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Health Insurance should be Mandatory, Says Montek Ahluwalia An element of incentive-cum-compulsion should be introduced, suggests Planning Commission Head

NEW DELHI (Hindu): Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Thursday pitched for making it mandatory for organised sector employers to take health insurance cover for employees asserting it would help spread the reach of insurance products.

SpeakingattheConfederationofIndian Industry (CII)-organised Health Insurance Summit here, Dr. Ahluwalia said: “There has to be a mandatory provision for providing group health insurance cover to all workers in the organised sector by their employers.”

Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

File Photo

“I think it is feasible. The government should give very serious consideration to making it mandatory for employers to get group insurance for their workers.

We will never be able to spread health

insurance for which people pay unless an element of incentive-cumcompulsion is introduced. If you leave it to people, only rich persons would buy and even middle-class would not go for it,” he added. Dr. Ahluwalia suggested that one of the incentives could be exempting the part contribution of health insurance premium for workers by the employer.

He said there was no point in creating public infrastructure that does not work properly and general public end up bearing the entire expenditure on

getting a patient treated.

Asked about whether the private insurance companies should provide cashless health insurance cover, Dr. Ahluwalia said: “We cannot say that all private insurance companies must run cashless insurance.”

Admitting that the government’s move of making mandatory health insurance cover for all organised worker would not be the only solution, he said “it is true that we cannot do it for self employed people, but government is running a Rashtriya Sawasthya Bima

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Mukesh Ambani to be World’s Richest Man in 2014: Forbes

The magazine predicts that Reliance Industries chief Mukrsh Ambani will pip the world’s richest man Mexican businessman Carlos Slim to its top rich list in 2014 BOSTON (PTI): With a net worth of $62 billion, Indian business tycoon Mukesh Ambani would be the richest man on earth in 2014, according to a forecast issued by the prestigious Forbes magazine.

“One of the predictions is that Reliance Industries’ chief Ambani, who currently has a net worth of $29 billion, pips the world’s richest man Mexican businessman Carlos Slim to top Forbes’ rich list in 2014,” it said.

Ambani’s net worth swells to $62 billion while Slim is “hit hard by Mexican political, financial chaos,” according to the prediction by Forbes.

53-year-old Ambani currently ranks fourth on Forbes’ list of the world’s billionaires.

Forbes has listed a number of events that could happen over the next 10 years in the field of politics, energy, medicine, finance, society and technology. The publication asked its staff and contributors to forecast some of

Health Insurance Should be Mandatory continued from page

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Yojana for them.”

Speaking at the summit, Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) Chairman J. Hari Narayan said the issue of cashless treatment facilities would be resolved soon. “The problem is with certain group of hospitals. I am hopeful it will be resolved soon,” he said.

Apollo Hospitals Chairman Prathap C. Reddy, while speaking at the summit, said it was planning to set up more hospitals and add nearly 3,000 beds over the next two years.

He said “We plan to open new hospitals in different cities. There is also plan to expand capacity of the existing hospitals.”

Apollo Hospitals at present has 8,500 beds in 50 hospitals.

Mukesh Ambani is the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, the largest private sector in India and one of the largest private sector conglomerate in world.

Truth Tests for Employees to Prove Company Loyalty HYDERABAD (SINS): How loyal are you towards your company?

This is the question that employees are going to take very seriously as most of the companies are subjecting their employees to truth tests to find out how loyal they are, reports Saswati Mukherj of the Economic Times.

As per the new concept introduced in many firms, particularly export companies, employees have to face polygraph (lie-detection) tests, which, according to employers, is a way to check how sincere and committed the employees are.

A Hyderabad-based jewellery export firm decided to find out how sincerely were the employees carry out quality checks, when it received a complaint from its U.S.-based client about the dipping quality of diamonds in the jewels. The firm has also introduced a new clause called

“loyalty check clause” as an in-built part of its contract.

According to Gandhi PC Kaza, Founder Chairman of Truth Labs, the questions in the test would include the rapport the employee shares with the Human Resource (HR) person or the quality control manager at the firm. This information will help the employers to figure out the person’s commitment level, he said.

Experts said that although this new concept to be the latest fad in the corporate sector, it can also give rise to legal issues. According to E Balaji, Director and President at MaFoi Randstad, to question the employee’s integrity when he is still on the payrolls is definitely legally debatable. Although the employers can incorporate such clause in their contract letters, employees are free to object to them on a later date, said corporate lawyer K Rajendran.

the “noteworthy events” till 2020.

“A vision of the coming decade sketched from real data, projections and facts whenever possible -- though we’ve injected a dose of rigorous science fiction to fill the gaps,” Forbes said about its special 2020 report called ‘What Happens Next -- Our Look Ahead’.

