Indo American News • Friday, March 19 , 2010
online edition: www.indoamerican-news.com
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Friday, March 19, 2010 | Vol. 29, No. 12
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In IAN this Week
IAA Season Begins with a Sold Out Concert
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Rahat, Enigmatic Sufi Guru to Perform in Houston Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, nephew of qawwali maestro Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, is to perform in Houston on April 24. Rahat has been the voice of many popular Indian songs and has also lended his voice in the soundtrack of Mel Gibson’s movie Apocalypto.
Shanthi: A Journey of Peace Raises Over $120,000 to Benefit AIM for Seva
Colorful Night Images Debuts at Fotofest 2010
Story on Pg 3
BAPS Hosts Annual Women’s Conference Story on Pg 6
Fommy.com Revolutionzing the Wireless World Story on Pg 25
GOT MAIL? Make yourself count.
Fill & mail back your forms. NEWSROOM
Governor Rick Perry Appoints Sara Abraham to Texas Board of Professional Counselors AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry has appointed Sarah Abraham of Sugar Land to the Texas State Board of Professional Counselors for a term to expire Feb. 1, 2013. The board oversees the licensing and regulation of professional counselors in Texas. Abraham is vice president of Zoya Enterprise. She is a certified Christian counselor, from the International Institute for Christian Counselor Training. She is a member and former president of the Hunterwood Municipal Utilities District, and an athletic and academic competition judge for the Fort Bend Independent School District. Abraham is also a former member of the Texas Private Sector Prison Industries Oversight Authority. She is also Commercial Real Estate Developer. She received a bachelor’s degree in Business Management and Finance from the University of Houston.
By Kalyani Giri HOUSTON: It was a feat of Herculean proportions, a display in creative eloquence. The stage at the Cullen Performance Hall at the University of Houston inundated with a cast of 220 singers, musicians, and dancers, the hall resonating with voices in soul-stirring melody, and capacity audiences moved by the messages of global peace and harmony. Shanthi – A Journey of Peace, the brainchild of Cincinnati-based musicologist Maestro Kanniks Kannikeswaran, teamed a coterie of richly enthusiastic vocalists from the local Indo American community with the United Nations Association International Choir (UNAIC) in a unique multi-culturally diverse and interfaith endeavor. Serving as choral and orchestral conductor to Kannikeswaran’s opus was Eric Esparza, Interim Conductor of the UNAIC. Two presentations of Shanthi on March 13, 2010, at 5.00pm and 8.30pm respectively, drew capacity audiences and raised over $120, 000 in ticket sales and donations for the visionary philanthropic organization, All India Movement for Seva (AIM for Seva). The programs began with welcome addresses by Mistresses of Ceremonies for the evening, Bhavani Iyer and Rohini Chandrasekhar, who also acknowledged the presence of dignitaries in the audiences. They included Consul
General of India Hon. Sanjiv Arora, Mayor of Pearland Tom Reid, spiritual heads of diverse faith – based ministries, and leaders of local social, educational, and community organizations. Projected onto large screens flanking the stage were video presentations of humanitarian work being done in India by AIM for Seva. The movement founded and spearheaded by His Holiness Swami Dayananda Saraswati in the early 2000’s, touches the lives of over 2.5 million people in 1,000 rural and tribal villages across 15 states in India. AIM for Seva is a movement that Shanthi’s creator Kannikeswaran resolutely believes in. He made several trips over the past 18 months to this city volunteering his creativity and time for the worthy cause. The performers, many with fulltime jobs, were so inspired and energized by Kannikeswaran’s commitment to the project that they dedicated thousands of hours in preparation for the stage show. Shanthi is a monumental representation of 5000 years of India’s living traditions through music and dance. It reiterates India’s spirit of inclusiveness that allowed a plethora of faiths to co-exist harmoniously for centuries. The presentation celebrates the human mind when it transcends differences and diversity and empowers itself to see goodness and likeness in all beings. A master craftsman conversant in the classical western
and Indian forms of music, Kannikeswaran has built Shanthi on that tensile fabric with multi-textured hues of harmonizing in tandem. Rather than a Broadway presentation that transports participants from city to city, Shanthi incorporates local talent pertinent to the city of performance. The objective of AIM for Seva is to make education possible to every child in inaccessible and rural areas through the concept of chatralayas, or student homes. Student homes are located near existing schools and each student is provided with clean living quarters, food, health check ups, books, vocational training, after school activities, all free of cost to help them get ahead in life. The goal is to have at least one home in each of the 600 states. The charitable trust has more than 122 projects that include 83 chatralayas, 20 schools, five hospitals, 17 health care centers, 11 medical clinics including seven mobile units treating about 200,000 patients each year. More than 20,000 hours of volunteer work went into the making of Shanthi. The stretch goal locally is to raise $500, 000 dollars to educate, and to emotionally and physically care for children in India. For more information or to donate, visit www.aimforseva.org. For more information about Shanthi – A Journey of Peace, visit www.shanthichoir.org.
AUSTIN: Photographer, Michele Wambaugh’s series of night photography The String Theory of Cities debuts here at Fotofest 2010. Her exhibit is at Gallery3 in Winter Street Galleries. This exhibition continues through April 3rd. In October 2008, Wambaugh began this series shooting from the 30th floor of her hotel in Beijing, China, which she was visiting for her first Retrospective Exhibition. Her China exhibit was primarily on India and was opened by the Honorable Nirupama Rao then the Indian Ambassador to China, now Foreign Secretary. After beginning the String Theory series in China, she continued to shoot it in India, Paris and USA. The amazing images Wambaugh creates are not computer manipulated imagery; Canon digital EOS cameras are used and all images are made in-camera. Light is pushed or bent depending on its sources and original speed to create a new world of abstract nebulae, textured ribbons, whirling colors interspersed with sporadic identifiable objects. Based on the difficulties of the techniques and what are need to make images sing, To enter this land of color sends a viewer into the very heart of what light is. In 2006, Texas State Museum of Asian Cultures, Corpus Christi filled their gallery with her “Faces of India.” Wambaugh’s images on India have been published in A Published Gallery (Fairpoint Press, 2009) and featured in Asian Photography Magazine (Mumbai) many times & Petersen’s PhotoGraphic magazine (USA). For six years, she has been lecturing on a variety of photographic topics at many Universities and art venues in New Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and other cities in India. Last year Michele established close ties with 100 photography students in India some of whom she mentors on-line. She hopes to eventually bring an exhibition of their finest work to the USA.
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