Tuesday, March 25, 2008

New York Asks for Relaxed Visa Policies

The city of New York is feeling the effects of American immigration
policies, says an article in the New York TImes.

An excerpt --
"Until now, visa restrictions have been seen as a problem that
primarily affected technology companies in Silicon Valley and
elsewhere in the West. Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, has been
railing against them for years.

But according to the Partnership for New York City, a business
advocacy group, there is more demand for visas for specialized jobs in
New York, New Jersey and Connecticut than in California, and most of
the demand comes from small and midsize companies, not the largest
corporations. The partnership, whose members include many of the
city's biggest employers, has lobbied legislative leaders, including
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles E. Schumer, for a relaxation
of visa policies.

"New York's ability to compete with London, which has much more open
immigration, or with the emerging financial capitals in Asia and the
Middle East, depends on mobility of talent, both in terms of new and
current employees," said Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the
partnership. "What people miss is, New York's standing as an
international capital of business and finance depends on the
professionals within these companies being able to come to New York to
be trained and groomed for leadership positions around the world."

Indeed, companies are capitalizing on more open visa policies
elsewhere to recruit some of the leaders educated and trained in New
York. Gaurav Gaur, for example, an Indian who earned his M.B.A. from
Cornell in 2004, said he seized the chance to leave New York last year
for London to work for Barclays, though it meant turning his back on
opportunities at Bloomberg L.P. and other American companies."

Read the full article at--
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntget=2008/03/24/nyregion/24visas.html&tntemail0=y&oref=slogin

Monday, March 24, 2008

For those of you who do not like long films...

The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of
the human bladder.

- Alfred Hitchcock

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Now it's easier to give back to India...

A while ago when I was interviewing Desh Deshpande, he was discussing
the challenges of giving back to India. Why is it so hard to donate
large sums to India, why is the whole concept of giving back so alien?
is a question many were asking. These questions have not fallen on
deaf ears.

Pavni Guharoy, who is with the Confederation of Indian Industry writes
that "The Indian American Council is a DC based program started by the
Confederation of Indian Industry to help US based Indians give back to
India. The Indian American Council offers its members opportunities to
link with India in five key areas; Health and HIV, Education, SME
Development, Infrastructure/SCM and Water Management. By leveraging
CII's 52 offices all over India, you can link to opportunities any
part of the country."

Guharoy says, "The program is unique because it does not just connect
you to an organization or NGO in India but creates the entire linkage
based on your time and location preference. For example, you could be
a doctor that wants to do a two day seminar at a local hospital in
Coimbatore or primary school teacher that wants to teach at a
government school in Ahmadabad for a few hours or a financial analyst
that wanted to mentor a growing company in Chandigarh on an ongoing
basis. We do all the homework to match you to the right opportunity
and then introduce you via phone or email."

The program is somewhat fee-based but Guharoy says that is because the
program offers you the unique service of finding you the right
organization to work with, in a city that convenient to you. For more
information please contact:

Pavni Guharoy, Confederation of Indian Industry, 1700 North Moore
Street, Suite 1928, Arlington, VA 22209, Ph: 703 807 0310. Email:
iac@cii-usa.org Website: www.indianamericancouncil.org

I am Indian-American - writes Vidushi Shrimali

"I would like to define for you the diverse, colorful middle-class
group of Americans known as Indian Americans. Just like any other
ethnic group in America, we come with no lack of stereotypes: a love
of spicy food, large families and complex customs.

Let's get beyond all that.

While we do have many interesting and colorful dishes with all sorts
of different flavors, spices are not my favorite. In fact, most of my
Indian-American friends can't stand spicy food.

Also, not all Indians are dark brown. India is a country of many mixed
groups and skin colors, and not everyone has dark skin.

As for the language, it is Hindi. The religion is Hindu. Understand
our frustration: When was the last time someone asked you if you spoke
Christian?" writes a Dallas high schooler, Vidushi Shrimali, in a
candid essay reflecting her feelings about being Indian American.

During my writing career, I have spoken to several young adults about
being Indian in a western setting, and many of them, rightly enough,
talk about their struggles with the dual identity crisis. This is the
voice of one such Indian American teenager who seems to have figured
it out!

Read the full essay at --
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/collin/opinion/stories/DN-west_vidushi_20edi.ART.West.Edition1.46be421.html

The South Asian Travel Fad Continues...

This Sundays New York Times features two travel articles featuring
South Asian destinations, New Delhi and Nepal.

While Somini Sengupta talks about 36 hours and New Delhi and lists an
itinerary with the things one must do within the short time that they
have, a slideshow with about 16 beautiful images of New Delhi is a
treat for the eyes. Seth Sherwood muses about teh sudden increase in
Nepal tourism. "According to the Nepal Tourism Board, December capped
a banner year, with air arrivals up 27 percent over the 2006 total.
Overall, 2007 welcomed some 360,000 foreign air travelers to the
country, making it the most successful year for tourism since 2000.
For a poor but picturesque country that was nearly pulled apart by a
decade of bloodshed and political turmoil — which witnessed some
13,000 deaths from a Maoist insurrection, the bizarre murder of most
of the royal family by the crown prince, the seizure of absolute power
by a subsequent king and the resulting pro-democracy riots — the
numbers are heartening indeed," says Sherwood. As one who has visited
this incredibly beautiful country when I was a teenager, I must say I
am not surprised that Tourism to Nepal is rapidly climbing now that
the political situation has calmed down.

Read the article about New Delhi at--
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/03/23/travel/23hours.html&tntemail0=y

Read the article about Nepal at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/03/23/travel/23Next.html&tntemail0=y

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--

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Can India Save the World?

"Humanity is embarking on a bizarre journey into the future.
Subconsciously, we all believe (or would like to believe) that we live
in a rational, well-ordered universe. The reality is closer to the
opposite. If this sounds unbelievable, consider the following analogy.
Imagine 660 passengers boarding a ship that is sailing into
unchartered waters. After boarding, all 660 retreat into their cabins.
No captain or crew is taking care of the ship as a whole.

Sadly, this is a literal, not metaphorical description of how
spaceship Earth is sailing into the future. Globalisation has shrunk
the world. All 6.6 billion inhabitants now live in a single
interdependent universe. From financial crises to health epidemics,
from borderless terrorism to global warming, we are moving into a
world where more global governance (not global government) is needed
to manage the growing interdependence. Instead, precisely when more is
needed, humanity is either shrinking or weakening global governance.
This essay will explain why. It will also argue that perhaps only one
country can solve this crisis — India," writes Kishore Madhubani in an
interesting essay in the Hindustan Times.

Read the full essay at --
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=b256bfa5-2b67-4cd0-8113-224240a01d87&MatchID1=4664&TeamID1=5&TeamID2=2&MatchType1=1&SeriesID1=1173&PrimaryID=4664&Headline=Can+India+save+the+world%3f

Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Latest Gig

A departure from making top-grossing Bollywood flicks like Hum Dil De
Chuke Sanam and Devdas, Sanjay Leela Bhansali the popular Bollywood
filmmaker has a new gig, he is now the director of "Padmavati" a Paris
opera!

An excerpt from the International Herald Tribune --
As the rousing overture reaches its operatic climax, the curtains part
and Ganesh, the elephant-headed Hindu god, descends from the rafters.

"Padmavati," currently playing at Paris' gilded Theatre du Chatelet,
is not your typical operatic fare. It's equal parts straight-laced
European opera and Bollywood blowout, with a cast that includes a top
French mezzo-soprano, scores of classical Indian dancers and a live
tiger.

The director is hit Indian filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali, whose
pathos-filled 2002 musical "Devdas" became a crossover international
blockbuster and made him hot Bollywood property.

"Padmavati," the revival of a long-neglected French ballet-cum-opera
from 1923, is Bhansali's first foray into the rarified world of opera
— which he had rarely listened to before beginning work on the
project.

"There was an e-mail that came (proposing the project) and I thought
somebody was joking," said Bhansali, speaking in his dressing room at
the theater. "I though 'Opera? An Indian director? What are they
talking about? Somebody's playing a prank.'"

But then he started listening to the score — written by sailor and
composer Albert Roussel after a 1909 trip to South Asia and based on
the legend of a 13th century queen who chooses death over surrender.