Another forecast in the field of finance and economics is of fraudster Bernard Madoff’s death in his prison cell in 2011. The convicted Ponzischeme perpetrator is found hanging in his cell and “prison officials will not rule out foul play,” according to the Forbes forecast.

“Futurism favours the bold. Look more than 30 years ahead... and critics will forgive your inaccuracies. We’ve attempted a thought experiment with far tougher standards: predicting the future that’s just around the corner,”

Forbes said.

In 2012, social networking site Facebook debuts on Nasdaq. Its IPOs value $40 billion and founder Mark Zuckerberg becomes the first 20-something who is worth $10 billion-plus.

Then by 2020, Walmart employs five million people worldwide and its sales pass the $1 trillion mark.

The company “cites successful India and Brazil expansions” for the landmark.

In 2017, Harvard endowment doubles in seven years to $50 billion. It offers free tuition to lure top students from China.

The US job scene finally improves in 2018 as unemployment drops below 7% and worst of quadruple-dip recession is likely over, Forbes predicts.

India Wants More Foreign Finance Capital: Says PM

NEW DELHI (PTI): Pitching for increased foreign investment for a growth of 9 to 10 per cent, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday said India will have to pay more attention to the AsiaPacific region but asserted that the country’s “strategic autonomy” would not be compromised.

Addressing top commanders of defence services here, he observed that India’s “toughest challenges” lie in its neighbourhood and the country’s growth ambitions cannot be realised unless peace and stability is ensured in South Asia.

Dr. Singh said as India’s economy grows, the technological capabilities must expand to set higher standards for the modernisation of defence forces and “war fighting doctrines” should be updated to

meet “new threats” to the country’s security.

“In the ultimate analysis, the strength of a nation flows from the strength of its institutions, its values and its economic competitiveness,” the Prime Minister said.

“If we are to sustain a growth rate of 9 to 10 per cent in the foreseeable future, we require foreign capital inflow, both portfolio and direct investment, the best of modern technology and access to markets of the advanced economies,” he said.

For this, India needs to maintain “healthy relations” with all major powers, Dr. Singh said but made it clear that the country’s strategic autonomy would be preserved as it is an “article of faith for us“.

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Siddhartha Lal: The Bulletproof Man

The MD and CEO of the Eicher group is finally off the rollercoaster and feeling entrepreneurial

By Priya Ramani NEW DELHI (Mint): What’s not to like about Siddhartha Lal? He and his wife Natasha do the Lounge couple’s tussle every Saturday (me first, no me first—the woman always wins); he is the man responsible for the miraculous rescue of the iconic Royal Enfield motorcycle in this past decade; and, oddly enough for someone who works in the automobile sector, he worries about pedestrians and believes that “walkability is the killer app of urban mobility”.

Even before we meet for lunch at Latitude 28°, the trendy restaurant that sits above his mother’s iconic Good Earth design store in Delhi’s Khan Market, an enterprising colleague has informed me that he is working on “sustainable urban mobility”. Sure enough, he brings up walkability 10 minutes after we meet.

For a while now, Lal, the 37-year-old head of the Eicher group, has been working his head around the problem of urban mobility. By the year 2050, he says, our cities could hold nearly a billion people, and the problems surrounding our already creaking urban infrastructure will only get messier. More highways are not the answer, says Lal, who believes in sustainable solutions.

So he brainstorms with all kinds of kindred spirits, from IIT professors Dinesh Mohan and Geetam Tewari and differently abled activist Sminu Jindal to Danish bicycle designer Jens Martin Skibsted and the MIT professor and co-founder of car-sharing service Zipcar, Robin Chase. He’s on the World Economic Forum’s global agenda council for transportation and there are plenty of opportunities to meet mayors from all over the world. If I let him, he would spend the entire lunch talking about how other cities have tackled their urban transport problems.

In 2003, for instance, Seoul broke down a busy highway that ran through the centre of town and reopened access to a nullah (stream) around which the city built a big urban park. The Cheonggyecheon Restoration Project created a vibrant public space in the heart of that city.

“I don’t know where the interest and the business collide but eventually we’re an automotive company and we have interests in these areas.

Our business is clearly in mobility, it’s not in making a vehicle,” he says.

For now, he’s happy to become an expert on the subject.

“I feel like an Italian mafia don sitting here,” he says as the staff scurries to do his bidding. I resist the temptation to point out that with his curly dark hair and the mole on his right cheek, he could easily pass off as a good-looking European gangster.

It’s only recently that Lal is relaxed enough to meet for leisurely lunches with people such as myself.

The past few years have been a blur of 12-hour “full immersion” work days, structuring and getting a joint venture w i t h Swedish truckmaker Vo l v o off the ground.

Vo l v o partnered

with group flagship Eicher Motors and invested Rs 1,082 crore for a 50% stake in the new company VECV (Volvo Eicher Commercial Vehicles) in December 2007. Lal’s job was made tougher because the economy slowed just after the two firms signed on the dotted line, but this year sales are back on track.

In June, the company announced it would spend Rs 288 crore to set up a new engine-making facility, making India Volvo’s global manufacturing hub for these particular engines.

“We’re very well placed now to meet our future needs and targets so I’ve taken a step back as far as the joint venture is concerned,” says Lal. I can barely tell my driveline from my chassis so I’m relieved when Lal says that since July he no longer spends 90% of his time on this partnership. While he’s still managing director of VECV and spends about half his time tracking the big picture in the heavy vehicles business, he’s handed over the operational reins to new CEO Vinod Aggarwal. And, among other things, Lal has gone back to being more involved with Royal Enfield.

He’s also working on hiring a new corporate team for Eicher Motors, finding ways to deploy the surplus cash on his company’s balance sheet and becoming an expert on sustainable urban mobility. Recently, he convinced Siam (Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers) to hold a session on the subject at their annual conference.

Last month he went on a testosterone-fuelled, Enfields-only motorcy-

cle trip from Manali to Ladakh with six friends. It’s a trip he’s wanted to do for 15 years though it ended up being a bigger adventure than he had bargained for when the group got caught in the Leh floods and had to be air-lifted back.

“Personally I feel like I’m in a brilliant space,” he says. “The business is going well, I’ve got time. I can be more creative and entrepreneurial, the tension is easing and my life is opening out more.”

Lal’s been on a rollercoaster since 2000 when, as corporate legend has it, he prevented his father from selling Royal Enfield. I ask him if he really raised his hand in a board meeting and announced he could save the loss-making motorcycle company. “I didn’t raise my hand the way you are right now, but that’s pretty much how it happened,” he laughs. “I was so naïve, and I’m happy I was. If I hadn’t been so naïve it would have been horrible. I would never have taken

up the challenge,” he says (see box, How Enfield was saved).

At Enfield, where Lal is just finding his new rhythm, the business model is finally working after more than a decade-long struggle. In the past few years the brand has been successfully repositioned as a cool urban bike though a third of Enfields are still sold in Punjab, Haryana and Delhi. “If our all-India market share is 0.5%, our Sardar market share is 10-15%,” he says.

Thanks to its new-found popularity, the waiting time for an Enfield can now stretch up to nine months and the company recently announced it would invest Rs 200 crore to double capacity in the next two years. Since it addressed the safety concerns of its consumers (for example, traditionally brakes were always located on the “wrong” side; starting it once required incredible patience), Lal says, there’s been an explosion in the number of 18- to 21-year-old Enfield buyers. Café Racer, the next new model, is due at the end of 2012

and new launches will follow every two-three years.

“The really long-term master plan is to take Royal Enfield to a very different space. Our brand must be intricately woven in with long rides.

When someone buys this bike it should be because he thinks he can drive it to the Himalayas,” says Lal. He also plans to look at areas such as after-market service, spare parts, customization, accessories (though Enfield has tried the last before and failed), and exports to developing markets. “It’s counterintuitive but developed countries were buying us earlier because of the vintage factor.

Now that our products are much better in terms of reliability, we can sell to developing markets,” he says.

The company recently launched its motorcycles in Colombia and will also export to other countries in South America, Africa and SouthEast Asia. “At Rs 500 crore revenue, it’s not a huge brand, but it’s got this whole aura which we’re trying to build on,” he says.

Easy rider: Lal says the Enfield has been successfully repositioned as a cool urban bike.

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Why Do Terrorists Blow Themselves Up?

They are neither mindless nor senseless, only a very different mind-set, with different sensibilities. Surprisingly, altruism emerges as a major factor in the complex set of causes behind the suicide attacks.

By Riaz Hassan Nine years ago, 19 young Muslims commandeered passenger jets and killed themselves, taking with them 2973 people to the inferno of fire. Since the 9/11 attacks suicide bombings have become a staple of daily news, although the practice dates back at least two decades. A commonly accepted narrative frames such acts of self-destruction as the action of psychologically impaired, morally deficient, uneducated, impoverished individuals and, most of all, religious fanatics.

But the analysis of information based on 1597 suicide attacks between 1981 and 2008, which killed more than 21,000 in 34 countries, suggests a more complex set of reasons, an understanding of which is essential if the world is to see an end of such slaughter. My book, Life as a Weapon, analyses suicide bombings as a method of choice among terrorist groups around the world and the motivations.

Surprisingly, altruism emerges as a major factor in the complex set of causes behind the suicide attacks. In its most fundamental character, following the seminal studies of economist Ernest Fehr and colleagues, altruism can be defined as the costly actions that confer benefits on other individuals. Altruism is a fundamental condition accounting for human cooperation for organization of society and its cohesiveness. In the conceptual map of French sociologist Emile Durkheim, suicide bombings would fall in the category of altruistic suicidal actions – distinct from other types of suicidal actions caused by personal catastrophes, hopelessness and psychopathologies that lead people to believe life is not worth living.

Altruistic suicides, on the other hand, involve valuing one’s life as less worthy than the group’s honor, religion or other collective interests.

The genesis of suicide bombings is rooted in intractable asymmetrical conflicts pitching the state against non-state actors over political entitlements, territorial occupation and dispossession. Invariably such conflicts instigate state-sanctioned vio-

lence and repressive policies against weaker non-state parties causing widespread outrage and large-scale dislocation of people, many of whom become refugees in makeshift camps, in or outside so-called war zones.

Carolyn Nordstrom captures the mood in Sri Lanka during the recently ended civil war: “In the war zones, violence and war permeated all aspect of daily life. It was not certain a person going for work would return in the evening. A home could be suddenly searched, someone brutally killed, a mother raped or father taken away. A shell could land anywhere destroying everything around.…This kind of pervasive atmosphere of violence, rather than breaking down the resistance and spirit of population, in times creates resistance and defiance, particularly in the youth.” Other contributing factors include incarceration and dehumanizing treatments of insurgents in state custody and mutual dehumanization of the “other.”

Suicide bombing, rarely the strategy of first choice, is selected by terrorist organizations after collective assessments, based on observations and experience, of strategies’ relative effectiveness to achieve political goals. The decision to participate is facilitated by suicide bombers’ internalized social identities, their exposure to asymmetric conflict and its costs, their exposure to organizations that sponsor such attacks as well as membership in a larger community where sacrifice and martyrdom carry high symbolic significance.

From sociological and economic perspectives, suicide bombings can be linked to altruism as a form of intergenerational investment or an extreme form of saving in which the agent gives up current consumption for the sake of enhancing probability of descendants enjoying benefit of some future public good.

Analysis of Hezbollah suicide bombers in Lebanon shows that incidents of suicide bombing attacks increase with current income and the degree of altruism towards the next generation. Hezbollah suicide bombers come from above-average wealthy families and have above-

average levels of education. The willingness of more educated people to engage in suicide missions suggests that education affects one’s view of the world, enhancing sensitivity to the future.

Altruism can also be socially constructed in communities that have endured massive social and eco-

nomic dislocations as a result of long, violent and painful conflict with a more powerful enemy. Under such conditions people react to perceived inferiority and the failure of other efforts by valuing and supporting ideals of self-sacrifice such as suicide bombing. Religiously and nationalistically coded attitudes towards acceptance of death stemming from long periods of collective suffering, humiliation and powerlessness enable political organizations to give people suicide bombing as an outlet for feelings of desperation, deprivation, hostility and injustice.

French filmmaker Pierre Rehov interviewed many Palestinians in Israeli jails, arrested following failed suicide-

bombing missions or for aiding and abetting such missions, for his film Suicide Killers. Every one of them tried to convince him that that the action was the right thing to do for moralistic reasons. According to Rehove, “these aren’t kids who want to do evil. These are kids who want to do good….” The result – young people who had previously conducted their lives as good people believe that a suicide bombing represented doing something great.

Suicide bombings invariably provoke a brutal response from authorities. By injecting fear and mayhem into ordinary rhythms of daily life, such bombings undermine the state’s authority in providing security and maintaining social order. Under such conditions the state can legitimately impose altruistic punishments to deter future violation threatening security and social order. These include punishments meted out to perpetrators and their supporters. The state-sanctioned

military actions against the Palestinians, Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers, Iraqi insurgents and the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan are examples of these punishments.

But altruistic punishments are only effective when they do not violate the norms of fairness. Punishments and sanctions seen as unfair, hostile, selfish and vindictive by targeted groups tend to have detrimental effects. Instead of promoting compliance, they reinforce recipients’ resolve to non-compliance. Counterinsurgency operations are aimed at increasing the cost of insurgency to the insurgents, and invariably involve eliminating leaders and supporters who plan suicide bombings, destroying insurgents’capabilities for mounting future attacks, and restrictions on mobility and other violations of civil liberties.

But there is mounting evidence that such harsh measures reinforce radical opposition and even intensify it. This is now happening in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories and has also been the case in Sri Lanka and Iraq and other conflict sites. Outlook

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Katha of a Different Kind

From a CA topper to a sought-after Harikatha artiste. Vishakha Hari says kathakalakshepam is a way of life for her

By CHitra H swaminatHan H Han CHENNAI (Hindu): Vishakha Hari is in her early thirties but walks in a madisar (nine-yard sari) with the élan of a veteran. She is an all-India rank-holder in chartered accountancy but revels being a raconteur. She grew up in Chennai but prefers the spiritual aura and serenity of Srirangam. She travels widely for her performances but leisure is spent studying scriptures and rehearsing upanyasam and sangeetham.

In this e-driven world, Vishakha is an anachronism; drawing full houses with her musical discourses. And at a time when snazzy pictures and sound bytes are a must for success, Vishakha insists “what have I achieved, why are you clicking so many pictures?

One small photograph and a short write-up focussing on harikatha should do.”

So the brief photo shoot-cuminterview begins late in the morning at Nageshwara Rao Park, (after we convince her that the outdoors would be better) where walkers stop to greet her with a namaskaram.

After a few shots are taken, she is ready to leave. “Enough?” she asks and we nod rather hesitantly.

It’s time anyway for the park to be closed. We then gently suggest taking a few more pictures at the nearby Kapaleeswarar temple tank. Anxious about the packed day ahead and her late evening trip to Bangalore for a performance, Vishakha reluctantly agrees. And as she alights the steps to the temple tank, her face suddenly lights up and with child-like charm she remarks, “Oh, this is so serene and wonderful. I could read and sing here the whole day.”

Evidently, she instantly connects to places with spiritual vibrations.

Vishakha then turns to tell you she never visits beaches or parks. Anyway, there is not much scope for sightseeing in her hectic travel itineraries.

Does she not think about life beyond the humdrum of performances and practice? “For me, kathakalakshepam is not just about perfor performance. It stays with me even when I get off stage. There is no such thing as professional or personal life. They blend seamlessly. And I have chosen this way of life out of passion for the art form. So where is the need to think beyond it?” she philosophises with flair.

Inspiration from home She was 22 when she took to this age-old art form after marrying into the family of celebrated harikatha exponent Krishna Premi. Vishakha’s husband Hariji also conducts discourses.

A disciple of violin maestro Lalgudi Jayaraman, Vishakha’s early and elaborate training in classical music helps her convey eloquently the essence of the ancient texts.

“Home is where inspiration comes from. I draw from my father-in-law’s

them more appealing to the young?

“That’s not warranted if youngsters have a basic awareness about our arts. They will eventually learn to appreciate their beauty. Parents need to introduce children to our heritage, art and culture. You know the phrase ‘catch them young’ has reference in

mythology too. Prahlada talks about it in ‘Koumara achareth pragyaha’ when he reforms asura kids and talks about inculcating good achar in children for them to lead a wholesome life,” she says lovingly patting her son, Rajagopala.

Harikatha exponent Vishakha Hari. Photos: K.V. Srinivasan

experience, rich repertoire of stories and the numerous books penned by him. Observation, reading, research and rehearsal are essential to upanyasam,” says Vishakha, clad in a blue pattu sari with a bold peacock-shaped brooch pinned on the talapu (pallu).

The simple accessories — mookuthi and jhumki — have the same oldworld appeal as her art.

Doesn’t she find draping the nineyard every day cumbersome? “It is all in the mind. In Chennai or Cleveland, I am always clad in it. It was extremely cold when I visited the U.S. for a recital, but I stuck to my dress code,” smiles Vishakha.

Though kathakalakshepam conjures up images of a serious religious discourse attended by a small gather gathering of elders, Vishakha’s harikatha performances have a huge following.

Her distinctive and vibrant style of coherently weaving stories from the past, peppering them with contemporary metaphors and punctuating them suitably with classical compositions keep the audience, comprising the old and the young, engaged till the last word is uttered. Her reach is wider because she performs in English outside Chennai. She spoke on “Role of education in international development” at the House of Commons in the U.K. She has also released six DVDs that are quite a sell out.

How does she react to criticism that there is more music than discourse in her upanyasam? “There are such evocative verses and compositions by great saints that lend themselves beautifully to the stories from epics and mythology and make it easy to convey the inherent message or philosophy,” she replies with schoolgirlearnestness.

Does she plan to introduce new elements into her performances to make

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India, US Prisoners Exchange Treaty Likely

Such treaties are designed to relieve some of the special hardships that fall upon convicts imprisoned far from home, and to facilitate the rehabilitation of these offenders in familiar surroundings By saH aHil Hil makkar & ElizaBE liza tH roCHE NEW DELHI (Mint): Indian nationals jailed in US prisons and US citizens incarcerated in India could get to serve out the remainder of their sentences in their own country under the terms of a bilateral treaty being explored by the two governments, according to officials of the home ministry and the ministry of external affairs dealing with the matter.

Such treaties are designed to relieve some of the special hardships that fall upon convicts imprisoned far from home, and to facilitate the rehabilitation of these offenders in familiar surroundings.

“Two weeks ago ministry of exter external affairs floated this proposal and it was sent to the various ministries, including home and social empowerment ministries,” a senior home ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

“The said treaty would allow US nationals, who are serving their sentences in India, to go back to their country and serve the rest of the sentence term in a US jail. The same would also be applicable to the Indian nationals serving sentences in US jails,” the official added.

Another home ministry official said the proposal had been drafted and put before home minister P. Chidambaram for his approval.

According to the Indian officials, the treaty is also being considered by the US government.

The development comes at a time when India is trying to put pressure on the US government for the extradition of War Warren Anderson, who was chief executive officer of Union Carbide Corp. when tonnes of toxic gas leaked from a Union Carbide pesticides plant in Bhopal in December 1984, killing thousands of people and maiming thousands more.

Anderson is facing criminal charges, including culpable homicide not amounting to murder, voluntarily causing hurt, and criminal conspiracy, which attracts a punishment of 10 years in prison.

Some 3,500 people died in the im-

mediate aftermath of the gas leak and around 100,000 were affected.

Anderson was arrested soon after the tragedy took place, but he left the country after being let off on bail. The US department of state has denied his

India and the US are looking to sign the proposed new treaty within six months, but officials familiar with the matter said it is likely to take longer.

“Negotiations and signing of any international treaty usually takes

custody to Indian law enforcement agencies ever since, stating that the request of the Indian government does not meet the requirements under an existing extradition treaty.

more than a year or two. At present, both the governments are working at their ends to draft the proposal.

The negotiations are yet to start as it involves alignment of procedures

relating to each other’s legal systems and laws,” said a senior official in the ministry of external affairs.

Once the home ministry “finishes the draft, we will facilitate the signing of the agreement”, said the official, who, too, didn’t want to be named.

“It is unlikely that it would be signed during US President Barack Obama’s visit to New Delhi in November this year.”

According to the US Department of Statewebsite,theUShassuchbilateral treaties with Bolivia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Thailand and Turkey, and is a party to two multilateral conventions, the Council of Europe convention on the transfer of sentenced persons, and the Inter-American convention on serving criminal sentences abroad.

The US has similar agreements with more than 50 countries. India, too, has similar agreements with countries such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the UK. Mint couldn’t immediately ascer ascertain the number of Indians imprisoned in US jails and the number of US citizens doing time in Indian prisons.

India-born convicts in US jails include fashion designer Anand Jon Alexander, who in August last year was sentenced to 59 years in prison after being found guilty of sexually assaulting aspiring models.

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News of the Diaspora Indo American News Violence in Kashmir Spirals: 12 Killed, 70 Injured

South Asia

SRINAGAR (PTI): Kashmir was on the boil again as fresh violence claimed 12 lives and left 70 injured on Monday with mobs torching several government properties and a private school.

Five persons were killed and more than 20 others injured in alleged firing by security forces at Tangmarg, 45 km from here, in Baramulla district after protesters went on a rampage setting ablaze a private school following rumours of desecration of a holy book in the U.S., officials said.

The school is being run by a minor minority educational group.

The mob torched Block Development Office, court chamber, tehsildars official vehicle and residence, social welfare office, patwari office and two huts of tourism department, the officials said.

The agitators then attacked a police station and tried to ransack it, prompting the security forces to fire at them.

Nearly 20 persons were injured in the firing.

While two youths — Muddasir Ahmad Parray and Abdul Majid — were

Flames rise from a government building set on fire by protesters in with mobs attacking government property and a private school.

declared dead at the nearby Magam Sub District Hospital, another youth succumbed to injuries at a city hospital here. He has been identified as Abdul Qayoom, officials at the hospitals said.

Two injured youths, identified as Afaq Ahmad Khan and Tariq Ahmad Ganai, were declared dead on arrival at a city hospital.

TV channel banned The Jammu and Kashmir government, meanwhile, banned an inter international news channel, Press TV, after it aired the report about alleged desecration of the holy book.

“The transmission of Press TV in Jammu and Kashmir has been banned with immediate effect,” State Chief Secretary S.S. Kapur told reporters here.

