Akshay Rajagopal wins the National Geographic Bee

The Indo Asian News Service (IANS) reports that, "An 11-year-old
Indian American boy won the 2008 National Geographic Bee contest,
taking home a $25,000 college scholarship and a lifetime membership."

This annual contest organized by the National Geographic Society,
finds nearly 5 million students participating each year. According to
the IANS, "Akshay Rajagopal, a grade six student from Lincoln,
Nebraska, emerged winner at the contest held in Washington, DC,
Wednesday for students from fifth through eighth grades, aged 10 to
14. The final question to which Rajagopal provided the correct answer
in a jiffy was: The urban area of Cochabamba has been in the news in
recent years due to protests over the privatisation of the municipal
water supply and regional autonomy issues. Cochabamba is the third
largest conurbation in what country? Answer: Bolivia. Rajagopal, who
attends Lux Middle School in Lincoln, answered all questions correctly
in Tuesday's preliminary rounds and the final and championship rounds
where the top 10 contestants pitted their geographical knowledge
against one another."

Among the top 10 in this competition, which was moderated for the 20th
year by the 'Jeopardy!' host Alex Trebek, were two other Indian
American students -- Nikhil Desai of California and Milan Sandhu of
New Hampshire.

For Indian Americans, its law, medicine, science and now politics too

Indian Americans are becoming more and more involved in politics. Some
of the key players in both the Obama and Clinton campaigns are those
of Indian origin. Not to mention Bobby Jindal whose name is floating
as the potential VP candidate for McCain and the many other Indian
Americans who hold political offices.

"One in every 26 Indians in the United States is a millionaire,
comprising 10% of the millionaires in the country as defined by net
worth, according to a Merrill Lynch study. Sanjay Puri, Chairman of
United States India Political Action Committee, encourages members of
the baby boom immigrant generation to use their expertise and
resources to engage in the political process even if they aren't
running for office or working on a campaign," according to an article
in Medill Reports.

According to Medill, Indian Americans growing interest in politics
reflects their maturity and standing among ethnic groups in America.
Another excerpt from this article --

"I think that puts the burden on them to give back...Being in politics
or being active in the political process is another way of helping
others achieve the American dream," Puri said, adding that he
encourages his peers to donate to campaigns.
Puri founded USINPAC to impact policy on issues of concern to the
Indian American community in the United States.
Indians are also considered to be among the most educated minority
groups. Almost two-thirds of all Indians in the U.S. have a
professional degree, five times the national average. Indians have
made significant contributions in the Silicon Valley hi-tech industry
and in the medical field.
"Indian Americans know a lot about education; they know a lot about
healthcare," Puri said. There are 40 million people without
healthcare well we need to get some of that expertise pulled in to do
some of those things."
Indians have also gradually been moving to the forefronts of politics
-- no longer behind the scenes.
In 2008, Indians like Bobby Jindal have achieved prominence in the
political arena. Jindal served in Congress and is now Governor of
Louisiana.
"I think it's the second generation that says, 'my country, my
politics, my role.' They start stepping up and I think that's what's
happening with the Indian American community," said Puri.

Read the full article at--
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/washington/news.aspx?id=88915

Aditya Mittal - Like Father, Like Son...

"Aditya Mittal has spent a decade helping his father build the world's
biggest steel company. Will he take the top slot? Or could worries
over nepotism make him prove himself elsewhere?" asks an article in
the Times Online. The UK based paper has done a nice interview with
the son of Lakshmi Mittal, the UK based steel magnate.

An intriguing look into the life of a boy who grew up with a silver
spoon, yet one who seems so capable, level headed and down to earth

Another excerpt, "Aditya Mittal nods. "You hope one generation learns
from another's mistakes. I am my own man. So long as I am doing what I
want, and it works for him and me, it's perfect."
That trust was fostered by an upbringing where Aditya stayed close to
his father's side, visiting steel plants with him, living near the
business in Indonesia where Lakshmi started his operations.
Unlike many entrepreneurs' children, he never lost his father to
business – he was taken along for the ride. And Lakshmi, say those
around him, is good at making business fun.
But father-son bonds make family-owned firms difficult for everyone
else, not least colleagues and other shareholders. Can it be a
meritocracy? Is that why he calls his father Mr Mittal?
Aditya grins. "Well, I could hardly call him Papa in the office, could I?""

Definitely worth a read at--
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article3778499.ece

A 15 year Old Uber-Desi

When you read about this young boy, make one wonder, what did I do
when I was fifteen years old? Another answer that is better left
unsaid!

From IANS--
"Anshul Samar is not your average Indian-American teenager. Even as
his peers spend time playing, 14-year-old Samar is out looking to
raise half a million dollars to fund his Silicon Valley start-up.
Samar is the CEO of Alchemist Empire Inc., and invented a trading card
game, 'Elementeo', that aims to teach chemistry to students in a fun
way.

The eighth-grader kick-started his company with $500 from the
California Association of the Gifted, using the money to develop a
prototype of Elementeo.

Samar, an Art of Living fan, presented the prototype at The Indus
Entrepreneurs (TiE) conference in the US in mid 2007, creating quite a
sensation as he made his pitch for funding.

Now he is all set to present his inventive card game at the national
meeting of the American Chemical Society - another pitch to get the
financial backing he needs to mass produce Elementeo."

Read the full article at--
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/indian-american-teen-ceo-seeks-500000-for-start-up_10036020.html

Indian Food in London is the Best...

Many agree that London is one of the best places outside India for Indian food of all kinds. Reuters says, "Better ingredients give London the edge over Indian cities for fine Indian cuisine. Better quality meat, fish and vegetables could very well put London ahead of any Indian city when it comes to high end Indian food."

See this video from Reuters--

Giving Home

From the New York Times --

"An important man from the World Bank recently arrived in this
isolated village, where monkeys prowl rutted roads, rain pours through
the school roof and the native son who achieved the most did so by
going away.

On a visit to his home last month, Dilip Ratha walked through fields
toward his father's farmland near Sindhekela.
Lessons about global poverty were waiting, but so were his sisters'
chapattis. Migrant and migration scholar, Dilip Ratha was home.

No one has done more than Mr. Ratha to make migration and its
potential rewards a top-of-the-agenda concern in the world's
development ministries. And no place has done more to shape his views
than this forgotten hamlet, where he studied under the lone
streetlight and began a poor boy's improbable journey to the front
ranks of an elite field.

"When I think about the effects of migration, I think about
Sindhekela," he said.

Working from his office in Washington five years ago, Mr. Ratha
produced the first global tally of remittances, the money that
migrants send home, and stunned experts from himself on down with the
discovery of their size. Gathered from a trickle of hard-earned cash,
the sums now exceed $300 billion a year.

In subsequent work, Mr. Ratha, 45, has pushed to reduce money-transfer
fees and increase the productivity of the money that is sent. Allies
say his work has prompted projects in governments and beyond that
could benefit millions of people. Skeptics argue that if migration
brought development, Mexico would be Switzerland."

Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/03/17/world/asia/17remit.html&tntemail0=y

Reverse Brain Drain With a Difference

A very interesting feature by Scott Carney, on NPR talks about second
generation Indians who are moving back to India.

An excerpt --
"For second-generation Indian Americans, returning to their parents'
home country can be a cultural odyssey. As the Indian economy booms,
however, there are other reasons for American-born Indians to return
to their roots. The country that many of their parents fled for lack
of opportunity now needs their skills.

In 2006, the Indian government created a new immigration card for what
it calls OCI or "Overseas Citizens of India." With it,
second-generation Indians can have visa-free entry for life. Since
2006, the government has issued more than 200,000 OCI cards."

Read and listen to the full feature at --
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87884391

Mira Nair's Kosher Vegetarian

Mira Nair's has cast Irfan Khan and Natalie Portman in lead roles in
her new venture, a romantic comedy titled "Kosher Vegetarian" India
eNews reports. "Irrfan is ready to morph into a 'Gujarati' Romeo. 'But
no accent this time. I'm very clear about that,' laughed the actor,
who has just returned from Santa Monica in California after attending
the Spirit Awards," says India eNews. They also claim that this is
Irfan Khan's second movie with Mira, but according to the IMDB
database, this is her third with Khan, after Namesake and Migration.