Soon, Bhansali warmed to the idea. "It was the chance to come to
stage, an unknown discipline, and unfold Indian history."

Read the full article at--
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/20/arts/EU-A-E-MUS-France-Bollywood-Opera.php

A Gastronomic Visit to South India?

Have immigrants to the US affected what Americans eat? Sure it has but
it has also spawned new kids of tourism and travel packages. Forbes
reports that culinary trips are becoming very popular. "Though
traditional tasting trips to Napa Valley wine country or the heart of
Provence are still popular, more and more travelers are exploring
cuisine in countries like India, Turkey and New Zealand," says the
magazine.

Forbes says that, "An ambitious tour of four South Indian states, for
example, takes travelers from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu
and Kerala in pursuit of the finest cuisine. No meal is spurned:
participants sample the best street food, join community feasts,
peruse spice markets and dine at high-end restaurants. The day ends at
a local four- or five-star Taj Hotels property, which customizes the
tour. Michael Whiteman, of the international restaurant consultant
company Baum & Whiteman, says this newfound culinary bravery,
particularly among American travelers, comes partly from immigration
to the U.S. over the past 30 years."

Read the full article and see pictures of the worlds top tasting trips at --
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/2008/03/15/travel-vacation-tasting-forbeslife-cx_rr_0317travel.html

The Eccentric Artist

Yes artists are considered an eccentric sort, but painter, M.F.
Hussain is in a league all of his own. One of his faux pas's is his
derogatory portrayal of Hindu gods and goddesses. More protests by
Hindu groups in New York have been a precursor to the Christies
auction.

"Hindu activist groups in the US have threatened to hold a
demonstration at Christie's here unless the art gallery stops an
auction this week of paintings by celebrated Indian painter M F
Husain, who they say has hurt Hindus the world over for portraying
their gods in "derogatory" forms." says SIFY news, "In a letter to
Christie's, the Indian American Intellectual Forum, which has joined
hands with Hindu Janjagruti Samiti on the campaign against Husain,
said the artist has gained ignominy and notoriety in India by painting
several Hindu gods and goddesses in derogatory forms. As part of
Christie's New York auction March 20 of modern and contemporary art
from South Asia, Husain's paintings are expected to fetch hundreds of
thousands of dollars. One of them, "The Battle of Ganga and Yamuna" is
estimated to rake in $600,000-$800,000."

Hussain is currently in hiding and BBC reports that he may be living
in the Middle East.

Read the full SIFY article at --
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14624043

Read the full BBC article at --
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7303479.stm

TCS's new Cincinnati Headquarters

One of the Indian companies that is making waves, expanding rapidly in
North America is Tata. TCS recently opened a delivery center in Ohio
and plans to staff it with about a 1000 employees.

Here is an excerpt--
"More than a century after the company's great forbear Jamshedji Tata
scoured Ohio looking for steel expertise, India's tech major Tata
Consultancy Services (TCS) opened a 1000-seat delivery centre outside
Cincinnati on Monday, marking a small but significant counter to
overwrought reports about job flight from the United States.

Eminences ranging from the state governor to the local school
superintendent turned up for the inauguration of the new facility, to
hear and exult about 1000 jobs being created in the area. It was a
rare moment of relief, pride, and vindication too for India - and an
Indian company - which has been under attack from protectionist forces
in the US for taking away American jobs.

The delivery centre, located in the Cincinnati suburb of Milford, will
take in mostly local hires over the next three years after TCS cranks
it up with associates from India. It will handle design, development
and delivery needs of TCS' key North American customers such as
Boeing, Nielsen and General Electric."

Read the full article at--
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Tata_jobs_bloom_in_middle_America/articleshow/2879247.cms

Leela comes to Sesame Street

A new caharacter n Sesame street is an Indian American, Leela. Indian
Americans are appearing in ever facet of life it seems.

An excerpt from an article in India West magazine --
"The newest neighbor on Sesame Street just happens to be Indian
American, because the role was originally dreamed up with no
particular ethnicity in mind.

"It was incidental," actress Nitya Vidyasagar told India-West by phone
last week from New York City, where she is currently taping the 39th
season of the award-winning PBS children's show. "The casting notices
said nothing of ethnicity."

But the New York-based stage actress made such a strong impression on
the show's producers that they found themselves willing to create her
role from scratch.

Vidyasagar plays Leela, a young Indian American woman who runs the
local laundromat. Unlike many of the other actors on the show, who use
their own first names as their character's names, she felt more
comfortable with the name Leela. "My name is hard for some people to
say," she explained."

Read the full article at --
http://www.indiawest.com/view.php?subaction=showfull&id=1206034606&archive=&start_from=&ucat=7

Thursday, March 20, 2008

My favorite animal paints as well !!!

See this Reuters video --

Big is not better!!!

Definitely, big is not always better... A great piece from the New
York Times on how you can be happy with what you have...

An excerpt--
"WHEN Suchitra Van and Nette Gaastra sent out invitations for their
October, 2005, wedding, they wrote on them "No gifts." What they meant
was: no toasters, no blenders, no coffeepots.

What they wanted instead was money to transform the 435-square-foot
apartment in Greenwich Village they had just bought for $296,000. They
planned to turn it into a one-bedroom from a studio.

They received $26,000 in gifts, including $22,000 from Ms. Gaastra's
father, Piet Gaastra, an architect in Hoorn, the Netherlands. "He saw
our struggle," said Ms. Gaastra, who is 30, and works for the Abelson
Company, a Manhattan graphic design company.

Mr. Van's mother, Champa Van, a cook and baby sitter who lives in
Queens, and his father, Sumatimohan, an artist who goes by one name
and lives in Manhattan, are divorced. "So my father gave us $300, and
my mother gave us another $300," said Mr. Van, who is 42, and has his
own design firm, Van Studio, on the Lower East Side.

Between the gifts and their own savings of $15,000, they were able to
renovate the apartment and finish it early last year, just in time for
the arrival of their son, Sebbe, who is now 1. Although the apartment
has only one window, which is in the living room, it is a surprisingly
airy, serene place."

Read the full article and see the pictures at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/03/20/garden/20cheap.html&tntemail0=y

India owes New York City $42.3 Million!!!

It is quite common for politicians to misuse governmental funds and
property. I remember cases when ex Presidents would not vacate the Raj
Bhavan on time or during their reign at the Raj Bhavan made sure that
their post poilitical home was a fairly equivalent mansion. But to
come to a foreign country and abuse diplomatic relations with a host
is another thing.

An excerpt from the New York TImes --
"The governments of India, Mongolia and the Philippines owe New York
City roughly $57 million in property taxes, a federal judge has ruled,
closing a long chapter in the Bloomberg administration's efforts to
force foreign governments to shoulder some of the costs of their
presence at the United Nations.

The ruling, released on Monday by Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the United
States District Court in Manhattan, awards the city $42.3 million from
India, $10.9 million from the Philippines and $4.4 million from
Mongolia. The bulk of the amount is interest that had accrued on
outstanding taxes over decades.

Whether that money will ultimately land in New York's coffers remains
to be seen, since the city cannot enforce the liens in the usual way
by foreclosing on the buildings. But Michael A. Cardozo, the city's
corporation counsel, said he hoped the ruling would persuade the three
countries and other nations to pay taxes they owed. A provision of the
Foreign Operations Appropriations Act penalizes countries with unpaid
taxes by withholding 110 percent of the debt from their foreign aid."

Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/03/19/nyregion/19missions.html&tntemail0=y

Chandigarh's Treasures

Chandigarh, a city conceived and designed by reknowned architect Le
Corbusier is supposed to be one of the most organized cities ever
built. It is usually not in the news, until I came across this article
in the New York Times which made me sit up and want to go back and
check out all those chairs and antique furniture at my grandparents
homes!!

An excerpt

"Every working day for the past 20 years, Suresh Kanwar, a civil
engineer in Chandigarh's Forestry Department, has been sitting on the
same battered wooden chair, an object he said had "no beauty" even if
it was, "for office use, very comfortable."

A man sat working on, and next to, an original Pierre Jeanneret teak
armchair at the Forestry Department in Chandigarh, India. Mr.
Jeanneret was a cousin of the architect Le Corbusier, who conceived
the modernist city in the 1950s.

Hazarding a guess as to its value, he suggested 400 rupees, or about
$10, "perhaps, at a junkyard."

A pair of chairs identical to Mr. Kanwar's, instantly recognizable to
collectors as Pierre Jeanneret teak "V-chairs," will go on sale at the
auction house Christie's in New York this month with a reserve of
$8,000 to $12,000."

Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntget=2008/03/19/world/asia/19chandigarh.html&tntemail0=y&oref=slogin

Monday, March 17, 2008

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

GM's Second Small Car for India

"General Motors Corp. plans to build its second minicar for the Indian
market, a company executive said Monday....

Detroit-based GM introduced the Chevrolet Spark minicar in India in
April 2007 in its first major attempt to enter the segment. Small cars
- hatchbacks with engine capacities ranging from 0.8-liters to
1.6-liters and measuring up to 4 meters - comprise about three
quarters of the more than 1 million cars sold in India each year.

Suzuki Motor Corp. leads the local market with as many as five
hatchback models," says CNN Money on their website.

While critics argue that there are more and more cars being introduced
and continue to pollute the environment, the infrastructure remains
very questionable. Traffic congestion in India's larger cities is
completely out of control and the solution seems to be nowhere in
sight.

Read the full CNN article at --
http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/17/news/companies/gm_india.ap/index.htm?section=money_latest

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Depression and Anxiety Affects All

A very revealing article from the New York Times about Depression in India.

An excerpt--
"Depression and anxiety have long been seen as Western afflictions,
diseases of the affluent. But new studies find that they are just as
common in poor countries, with rates up to 20 percent in a given year.

Researchers say that even in places with very poor people, the
ailments require urgent attention. Severe depression can be as
disabling as physical diseases like malaria, the researchers say, and
can have serious economic effects. If a subsistence farmer is so
depressed that he cannot get out of bed, neither he nor his children
are likely to eat.

In India, as in much of the developing world, depression and anxiety
are rarely diagnosed or treated. With a population of more than one
billion, India has fewer than 4,000 psychiatrists, one-tenth the
United States total. Because most psychiatrists are clustered in a few
urban areas, the problem is much worse elsewhere.

As a result, most Indians with mental illness go untreated, especially
in poor and rural areas. "There is a huge treatment gap for people
with depression," said Dr. Vikram Patel of the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the psychiatrist who began the Siolim
project. "In most places in the developing world, 80 percent to 90
percent of people with severe depression don't receive adequate
treatment."

Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntget=2008/03/11/health/11psych.html&tntemail0=y&oref=slogin

Monday, March 10, 2008

Slum Tourism - Can we stoop so low?

An excerpt from an article in the Travel section of the Sunday New York Times --
"Slum tourism, or "poorism," as some call it, is catching on. From the
favelas of Rio de Janeiro to the townships of Johannesburg to the
garbage dumps of Mexico, tourists are forsaking, at least for a while,
beaches and museums for crowded, dirty — and in many ways surprising —
slums. When a British man named Chris Way founded Reality Tours and
Travel in Mumbai two years ago, he could barely muster enough
customers for one tour a day. Now, he's running two or three a day and
recently expanded to rural areas.

Slum tourism isn't for everyone. Critics charge that ogling the
poorest of the poor isn't tourism at all. It's voyeurism. The tours
are exploitative, these critics say, and have no place on an ethical
traveler's itinerary.

"Would you want people stopping outside of your front door every day,
or maybe twice a day, snapping a few pictures of you and making some
observations about your lifestyle?" asked David Fennell, a professor
of tourism and environment at Brock University in Ontario. Slum
tourism, he says, is just another example of tourism's finding a new
niche to exploit. The real purpose, he believes, is to make Westerners
feel better about their station in life. "It affirms in my mind how
lucky I am — or how unlucky they are," he said.

Not so fast, proponents of slum tourism say. Ignoring poverty won't
make it go away. "Tourism is one of the few ways that you or I are
ever going to understand what poverty means," said Harold Goodwin,
director of the International Center for Responsible Tourism in Leeds,
England. "To just kind of turn a blind eye and pretend the poverty
doesn't exist seems to me a very denial of our humanity."

Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/03/09/travel/09heads.html&tntemail0=y

And the most H1B goes to...

The controversy over visas for high-skilled workers from abroad looks
like it's about to get even hotter, says Business Week.

An excerpt --

"The program for what are known as H-1B visas was originally set up to
allow companies in the U.S. to import the best and brightest in
technology, engineering, and other fields when such workers are in
short supply in America. But data just released by the federal
government show that offshore outsourcing firms, particularly from
India, dominate the list of companies awarded H-1B visas in 2007.
Indian outsourcers accounted for nearly 80% of the visa petitions
approved last year for the top 10 participants in the program. The new
data are sure to fuel criticism of the visa program from detractors
such as Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Richard J. Durbin
(D-Ill.). "These numbers should send a red flag to every lawmaker that
the H-1B visa program is not working as it was intended," said
Grassley in an e-mail."

Read the full article at --
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_11/b4075062465238.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_best+of+bw

A thirty six year search...

A very touching story from BBC about those that were lost during the
Indo-Pak war.

An excerpt--
"She pulls the newspaper carefully out of a folder.

It is slightly crumpled, fraying at the edges and the paper is turning
a little yellow.

It is a copy of the Sunday Pakistan Observer, dated 5 December 1971.

Under the headline "Pakistan Air Force Bags 46 Indian planes", it
states the name of one of the pilots captured alive: Flight Lieutenant
Tambay.

"That's my husband," she says.

Next out of the folder comes a copy of a page from an old edition of
Time magazine.

A photograph captures an Indian prisoner of war staring out through
the bars of his cell and, in the background, the partly obscured face
of another man.

"That's him," she says. "I'm convinced of it. So where is he now? And
if he's dead, where's his body? Has anyone seen one?"

Read the full article at --
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7283324.stm

Bollywood Goes Global???

An interesting article in the Washington Post which debates why
Bollywood is going global.

An excerpt --
"More than ever before, Bollywood is being flooded with cash from
Indian investors who see the country's film industry as a money
machine. The rise of the multiplex theater has led to a wider variety
of films, with more socially relevant scripts that discard the
overused Bollywood formula: a rambling, four-hour hodgepodge of twins
separated at birth, rare blood diseases, wet sari scenes and lots and
lots of singing and dancing in alpine meadows. More linear and
socially conscious storylines are becoming popular, as are shorter
movies.

"The new trend in Bollywood is the death of the cliche," said Anupam
Kher, an award-winning Bollywood actor who has been in more than 300
films. Three years ago, Kher opened Actor Prepares, one of many acting
schools trying to improve the skills of young Indian actors. He also
has announced plans to open a school in London that will teach
foreigners, as well as those of Indian descent, thick Hindi dialects,
yoga and the infamous Bollywood style of dancing (think petting a dog
with one hand and screwing in a little bulb with the other, as
described in the film "Bride and Prejudice").

"We used to have very few trained actors. We were a young country.
Entertainment was the last thing on our agenda," Kher said between
takes on a film set. But now, "the Indian economy is booming, and
Bollywood is booming right along with it. There is a huge middle class
who have traveled and watched foreign movies on cable or at an upscale
multiplex. The consumer has awakened, and the quality is soaring."

Read the full article at--
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/08/AR2008030802679.html

Now They Call It Reproductive Outsourcing!!!!

Talk about taking advantage of the poor, the surrogate mom saga
continues, and is in full swing it sounds like.

Read this excerpt from a New York Times feature article --
" An enterprise known as reproductive outsourcing is a new but rapidly
expanding business in India. Clinics that provide surrogate mothers
for foreigners say they have recently been inundated with requests
from the United States and Europe, as word spreads of India's mix of
skilled medical professionals, relatively liberal laws and low prices.
Commercial surrogacy, which is banned in some states and some European
countries, was legalized in India in 2002. The cost comes to about
$25,000, roughly a third of the typical price in the United States.
That includes the medical procedures; payment to the surrogate mother,
which is often, but not always, done through the clinic; plus air
tickets and hotels for two trips to India (one for the fertilization
and a second to collect the baby)."

Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/03/10/world/asia/10surrogate.html&tntemail0=y

Friday, March 07, 2008

A World of Colors...

Is India Flushed With Venture Capital Money?

"Never in its history has India been so flushed with venture capital money. In 2007, 50 new VC firms sprouted in India. There are about 500 in total now, a far cry from the mid-1990s, when I started my career as an entrepreneur doing business in India. In 2007, close to $1 billion in venture capital funds washed through India.

That's led to a problem oddly familiar to Silicon Valley investors: too much money, not enough worthy entrepreneurs. In VC parlance, fundable deals are few and far between. Why?" asks Sramana Mitra in a commentary in Forbes.

"India's meteoric rise in the tech world has been driven by providing back-office services. That work puts a premium on skills such as engineering management and coding. Someone else--somewhere else--writes the specifications for the projects. Again, someone else, somewhere else does the market studies analyzing the potential of a new product.

Indian managers have had scarce opportunities to learn the nuances of how global technology markets work. That means that local entrepreneurs can try to position products, but they do so without detailed and disciplined marketing knowhow," she says.

Read the full commentary at --
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/03/06/mitra-india-venture-tech-enter-cx_sm_0307venture.html

India's Billionaires

A video on India's billionaires from Forbes

http://www.forbes.com/video/?video=fvn/lists/pm_indiarich111407_cw

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

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

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Another attempt at Reducing Female Foeticide

As young college girls, my friends and I were doing what we could to
help disseminate information about Female Foeticide in India. In fact
one of the most terrible moments of my teenaged years was when I was
researching this subject and I found out about the how infant girls
are killed in some of the interior regions of the state of Tamilnadu.
Piping hot chicken broth being oured down their throats till they die,
poisonous sap given to female infants and what not.

From the CS Monitor --
"Salem district, a mostly rural part of Tamil Nadu, has a longstanding
reputation as a deathtrap for baby girls. The Vellala Gounder
community, the dominant caste there, owns most of the land and is
intent on retaining property rights within the family. Sons represent
lineage; daughters marry and relocate to their husbands' homes. As a
result, local women, like Lakshmi, who gave birth to a girl early last
year, may refuse to nurse their newborns. They leave it to midwives or
mothers-in-law to administer the oleander sap, say anti-infanticide
activists.Nearly 60 percent of girls born in Salem District are killed
within three days of birth, according to the local social welfare
department. That doesn't count the growing number of abortions there
to ensure a girl baby won't be carried to term. Amid such stubborn
statistics, activists are at work to counter the forces of tradition.
A focus of their work: improving the standing and self-image of women
themselves."

Then a cradle scheme was introduced by the Tamilnadu government to
allow parents to anonymously drop off their girl babies, in an open
cradle outside orphanages. No one would question the parents dropping
off these babies, and they would be taken care of by the government as
orphanages.

From the Hindu -
"In 1992, the Tamil Nadu government started the Cradle Baby Scheme
primarily in response to reports of female infanticide in certain
pockets of the State. Studies showed that there were about 3,000 cases
of female infanticide every year in Tamil Nadu, adding up to a fifth
of all female infant deaths in the State. The government launched the
cradle scheme under which parents who did not wish to keep their girl
babies could leave them in cradles kept at government reception
centres. It was started with one reception centre each in Salem,
Madurai, Theni, and Dindigul, areas most notorious for female
infanticide. In April 2001, it was extended to the whole of Tamil Nadu
- reception centres, totalling 188, were set up at all PHCs and major
government hospitals."

Now Reuters reports that --
"India is offering to pay poor families nearly $3,000 to bring up
their girl children, and discourage the widespread practice of
aborting the female foetus which has led to a skewed gender balance in
parts of the country."

Scary isn't it, that with India fast becoming an economic superpower,
problems such as these continue to plague the country!

Read the full article from Reuters at --
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSSP215468

Link to the article in the Christian Science Monitor --
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0209/p11s01-wosc.html

Link to the Hindu article -
http://www.hindu.com/fline/fl2211/stories/20050603006301600.htm

The Living Goddess

I was 11 years old, during a 2 week school excursion to Northern India
and Nepal, that I was awed by my first visit to see the "Living
Goddess." My friends and I were so jealous of this young girl who was
just a couple of years younger than us, and we wished we were
princesses too... Litlle did we know then the difficult lives that
these young girls lead, after giving up their childhood.

An excerpt from Reuters --
"A controversial young Nepali girl worshipped by many Buddhists and
Hindus as a Kumari, or "living goddess", has given up her divine
position following a request from her family, an official said on
Sunday. The 11-year-old Sajani Shakya was revered for nine years as
the Kumari of the ancient temple-town of Bhaktapur, near Kathmandu, in
a centuries-old tradition."

Read the full story at --
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSDEL18739720080302

Monday, March 03, 2008

The Car Expert

I know a lot about cars. I can look at a car's headlights and tell you
exactly which way it's coming.

-- Mitch Hedberg -- American comedian (1968 - 2005)

Will world hunger turn to mass starvation?

Everyone is talking about Economic Growth and how India and China are
becoming world economic leaders and how the middle and rich classes
are benefitting tremendously from this. The challenges faced by these
countries and those poor and downtrodden, who are getting poorer are
often ignored. This editorial in the New York Times talk about the
challenges faced by India and China, because of the Food Shortage
caused by population growth and the so called "economic progress". The
rich get richer the poor get poorer... This mantra is becoming common
in these countries as well..

An excerpt from this editorial in the New York Times --
"The world has faced periodic bouts when it looked as if population
growth would outstrip the food supply. Each time, food production has
grown to meet demand. This time it might not be so easy.

Population growth and economic progress are part of the problem.
Consumption of meat and other high-quality foods —mainly in China and
India— has boosted demand for grain for animal feed. Poor harvests due
to bad weather in this country and elsewhere have contributed. High
energy prices are adding to the pressures."

Read the full editorial at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntget=2008/03/03/opinion/03mon1.html&tntemail0=y&oref=slogin

Sunday, March 02, 2008

A Diabetes Education Campaign in Queens, NY

South Asians are at high risk for heart disease and diabetes, though
culturally, it is preferred not to make a big deal of this. It is
certainly good to see someone doing something about this and bringing
the issues out into the open...

An excerpt from the New York Times --

"But Type 2 diabetes strikes a sixth of the more than 200,000 New
Yorkers whose families are from the Indian subcontinent. That gives
them the highest rate of the disease among the city's major ethnic
groups.

In this population, "people expect that everybody has it," said Dr.
Jyotsna Changrani, the director of the South Asian Health Initiative
at New York University. "All of your friends have it, all of your
family has it," she said.

Researchers have concluded that less body fat is needed to trigger the
disease for South Asians. "The people of South Asian descent that we
see are often not obese," said Dr. Daniel Lorber, chief of
endocrinology at the New York Hospital Center of Queens. "You'll
frequently see men with just a little bit of a potbelly, right at
ideal weight based on Caucasian standards."

Mindful of this vulnerability, the New York State Health Foundation, a
private group, has donated $255,000 to Beth Israel Medical Center to
help bring to the South Asian communities of Queens a diabetes
education campaign like those found in Harlem and the Bronx.

The campaign will not lack an audience in Jackson Heights, where it is
rare to enter a store without meeting someone who suffers from the
ailment generally referred to, even in Hindi or Urdu conversations, as
"sugar" or "sugar-hogi."

Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/03/02/nyregion/thecity/02diab.html&tntemail0=y

The not-so-latent Energy Crisis in India

A question that most Indians are asking is about Energy. With planned
regular power cuts in large cities like Chennai, Bangalore and
Hyderabad, how if the country going to deal with the burgeoning
populations demand for energy?

An excerpt from an interesting article about energy in the New York Times --

"A beacon of India's red-hot economy, this new suburb on the edge of
the capital, New Delhi, is also a symbol of India's fast-growing
hunger for energy. By the government's own estimates, energy
consumption in this country of 1.1 billion is expected to quadruple
over the next 25 years, inevitably expanding India's emissions of
greenhouse gases.

At the moment, it is a mixed blessing that Gurgaon remains an island
of air-conditioned malls and roaring, round-the-clock office towers,
and that behind this brightly lighted boomtown lies a vast nation of
darkness and cow-dung-fueled stoves.