He said the move was prompted after reports of the alleged sacrilege act. Also the channel was not registered with the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry as required by law.

U.S. expresses dismay In New Delhi, the U.S. Ambassador Timothy J. Roemer expressed

dismay over the violence following reports of “a misguided individual desecrating the Quran“.

Two protesters were killed allegedly in security forces action at Humhama in Budgam district, where a group of people attacked a security forces camp.

Ghulam Rasool Tantary was critically injured and succumbed to injuries at a hospital, a police spokesman said.

Nine-year-old Dil Ahmad Lone also succumbed to injuries.

Residents of Charar-e-Sharief held peaceful protests in the central Kashmir Budgam town in the morning but a section of the crowd attacked a CRPF camp with stones, deputy Commissioner Budgam Rafi Ahmad said.

He said in the retaliatory firing by the CRPF personnel, seven persons were injured. “One of the injured, Danish Nabi, sucumbed to injuries before he could be taken to hospital,” the official said.

Two of the injured were referred to Srinagar hospital while four were un un-

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continued on page

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Cheap Cycles for Hire in Pune to Fight Road Traffic Blues PUNE (PTI): With traffic and parking woes worsening by the day, Pune civic authorities plan to encourage use of bicycles by citizens on a nominal rent.

Approved in principle, the proposal envisages creating cycle stands in different parts of the ever-expanding city, spurring the people to pedal their way for chores that require travelling short distance.

“Once upon a time Pune -- Maharashtra’s cultural capital and seat of education which has now become global IT A cycle plant at Ludhiana, Punjab. File Photo and auto hubs -- was known as ‘cycle city’ in the country. We want to give a been initiated by the civic authorisemblance of the old identity back to ties to procure branded cycles which it to derive manifold benefits that can would be painted distinctly to denote follow when cycles come back on the their PMC affiliation.

“Those who want to avail of the roads,” Aba Bagul, Congress leader of the Opposition in Pune Municipal cycle facility will be asked to fill in a Corporation (PMC) who piloted the form and will be issued a smart card detailing their names and addresses project in the civic body, told PTI. Traffic jams and bottlenecks have after a payment of Rs 300 as one become order of the day in the city, time fix deposit. The card holder then which is bursting at its seams with can use the cycle for three hours free a population touching five million- of charge every day and subsequent mark and an estimated 15-lakh ve- hour will cost him Rs 5,” Bagul explained. hicles dotting the streets.

The novel scheme, under which The tender floating process has

the number of PMC cycles to one lakh. This will certainly ease the traffic problems in the city where the roads are congested and parking spaces are not sufficient for cars, motorbikes and auto-rickshaws,” Bagul said.

The proposed cycle stands, to be given on annual contract basis to op-

erators by PMC, would be initially set up in the vicinity of colleges, schools, offices and vegetable markets.

The idea is that anyone can take a suitable cycle ride to run an errand and do daily shopping, saving on the precious fuel and contributing to pollution control.

Violence in Kashmir

continued from page

the first lot of 2,000 cycles will be introduced on an experimental basis, is being given final shape by a coordination committee comprising Bagul, civic authorities and Pune traffic police branch, and is expected to “hit the road” by November.

The PMC is propagating and promoting the use of cycles with a three-point campaign emphasising on “health exercise, safety factor and fuel conservation” aspects of the cheapest individual transport for covering short distances.

“In due course we intend to increase

31

dergoing treatment at Charar-eSharief hospital, the official said.

A woman identified as Rafiqa, wife of Abdul Gani Teli, died on the spot when she was hit by a stray bullet inside her residential compound at Ompora in Budgam.

In another incident, he said a large mob assembled outside police station Budgam and indulged in heavy stonepelting.

Sources said more than 10 persons were injured as police fire warning shots and lobbed tear smoke shells to disperse the mob.

A policeman, Devender Singh, was also killed when he was run over by a vehicle while chasing a stone pelting mob in Budgam. This is the first time a policeman has been killed in the ongoing unrest.

One person was killed and two others were injured when security forces allegedly opened fire to quell a stonepelting mob in Bandipora district, police spokesman said.

A large number of protesters had

gathered at Ajas, 45 km from here, and started raising slogans, he said.

A section of crowd started pelting stones at security forces, who fired warning shots to disperse them. Three persons were injured in the incident, the spokesman said, adding one of them identified as Nissar Ahmad Bhat was declared brought dead at a Srinagar hospital.

A youth identified as Aijaz Ahmad Gojri was killed and 12 others were injured in clashes between security forces and protesters at Pampore town of Pulwama district, sources said.

Meanwhile, chairman of hardline Hurriyat faction SyedAli Shah Geelani condemned the torching of the private school and appealed to the people to safeguard the property and life of the minorities in the Valley.

