Is The Cycle Rickshaw Making a Comeback?

Ever since nursery school, I had a rickshaw driver, Arjunan, who would
pick me up each morning and drop me back at home. To him this was not
just a job, I was almost another daughter to him. He would always be
on time and would get upset if I was running late for school,
nevertheless, my security and safety was of primary concern to him.
Each time I visit India, I make it a point to look him up and talk
about the good old days, he is 80 something years old now.

With cars and two wheelers crowding the Indian roads, it seemed as
though the rickshaws were a dying breed. However, with rising fuel
costs, it sounds as though they are making a comeback. This article
about cycle rickshaws was a very interesting read for me.

An article in the Washington Post says, "The bicycle rickshaws that
weave through New Delhi's narrow lanes have long been scorned by
authorities here for congesting the city's already fierce traffic. The
creaking carriages crawl alongside luxury sedans, book hawkers,
horse-drawn carts, hulking buses and cows.

In this city and the other quickly modernizing capitals of South Asia,
governments have called the rickshaws backward, embarrassing symbols
of the Third World.

Now, however, in a time of $7-a-gallon fuel in New Delhi and growing
concerns about pollution, environmental activists and transportation
experts are pushing back against rickshaw critics. And rickshaw
cyclists are seizing the moment to tout the virtues of their trade.

"My rickshaw is my life. It's very cheap for my passengers," said
Saurabh Ganguly, a 27-year-old rickshaw cyclist whose shirt was sticky
with dirt and grime. He proudly observed a knot of traffic where about
50 rickshaw cyclists were jangling their bells, pressing their horns
and zigzagging past lumbering buses belching plumes of black soot. "We
don't even pollute," Ganguly said. "We should be allowed to survive."

Read the full article at--
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/27/AR2008062703786.html?hpid=topnews

Growing Unrest in Darjeeling

Kashmir, one of the prettiest regions in northern India has been
ravaged by unrest and border troubles with Pakistan, now Darjeeling
another beautiful hill station is seeing growing unrest, ethnic
clashes and violence. These are places I have always wanted to visit.
Friends tell me Kashmir will never be the same serene beautiful place
it once was, will the same be true of Darjeeling?

The New York Times reports--
"A long-brewing separatist movement in the Darjeeling hills had, until
recently, receded into the past so thoroughly that it became fodder
for fiction, setting the backdrop for Kiran Desai's 2006 Booker
Prize-winning novel, "The Inheritance of Loss." Earlier this month, it
burst out into the open again, chasing away tourists, signaling the
prospect of ugly ethnic clashes and prompting the Indian government to
send in paramilitary forces.

By Indian standards, the violence has been limited, with sporadic
clashes between the Nepali-speaking ethnic Gurkhas, who seek an
autonomous state in the hills of West Bengal, and Bengali-speakers,
who dominate the plains. In early June, the separatist group Gorkha
Janamukti Morcha called for a strike in Darjeeling and told tourists
to leave. An official in Siliguri, an ethnically mixed town and an
important transport hub in the plains, told The Press Trust of India
wire service that 10,000 tourists had done so as of mid-June.

To make matters worse, groups representing Bengalis called for a
retaliatory strike, shutting down Siliguri for several days this
month. The Indian government deployed the Central Reserve Police Force
to try to quell the ethnic conflict, while the governor of West
Bengal, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, the grandson of Mohandas K. Gandhi,
called for both sides "to maintain communal harmony." The Gurkha
group, though, resumed its strike in Darjeeling, shutting businesses
and schools."

Read the full story at--
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/travel/29heads.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

A New Cure For Diabetes?

A New Cure for Diabetes? Reuters reports that, "Indian scientists say cow urine can reduce blood sugar levels. Scientists at Bangalore Veterinary college say a new study shows that cow's urine may lower blood sugar levels."

Indian American Donates $11 Million To Alma Mater

"An Indian American, a native of Amritsar, has become the top
individual donor to a US university, his alma mater, by gifting it
nearly $11 million. John P Kapoor, a pharmaceutical entrepreneur,
bequested the money to the State University of New York at Buffalo,
which had offered him a graduate fellowship in the 1960s when the
Bombay University graduate could not afford to pay. The gift will
support construction of a new home for the Buffalo university's
nationally ranked pharmacy school, as well as to fund research,
student financial aid and an emerging-technologies fund. While making
the bequest, Kapoor said, "I owe so much to this university.
Fortunately, I am in a position to help, and the university is on the
top of my list." The Amritsar-born Kapoor earned his doctorate in
medicinal chemistry in 1972 at the university and went on to become an
entrepreneur in the pharmaceutical industry. But he never forgot his
alma mater. In 2000, he gave it $5 million, and increased it to $10.8
million last month," reports SIFY.

"John B Simpson, President of the university, and Wayne K Anderson,
Dean, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, thanked Kapoor.
"It's a point of substantial pride for us that our pharmacy school
provided the foundation for Dr Kapoor's remarkable career in the
pharmaceutical industry. It is very significant to our university that
he has chosen to honour his alma mater with another truly
extraordinary gift that will help us take the school to even greater
heights of excellence," Simpson said. Kapoor began his corporate
career on Grand Island, New York as general manager for Lyphomed, a
unit of Stone Container Corp. He was named president of the division
in 1980, and in 1981 he bought it for $2.7 million. He took the
company's sales from $4 million to $172 million, before eventually
selling it. With the profits, he formed EJ Financial Enterprises Inc,
which invests in healthcare startups.

Kapoor and his late wife, Editha, a Grand Island native, ran the John
and Editha Kapoor Charitable Foundation to support children and youth
services, higher education, hospitals and other causes in India. Since
1986, the Foundation has funded research, a state-of-the-art
instrumentation core and graduate fellowships at the Buffalo
university.

Kapoor remembered that without the university's support "it would have
been impossible for me to come to the US to pursue higher education. I
received tremendous support and encouragement from the faculty at the
school as I tried to adjust to a different system of education. I also
learned a great deal about this country at the university," adds SIFY.

Read the full article at --
http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14695143

Bollywood Shakes Hands With Hollywood

With Steven Spielberg's Dreamworks and Reliance inking a $500-600
million dollar infusement, they have been in the global news radar,
with every major media outlet covering this story. Why not, when there
are more and more marriages occuring between Bollywood and Hollywood
organizations?

From the New York Times--
" Steven Spielberg and other top executives at DreamWorks SKG may get
a boost from an ambitious Bollywood player, but their planned alliance
could be less grandiose than dreams past.
After a drawn-out tussle with the boutique film studio's owner,
Paramount Pictures, one filled with perceived slights over respect and
credit, Mr. Spielberg and his partner, David Geffen, are now in
discussions with Reliance Big Entertainment of India about a cash
infusion of $500 million to $600 million, say several executives
briefed on the negotiations.
That investment, and access to a revolving credit line of about $400
million, would allow them to split from Paramount, a unit of Viacom,
and make about six major movies a year. Yet for all the turmoil, they
could conceivably remain in business with Paramount, by having it
distribute their movies.
Any deal is still at an early stage, these people cautioned, and it
may be several weeks before an agreement is signed, if at all. The
talks were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
While $500 million is not a lot of money in Hollywood, executives
briefed on the negotiations said the commitment was favorable to the
DreamWorks team. Reliance, without gaining much control over the
enterprise, would be paying for a grand introduction to the United
States movie business.
"Why the Indians? It is all about terms," said one of the executives
who had been briefed. "These people are willing to pay a lot of money
for little more than the right to go sit at a premiere with Steven
Spielberg."

From the Economist--
"BOLLYWOOD'S songs are hummed in Morocco, its films are rented in
California and its stars are cast in wax at Madame Tussauds in London.
But India's new money has an appeal even its melodrama cannot match.
On June 17th the Wall Street Journal reported that one of India's
biggest conglomerates, Anil Ambani's Reliance group, was in talks to
form a film-making partnership with Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks
studio, owned by Viacom, a media giant. Mr Spielberg and David Geffen,
the studio's co-founders, want to regain their independence when their
contract with Viacom ends, and are looking for funding.
Reliance had already announced at the Cannes Film Festival in May that
it would provide funding to eight film-production houses headed by
some big Hollywood stars. It hopes to develop some 30 scripts, and put
perhaps ten into full production. "We are re-enfranchising the
talent," said Amit Khanna, chairman of Reliance's entertainment
division and a talented Bollywood songsmith, last month. "We will
allow full creative freedom, but we won't allow creative anarchy.
Sometimes they just go crazy.""

From AFP--
"India's Reliance-ADA Group is in talks with Steven Spielberg's
DreamWorks on a tie-up that could help the director break free of
Paramount and boost Bollywood's presence in Hollywood, a source said
on Thursday.
A deal would give Spielberg money to assist in financing DreamWorks
SKG's exit from Viacom Inc's Paramount Pictures and refashion it as a
company that again owns the films it makes.
"It is well known Paramount and Spielberg have a problem. It is well
understood DreamWorks is looking for new partners," said the source
close to the discussions, saying the Indian company was looking to
invest "hundreds of millions of dollars."
The source declined to say when the talks between Reliance-ADAG, based
in India's entertainment and financial capital Mumbai, and DreamWorks
might conclude. Some reports have said a deal is near. But another
industry official with knowledge of the talks told AFP they were still
at a "preliminary stage."

Read the New York Times article at--
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/business/media/19studio.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail0=y&oref=slogin

Read the full Economist article at--
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11580240

Read the full AFP article at--
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gH76-q2KHmQr-Inw5eD9ieTf4RPg

FIve Indian Americans Among Presidential Scholars

Indolink reports that, "Five Indian Americans are among 139
outstanding high school seniors selected as the 2008 prestigious
Presidential Scholars for demonstrating academic achievement, artistic
excellence, leadership and contribution to school and community. They
will be honored in Washington DC from June 23 to 27. Announcing the
awards, US Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said the scholars
represent the great gift "we have in our nation's youth. Their
academic achievement and their spirit of leadership and service will
ensure their success in the 21st century knowledge economy.

The 139 Presidential Scholars include one young man and one young
woman from each state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico , and
from US families living abroad, as well as 15 chosen at-large and 20
Presidential Scholars in the Arts. A 29-member Commission on
Presidential Scholars appointed by President George W Bush selected
the scholars based on their academic success, artistic excellence,
essays, school evaluations and transcripts, as well as evidence of
community service, leadership, and demonstrated commitment to high
ideals.

This years Indian American scholars are as follows: Ravi N. Shankar,
Trinity Preparatory School, Winter Park, Florida; Pranoti Hiremath,
Ishna A. Sharma, Roswell High School, Roswell, New Mexico; Mythili K.
Iyer, Lawrenceville High School, Kendal Park, New Jersey ; Ruchir F.
Shah, Barrington High School. Barrington, Rhode Island and Anisha
Gulabani, Eastlake High School, Sammamish, Washington. The Washington
DC program to honor the 2008 Presidential Scholar is hosted by the
Presidential Scholars Association."

Time on India's Deadly Chemical Addiction

"India's rural activists for years have blamed the overuse and misuse
of pesticides for a pervasive health crisis that afflicts villages
like Jhajjal across the cotton belt of Punjab. Evidence continues to
mount that the problems are severe. Last month, a government-funded
study revealed that chemical fertilizers and pesticides have seeped
into the groundwater in four Punjab districts and are causing an
alarming array of ecological and health problems including cancer and
mental retardation. A June 2005 study by the new Delhi-based Centre
for Science and Environment found residues of between 6 and 13
pesticides in blood samples of villagers from Mahi Nangal, Jajjal and
Balloh villages in Bhatinda district. Recent research by Punjabi
University at Patiala established evidence of DNA damage among
agricultural workers exposed to pesticides; damaged genes can give
rise to a range of cancers as well as neurological and reproductive
disorders. Bala, a 24-year-old day laborer, worked for two months in
the fields during the spraying season four years ago. Not long after,
her second child, a boy, was born with a neurological disorder and has
recently been diagnosed with hydrocyphalis. "His treatment is so
expensive that we have had to borrow large amounts of money...I know
he won't survive" she says. Surinder Singh, the executive director of
the rural NGO Kheti Virasat, says, "Punjab is paying with its life for
a dubious promise of prosperity," says an article in Time Magazine.

It is very sad to see that this began a very long ago with the "Green
Revolution"!! As the article says, "Punjab's lethal pesticide legacy
can be traced to the Green Revolution of the 1960s and '70s, when
high-yielding varieties of cotton were introduced in the region's
relatively arid Malwa belt. Initially the move was successful as
yields and prices were good. But farmers soon discovered that the
cotton was highly susceptible to pests, and ended up spending huge
amounts on pesticides. As the pests, such as pink bollworm and aphids,
became increasingly resistant to chemical spraying, farmers reacted by
laying on even more, sometimes mixing two or more products against all
scientific evidence. The region virtually became a chemical
laboratory. The expense of spraying put many farmers deep in debt, yet
they remain vulnerable to outbreaks such as a mealy bug attack last
year that destroyed 70% of the crop. "Earlier, we used less water,
traditional crops and organic manure. Now, it's all chemicals," says
Sarmukh Singh, a 93-year-old patriarch in Jhajjal. "We've got our land
addicted, but we don't know how to fight this addiction."

"The health impact on the region is shocking. A daily passenger train
that runs from Bathinder to Bikaner in neighboring Rajasthan is
nicknamed the "Cancer Express" because it routinely fills a dozen cars
with patients and their attendants on their way to a charitable
hospital. Despite the high incidence of cancer, there is no
government-run cancer hospital in the Malwa region, although the
government announced plans to build one last year. "Officials
sometimes visit our village, but they never seem to do anything," says
Santosh, a 35-year-old resident of Jhajjal who was diagnosed with
leukemia three years back and goes to Bikaner every six months for a
blood transfusion," says the article which was quite an eye opener for
me. As the article asks, can Punjab play with the lives of it's next
generation, really?

Read the full article at --
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1813081,00.html?xid=rss-world

The Tale of Mukesh Ambani

"In the last century, Mohandas K. Gandhi was India's most famous and
powerful private citizen. Today, Mr. Ambani is widely regarded as
playing that role, though in a very different way. Like Mr. Gandhi,
Mr. Ambani belongs to a merchant caste known as the modh banias, is a
vegetarian and a teetotaler and is a revolutionary thinker with bold
ideas for what India ought to become. Yet Mr. Gandhi was a scrawny
ascetic, a champion of the village, a skeptic of modernity and a man
focused on spiritual purity. Mr. Ambani is a fleshy oligarch, a
champion of the city, a burier of the past and a man who deftly — and,
some critics say, ruthlessly — wields financial power. He is the
richest person in India, with a fortune estimated in the tens of
billions of dollars, and many people here expect that he will be the
richest person on earth before long," says a profile of Mukesh Ambani
one of the world's richest people in the New York Times today.

Wow to be compared to Gandhi, that is something, isn't for a man who
is building the worlds most expensive, extravagant, and elaborate home
in Mumbai. (See my earlier post
http://vtilak.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-richest-of-rich-will-live.html)

""Can we really banish abject poverty in this country?" he mused aloud
in a rare interview at his headquarters here. "Yes, in 10, 15 years we
can say we would have done that substantially. Can we make sure that
we create a social structure where we remove untouchability? We're
fast moving to a new India where you don't think about this caste and
that caste."

As millions of Indians graduate from burning cow dung for energy to
guzzling oil, Reliance is plowing billions of dollars into energy
exploration and is building the world's largest oil refinery. It has
also opened a chain of nearly 700 stores selling food and various
wares; Mr. Ambani promises that it will funnel money from the
flourishing cities into the struggling agricultural heartland. He
envisions Reliance, with $39 billion in revenue, as providing incomes
to 12 million to 30 million Indians within the next five years by
buying from farmers and employing new workers in its stores.

And as Mumbai, Mr. Ambani's hometown and the commercial and
entertainment capital of India, has grown ever more populous and ever
less livable, he has proposed that Reliance simply build a new,
improved city across the harbor," says this very interesting article
about an even more interesting man.

Read the full article at--
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/business/worldbusiness/15ambani.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

Sikhs in New Jersey

"To wear a turban in America — even in a state that has absorbed as
many waves of immigration as New Jersey has — is to subject yourself
to judgment by strangers, not all of whom have warm and fuzzy feelings
about diversity.

"You get these looks all the time, especially after Sept. 11," said
Rajinder Singh, 57, who holds two doctorates, works as a chemist for a
pharmaceutical company, has never cut his hair, following the
requirement of his faith, and wears a turban. "You could see people —
their lips inside their car — that this person is swearing at me."

Muslims have absorbed much discrimination in the United States in
recent years, but also caught in the crossfire have been Sikhs,
members of a religious minority from India whose men happen to wear a
similar head covering, and who have endured similar suspicions since
the terrorist attacks and the subsequent wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan," says a touching article in the New York Times about
Sikhs in the Tristate area.

Read the full article at --
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/15colnj.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

Dumping US Toxic Waste in India...

The port city of Tuticorin, where my maternal grandfather is from, is
one of the loveliest towns I have been to. With it's salt pans and
period housing and charming people it is a laid back little town, and
now here we go polluting it with toxic waste.

The Times Of India reports that, "Thousand tonnes of hazardous
American waste have been dumped at Tamil Nadu's Tuticorn Port, where
almost 35 large containers conceal the waste, that has been lying
untouched for the past three years. There is reportedly an amount of
890 tonnes of harmful waste that has been brought all the way from New
Jersey. The biggest question though is if it is a case of civic apathy
or a classic case of the West treating India as a dumping ground.

Since the past three years, contaminated municipal waster such as
polythene bags, crushed soft drink cans, pesticide containers, used
batteries, metal wires and others more have been rotting away at the
port. The cargo reportedly reached India as a part of wastepaper
imported by an Indian company back in 2005. However, during the
routine checks, port authorities -- much to their shock -- discovered
that the cargo did not have only paper but carcenogenic waster
discarded by America.

However, the fact that has been interesting is that in September 2007,
a committee constituted by the Madras High Court had certified that
the American garbage posed a threat to the people of India and the
environment. Following this, the Madras High Court demanded that this
trash be sent back to New Jersey immediately. But, much to the horror
of environmentalists, the scrap still lies around the area and the
Indian company is unwilling to take responsibility of the cargo. The
Americans also are refusing to take the waste back. BP Shukla, Zonal
Officer - South Central Pollution Control Board said, "This
consignment has municipal waste that cannot be allowed inside India."

In all probabilities , most of the townsfolk, innocent and naive as
they are would probably not even be aware of this and would have been
affected by the toxic waste already! Earlier a similar incident
occurred when toxic waste from New York was dumped in another charming
port city, Kochi!!!

Read the full Times of India article at--
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India_dumping_ground_for_US_toxic_waste/articleshow/3119228.cms

The Economist's Angry old Man

An excerpt from The Economist's review of the divisive Hindu leader
L.K.Advani's book says--

"A hale octogenarian, Mr Advani's political career spans India's
independent history. But he is best known for his part in the calamity
that helped fuel the BJP's rise: the destruction of the Babri mosque
in Ayodhya by Hindu fanatics in 1992. This outrage—which sparked
communal massacres in which some 2,000 people died, most of them
Muslims—was instigated, at least in part, by a BJP campaign for a
Hindu temple to be built on the site of the mosque. The campaign was
spearheaded by Mr Advani, who led a ram rath yatra, or chariot
procession, halfway across India to rally support for the temple. Mr
Advani calls this the "most decisive, transformational event" of his
career."

This is a person who was born in Karachi, which is now of course part
of Pakistan, and is a staunch Hindu fundamentalist whose political
career divided India's religious groups into sharper niches than they
were ever in... Interesting person, controversial behavior, and a very
provoking book, surely.

Read the full article at--
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11448647

Padma Laskhmi, Supermodel, Chef, TV Personality and Author

India born, Padma Lakshmi, is even more in demand now than when she
was as a supermodel. Her cookery shows and books are more popular than
ever.

"The newly single Lakshmi -- she divorced novelist Salman Rushdie last
summer after three years of marriage -- is using her break to tend to
more business: She's still settling into the New York apartment she
bought in January and on the horizon are more cookbooks, another
cooking show, her own brand of bottled chutneys, perhaps a jewelry
line and a memoir," says an article in the LA Times, "If I don't
conquer the world, that's fine," said the Indian-born former model
with a few acting credits to her name, including Mariah Carey's
"Glitter" and a memorable turn on "Star Trek: Enterprise." "I want to
teach people about things and places and foods they don't necessarily
know. I think in America it's very important to sample and taste what
the rest of the world is about. Maybe it comes from being an immigrant
child and wanting others to understand me."

Read the full article at--
http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-et-padma11-2008jun11,0,5647612.story

Swallowing Live Fish For Health

In Hyderabad where I grew up, every June after the first rain there would be a flood of people coming to the city for this treatment.

Reuters reports that, "Thousands throng to swallow a live fish "wonder cure" in southern India. In India's southern Hyderabad city, people gather to receive a traditional treatment believed to cure asthma and other respiratory ailments. Patients buy a two-inch-long Murrel fish, and swallow it live after it has been stuffed with a herbal mixture. And for people finding the remedy a little hard to swallow, there are doctors on hand to help the fish on its way."

Two Worlds, Just Across The Street

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer saga continues... What
better place to see this today, than in the booming techno towns of
India. "India has always had its upper classes, as well as legions of
the world's very poor. But today a landscape dotted with Hamilton
Courts, pressed up against the slums that serve them, has underscored
more than ever the stark gulf between those worlds, raising
uncomfortable questions for a democratically elected government about
whether India can enable all its citizens to scale the golden ladders
of the new economy, says an article in the New York Times.

According to this article, "In India, poverty has also dropped
appreciably in the last 17 years of economic change, even as the gulf
between the rich and poor has grown. More than a quarter of all
Indians still live below the official poverty line (subsisting on
roughly $1 a day); one in four city dwellers live on less than 50
cents a day; and nearly half of all Indian children are clinically
malnourished.
At the same time, the ranks of dollar millionaires have swelled to
100,000, and the Indian middle class, though notoriously hard to
define and still small, has by all indications expanded.
For those with the right skills, the good times have been very good.
Mr. Chand, 34, a business school graduate who runs the regional
operations for an American manufacturing firm, has seen his salary
grow eightfold in the last five years, which is not unusual for upper
class Indians like him."

This widening gap became very obvious to me when I visited Bangalore,
a little over a year ago. Rising sky scrapers, huge wallets,
increasing poverty and lack of infrastructure to keep with the
phenomenal growth. Similarly according to the article, "Gurgaon, a
largely privately developed city and a metonym for Indian ambition,
has seen a building frenzy to satisfy people like the Chands. The
city's population has nearly doubled in the last six years, to 1.5
million. The skyline is dotted with scaffolds. Glass towers house
companies like American Express and Accenture. Not far from Hamilton
Court, Burberry and BMW have set up shop. State services, meanwhile,
have barely kept pace. The city has neither enough water nor
electricity for the population. There is no sewage treatment plant
yet; construction is scheduled to begin this year."

"India has long lived with such inequities, and though a Maoist
rebellion is building in the countryside, the nation has for the most
part skirted social upheaval through a critical safety valve: giving
the poor their chance to vent at the ballot box. Indeed, four years
ago, voters threw out the incumbent government, with its "India
Shining" slogan, because it was perceived to have neglected the poor.
It is little wonder then that the current administration has seized on
"inclusive growth" as its mantra, and as elections approach in less
than a year, it is spending heavily on education, widely acknowledged
as a key barrier to upward mobility for the poor," says this article.

Read the full article at --
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/world/asia/09gated.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

How Restaurateurs Cope With Soaring Food Prices

Less than six months ago the price of rice was $9.99 for a 20 lb bag.
Tday it is flirting at almost $30.00 for the same 20 lb bag! For the
residential domestic consumer it is one thing, what do restaurateurs
who have to maintain the quality of their menu, manage with the
soaring cost of ingredients, I kept wondering.

This question was answered by a New York Times article which says,
"All across New York City, cooks, chefs and restaurateurs are
struggling to cope with soaring costs of many of their basic
ingredients, including flour, eggs, rice and cooking oil. "Everything
is going up at once" is a universal complaint among them, so they are
devising all sorts of strategies to avoid having to pass the brunt of
the price increases on to their customers. Some are cutting back on
waiters and kitchen help, others are staying open longer or expanding
their offerings to increase sales. One sheepishly admitted that she
had started adding the sales tax to customer's bills rather than raise
the prices printed on her elaborate, laminated menus."

"Suvir Saran, the owner and a co-executive chef of Devi, an Indian
restaurant in the Flatiron district, said he was weighing whether to
pare down portions, because he did not think he could raise prices.
Devi already charged $65 for its "chef's tasting menu" before the cost
of rice and chapati flour doubled over the past few months. A 30-pound
sack of rice has risen steadily this year to $43 from $22, while a
15-pound bag of flour has gone to $22 from $8 and a 4.6-gallon
container of canola oil is up to $34, from $18 or less at the start of
the year, Mr. Saran said.
"Rice is such an important part of our business," he said. "We've been
getting battered by these huge price increases." Mr. Saran said that
he earned little profit on a dinner of tandoor-grilled lamb chops
priced at $30, but that in the past he had been able to make up for
that by selling rice dishes. No longer. "This year we're not making as
much money selling rice," he said," to the New York Times.

Read the full article at--
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/nyregion/04prices.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

Now An Indian Napa Valley?

First it was the city of Bangalore, becoming India's Silicon Valley,
now is the city of Nasik in the state of Maharashtra becoming the
Indian Napa Valley?

According to this article in the New York Times, "Eight years ago, Mr.
Dhuru, who made his fortune in the software business, bought land
outside Nasik, a city about 100 miles northeast of Mumbai that has
become the center of India's rapidly expanding wine industry.

This year, with the help of a consulting oenologist from Bordeaux, Mr.
Dhuru expects to produce about 300,000 bottles of white and red wines.
By next year, he estimates that a million bottles will bear the
Chateau d'Ori label.

The aggressive optimism of entrepreneurs like Mr. Dhuru is easy to
understand. In Maharashtra state in central and western India, where
Nasik is, more than 40 wineries are in varying stages of development.
Government officials say that investment in wine increased by 74
percent over the last year.

"In the next 10 years there will be 300 million upwardly mobile
Indians who can afford wine and for whom it will be a lifestyle
choice," Mr. Dhuru said. "A lot of them will be drinking Indian
wines."

Read the full article at--
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/dining/04india.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

Indian Biz Schools Not Upto Par

"Business education is booming in India, but the bulk of rank-and-file
programs in the country suffer from outdated textbooks, professors who
don't keep up with economic trends, and narrow curriculums, according
to a recently released report by an Indian business group," says and
article in Business Week.

According to the article, "The Business Barometer study was issued
last month by the the Associated Chambers of Commerce & Industry of
India (Assocham), the country's leading chamber of commerce
organization. It found that beyond the top 30 institutions, most
business school professors and lecturers in India's business schools
are ignorant of the world's major economic trends and key
developments, such as the subprime crisis in the U.S. Few read
business publications.

The study's author, Jyoti Bhutani, called the findings "shocking,"
adding that Indian businesses are finding it difficult to get
top-quality graduates. She said there is "a huge gap" between the pay
packages offered to grads of top Indian business schools
(BusinessWeek.com, 4/13/08) and those provided to grads of the lesser
institutions."

Also it is very interesting to note that even the top cadre IIM's are
not accredited, "John Fernandes, president of the U.S.-based
Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International
(AACSB), said his agency is working with four or five of the top
Indian business schools that are seeking AACSB accreditation. Most are
members of the "elite" business school cadre in India, known as India
Institute of Managements. None of the top Indian business schools has
accreditation from AACSB, one of the leading business school
accrediting agencies.

Setting a high standard for Indian business schools by satisfying a
quality accrediting agency is an important step for Indian business
schools, said Assocham's Bhutani. An improved accreditation process
would have a ripple effect on all Indian business schools, he
continued, forcing them to improve the quality of teachers, materials,
and professional development."

Read the full article at --
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/jun2008/bs2008063_820520.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_news+%2B+analysis

Where Wealth is Health!

While India's economic growth is on the media radar, and articles
about how Americans and other westerners are going to India for it's
high quality, yet relatively cheap healthcare get written, the truth
is that there are many millions of Indians who are getting poorer and
are unable to receive proper healthcare. Capitalism is on the rise.

From a New York Times article, titled, "Royal Care for Some of India's
Patients, Neglect for Others" -- "Mr. Steeles, 60, a car dealer from
Daphne, Ala., had flown halfway around the world last month to save
his heart, at a price he could pay. He had a mitral valve repaired at
a state-of-the-art private hospital here, called Wockhardt, and for 10
days, he was recuperating in a carpeted, wood-paneled room, with a
view of a leafy green courtyard.

A dietician helped select his meals. A dermatologist came as soon as
he complained of an itch. His Royal Suite had cable TV, a computer, a
minirefrigerator, where an attendant that afternoon stashed some ice
cream, for when he felt hungry later. Three days after surgery, he was
sitting in a chair, smiling, chattering, thrilled to be alive.

On his bed lay the morning's paper. Dominating its front page was the
story of other men, many of them day laborers who laid bricks and
mixed cement for Bangalore's construction boom, who had fallen gravely
ill after drinking illegally brewed liquor. All told, more than 150
died that week, here and in neighboring Tamil Nadu State.

Not for them the care of India's best private hospitals. They had been
wheeled in by wives and brothers to the overstretched government-run
Bowring Hospital, on the other side of town. Bowring had no intensive
care unit, no ventilators, no dialysis machine. Dinner was a stack of
white bread, on which a healthy cockroach crawled while a patient,
named Yelappa, slept.

Wockhardt has 30 ventilators, including some that are noninvasive, so
the patient does not have to have a tube rammed down his throat. At
any one time, a half-dozen are in use. An elderly woman had been in
its intensive care unit for a week, on dialysis; her family wanted to
do whatever possible to keep her alive, no matter the cost.

At Bowring, one of the young doctors, named Harish, said a ventilator
and a dialysis machine would have allowed him to keep half of his
patients alive. The most severe case, Mohammed Amin, was breathing
with the aid of a hand pump that his wife squeezed silently. Dr.
Harish sent the relative of one man to get blood tests done at the
nearest private hospital; there was no equipment to do the test here.
Then the doctor rushed to the triage section in Bowring's lobby, where
the newest patient, writhing, resisting, disoriented from the poison
in his gut, had to be tied down with bedsheets."

Universal healthcare is not just needed for the US, it is required for
other capitalistic societies like India as well.

Read the full NYT article at--
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/weekinreview/01sengupta.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

The Age of Innovation

Yet another book from Management Guru C.K. Prahalad, titled "The Age
Of Innovation"

"Every so often, a book comes along that demands to be read --
sometimes because of the author's great reputation; in other cases,
because the subject is so important. In the case of "The New Age of
Innovation," both are true," says the Los Angeles Times, "Professor
C.K. Prahalad of the University of Michigan, whose previous books
include "Competing for the Future" and "The Fortune at the Bottom of
the Pyramid," is sometimes described as one of the most influential
thinkers in the world. And the book deals with a pressing issue for
managers today: how to compete in a time of rapid and unpredictable
change."

According to The LA Times, "Prahalad, who recently was appointed a
non-executive director by Pearson, owner of the Financial Times, and
co-author M.S. Krishnan, also a professor at Michigan, start by
telling us, "There is a fundamental transformation of business
underway," which will radically alter the very nature of the company
and how it creates value. "No industry is immune from this trend."

"All this might seem like common sense. Sadly, common sense is not
taught at business schools, nor do consultants offer seminars on the
subject. Management teams will continue to fail if they continue to
confuse technology with the potential value that technology can
create; if they think of customers as a mass rather than individuals;
and if they fail to realize that how they manage is as important as
what they manage. On all three of these failings, Prahalad and
Krishnan offer advice that managers need to get back on the right
track," says the LA Times.

Read the full review at --
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-books2-2008jun02,0,2234984.story

The Asian Monsoons

The recent monsoons have devastated Burma, last year and the year
before Mumbai relled from catastrophic monsoons, the pattern is slowly
becoming clearer. "GLOBAL warming could cause a major Asian famine and
result in the toppling of governments, an Aberdeen expert has warned
in a new book. Monsoons are likely to become stronger and stormier and
lead to catastrophic flooding before they reach a tipping point and
give way to severe drought within decades," according to an article in
UK's The PRess And Journal.

The article says that, "The predictions have been made by Professor
Peter Clift, Aberdeen University geosciences lecturer, in his book The
Asian Monsoon: Causes, History and Effects. He warned that sudden
"weakening" of monsoon rains and subsequent drought had been
considered partly responsible for seismic historical events such as
the collapse of imperial dynasties in China and India. If current
trends continue, he predicted disaster would hit in the next 50-200
years, but he argued that paying more attention to environmental
issues and lifestyle changes such as riding bicycles to work and
burning less fossil fuels may delay or even prevent it. Mr Clift said:
"The monsoon is linked to the rest of the world. "What happens to us
makes a big difference to what happens to them."

Read the full article at --
http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/670610?UserKey=0

The Upside Down World

"Developed", "Developing", and "Underdeveloped" countries. I wonder
who coined these terms and how they came up with the classification.

A country which was once very rich and well matured, with some of the
best in education, science, business and trade is plundered by various
foreign invaders and is left limping to fend for itself. This nation
whose limbs have been cut-off and is now struggling to grow again, and
is called a developing nation. The foreign nation that was the
plunderer takes the term developed nation. It is all very confusing to
me, and not convincing.

To this effect Roger Cohen's editorial in the New York Times says,
that the world once again has become upside down. He says, "For a
while the world was flat. Now it's upside down. To understand it,
invert your thinking. See the developed world as depending on the
developing world, rather than the other way round. Understand that
two-thirds of global economic growth last year came from emerging
countries, whose economies will expand about 6.7 percent in 2008,
against 1.3 percent for the United States, Japan and euro zone
states."

Citing Indian examples he emphasizes, "That's also a good position
from which to view India's Tata Motors agreeing to buy Land Rover and
Jaguar from Ford for $2.3 billion, or Tata Steel's acquisition last
year of the Anglo-Dutch Corus Group steel company for $12 billion.
Globalization is now a two-way street; in fact it's an Indian street
with traffic weaving in all directions."

"A shift in economic power is under way to which the developed world
has not yet adjusted. Of course the G-8 and the permanent membership
of the U.N. Security Council need to be expanded to reflect this
change. The 21st century can't be handled with 20th-century
institutions.That's obvious. Less obvious is how the United States,
which underwrites global security at vast expense, begins to share
this burden, so that the new multi-polarity of wealth is reflected in
a multipolarity of security commitments. Headstands are in order for
the next U.S. president," writes Cohen.

Read the whole commentary at --
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/02/opinion/l02cohen.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

Don't throw It Out...

One of my pet peeves has been food wastage. I am appalled at the
portions served in restaurants and the amount of food wasted,
considering how many people and children are going hungry each day.

A really concise commentary in the Hartford Courant today emphasizes
this, "We obviously have no way of getting that softening head of
lettuce in the back of the fridge to a Third-World country, and if we
could we still wouldn't halt global warming. But we can be more
careful about what we buy and eat. In most major cities, food rescue
organizations save and refrigerate food from participating cafeterias
and restaurants. Cities such as San Francisco compost organic wastes.
Some restaurants are offering smaller portions.

These are relatively easy steps, useful in themselves and helpful in
informing larger decisions on food. Is the subsidy of corn ethanol
substantially hurting the production of food? Do U.S. agricultural
policies hurt local farming around the world? Can we continue to spend
hundreds of billions on wasteful farm bills?

If we remember that food is precious and not to be wasted, perhaps we
can make better decisions across the board."

Read the full commentary at --
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-compost.artjun02,0,3258854.story

A Can of Sardines maybe Anchovies...

"A Can of Sardines" is such a perfect reference to the Indian
autorickshaw that can comfortably seat about 3 adults but is usually
overloaded with double the number plus luggage. Even more scary than
this are the 10 or 15 school children that are packed into this
vehicle like anchovies!!! But I wonder, is being packed in tightly
what keeps them from falling off of this vehicle, which not only looks
like a ball but also bounces just like one on the roads and rolls
between two buses just missing being crushed by seconds?

A very nice article in the Wall Street Journal talks about these auto
rickshaws in Hyderabad, the city where I grew up riding these all the
time with my mother and with my friends. "Tiny, tinny three-wheel
taxis, known as autorickshaws, are ubiquitous in South Asia. They are
nimble, cheap and popular: A ride costs just pennies. Passengers
leaning out each side of India's crowded auto rickshaws risk being hit
by passing vehicles; they can also make the auto unstable. But they
are also dangerous, and as Indian roads get increasingly crowded,
passengers are paying with their lives. Here in the southern state of
Andhra Pradesh, autorickshaws are involved in one-third of all
accidents, even though they account for only one out of every 20
vehicles on the road.

So the cops are cracking down. Police are enforcing long-ignored laws
against overcrowding, and officials are rounding up drivers for
training sessions. Drivers must sit through an educational video and
view gory photos -- autorickshaws crushed between buses, and mangled
on roadsides -- to qualify for a free lunch," says this article but
seems like all that come out of this is a free lunch.

According to the journal, "Several thousand drivers have shown up for
the training so far, including Nara Krishna Choudary, who has piloted
autorickshaws for 25 years. But he isn't changing his driving habits.
"If I try to stick to the rules, I won't get anywhere," says Mr.
Choudary, 54 years old, because "everybody else is breaking the
rules."

The tickets, however, have forced him to cut down on overcrowding.
"The police have become very strict" about that, he says."

Now when I go back to visit, I wonder how I ever sat on these without
falling off. I hold on to my little son so tightly, afraid that he
will bounce of my lap, while my little one says whee, as though he is
going on a roller coaster ride! At least I can feel safe that I am not
packed in an autorickshaw like sardines or anchovies...

Read the full article at ---
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121200680433927111.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Outsourcing is a Two-way Street

"So long as America remains one of the world's largest consumer
markets and there are enough economic incentives to move production to
the U.S., the flow of global employment will run both ways," says an
article in Forbes. The author writes, "Some pundits and politicians
love to complain about how Americans lose their jobs because of
cheaper labor overseas. But many foreign companies create jobs for
Americans by investing and operating in the U.S."

Not many think of it this way, unfortunately. Many view outsourcing as
a one way street, when in fact it goes several different ways, truly
making this world a global village.

Another excerpt from this article says, "Even Indian
information-technology outsourcing companies are bringing operations
to the U.S. Despite its far-flung location, Applabs, a large
independent IT quality-assurance provider, has opened offices in
Philadelphia and Lindon, Utah.

How could America's workforce be as appealing to outsourcers as
India's? "Companies are already seeing in Bangalore, India, that there
is such a tight labor market that their wages have gone up
dramatically in the past couple of years," Heijmen says. A more
expensive labor market, compounded by the relative weakness of the
dollar, has made operating within the U.S. an increasingly attractive
option for foreign companies.

To be sure, American companies continue to offshore all manner of
duties to other nations around the world. But experts say its
converse, foreign hiring of American workers, won't cease anytime
soon."

Read the full article at --
http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/05/25/foreign-labor-auto-oped-cx_jhb_outsourcing08_0529america.html

Sen on the Global Food Crisis

Amartya Sen, Nobel price winning economist has an op-ed piece titled
"The Rich Get Hungrier" in the New York Times today.

He says, "WILL the food crisis that is menacing the lives of millions
ease up — or grow worse over time? The answer may be both. The recent
rise in food prices has largely been caused by temporary problems like
drought in Australia, Ukraine and elsewhere. Though the need for huge
rescue operations is urgent, the present acute crisis will eventually
end. But underlying it is a basic problem that will only intensify
unless we recognize it and try to remedy it.

It is a tale of two peoples. In one version of the story, a country
with a lot of poor people suddenly experiences fast economic
expansion, but only half of the people share in the new prosperity.
The favored ones spend a lot of their new income on food, and unless
supply expands very quickly, prices shoot up. The rest of the poor now
face higher food prices but no greater income, and begin to starve.
Tragedies like this happen repeatedly in the world.

A stark example is the Bengal famine of 1943, during the last days of
the British rule in India. The poor who lived in cities experienced
rapidly rising incomes, especially in Calcutta, where huge
expenditures for the war against Japan caused a boom that quadrupled
food prices. The rural poor faced these skyrocketing prices with
little increase in income."

Voicing a popular concern that is causing a lot of debate he says,
"There is also a high-tech version of the tale of two peoples.
Agricultural crops like corn and soybeans can be used for making
ethanol for motor fuel. So the stomachs of the hungry must also
compete with fuel tanks."

A very thought provoking op-ed, this can be accessed at--
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/opinion/28sen.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

The Secret Life of A National Geographic Writer!!!

According to Reuters, "Police in Kathmandu find contraband artifacts and animal hides in the rented properties of a U.S. adventure writer. The illegally possessed goods were seized after police received a tip off. Authorities say it is one of the biggest hauls they have ever recovered. The items were found in the rented property of adventurer and writer Ian Baker, who has lived in Nepal for many years. Baker has written several books and contributed to National Geographic and other magazines."

Learning to Lead

Wow... Very Inspiring video titled, "Lead India"

Inspiring for all to take the initiative and lead, wherever, this may be.

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.

On Bringing Up Children

Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children;
now I have six children and no theories.
- John Wilmot

Hindu's Denied Tibetan Visas

"The Chinese government is refusing to issue visas to Hindus trying to
make the traditional summer pilgrimage to what they hold to be the
home of Lord Shiva in Tibet, forcing thousands to delay or cancel the
trip," reports the New York Times.

This pilgrimage is undertaken by many Hindu's and it's scenic beauty
and divinity put together far surpass it's arduousness.

Another excerpt--
"Starting in June, Hindus from Nepal and India embark on a multiweek
journey to the 22,000-foot Mount Kailash in the Himalayas and nearby
Lake Mapam Yutso, known in India as Lake Mansarovar. The trip, a
once-in-a-lifetime event for most who make it, includes treacherous
off-road drives and several days of arduous trekking, and is believed
to bring the traveler closer to the divine.
This year, though, the Chinese government is refusing to grant any
visas for travel to the Tibetan sites from Nepal, tour operators in
Nepal say. India's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that the Chinese
government had cited unspecified "domestic reasons."
At the same time, Beijing has retracted permission previously granted
to Indian pilgrims who were planning to make the trip in early June.
The Olympic torch is scheduled to go through Tibet's capital, Lhasa,
on June 20.
"I was planning for the last 10 years for this trip," said Rajendra
Goyal, 48, a Mumbai-based hardware trader whose trip has been
canceled. Mr. Goyal said he was on a rigorous diet and exercise
schedule for the last two months to make sure he was fit for the
mountain hiking involved.
"A pilgrim is a pilgrim, not an activist or a politician," he said. "I
am going there for religious faith, not to do any violence."

Read the full article at--
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/world/asia/21trek.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail0=y&oref=slogin

Bollywood Meets Hollywood

"Bollywood has met Hollywood at the Cannes Film Festival, with George
Clooney, Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt signing rupee-spinning deals for big
movie collaborations," says an article in the Times Online. It is
interesting to see that India's economic growth is going beyond
traditional business and into the realm of movies, books and other
cultural areas.

"India produces more films than any other country, and sells more than
four billion cinema tickets a year, far more than in America. Now one
of its biggest companies is to become a significant Hollywood player,
it was announced yesterday in Cannes.
Reliance Big Entertainment, part of a $100 billion (£50 billion)
Indian conglomerate, is to invest in development funds for eight
production companies owned by Alist stars: they include Nicolas Cage's
Saturn Productions, Jim Carrey's JC 23 Entertainment, Clooney's
Smokehouse Productions, Hanks's Playtone Productions and Pitt's Plan B
Entertainment.
The Indian company, owned by Anil Ambani, ranked the world's
sixth-richest man in the Forbes list, is offering an initial $1
billion investment in Hollywood. It is a vital injection of cash for
the US studios at a time when equity financing has dried up with the
credit crunch. It also offers the Americans a foothold in India.
Amit Khanna, Reliance's chairman, said: "Reliance Entertainment has a
dominant position in India but, when it comes to motion pictures, it
has been obvious that we need to extend our footprint to Hollywood . .
.
"Bollywood is somehow personified by song and dance and Hollywood by
sex and violence, and there is this idea that neither can meet. We
don't believe this is true."

Bollywood in it's original form has been quite popular in many areas
outside India, and it's popularity is only increasing. Then there is
the whole concept of the "melting pot", where as this article
emphasizes Bollywood meets Hollywood to give birth to a new genre of
films that are already in the making.

Read the full article at --
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/cannes/article3965523.ece

Who says newspapers are dying?

A point of discussion in the media industry lately has been the slow
demise of the newspaper industry in the US relative to the upswing of
the newspaper and media industry in "developing" nations like India.
In India within the last couple of years, several business media have
cropped up and are doing fairly well. "While gloom haunts the
newspaper industry in the United States and Europe, the business is
flourishing in much of the developing world," says an article in
today's New York Times.

Another excerpt from this article--
"Executives in India, one of the fastest growing newspaper markets,
say reading a newspaper is something to aspire to instead of a
throwback to a bygone era as it is perceived in much of the West.

"Anyone who can read or write is still looked at with a bit of awe" in
many markets in India, said Rajesh Kalra, a veteran journalist who is
now chief editor of Times Internet, the Internet arm of the Times
Group, which publishes The Times of India. The paper has a circulation
of 3.5 million, more than 10 percent higher than a year ago, and says
it is the biggest English-language paper in the world. Times Group, a
part of Bennett, Coleman and Company, is introducing editions of the
paper in three Indian cities this spring.

When people first learn how to read, they want to let people know, Mr.
Kalra said, and "the first thing you want to do is be seen to be
reading a newspaper."

The literacy rate in India hovers at about 61 percent, according to
Unesco, but the number of literate youths (ages 15 to 24) is above 76
percent, signaling that education is improving. The number of daily
newspapers grew to 287 in 2006 from 185 in 2005, according to the
World Association of Newspapers."

In fact several media companies like CN18 that only had a broadcast
presence are also branching out into print publishing to round out
their offerings, "Media companies in emerging markets, though, are
enjoying growth their Western counterparts can only envy. "Unlike the
developed markets, India is at a fundamentally different stage of its
life" when it comes to media consumption, said Haresh Chawla, group
chief executive of Network 18, a media conglomerate. The company also
has a joint venture with CNBC, as well as with Viacom, which brings
MTV and Nickelodeon to Indian audiences. "There is a huge synergy in
news gathering," and owning a newspaper will round out Network 18's
media offerings, Mr. Chawla said."

Read the full article at--
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/business/worldbusiness/20newspapers.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail0=y&oref=slogin

How The Richest Of The Rich Will Live...

Have we forgotten that the world is going through a food crisis and
people are starving in the same country where this home is being
built?

Mukesh Ambani the fifth richest man in the world is building this $2
billlion home in Mumbai, when right across town exists the largest
slum in the world, Dharawi.

"The only remotely comparable high-rise property currently on the
market is the $70 million triplex penthouse at the Pierre Hotel in New
York, designed to resemble a French chateau, and climbing 525 feet in
the air. When the Ambani residence is finished in January, completing
a four-year process, it will be 550 feet high with 400,000 square feet
of interior space. The home will cost more than a hotel or high-rise
of similar size because of its custom measurements and fittings: A
hotel or condominium has a common layout, replicated on every floor,
and uses the same materials throughout the building (such as door
handles, floors, lamps and window treatments)," says an article in
Forbes magazine.

"The Ambani home, called Antilla, differs in that no two floors are
alike in either plans or materials used. At the request of Nita
Ambani, say the designers, if a metal, wood or crystal is part of the
ninth-floor design, it shouldn't be used on the eleventh floor, for
example. The idea is to blend styles and architectural elements so
spaces give the feel of consistency, but without repetition," reports
Forbes, "Antilla's shape is based on Vaastu, an Indian tradition much
like Feng Shui that is said to move energy beneficially through the
building by strategically placing materials, rooms and objects."

Apparently, "Ambani plans to occasionally use the residence for
corporate entertainment, and the family wants the look and feel of the
home's interior to be distinctly Indian; 85% of the materials and
labor will come from outside the U.S., most of it from India," so one
may argue that this is creating a mini industry in India adding to the
economy. However, to most, there are better ways to revitalize the
down trodden than spend $2 billion on an extravagant home for oneself.

Read the full article and see pictures at--
http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/30/home-india-billion-forbeslife-cx_mw_0430realestate.html?feed=rss_popstories

Mango Eating Competition In Bombay

"With the arrival of summer and mango season, India's western city Mumbai plays host to the 6th annual mango eating competition. Around 30 people took part, having to eat as many mangoes as possible in 3 minutes. And if they could stomach any more, the winners were rewarded with a fresh box of the fruit. The competition was a part of the six-day Konkan Festival that started on May 06 and ended on May 12," reports Reuters.

Indian Saris For The Indigenous Market

"With India's middle class flourishing thanks to the subcontinent's 10
percent annual growth, it is suddenly less urgent to create clothing
for foreign markets — especially when Bangladesh and China can
undercut the prices — and more interesting to adapt subtly and
gracefully, Indian style.
Indian fashion week functioned as though Mumbai were the new
Manhattan. Celebrities? Bollywood stars turned out in droves for the
splashy shows, and if you have never heard of the designer Manish
Malhotra or the superstar couple Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan,
they probably have a higher recognition factor in India than
Brangelina in the front row at Marc Jacobs," says an article in the
New York Times Magazine.

This is an interesting article that talks about the Indian fashion
industry catering to it's rich indigenous population versus
non-resident Indians, who were the focus segment earlier.

Article at---
http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2008/05/18/style/t/index.html#pagewanted=0&pageName=18menkes&

Has Baseball Arrived in India?

Baseball has never been a popular sport in India. College kids,
especially girls play some softball, but for some reason baseball
never caught on, not until now...

"Rinku Singh, 18, and fellow javelin thrower Dinesh Patel began a
year-long training stint in Los Angeles last week after winning an
India-wide pitching contest, "The Million-Dollar Arm."
The boys, from poor families, used their natural shoulder strength to
take the top two spots from among 8,000 participants.
Another teenager, Manoj Shukla, will receive a month's training after
he came third of the 27 finalists.
The winners, who were handed their visas in a ceremony at the U.S.
embassy in New Delhi, will get an opportunity to be assessed by
professional baseball scouts at the end of their one-year stint.
Their U.S-based promoters are hoping the youngsters can make it as
professionals, saying such success would boost baseball in India in
the same way that Yao Ming's move to the NBA created a fan base for
basketball in China," reports Reuters.

