Weather fails to rain on Gay Pride parade:

More than 4,000 people were dancing in the streets of Belfast yesterday with protesters and bad weather failing to dampen the enthusiasm of Gay Pride revellers. A small crowd of demonstrators sang gospel songs as the colourful parade snaked its way through the city centre.

DUP MP Iris Robinson is on holiday, but her recent controversial remarks about gays were the focus of much attention at the parade.

One cheeky float (inset) manned by a troupe of drag queens was nicknamed ‘Iris, Wicked Witch Of The North’, complete with a colourful caricature of her head!

One woman carried a poster, with the message ‘Jesus Loves Everyone’, in response to Mrs Robinson describing homosexuality as “an abomination”.

Parade participants were led by drag queen Titti Von Tramp (right) and a posse of feather boa-wearing, bare chested men. The parade concluded with a Belfast Pride party at Custom House Square.

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Gays march with Pride in Indian cities:

In a first of its kind in India, a Gay Pride parade was held in three Indian cities on Sunday.

Bangalore, Delhi and Kolkata saw hundreds of people embracing their identity and proudly proclaiming their sexuality through a celebration of colour and music.

Over 500 sexual minorities marched five km in Bangalore, asking for rights to exist and to repeal section 377 of the constitution, which criminalizes sexual minorities. Many of the people, most of them from the lesbian and gay community, as well as transgender, came out most proudly with a host of supporters looking on. For transgender like Chandni, the march was an opportunity to tell the world and her family, that she was proud of her sexual identity. Chandni struggled for over 15 years with her identity till she changed her gender.

A job with an NGO that works with transgenders helped her professionally and financially. She set up home in one of Bangalore’s best-known residential areas. With an adopted daughter to raise, Chandni says she wants to make sure others like her get a chance at life.

It may have been a celebration but what Bangalore’s first queer pride march has achieved is enormous, an awareness about sexual minorities which was earlier missing in the city.

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