Almost half of India's population has no access to the electricity
grid, and many more people suffer hours without power. Nearly 700,000
Indians rely on animal waste and firewood as fuel for cooking. As a
result, India's per capita carbon footprint remains a small fraction
of that of the industrialized world — the average American produces 16
times the emissions of the average Indian — and in turn empowers the
central Indian argument for its right to consume more, not less,
energy in the future."

Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/03/02/world/asia/02india.html&tntemail0=y

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Walmart stores launch Indian garments across Canada

From the Economic Times --

"Wal-Mart stores across Canada will now sell Indian garments for men,
women and kids under the brand name "Bollywood signatures".

Under multi-year agreement between Ranka Group of Companies and
Wal-Mart, 20 stores of Wal-Mart launched yesterday will sell Indian
family apparel, covering a wide range of clothing including women's
and children's.

"My life dream to promote India in Canada is fulfilled. I have been
working for years to promote self esteem for Indian women and wellness
for the entire family in Canada. Now the company has the opportunity
with Wal-Mart to create Indian garments with latest North American
style that combine our design experiences with great value and
innovative ideas to fulfill this dream," said President of Ranka
Enterprise Inc Kash Sood.

This landmark deal combines the talent and experience of our company
with Wal-Mart's reach and vision. We believe this partnership will
deliver extraordinary results, Sood added."

Read this article at --
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/Wal-Mart_stores_launch_Indian_garments_across_Canada/articleshow/2826572.cms

World's Densest Cities

India and China account for 9 of the world's top densest cities according to Forbes magazine. From South Asia, Mumbai is #1, Kolkata is #2, Karachi is #3, Chennai is at #8, Delhi is at #13, Jakarta, Indonesia is #17, and Bangalore is #19.

An excerpt --
"Where are cities most dense? Look no further than Asia, where concentrated economic growth has spawned 16 of the 20 densest urban areas in the world, according to 2007 statistics from citymayors.com. Leading the way are Mumbia and Kolkata, both in India, each of which pack in over 23,000 people per square kilometer. Both cities, along with those close behind like Karachi, Pakistan, Lagos, Nigeria and Shenzhen, China, hold about as many people within a handful of square blocks as live in U.S. metros like Charleston, S.C., Green Bay, Wis., or Berkeley, Calif."

Read the full story at --
http://www.forbes.com/2007/12/14/cities-pollution-asia-biz-logistics-cx_tvr_1214densecities.html

Two Indian Cities on Forbes List of Top 25 Dirtiest

Forbes lists the top 25 worlds dirtiest, and you bet South Asia has
entries in this list.
New Delhi is at #24
Mumbai is at # 7
and Dhaka, Bangladesh is at #2

An excerpt --
"To see which cities in the world were dirtiest, we turned to Mercer
Human Resource Consulting's 2007 Health and Sanitation Rankings. As
part of their 2007 Quality of Life Report, they ranked 215 cities
worldwide based on levels of air pollution, waste management, water
potability, hospital services, medical supplies and the presence of
infectious disease.

All cities are positioned against New York, the base city with an
index score of 100. For the Health and Sanitation Rankings, the index
scores range from the worst on the list--Baku, Azerbaijan, with a
score of 27.6--to the best on the list--Calgary, Canada, with a score
of 131.7."

Also on Forbes ;ist of the 10 most polluted cities in the world India, has two listings, Sukinda and Vapi.

Read the full story on the world's dirtiest cities at --
http://www.forbes.com/2008/02/26/pollution-baku-oil-biz-logistics-cx_tl_0226dirtycities.html

Read about the world's top 10 polluted cities at -- http://www.forbes.com/2007/11/29/environment-green-blacksmith-biz-man-cx_db_1129pollute.html?feed=rss_news

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Bobby Jindal proves to be a doer...

A very nice article about Bobby Jindal and what he has accomplished
within a short period of time in the New York Times.

An excerpt --
"Six weeks into the term of Gov. Bobby Jindal, an extensive package of
ethics bills was approved here this week, signaling a shift in the
political culture of a state proud of its brazen style. Mr. Jindal,
the earnest son of Indian immigrants, quickly declared open season on
the cozy fusion of interests and social habits that have prevailed
among lobbyists, state legislators and state agencies here for
decades. Mostly, he got what he wanted."

More excerpts --
"I've talked to C.E.O.'s in New York, even the president of the United
States," Mr. Jindal said in an interview, and when "you ask them for
more investment, more help on the coast and other areas, their first
reaction always is: 'Well, who do you need to know? Who do I have to
hire? Is this money going to end up in somebody's pocket?' "
That had to change, the governor said, and he was using his "narrow
window" — his honeymoon at the Capitol — to do it.
The volume of grumbling suggested real change was afoot.
"This is huge," said D. W. Hunt, a veteran lobbyist at the Capitol.
"This is a sea change. This will seriously, dramatically change
things. The meta-theme is the transparency."
Barry Erwin, president of the Council for a Better Louisiana, a
good-government watchdog group, described the new bills as "a major
change in the culture."
"It's a world of difference, particularly on the disclosure side, and
the same thing with conflict-of-interest," he said."

Read the full article at--
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntget=2008/02/28/us/28jindal.html&tntemail0=y&oref=slogin

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

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/

India is an emerging market to watch

Another columnist who reiterates that India is an emerging market that should be watched.
"India has been the second-biggest spender on infrastructure in Asia over the past year. The country was planning to lay long fixed-line telephone connections to rural communities when wireless and cell phone technologies flew right past them," says Bill Donoghue, on Dow Jones Marketwatch.
Read the full piece at--

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Fertility and Cell Phones!

A study conducted by co-author Ashok Agarwal, PhD, HCLD, the Director of the Clinical Andrology Laboratory and Reproductive Tissue Bank, and the Director of Research at the Reproductive Research Center, published in the journal Fertility and Sterility claims that men are courting infertility by talking for hours every day on the cell phone.

An excerpt from a USA today article--
"Agarwal's team studied 361 men under 40 who were being evaluated for infertility; men whose personal or family history might explain a low count or other sperm abnormalities were excluded.

The scientists divided the patients into four groups, based on how long they said they talked on a cellphone each day. Then they analyzed the men's semen and found a strong association between length of time spent on a cellphone and sperm count and quality. Those who talked more than four hours a day had lower counts and more poor "swimmers" and abnormally formed sperm."

Read the full article at --
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-02-24-cellphones-fertility_N.htm?csp=34

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Increasing Number of Illegal Indian Immigrants

An opinion piece in the LA Times says that number of Indian illegal
immigrants are on teh rise and this will not improve unless there is
immigration reform.

An excerpt--
"The San Jose Mercury News notes that the fastest growing group of
illegal immigrants comes not from a Spanish-speaking country but
rather from India.... The Indian number may be small and out of the
public eye (at least until, say, a particularly heart-wrenching
deportation story, or until tech workers start standing around office
parks hawking consulting services), but these growth trends are likely
to continue as long as there's no immigration reform."

Read the full piece at--
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2008/02/the-new-illegal.html

Is a shift in global power not imminent?

"The continued rise of the emerging economies, particularly India and
China, is never far from the headlines. What impact these economies
will have on the twenty-first century is the subject of much debate,
with the possibility of a shift in global political power a recurring
theme. It is often assumed that the emerging economies are following
the same path to development that the established economic powers did
- but this assumption is worth questioning," says Stuart Simpson in a
very interesting essay on Spiked.

Read the full essay at --
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/4390/

Globalization of Business Education

Gobalization of Business education is not very new. But according to
this article in the New York Times, some SOuthern California
universities are taking this to a new level.

"SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA universities have long led the nation in the
number of students enrolled from other countries. Now the
universities' business programs are taking the globalization of
education to a different level, offering courses that go beyond dry
corporate case studies and broadening their collaboration with
universities and businesses abroad, particularly in Asia," reports the
New York Times in an article titled "Business Schools Break Tradition
in Global Education.

Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/02/21/business/21edge.html&tntemail0=y

Friday, February 22, 2008

The "Giggling Guru's" Peace Palaces

Not one but about 100-200 peace palaces are being planned as centers
of Transcendental Meditation, in Parma, Ohio. "The Maharishi promised
that if just 1 percent of the world practiced TM, as it is known, then
"the Maharishi effect" would take over and there would be increased
coherence in the collective unconsciousness, and peace would prevail,"
reports the New York Times.