Over the last few years, I have seen sports like bowling, football,
triathlons, formula one racing and others picking up steam in India,
sports that many of us never even knew about until we came to America.
It'll be interesting to watch and see how baseball catches on, if it
catches on at all, what with stiff competition from Cricket!

Reuters also reports that, "India, world cricket's commercial hub, has
become a big draw for other sports hoping to tap into its booming
economy. Golf is taking giant strides and India staged its first
European Tour events this year while soccer authorities are pushing to
revive the game in the country. The Australian Football League (AFL)
announced plans this month to push the game in India in their search
for new markets."

Read the full Reuters article at--
http://uk.reuters.com/article/UK_WORLDFOOTBALL/idUKDEL24903820080513?pageNumber=4&virtualBrandChannel=0

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

Food Crisis -- Argument versus Action!

I was wondering why it took so long for the he said and she said to
begin after Bush made his statement, saying that the food crisis was
started by India's middle class.

Yesterday, yoga guru, Baba Ramdev, voiced his frustration at Bush's
statements and today the New York Times reports that, "Instead of
blaming India and other developing nations for the rise in food
prices, Americans should rethink their energy policy — and go on a
diet. That has been the response, basically, of a growing number of
politicians, economists and academics in this country, who are angry
at statements by top United States officials that India's rising
prosperity is to blame for food inflation. The debate has sometimes
devolved into what sounded like petty playground taunts over who are
the real gluttons devouring the world's resources."

As someone who lived and grew up in India it amazes me to see wastage
of food and other natural resources, not just by non-Indians but by
visiting Indians as well. The same folks who struggle without water in
Chennai, waste water in the US as though it was an eternal resource.
The same folks who watch people starve in Delhi, throw away food like
there was plenty of it to go around, the same folks who go without
power in Kolkatta, leave fans and lights on all over the place without
conserving any energy.

Instead of arguing, it is high time each individual stepped back and
assessed what they are each doing to make the problem better or worse.
Time to stop the bickering and get to some real action, don't you
think?

See the Times Of India video, with Baba Ramdev's statements here--
http://broadband.indiatimes.com/showvideo/3034648.cms

See the New York Times article here --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/05/14/business/worldbusiness/14food.html&tntemail0=y

Another recent New York Times article on this subject-

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/weekinreview/18martin.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

A Time Magazine article on this-

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1806579,00.html

Read about Bush's statements here--
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/07/AR2008050703405.html

See what President Bush said about India being responsible for the
food crisis here--
http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/may/03food.htm

Gender Discrimination?!

More news on Indian Americans practicing gender discrimination!

Vijay Mallya and Force India

The arrival of the newest and tallest motor homes in the Formula One
paddock is an overt statement of intent by the sport's youngest team,
Force India," says the New York Times. Owned by Vijay Mallya, he says
to NYT that his Force India team and auto racing can appeal to a
growing segment of young and affluent Indians.

The Times reports that Force India's hospitality suite is airy, easy
to move around in and full of smiling team members and visitors, and
Mallya says to the Times, "I am very proud of my new motor home, but
this motor home with a slow car means nothing," said Vijay Mallya, the
Indian billionaire who owns the racing team, as well as Kingfisher
Airlines, Kingfisher beer and other companies. "The car is performing,
the motor home is adding to it all, and I think that the message is
that on the track and off the track, we are serious in this business."

Anotehr excerpt from the article --
"Cricket, which is a religion in India, is for everyone," Mallya said.
"It's for your staff, for your chauffeur, for your boss, for your
maid, for everyone. But there is this breed of youngsters in India who
are proud of their success — we call them upwardly mobile and
aspirational Indians — they are earning well, they want to show their
wealth, they want to show that they are different."
The way they do that, he said, is by dressing differently, eating
differently and having different sporting interests.
"And that is where we felt, and research showed, that F1 could be
absolutely the ideal platform," he added.
But for the plan to succeed, Mallya said, the team must succeed.

Mallaya's who attends all of the teams races says to the Times, "The
leader of the team has to be leading the team," Mallya said. "The fact
that I'm here in the same uniform as the guys, walking around in the
garage and being wherever else I need to be, it inspires confidence.
It shows I'm committed. If I am demanding commitment from others, I
need to show I'm committed myself."

Read the full article at--
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/05/11/sports/othersports/11prix.html&tntemail0=y

Becoming Smarter...

"What is perhaps most intriguing about the list in Condé Nast
Portfolio of the 73 Biggest Brains in Business is how few traditional
businesspeople are among them," says a New York Times article. One of
the Indians represented on this list is Ratan Tata of of the Tata
Group, the multinational conglomerate based in India.

In this article titled "How to Be Smarter," The Times quotes from
Wired magazine and says, "WHILE your I.Q. is basically determined at
birth, "still, there are lots of ways to get smarter — to max out your
so-called functional intelligence" at work and elsewhere." They list
ways to get smarter as below, and I quote--

-- Discover. "Learning new things actually strengthens your brain —
especially when you believe you can learn new things," Steve Knopper
writes. "It's a virtuous circle: When you think you're getting
smarter, you study harder, making more nerve cell connections, which,"
he says, makes you smarter.
-- Don't panic. "While a little nervousness can boost cognitive
performance, periods of intense stress essentially turn us into
Neanderthals," Eric Hagerman writes. Try to control your breathing.
Yoga could help.
-- Drink tea. "Caffeine jump-starts the body and sharpens the mind,"
Mathew Honan says. "But studies show that we Yanks are doing it all
wrong" by drinking coffee and high-energy drinks. "For optimal brain
gain, regular tea breaks" are the way to go, he writes. Small doses
throughout the day are more effective than one huge drink.
-- Practice the types of questions that appear on intelligence tests.
"They're supposed to be objective and consistent, but don't believe
it," Mr. Knopper writes. "By prepping for the verbal, numerical and
spatial problems on a typical psychometric test, you can boost your
score."
-- Exercise. Studies have shown that students who are aerobically fit
perform better on cognitive tests.

Read the full article at--
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/05/10/business/10offline.html&tntemail0=y

Rafta, Rafta...

"Scott Elliott's production of Ayub Khan-Din's "Rafta, Rafta ...,"
which opened last night at the Acorn Theater, is intimate in a way
that prying video cameras can never be. Set in a working-class
neighborhood of transplanted Indian families in Bolton, England, this
tale of a beleaguered honeymoon exposes its characters' foibles, and
very little of their flesh, with gentleness and compassion," says a
New York Times review.

"And the plot of "Rafta, Rafta ...," adapted from "All in Good Time,"
a Bill Naughton comedy from the 1960s, sounds like an extended blue
joke, or the basis for a sniggery sitcom: Young man takes virginal
bride home to live with the family, then finds himself unable to
consummate the marriage because Mom, Dad and Little Brother keep
interrupting and distracting him.

The title translates from Hindi as "slowly, slowly." And this
production understands it takes time for people to get to know and
accept one another. That includes an audience and a set of onstage
characters. In an era of faster-is-better entertainment "Rafta, Rafta
..." is notable for its winningly slow hand," writes the reviewer Ben
Brantley in this review titled, "No Sex, Please, We're British
Indians."

For those that enjoy theater, this promises to be a good show...

Read the full review at--
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/05/09/theater/reviews/09raft.html&tntemail0=y

How Far Can Artists Go?

Dissolving the controversy surrounding M.F. Hussains art, a court has
basically dissolved the controversy surrounding his art and says he
needs to be back home painting.

The New York Times reports that -- "A court in India has quashed three
obscenity cases against M. F. Husain, one of the country's most famous
contemporary painters, the BBC reported. The charges contended that
Mr. Husain, 92, offended Hindus with a work, above, that represented
India as a nude goddess. The court in Delhi ruled that the painting
was not obscene. Mr. Husain, who has been accused of obscenity in at
least seven cases, apologized for the painting, which he declared an
"expression of purity." He has been living in the Middle East because
of the lawsuits, but his lawyer, Akhil Sibal, quoted the court as
saying Mr. Husain "deserves to be at home, painting his canvases."

Whereas a website by Hindu Jagruti says that Hussain is painting
derogatory art of Hindu gods, why is he not doing so of his own
religion? You can see some of the paintings at their site listed
below. An article in Frontline magazine, has some paintings by Hussain
of Hindu Gods which are not derogatory, so what does that mean?

New York Times article is at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/05/09/arts/09arts-INDIANCOURTD_BRF.html&tntemail0=y

Hindu Jagruti website is at this URL--
http://www.hindujagruti.org/activities/campaigns/national/mfhussain-campaign/

Frontline magazine article on Hussain is here--
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1416/14160820.htm

Natural Phenomena Do Not Respect National Boundaries!