According to IMDB Mira Nair has the follwoign movies in the works
1. Amelia (2009) (pre-production)
2. Shantaram (2009) (pre-production) -- with Amitabh Bachan
3. New York, I Love You (2008) (filming)
4. Migration (2007) -- also with Irfan Khan

Read the India eNews story at --
http://www.indiaenews.com/bollywood/20080227/100423.htm

See Mira Nair's IMDB page at --
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0619762/

Is Hillary Clinton the Asian American choice?

Interesting piece by Andrew Leonard in Salon.com --

Hillary Clinton: The Asian-American choice

At the big Oprah-headlined rally for Barack Obama in Los Angeles on
Saturday, surprise guest Maria Shriver, California's first lady, cited
-- as one of a string of reasons why the state's Democrats should vote
for the senator from Illinois -- the fact that, like California, he
was "diverse."

In the wake of Super Tuesday, we've learned that such diversity
doesn't necessarily include Latinos, especially those older than 30.
But a self-congratulatory article in the India Express touting the
influence of Indian-Americans in the Democratic primary process
reveals even greater constraints on the appeal of Obama's diversity.
In California, exit poll data suggests that 69 percent of Latinos
voted for Clinton, while only 29 percent voted for Obama. But
Asian-American voters skewed even more sharply pro-Clinton: 75 percent
voted for her, compared to 23 percent for Obama. That's almost as high
as the percentage of the black vote (78 percent) that went for Obama.

Sen. Clinton has strong ties with Indian-Americans, and once joked at
a fundraising event that she was "delighted to be the Senator from
Punjab." Last June, Barack Obama stumbled into a storm of bad
publicity when his campaign released an ill-advised attack on Clinton
citing the Punjab joke and her ties to Indian outsourcing companies.

Despite the claims of the Indian press, the total numbers of
Indian-American voters in the New York and New Jersey primaries were
too small to significantly influence the overal results. (The total
Asian vote was too small for there to be any relevant exit poll data.)
A better case can be made in California. In Santa Clara County, where
there are some 115,000 Indian-American residents, Clinton cleaned up,
winning 54.8 percent to 39.3 percent -- better than her statewide
average. (Whereas just to the north, in San Francisco and Alameda
counties, Obama was the victor.)

But that's just one piece. In California, 8 percent of all Democratic
voters identified themselves as Asian -- a category that encompasses a
vast swath of cultures. Truly, California's diversity is
extraordinary. But it doesn't appear, so far, to translate into a
willingness to vote for a "diverse" candidate for president.

Idle Worship, Or The Non-Resident's Role Play

A recent opinion piece by Ramachandra Guha in Outlook magazine about NRI's makes for very interesting reading. I certainly agree with him on many counts. Titled "Idle Worship, Or The Non-Resident's Role Play," he says "Come winter, and Indians will genuflect before the visiting hordes of NRIs"

Here is how the piece begins --

"A new festival has been added to the Indian ritual calendar. Like Dussehra and Diwali, it is a winter festival, but unlike them the gods it honours are living beings, who appear before us in flesh and blood instead of being frozen into stone. This relatively new addition to our lives is called NRI puja. It takes place in December, a time when thousands of Non-Resident Indians briefly become Resident Non-Indians.

As a middle-class, English-speaking South Indian, I am always part of these festivities myself. For half my family serve as deities; the other half as worshippers.

Among visiting gods, Salman the creator, Amartya the preserver and Sir Vidia the destroyer are most prominent.
Whether I like it or not, I am placed by default in the second class. Fortunately, whatever personal apprehensions I have about participating in this annual puja are overcome by the force of professional obligation. As an Indian who chose to live in India, I might affect scorn for the migrants, but as a social scientist I must take cognisance of a phenonemon whose social significance grows with every passing year.

The first thing to note about this puja is that it has space only for a certain kind of NRI. Those who live with Arabs in the Gulf or with Fijians in the South Pacific do not qualify; still less those who have made their home with humans of African descent in the Caribbean. To be worthy of worship, an NRI must live with people whose skin pigmentation is, in the Tamil phrase, paal maadri, literally, the colour of milk."

Read the full article at --
http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20071217&fname=Col+Ramachandra+Guha+%28F%29&sid=1&pn=1