An excerpt from the Times article --
"The peace palaces are intended to be gleaming white, two-story
buildings, 10,000- to 12,000-square-feet, and to replace the typical
rented space where TM is now taught at more than 200 locations in the
United States.
Each is designed to be large enough to have dormitories, retail space
to sell TM's health products and clothing, and, most importantly,
space for TM classes that currently cost $2,500. (Instruction in yogic
flying costs an additional $2,000.)
They are being built to follow the Vedic architectural guidelines,
which, among other requirements, mean each building faces east to
greet the energizing morning sun.
The result is something like an Indian temple crossed with a Southern
plantation mansion, a look the organization hopes will become a visual
brand, much like the golden arches signify McDonald's the world over."

Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/02/22/us/22peace.html&tntemail0=y

Arun Sarin's Bet on India

The Wall Street Journal reports that, "Thirty years after he left
India for a life in the U.S., Arun Sarin is counting on his native
country to revive his company."

Here is an excerpt --
"As chief executive of Vodafone Group PLC, Mr. Sarin is battling to
conquer India, one of the last big frontiers in the cellphone
industry. Vodafone's $10.9 billion investment in Indian cellphone
company Hutchison Essar Ltd., unveiled one year ago this month, was
the country's largest-ever foreign investment. Now, a raft of telecom
companies are eyeing India, including AT&T Inc., which recently
applied for a license to sell service in the country.

Mr. Sarin's move reflects a new development in the globalization of
India's economy. As Indian-born executives increasingly occupy top
positions in the West, some find themselves heading back into India to
expand their businesses. The hope is that they can bring with them an
insider's perspective, and a possible edge over global competitors."

Read the full article at --
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120364182388784639.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

How will a Democratic win affect India?

Interesting article in the American Chronicle on how a Democratic win
will affect India. An excerpt --
"On the short term yes a democratic washington will have a fallout in
India. Cause of the expectations that the administration will have as
a consequence of the Nuclear deal. India will be expected to play a
second fiddle in America´s foreign policy. Also Obama is still talking
about retaining union jobs and protecting the average american worker
and not the corporations. That translates to less outsourcing business
for India from a short term view. But on the longer run currency
stability will see more stable global indian companies emerge having
already seen the emergence of companies like Tata and Reliance."

Read the full article at --
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/52003

Mallika Sherawat as an ascetic...

From the New York Times --

"Mallika Sherawat, above, the actress known in some circles as
Bollywood's Bardot, has been cast as an ascetic who befriends Jesus of
Nazareth in "The Aquarian Gospel," a Hollywood film based on the
legend that Jesus visited India, Reuters reported. The $15 million
film, directed by Drew Heriot, deals with the life of Jesus between
the ages of 13 and 30, a period not documented in the Gospels, when
some believe he journeyed through India, Tibet and Persia. In a
statement released by her press agent, Ms. Sherawat, whose 17 kissing
scenes in her Bollywood debut, "Khwahish," created a stir, said: "I
find that in most mythological and spiritual film stories, women seem
to be lacking any true wisdom or a sense of humor. I look forward to
bringing both of those qualities to this character."

Also read at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntget=2008/02/20/arts/20arts-ANEWROLEFORB_BRF.html&tntemail0=y&oref=slogin

Rose, or is it Ramesh Venkatesan...

A new talk show on Vijay TV in Chennai, India titled "Ippadikku Rose"
features Ramesh Venkatesan as the transgender host. A huge leap ahead
for Indian television and more importantly the audiences. An excerpt
from an article in the New York Times --
"India's newest talk show host, billed as the local Oprah Winfrey,
hitched up her sari and looked for her stylist's approval. "Very
feminine. You look gorgeous, like a goddess," he said, smiling
reassuringly, as he braided a garland of fresh jasmine into her hair."

The show will certainly create an uproar and raise many eyebrows. It
will be interesting to watch how it is accepted and where this goes...
Another excerpt from the same New York Times article --
"The show's director, Anthony Thirunelveli, said the half-hour talk
show had been conceived as a program suitable for family viewing but
would discuss issues of sex and sexuality, confronting "hush, hush,
under the carpet subjects." The first nine episodes will tackle, among
other things, divorce, sex and relationships among the mostly young
employees in India's call centers, and sexual harassment.
The main attraction will be Rose herself, who now goes by only one
name. A poised, 28-year-old, American-educated former Web site
designer with a master's degree in biomedical engineering, she started
wearing women's clothes full time four years ago and is still waiting
for acceptance from her family and society at large.
If nothing else, the show will start to propel downtrodden groups of
transsexuals, or hijras, into the mainstream. Known as the third sex,
most are born male but see themselves as women."

Read the full article at--
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/02/20/world/asia/20chennai.html&tntemail0=y

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Gayathri Mantra goes pop-culture

Right in the middle of one of my yogasana's, during one of my Yoga
classes, I heard a westernized version of the Gayathri mantra, set to
serene Enya like music.

The Gayathri mantra is becoming very pop-culture. Here are some more
examples where it is used - An abbreviated form of the Gayatri Mantra
is sung in the opening theme for the TV show Battlestar Galactica; The
Treasure Quest video game soundtrack by Jody Gnant includes a song
entitled "The Gayatri"; Cher, in her 2002-2005 live performances on
Living Proof: The Farewell Tour; Deva Premal's album "The Essence"
includes two versions of this chant; and An abbreviated form of the
Gayatri mantra is chanted in the Bollywood film "Kabhi Khushi Kabhi
Gham"; it can also be heard during the credits of The Matrix
Revolutions.

What is the Gayathri Mantra?

Om Bhur bhuvah svah, Tat savitur varenyam
Bhargo Devasya dheemahi, Dheeyo yonah prachodayaat

Hinduism considers this the supreme mantra, the king of all mantras.
This is believed to be the basis of all mantras and the essence of all
the Vedas. Those that chant the Gayathri mantra are protected from all
evil.

One interpretation of the meaning of the Gayathri Mantra is -- We
meditate upon the spiritual effulgence of that adorable supreme divine
reality, the source of the physical, the astral and the heavenly
spheres of existence. May that supreme divine being enlighten our
intellect so that we may realize the supreme truth.

It is said that young girls and women should not chant the Gayathri
Mantra. One of the beliefs behind this is that the chanting of this
mantra generates a lot of energy in the female's body, that which is
not conducive to girls/women of childbearing age. This not any
different from women not being allowed to chant many other mantras
from the Hindu Scriptures, such as the Rudram and Chamakam, etc.
Another belief is that chanting the Gayathri mantra gives tremendous
"Shakti" or strength, to one who chants it, since women are considered
an epitome of Shakti anyway, they need not chant it.

As with many traditions and beliefs this one is meant to be broken as
well and many women chant this mantra in today's modern world, as they
do the Rudram, Chamakam and other "prohibited" mantras in Hinduism.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Bobby Jindal an unlikely running mate for McCain

While many speculate about who the Vice-Presidential candidates will
be and who the presidential candidates, Louisiana Governor Bobby
Jindal's name has been mentioned by Rush Limbaugh and other political
commentators. In an excerpt from an interview with Wolf Blitzer on
CNN's Late Edition here is what Jindal had to say --

"BLITZER: Rush Limbaugh, who is no great fan of John McCain's, as you
well know. He is a big fan of yours. He said this on February 8th. "I
am going to give you a name that would make me jump for joy -- Bobby
Jindal. I did an interview with Bobby Jindal. He is the next Ronald
Reagan if he doesn't change."

He was throwing out your name as a potential vice presidential running
mate for John McCain. What do you think about that?

JINDAL: Well, first, I'm obviously extremely flattered. Whenever
anybody puts your name in that kind of context, it's flattering. It
was very nice for Rush to do that.

The reality is, I've got the job I want. I've got an incredible
opportunity in Louisiana. We've got an historic opportunity to change
our state.

The storms caused massive destruction, but we had challenges before
the storms. We had challenges in health care, in our economy, in our
roads. We had challenges throughout our state. We now have a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fix our state.

BLITZER: Well, what if McCain asked you?

JINDAL: He's not going to ask me.

BLITZER: How do you know?