A very thought provoking editorial in the New York Times today by on
of the most fabulous writers of our times, Amitav Ghosh begins as
follows--

"THE word "cyclone" was coined in Calcutta (now called Kolkata) in the
1840s by an eccentric Englishman named Henry Piddington. Inspired by
the great British meteorologist William Reid, Piddington became one of
the earliest storm-chasers, besotted with a phenomenon that he once
likened to a "beautiful meteorite." His elegant coinage was originally
intended as a generic name for all revolving weather events, but is
now applied mainly to the storms of the Indian Ocean region like
Cyclone Nargis, which struck Burma with devastating effect last week.

Piddington was among the earliest to recognize that a cyclone wreaks
most of its damage not through wind but through water, by means of the
devastating wave that is known as a "storm surge." In 1853, when the
British colonial authorities were planning an elaborate new port on
the outer edge of Bengal's mangrove forests, he issued an unambiguous
warning: "Everyone and everything must be prepared to see a day when,
in the midst of the horrors of a hurricane, they will find a terrific
mass of salt water rolling in ..." His warning was neglected and Port
Canning was built, only to be obliterated by a cyclonic surge in 1867.

The phenomenon of the storm surge has been extensively researched
since Piddington's day, yet few public-response systems have drawn the
obvious lesson. To this day, the warnings that accompany a storm's
approach typically say nothing about moving to high ground: their
prescription is usually to seek shelter indoors. As a result people
tend to hunker down in the strongest structure within reach — only to
find themselves trapped when the surge comes sweeping through.

But even if they were fully warned, where would those people go?"

Read the full editorial at--
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/05/10/opinion/10ghosh.html&tntemail0=y

Embracing Ones Own Identity

It is very common to hear about an identity crisis among second
generation Indian Americans. They feel lost between two worlds; are
they Indian; Are they American; Are they losing their sense of
identity; and the list goes on. It is genuine no doubt, but it is also
refreshing to see them embracing their unique identity, as mentioned
in this article in the Detroit Free Press.

An excerpt from the article,
"Ami Turner, 29, whose parents emigrated from Gujarat, India, was born
in Detroit and grew up in Sterling Heights with mostly white and
Arab-American classmates."
...
"I had fairly fair skin and dark hair, and a lot of people thought I
was Arabic," she said. "When I first went to high school, all the
Arabics had their own little groups, and they thought I was Arabic, so
they hung out with me. And then when they found out I wasn't, I got
phased out."
Turner has hung onto her heritage through 21 years of Indian dancing
with the group Nadanta, something her parents encouraged her do to
preserve a cultural connection.
"I'm very proud of being Indian," she said "That's what Nadanta taught
us: 'Don't hide who you are.' " It's something she has started passing
onto her 23-month-old son, Rohan, and 4-month-old daughter, Isabella,
who are their own genre of Asian American: Hapa, a term referring to
multiracial Asians. It sometimes serves as an acronym for Half Asian
Pacific American. Turner's husband, Andy, is caucasian and Catholic,
but she has preserved her Hindu beliefs, speaks Gujariti and Hindi,
and has started passing down a mash of everything to her kids --
Christmas and Diwali, naan and hamburgers -- assembling the
accoutrements that will shape them as Asian Americans."

Read the full article at --
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080504/FEATURES01/805040564&imw=Y

Rupa And The April Fishes...

A truly multicultural band with an Indian American as the lead singer, guitarist and lyricist. Rupa, also happens to be a San Francisco based doctor on the side! Wow! Enjoy...



NPR reports that, "When she isn't on stage, Rupa Marya is a doctor of internal medicine on faculty at UCSF, and often draws ideas for songs from her patients' stories. She was able to take advantage of a flexible residency track designed for female doctors who may be expecting children, which allows her to spend six months working and the other half of the year touring.
"And so after my first year of internship, I went into my program director and said, 'Listen, I'll be a terrible doctor if I'm not an artist, and I'll be a terrible artist if I'm not a doctor," Marya says. "'And I need to find a way to do these things.'"

Read the full story about the band on NPR --
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89695578

Telling It As It Is...

This weeks column in the New York Times by Thomas Friedman is very
thought provoking... He says, "My own totally unscientific polling has
left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our
country today it's this: People want to do nation-building. They
really do. But they want to do nation-building in America."

In the midst of the election battleground that we have today, more and
more citizens are starting to think, issues and resolution. the
problems facing this "super power" are so many, and so widespread that
there is not much time for thinking, it's atime for action. Action
that is already happening in the rest of the world.

Friedman says, "We are not as powerful as we used to be because over
the past three decades, the Asian values of our parents' generation —
work hard, study, save, invest, live within your means — have given
way to subprime values: "You can have the American dream — a house —
with no money down and no payments for two years."

Read the full essay at --
http://select.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?emc=tnt&tntget=2008/05/04/opinion/04friedman.html&tntemail0=y

Monkeying Around

Growing up in Secunderabad, one of the biggest pests even today are monkeys. Even in extremely urban areas, when all is quiet and everyone is enjoying a warm breeze out in their balconies, the monkeys invade, all of a sudden. They come in huge groups of about 50, and just barge into your homes, and grab whatever edible things they can find, bananas, fruits, food, utensils and if you try to stop them, even god can't help you... Much as I am alover of animals, these monkeys are a menace.

"Forest officials in India have come up with an unusual way of controlling pesky monkeys - they've set up a park to protect them," reports Reuters, "The primate protection park in India's northern Himachal Pradesh will house more than 2000 Simian monkeys and hopefully keep a check on the growing monkey menace in the hilly state. Estimates say over the last three years, the monkey population has grown by 50 percent."



I am keeping my fingers crossed for the people of the twin cities of Secunderabad and Hyderabad and hoping that this works.

Baby Dropping Ritual...

Reuters reports that "Muslims in western India have been observing a bizarre ritual - they've been throwing their young children off a tall building to improve their health. The faithful have been observing the ritual at a shrine in Solapur, in western India's Maharastra, for more than five hundred years. They believe it will make their children strong and say no accidents have ever happened!"

Doing Business In India

Apparently there is a new book out called "Doing business in India for
dummies"!!! In an interview with Marshall Goldsmith of Business Week,
the author Ranjini Manian had "fascinating suggestions for Americans
doing business in India—and for Indians doing business with
Americans."

Here is an excerpt from their conversation --
MG -- So what does your company, Global Adjustments, do?
RM -- Global Adjustments is an end-to-end expatriate-services company
offering a range of relocation and cross-cultural services. We also
publish India's only expatriate cultural monthly magazine called At a
Glance—Understanding India. We have worked in easing the passage to
and from India with expatriates from 74 countries. Headquartered in
Chennai, we have offices in all six major cities in India: Bangalore,
Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, and Delhi, and of course, Chennai.

RM -- Before we continue chatting, can I offer you some south Indian
coffee? Or maybe some Darjeeling tea?
(Hmmm. I [Visi] wonder if Goldsmith had any, Coffee or tea I mean...)

MG -- Why do Indians insist on food and drink? I love it myself, but
just wondered.
RM -- Indians' perception of hospitality is a bit different from where
you come from. Food is synonymous with guest relations…offering,
cajoling, and even insisting are all signs of respecting a guest in
India, and business relationships are built by this. So here is a tip:
If you are interested in doing business in India, set time aside to
have tea and biscuits with us first.

MG -- You have told me that you believe individuals work better in
teams in India. Why do you feel that this is true?
RM -- You know, Marshall, it is part of our child-rearing habits…We
[have] this collective culture and upbringing. The good news is that
we lay a lot of stress on collectivism, and therefore we work very
well in teams—and can be super flexible and accommodating. And that is
maybe why we have such brilliant software engineers who adapt to
last-minute changes.

MG -- What is the basis of Hinduism? Do you literally believe that
there was a little blue man called Krishna?
RM -- Krishna is the belief in an idea and a God, both at one time. If
the belief of America and the idea of the very nation can be evoked on
a simple flag of stars and stripes, then why not the idea of an
eternal, all-pervading consciousness that unifies us all in a blue
idol? The color of things all-pervading and endless—like the sky and
ocean— are blue! It is the oneness that is important, not the name,
form or color at the end of the day.

MG-- That makes sense to me. Can you share some facts about India that
may surprise our readers?
RM -- Sure, we invented the zero, without which the world wouldn't
have had computer codes. India is booming and has a growth rate of 9%,
and our people balance materialism with inner wellness.

Read the full article at--
http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/apr2008/ca20080429_770186.htm