercial appeal. Luckily there's a billion people in India who have yet to embrace pimpology! Rappers in America have been stealing Indian music for beats for quite a while now, but the relationship hasn't been reciprocal. Snoop Dogg is on the kizzle, though, coming to Mumbizzle with a suitcase full of mizzle (marketing strategies). His main obstacle? India's current old-ass musical tastes: