The thing about photojournalism is that you can tell something bad has happened when you see a picture of a child’s toy covered in rubble.  In fact, I think Toys Covered in Rubble is a freshman seminar at J-School. Anyway, the catastrophe in question was the demolition of Slumdog Millionaire star Rubina Ali’s home. You may recall the same thing happened to her co-star

Dozens of police with bamboo batons walked around the alley where Rubina Ali’s house is located and supervised demolition crews of young men wielding sledgehammers and metal rods who tore down the shanty homes, a week after bulldozers demolished the home of Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, another child star of the same film, in a similar cleanup drive in a different part of the same slum. [via this delightful slideshow]

I figured that a few months ago, when the Indian government and the filmmakers both said they were going to buy the kids new houses, that they were probably full of sh*t.  Empty promises are kind of what they do. Fine. But you’d think someone over there might whisper, “Psst: Hey. It’s gonna look really bad if we knock this bitch’s house down and make her mom breastfeed in the street.”  But no.  Progress waits for no one!  Way to go, India!  Now people can finally enjoy the majesty of that sh*t-covered alley without those ugly shanties all over it.