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From Our Own Correspondent: Western Sahara and India

25/03/2013

Western Sahara and India

BBC World Service - From Our Own Correspondent, Western Sahara and India

Celeste Hicks on Moroccan tactics in Laayoune; Anthony Denselow on the widows of Vrindavan

Celeste Hicks tries to dodge Moroccan media spin, minders and plants in Laayoune; Anthony Denselow meets some of the many widows who've taken refuge in the shrines of Vrindavan

Pascale Harter introduces personal stories, insights and wit from BBC correspondents and writers around the world. In this edition, Celeste Hicks reveals why getting to the bottom of the territorial dispute over Western Sahara can be so difficult. On a recent trip to Laayoune, she explains, even after she'd avoided Moroccan media minders, set agendas and mysterious men tailing her group, it was still hard to know who to believe. Was that talkative man in a market really a local fishmonger ... or a government plant? Meanwhile, in northern India, Anthony Denselow explores the "city of widows": Vrindavan, a place teeming with shrines and temples, and also a haven to thousands of bereaved women. Some come here to worship, others to seek refuge from unsympathetic in-laws. Widowhood is never easy, but some Indian traditions make it even harder. So where to draw the line between asceticism and abuse?

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