JINDAL: Look, he's not going to ask me. But, no, my focus is on
Louisiana. I've been elected. I've told the people of Louisiana, this
is our chance to fix our state, and I mean that. I don't think we'll
get this chance again in our lifetimes. So it is my responsibility to
work with the legislature and the voters.

We're in the middle of an historic ethics session. I promise your
viewers this -- we'll move Louisiana from the bottom five to the top
five when it comes to ethics and good government.

We have a second session coming up in a couple of weeks to cut taxes
on businesses. We have a third regular session coming up in March.
We'll revamp workforce training, revamp our health care systems.

This is my goal. What my contribution in public life and public
service is right now, my focus is making sure that people in Louisiana
can pursue that American dream without leaving the state."

Read the full interview at--
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0802/17/le.01.html

Indian Style Breakfasts...

The Sunday Boston Globe Cooking column by Adam Reid, featured Indian
breakfasts. Nice read and a good collection of recipes--

An excerpt --
"When I say, "A short stack, two eggs over easy, hash browns, toast,
bacon or sausage, coffee, and OJ," you know exactly what I'm talking
about: American breakfast, found at diners from coast to coast. Did
you ever wonder, though, what's served for breakfast in other
countries? Sure, we have a vague notion that the French start their
day with a croissant and strong coffee, but how about in Germany?
Mexico? China?"

For the full article and recipes go to --
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2008/02/17/indian_for_breakfast/?page=1

Eco-tourism in Bangladesh

From Reuters --

A Peoples Phone

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Opportunities in the New World

An interesting column in the Toronto Star about globetrotters circling
the world for new opportunities -

An excerpt-
"The coming year or two is shaping up as a tale of two global
economies. One is characterized by slow and possibly "negative" growth
in mature industrial nations, the other by continued dynamic gross
domestic product growth in emerging-world economies. In 2007, for the
first time in history, China, India and Russia together accounted for
more than half of global economic growth."

Read the full article at --
http://www.thestar.com/columnists/article/304114

Money, Money, Money...

Isn't it baffling how much money there is in Bollywood? Forget the
movie actors and actresses, the producers and associated media folks
are also very affluent and well to do.

According to the New York Times, a duplex penthouse with two
43-foot-wide terraces at the Beresford, at Central Park West and 81st
Street, sold for $19 million. "It was one of four rarely sold
penthouses atop one of the most celebrated buildings on Central Park
West. The seller was Nari Hira, an Indian magazine mogul and movie
producer, who created a leading Bollywood news and gossip magazine,
Stardust. The listing, with Maria and Joanna Pashby of the Corcoran
Group, started out at $28 million last June," reports the New York
Times.

Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/02/17/realestate/17deal1.html&tntemail0=y

Off the beaten path...

These are not just your typical vacations to the Caribbean or to
Europe or to Las Vegas. These are very unusual trips off the beaten
path that sound fascinating and exciting. A great article in the New
York Times about Regent Seven Seas Cruises whose President Mark Conroy
says in the New York Times article, "It's all about creating memories
in many respects. Our customers always like to go back home and tell
their friends that they got to do something that most people haven't
had a chance to do."

Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/02/17/travel/17land.html&tntemail0=y

Thursday, February 14, 2008

The dwindling tiger population

The tiger population in India, has always been a cause for concern.
With all the precautions that are being taken to care care of all the
natural resources and wildlife, one would hope that things are getting
better and looking up. Instead, Hari Kumar reports in the New York
Times that "A much-anticipated tiger census report found that their
numbers had dwindled to 1,411 from 3,642 in 2002, the last census
year. The report confirmed the fears of conservationists that India's
tigers are fast declining because of poaching and the loss of their
natural homes." A sad state of affairs indeed!

The marriage of Indian and Jazz music continues to be celebrated

There has always been a strong similarity between Indian music and
jazz music. Especially Carnatic music and jazz. This tradition
continues till date.

An article in the Boston Phoenix talks about Rudresh Mahanthappa's
Indo-jazz connection. An excerpt from tis article
"Mahanthappa, now 36, is one of the more celebrated young musicians of
his generation, a critics'-poll winner and Guggenheim fellow with an
original compositional style rooted in jazz and, yes, Indian music,
rich in rhythmic and melodic complexity, with an aggressive attack on
alto saxophone. His fat tone and fearsome articulation give his
improvisations a Coltrane-like sweep and grandeur. It's a trait he
also shares with one of his teachers from his days at Berklee, George
Garzone. Mahanthappa, who comes to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
with his quartet on February 21 (as a complement to the Gardner's
current Indian-themed "Luxury for Export" exhibit), tells a story
familiar to many first-generation children of immigrants. It's one of
musical and cultural crossover, and typically American."



An article in the Boston Globe says, "He's a self-described egghead, a numbers nut who could have become a mathematician or economist. He's a science-fiction fan who loves William Gibson's "Neuromancer" and is liable to zone out to sci-fi reruns on TV. But when Rudresh Mahanthappa takes the stage, it's with an alto saxophone, not chalk and blackboard, that he burrows into theorems and explores alternate planes, in a musical language so vivid and complex that hard-bitten jazz arbiters have dared to compare him to Ornette Coleman or John Coltrane."

Read the Boston GLobe article at --
http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2008/02/15/for_saxman_its_all_adding_up/

Read the Boston Phoenix article at --
http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid56101.aspx

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Mills and Boon arrives in India...

All those Mills and Boons we used to devour when we where teenagers in
India. Whether we really liked them or not, peer pressure was in full
force, we had to read all the latest ones so we could talk about them
in college. We used to go to lending libraries and line up outside so
we could borrow the latest M&B's. Now they are moving to India. An
article in the Telegraph says - "Andrew Go, head of Indian operations
of Harlequin Mills & Boon, owned by Canadian giant Tristar, believes
that India could become its largest market. "

An excerpt from this aticle --
"A generation of urban, educated women have devoured Mills & Boon's
romantic fiction since the days of the Raj, but only through Indian
lending libraries and the limited number of titles exported here.

Now the publisher, which sells four books across the world every
second, has tied up with an Indian company to publish its novels here
and distribute them at supermarkets and newspaper kiosks for just 99
rupees (£1.30).

It also plans to launch an Indian series later this year — stories set
in India, about Indians, by Indians. The aim is to conquer the hearts
of 300 million English speakers with its romantic fiction."

Read the full article at --
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/09/wboon109.xml

Food and Memories from India...

Todays New York Times magazine has a really nice article by Kiran
Desai, about nostalgic memories from India.

An excerpt from this piece--
"In the afternoons, as the rest of the family slept the sodden sleep
of a hot climate, I would tiptoe into the kitchen. Saratbhai would be
napping on the even hotter rooftop, among the rows of earthenware pots
he placed there to cool the concrete.

My mother was amused by this interest of mine. She preferred to spend
her time among her books, a collection that traveled all the way from
floor to ceiling. For an Indian woman, her lack of meddling in the
kitchen was remarkable and weird. Saratbhai boasted about it to the
others in the community of harassed, bullied cooks. It gave him
status. He was our kitchen deity.

But now his artistry was being snubbed by a child, by tastes from
abroad that he could not gauge or understand, gleaned from a book he
could not read. An uncertain world where Western was better than
Indian, where the young ridiculed the old — a world for which he
didn't have skills to cope might pour into his kitchen and undo our
home and his dignity within it."

Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?pagewanted=2&tntget=2008/02/10/magazine/10food-t.html&tntemail0=y&emc=tnt

The biggest American release ever for a Hindi film...

A nice article about Aishwarya Rai and her latest talked about release
"Jodhaa Akbar" in the New York Times.

An excerpt from this article by Anupama Chopra:
"Jodhaa Akbar" focuses on that quintessentially Indian subject:
arranged marriage. Set in the 16th century, it explores the marriage
between the great Mughal Emperor Akbar, a Muslim, and his Hindu wife
Jodhaa.

Historians have described the union as a political alliance, but in
the hands of Ashutosh Gowariker, the film's director, the story has
become "an epic romance with its share of battles, harem politics and
intrigue," he said in a telephone interview. Mr. Gowariker, whose 2001
period film, "Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India," was nominated for an
Oscar for best foreign film, isn't claiming factual accuracy but
insists that the film is "embedded in historical truth."

