“Slumdog Millionaire” child star Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail and his mother moved into their new home Tuesday, leaving behind a corrugated metal slum shanty for four solid walls, doors that lock and an indoor toilet.

In 1975, India declared martial law. The news prompted the U.S. ambassador, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, to inform President Gerald Ford that the U.S. had reclaimed its position as the world’s most populous democracy. Democracy returned to India long ago. The country stages robust elections that, from time to time, have been plagued by violence. India does not vote on one day but rolls balloting over many. The Indian National Congress won the most recent race. For the U.S. the news is good. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been a friend; he also has led the opening of India’s economy, albeit at a measured pace—which is to say, at a wise one.

The only surviving suspected gunman in last year’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him, including waging war against India and murder.

Indian officials took a demand for an immediate cease-fire in Sri Lanka’s civil war to the country’s president as the U.N. reported that nearly 6,500 ethnic Tamil civilians were killed in the last three months.

A recession is no time to retreat from global trade, several experts on international business said yesterday at Virginia Commonwealth University. If anything, U.S. policymakers and businesses need to look for more ways to build overseas markets, as developing nations increase their share of the world economy and the economic power of Europe and America is challenged, they said.

On a breezy day on the cusp of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a spiritual community bade farewell to a Nelson County father and daughter who died in terrorist attacks last month in Mumbai, India.

“You can’t shoot a bullet at darkness,“ Rabbi Yossel Kranz of Chabad of Virginia said last night. In the face of tragedy, “we will bring light and joy, because we believe that good is greater than evil and that the world is truly a good place,“ Kranz told more than 100 people gathered at the Henrico County Chabad center to remember the victims of last week’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

Alan Scherr’s decades of commitment to spirituality and simple living earned him recognition as an inspiring teacher of astrology, self-awareness and meditation. Scherr, 58, described his life as a “challenging . . . solitary journey.“ That journey led him to Mumbai, India, where he and his daughter Naomi, 13, were among more than 150 people killed by terrorists in attacks that began Wednesday.

People have come from around the world to seek peace at the Synchronicity Foundation’s retreat center at Horseshoe Mountain. The foundation is a nonprofit spiritual organization founded in 1983.

By Kim Barker Chicago Tribune KOLKATA, India—The first step in planning a wedding in India is not necessarily the florist, the hotel or the guest list. It’s the private detective, hired to find out whether a prospective spouse is all he or she claims to be. In India, pre-wedding investigations have turned into big business. Even though India is exploding with new wealth and modern conveniences, family life remains largely traditional. Many marriages here, especially those of the elite, are arranged between families using Internet and newspaper ads. And some people aren’t telling the whole truth in those ads.