For almost half a century, the Miss India competition has been a prominent feature of Indian popular culture, influencing, over time, the conventional standard for female beauty. As India participates increasingly in a global economy, that standard is gradually being shaped by forces beyond the country’s borders. Through the unexpected lens of the 2003 beauty pageant, Susan Dewey’s Making Miss India Miss World examines what feminine beauty has come to mean in a country transformed by recent political, economic, and cultural developments.

How does Sushmita Sen remain poised and confident? What is Madhu Sapre's secret recipe for perfect skin? How does Neha Dhupia deal with bad hair days? What are Lara Dutta's make-up tips to look youthful? Answering these and many more questions, How to Look Like Miss India is a practical guide by Sathya Saran who was on the core team of the Femina Miss India Contest for several years. In this book she brings you helpful, easy-touse tips and advice from Wendell Rodricks, Ambika Pillai, Dr Jamuna Pai, Mickey Contractor and many others. The people who turned Sushmita Sen, Aishwarya Rai and Priyanka Chopra into superstars reveal industry secrets that create the winning formula. From making your skin glow to choosing clothes that flatter your body type, this is the book you need to read whether you want to be Miss India or your very best self

The Nigerian beauty pageant industry positions itself as working to symbolically restore the public face of the nation while seeking to materially shift the private lives of affiliates on the ground.

Taken under the wing of an expat teacher for her ambition and talent, Anjali Bose hopes to escape unfavorable prospects and falls in with a crowd of young people in Bangalore, where she endeavors to confront her past and reinvent herself.

SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE. Jennifer Hosten went to the 1970 Miss World pageant on a lark, representing the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada, and came home with the crown and a place in history. What was supposed to be a light-hearted affair, with a parade of the world's most beautiful women vying for the attention of the judges and comedian/host Bob Hope, turned out to be the most controversial, politically-charged, and consequential pageant ever. Women's liberation activists blew up a BBC broadcast truck and stormed London's Royal Albert Hall in an attempt to sabotage the show, which they deemed a "cattle market." They threw rotten vegetables in the auditorium and hit Bob Hope with a flour bomb. When order was restored, Jennifer Hosten made history as the first women of colour to win the title. The broadcast introduced its massive audience to both a militant new brand of feminism and a new ideal of beauty, one in which the whole world could share. Ms. Hosten followed her triumph with a successful career as a diplomat and public servant in Grenada and Canada. Her book tells the stories of the epochal 1970 contest and her life with grace and an amused modesty. Her story has been purchased by the makers of The Crown and is the basis for Misbehavior, a 2020 film starring Keira Knightley. Rising British actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who plays Jennifer Hosten, is contributing a foreword to the book.

Through micro-analysis of language use, this book chronicles young women's pathways to becoming a Tanzanian beauty queen, offering an original perspective on the intersection of language with globalization, nationalism, and inequality in urban East Africa. This compelling linguistic ethnography considers the real-life effects, both on- and off-stage, of language policy, education, and gender dynamics for the women competing in the pageants. While highlighting many contestants' struggles for escape from poverty and patriarchy, the book also emphasizes their creative strategies – linguistic and otherwise – for bettering their lives and shows how people living in a global economic periphery take part in, and sometimes feel left out of, the wider world.

“An irresistible novel that hurls forward at breathtaking speed toward an unpredictable climax.” —Thrity Umrigar, bestselling author of The Space Between Us “Beautifully written, atmospheric…contains entire worlds. I couldn’t put it down.” —Gary Shteyngart, bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story and Absurdistan Miss Timmins’ School for Girls is the truly dazzling debut of a major novelist, Nayana Currimbhoy. Set in India during the monsoon of 1974, it tells the story of a conventional young girl who leaves her cloistered small town home to teach at a remote boarding school run by British Missionaries. Part coming-of-age novel, part suspenseful murder mystery, Miss Timmins’ School for Girls is a brilliant evocation of a colorful time and place—India during the love, drug, and rock ’n’ roll era—complete with the sights, sounds, and music of the period seamlessly woven into the page-turning tale.