He cast Ms. Bachchan as the queen (a figure some Indian historians
dispute ever existed) because, he said, "Aishwarya is a comic book
princess with a certain dignity, elegance and sense of purity." For
the role of Akbar, Mr. Gowariker wanted someone with "the physique of
a warrior and the face of a romantic," and selected another Bollywood
superstar, Hrithik Roshan."

Read the full article at--
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntget=2008/02/10/movies/10chop.html&tntemail0=y&oref=slogin

Thursday, February 07, 2008

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.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

The struggle to educate...

I know several of my cousins, friends, relatives, who register with
Montessori's and kindergarden schools, as soon as they get married,
many even after their engagement. They don't have kids for over 5
years after, but they need to do this to ensure a seat for their their
3 year old child who will be born five years later. Seats for
elementary and middle school kids are at a premium as well,
"donations" for these seats are very high and recommendations to even
be able to pay these donations need to come from very high level
officials, or someone with a lot of clout. It is very hard for a
middle class person to afford and make happen.

As I had said on one of my earlier blogs, education in India is so
tightly tied to class, caste, money and not sufficiently associated
with merit. Here is an excerpt of and article about this in the New
York Times today --
" The anxiety over school admissions is a parable of desire and
frustration in a country with the largest concentration of young
people in the world. About 40 percent of India's 1.1 billion citizens
are younger than 18; many others are parents in their 20s and 30s,
with young school-age children.

Today, for all but the very poor, government schools are not an option
because they are considered weak, and the competition for choice
private schools is fierce.

The scramble is part of the great Indian education rush, playing out
across the country and across the socioeconomic spectrum. The striving
classes are spending hefty amounts or taking loans to send their
children to private schools. In some cases, children from small towns
are commuting more than 40 miles every day to good, or at least
sought-after, schools. New private schools are sprouting, as
industrialists, real estate developers and even a handful of foreign
companies eye the Indian education market.

That market is a lot like other things in India. Supply lags far
behind demand as cities grow, pocketbooks swell and parents who
themselves may have struggled in their childhoods want something
better for their offspring."

Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/02/06/world/asia/06school.html&tntemail0=y

Sania Mirza -- You go girl!!!

It's about time some of these celebrities put their foot down, and
acted more aggressively. Is it just because she is a Muslim, or is it
because of schadenfreude? Why does everyone keep picking on this woman
who is bringing India to the forefront of women's tennis...

An excerpt from the New York Times article --
"Sania Mirza, the most successful tennis star in India, has announced
that she has no desire to play in her country any more after a string
of controversies that have exposed her to months of negative
publicity.

"Every time I play in India, there is a problem," Mirza, ranked 29th
in the world and No. 1 in Asia, said Monday. "Considering all that, I
thought it would be better not to play in Bangalore," she added,
explaining her decision to boycott India's most prestigious
tournament, the Bangalore Open, in March. "In fact, I feel it would be
better if I don't play in the country for some time.""

Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/02/06/sports/tennis/06tennis.html&tntemail0=y

Lighten up...

For years and years stereotypes are used to make ads, movies etc.
mostly with the intent of laughing together rather than laughing at
someone. In the US the swedish, germans, french everyone is
stereotyped, and have been for decades and decades. Accents are made
fun of by everyone. Everyone makes fun of the South Indian accent,
South Indians make fun of the North Indians accent. In the US we make
fun of the Bostonian accent, the southern accent, the list goes on and
on...

I don't understand why the 2 superbowl ads featuring Chinese and
Indians have been drawing a lot of criticism. I personally thought
they were funny, and the the characters came across as smart and
proactive, acting quickly achieving their goals and becoming
successful. If the characters were portrayed as losers then it is
something else. All I can say is people lighten up... You don't like
it don't watch it. Stop making something of nothing, just because...

Read the full article about the "offensive" superbowl ads at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/02/06/business/media/06adco.html&tntemail0=y

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Mac or a PC? Which one do you plan to vote for?

Is it just me, or are there others out there who believe that this is
such an apt comparison of the two democratic contenders. I find this
slick and simple, yet has so much depth. This makes me wonder about
the South Asian angle, yes the South Asian angle I believe is that
South Asians are usually PC people, at least the ones that I know are
and I know a few of them. Personally I am a Mac person, or a
worshipper I might say. In fact that is what I am using to type this
blog item. BUT... that is not to say that is what my political slant
is... Like my 4 year old says, "that my friend, is a big secret!"

Excerpt from the NYT article --
" STYLES make fights — or so goes the boxing cliché. In 2008, they
make presidential campaigns, too.

This is especially true for the two remaining Democrats, Hillary
Clinton and Barack Obama. Reporters covering the candidates have
already resorted to traditional analysis of style — fashion choices,
manner of speaking, even the way they laugh. Yet, according to design
experts, the candidates have left a clear blueprint of their personal
style — perhaps even a window into their souls — through the Web sites
they have created to raise money, recruit volunteers and generally
meet-and-greet online.

On one thing, the experts seem to agree. The differences between
hillaryclinton.com and barackobama.com can be summed up this way:
Barack Obama is a Mac, and Hillary Clinton is a PC."

Read the full article at --
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/technology/04link.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=slogin

Monday, February 04, 2008

Another American of part-Indian origin who sets herself apart...

Kirin Kalia is the editor of www.migrationinformation.org. Featured in
the New York Times this article about this magazine that has a "A Tiny
Staff, Tracking People Across the Globe."

An excerpt from this article --
Every moment has its magazine, and for the age of migration it is the
Migration Information Source, a weekly (more or less) online journal
followed worldwide by scholars, policy makers and the occasional
migrant in distress. "My soul's dying every moment," an Iranian asylum
seeker wrote last year in an e-mail message from Greece. "Give me an
answer."

Many readers discover the Source simply by googling the word
"immigrant" and finding a link to migrationinformation.org among the
millions of citations.

At the site's helm is an American-born editor, Kirin Kalia, 32, who
describes herself as "half Dutch, half Indian, 100 percent American
and total migration geek." Ms. Kalia thrives on hybridity — devouring
Indian-American novels and Dutch-Moroccan films — and finds no
migration topic too obscure. To know the fate of Latvian mushroom
pickers in Ireland is, for her, to glimpse the world in a grain of
sand.

"To move to a different country for whatever reason takes so much
courage," she said, interrupting an interview to play a song by a
British-Indian rapper, Panjabi MC, stored on her hard drive. "The fact
that so many people do it is just endlessly fascinating to me."


Read the full article at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntget=2008/02/04/washington/04migration.html&tntemail0=y&oref=slogin

Friday, February 01, 2008

The Rise of Planet India

Read this doc on Scribd: Rise of Planet India TIA FJan Feb 2008

Will Wall Street's Flu Make India Sneeze?



From Tehelka --
As the fear of recession grows in the US, VISI TILAK, SHANTANU GUHA RAY and VIVEK SINHA examine the possible impact it will have on our economy

AN EARTHQUAKE with a magnitude of over 8 on the global economy’s equivalent of the Richter scale, a huge ebb in the largest economic ocean of them all — can a tsunami that could engulf most economies, wipe out many minnows and seriously damage others, be far behind?

As uncertainty grips the world, and the US economy flounders between the Scylla of the sub-prime crisis and the Charybdis of a credit crunch, economists and political leaders around the globe have been providing a plenitude of opinions, united only on one thing: everyone agrees a big storm is coming. Where they differ is on the intensity, the toll it will extract and which economies, if any, will be able to provide a safe port.

Already weakened by the dollar in decline, the sub-prime crisis and the credit market downturn hit the US amidships. While it’s too early to tell whether this collision was of the Titanic iceberg variety or whether the battered US economy will limp back to recovery, what is definite is the palpable list.

Consider just one comment from Bloomberg News: “US corporate profits are in a recession and the entire economy may not be far behind.” Hence the rushed repair job carried out by the Federal Reserve (75 basis points cut in interest rates) and the Bush Administration (a $156 billion stimulus package).

The result: Emerging markets, which, by definition, are provided ballast by the consumerist czar of the economic world, are bound to be buffeted about. The question is, by how much? More important, will the internal buoyancy in the Indian economy be enough to offset the global tempest unleashed by the US in crisis?

Read the full article at --
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main37.asp?filename=Bu090208Will_Wall.asp