Prof. Sreenath Sreenivasan of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism is currently on a trip with 16 students through spiritual India. Track their day-to-day thoughts and activities at Covering Religion.

The image above was originally uploaded by Jennifer Esperanza.

When you smile, the world smiles with you.

I'll often post images here that are interesting, curious and even spectacular. Would you also like to have your images showcased on this blog? If so, join my Flickr community group also called Tiffinbox. Thoughts, suggestions, opinions always welcome, so please leave your comments below.

This post is sponsored by Seshu's Pipal Productions – Wedding Photojournalism At Its Best: Elegant. Memorable. Real.

Stock Artists Alliance has a blog set up to keep abreast of the Orphan Works debate [debacle?]

The Online Photographer satirizes a photography ban of the homeless. I thought satire was supposed to be witty.

Send in a picture, give a buck, get a sketch back

Amy Gahran of Contentious and The Right Conversation is taking over for Steve Outing as Poynter's E-Media Tidbits editor.

From Photoethnography.com: “Salon.com has a wonderful series titled Ask the Pilot where former pilot, Patrick Smith, ruminates on the airline industry. His most recent article touches upon photography at airports and how we are rapidly becoming much like pre-Glasnost Soviet Russia.”

Adobe will invest $200 million in India over the next 5 years.

Amit Varma at India Uncut writes that the future is digital. So true, well, except the future is now.

I don't know how many of you have been to Tokyo and ridden in one of the commuter trains during the morning rush hour. Let me tell you that it is a trip and a half. There are white gloved train employees hired to do nothing more than thrust with all their might as many people as they can into one train car as possible. The trains take on a sometime amusing, but mostly exasperating hue on one's pysche, as you think of yourself as a sardine being slammed shut into a tin can.

I mentioned the Blank Noise Blog-A-Thon here and I had hoped to pen something substantiative on March 7, but it just didn't happen. So here is my attempt at redemption.

Boing Boing picked up the Blank Noise blog-a-thon and reading the post in my news aggregator today brought back a specific memory that may seem appropriate to narrate.

About 10 years ago, when I was a student in Tokyo, one of my classmates [name withheld] often mentioned being sexually harassed in the crowded trains. The culprits were almost always older men. As the trains swayed, so did the men into her. While usually an apology is offered and almost expected in Japanese culture for bumping into someone, she said the offending “ojiisan” [literally “grandfather”] acted as if nothing really had happened. It was a near daily ritual. She had had her butt pinched and palmed, and her breasts groped.

When the rains came she felt an umbrella handle being wedged between her legs. At that point, she had had enough. I remember her telling us that as a station approached, she turned around and stuck a safety pin in the guy [yep, she was armed and ready this time]. As he shrieked in pain and exited the train, she followed him out onto the station platform and let loose a series of Japanese epithets that are simply unprintable here. Aghast and mostly ashamed, the man did little more than turn and run away.

Listening to my friend describe her experiences were a mixed group of students from the US and Europe. It's not that sexual harassment doesn't exist in the West, but we were honestly stunned to hear about the old man's lecherous actions given all that we had heard about the extremely ethical Japanese culture. A few rotten apples always seem to sully a good experience, but we secretly agreed that the best course of action was to punish the man with pain and then public humiliation.

The question, though, is if the actions of a dirty old man is pervasive in that particular society. Does it happen enough number of times in a day to enough number of women to make it an epidemic? According to Blank Noise even one woman or girl being harassed is one too many. I have to agree. Be a real man. Support the site, support the project. Learn about this very complex issue. Now.

The image above was originally uploaded by Arindam Thokder.

I love the layering, the quality of the light, the color and most of all the perspective; it places me right where the action is.

I can almost hear the water lapping gently on the stone steps. The contrast of the image is nearly perfect. The exposure is spot on with smooth gradations from dark to light. Beautifully crafted!

I'll often post images here that are interesting, curious and even spectacular. Would you also like to have your images showcased on this blog? If so, join my Flickr community group also called Tiffinbox. Thoughts, suggestions, opinions always welcome, so please leave your comments below.

This post is sponsored by Seshu's Pipal Productions – Wedding Photojournalism At Its Best: Elegant. Memorable. Real.