Textile Museum Opening, Mumbai India

Textile Museum Opening, Mumbai

India is known for a number of traditional handicrafts and especially for rich textiles. Any visitor to the country is struck by the plethora of saree and fabric-by-the-yard stores lining city streets. The history of Indian textiles is also fascinating from a cultural perspective, even for those otherwise uninspired by fabrics. In Mumbai, a new textile museum is set to open on a plot of four acres near the Kohinoor mills. The museum will focus on the history of textiles in Maharashtra province. A Times of India article recently covered the proposed museum, which is still in its planning stages. I would like to propose a piece that covers both the opening of the new textile museum in Mumbai while comparing it to others in the country. A story on this museum, which has not yet open, will inspire tourism and is therefore an excellent means of attracting and retaining travel-related sponsors. Moreover, covering the museum opening will be relatively easy given that the government is one of the sponsors. Acquiring official information about the museum will involve simple interviews on telephone that we can conduct from our home office. However, traveling to Mumbai will offer an in-depth preview of what the museum offers visitors. We can take a small crew to the museum site as well as the textile mills surrounding it. The initial article will doubtlessly inspire opportunities to investigate deeper issues such as economics and ethics of the textile industry in India.

2. Religious Practices: Firewalking Children

Inspired by a recent CNN article entitled "Indian school kids walk barefoot on fire," I thought it would be interesting to cover this and possibly a few other religious practices. It is feasible to combine a trip to Mumbai with coverage of this event in New Delhi. As domestic flights in India are inexpensive, our small crew shall have little difficulty traversing the distance between Mumbai and New Delhi. Moreover, we will not delve too deeply but simply provide readers with a fun and colorful snapshot of the phenomena. Because India is replete with fascinating religious practices like these, coverage will be relatively streamlined and yet captivating enough to attract readers. I intend to cover the practices in an objective manner, neither idealizing nor criticizing them. Many of India's religious practices are thousands of years old, offering ample opportunity for journalistic inquiry beyond what we provide in a pithy piece about the fire-walking children. We intend to interview the parents of the students, the teachers, and also community religious leaders or scholars.

3. "Drowning in a Sea of Garbage" -- an in-depth piece about garbage in India