“Geelani strongly condemns the burning of a private school at Tangmarg. It is our religious duty to safeguard the property and life of the minorities,” party spokesman Ayaz Akbar said.

INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17 , 2010 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM

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Indo American News • Friday, September 17, 2010

eNtertAINMeNt

ONLINE EDITION: www.indoamerican-news.com

Salman Khan’s “Dabangg” is a Dehati Robinhood Cop Hero

By Mayank Shankar MUMBAI (HT):If you kill me off, Chulbul ‘Robinhood’ Pandey warns a bunch of goons: “You serve 21 years in jail; thokai He says of himself, “Iss policewale ne agar thoka (If I bump you off instead), then promotion (for me); bahaduri ka medal alag se (bravery award comes separate).”

Mr Pandey is a policeman, of course. In the midst of a shootout and while chasing criminals, he never yet lets go of his sense of humour. A Bollywood ‘item song’ recurrently blasts out of a cellphone ringtone, from one of the goon’s pockets. Pandey stops. He starts to gyrate to the song instead.

This undisputed cop hero makes no bones about making black wealth from his uniformed job, openly pockets cash, stashes them in his mother’s locker, answers politics with his own deceit, is still the hero, without any signs of redemption (unlike, say, Bachchan’s Shahenshah).

He also lives for the moment he could literally tear his shirt off to finally reveal at the end, homoerotic biceps and a shaven, bare torso. The public will accept with open arms this hero, who’s both naked and nakedly corrupt. The producers are convinced. Mainstream movies in that sense, aimed at what they call the masses, subtly confirm a truth or two about a disturbingly changing India.

This is stuff for sociology!

Mr Pandey’s a super-hero in the tradition spawned by children’s cinema since the ‘70s (films of Bachchan, Dharmendra, thereafter Mithun, Devgan, Sunny Deol etc). Where the leading man serves for his audience poetic and vigilante justice in three hours flat. This one is merely two hours long. And for a change is relatively richly set, in the under-scaled, dark interiors of Uttar Pradesh.

Salman Khan, perhaps for the first time in his career, sports both a moustache to suggest his provincial maleness, and local accent to suit a lead role. He even stretches his stiff

facial muscles occasionally to lend to his fans the rare grin; throws in the odd public service message on polio drops and religion in politics.

He is but no underdog up against any system.

It’s difficult to figure what the hero is fighting for really, but his own self.

This makes the villain (Sonu Sood) terribly weak; eventual salvation, deeply unsatisfying; plot, fairly pointless. But if you were in with the flow, I suppose, you wouldn’t care.

Salman’s puzzling swagger alone is probably what you walked in for.

And this swinging pastiche is a whole lot less of a Bollywood bore than the

super-star’s recent event pictures: Yuvraj, Wanted, London Dreams, Veer….

The balance between soulless spoof and self-serious senselessness is also easier consumed here than similar attempts of the recent past (Tashan, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom…). Each time, for instance, the camera swish-pans to a soap oper operatic scene, the filmmakers make sure to switch into a corny background score from the American Westerns! The genre remains untouched.

The music, largely inspired from Vishal Bhardwaj’s Omkara – title track, or the nautch number Munni Badnaam Hui (the new Bidi Jalaile) – it appears, comes with hoots and whistles as an inserted underlay. Something you suspect about scenes as well. The audience is suitably informed. The action is comically balletic, and when there’s no humour to complete the masala, standalone jokes play out before the screen. This is that epiloguefilm-prologue, super-B movie, with reasonably A-budgets.

It’d be a shame to watch this anywhere outside of an old, decrepit single screen theatre, in the spirit of the loud tradition that Hindi movies have always been: severely light on both the brains and the wallet. Mad stuff! Really.

Sonakshi Sizzles

Debutant Sonakshi Sinha, who has been touted as being a look alike of yester year star Reena Roy, has been well appreciated for her role as the daring Rajo, and her great on screen chemistry with Salman.

Sonakshi Sinha is the daughter of veteran actor and politician Shatrughan Sinha and Punam Sinha. Sonakshi has two brothers, Luv Sinha and Kussh Sinha.

She has worked with Lakme Fashion week and has been chosen to represent India for the Model Gate Show.

Sonakshi reportedly shed 26 kilos to walk the ramp like a professional model. She also designed costumes for her mother Poonam Sinha’s first production film ‘Mera Dil Leke Dekho’ which starred Koel Purie in the year 2005.

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Great W’kana Cafe

food talk

Indo American News • Friday, September 17 , 2010

35

Get All Your Veggies in a Basket

MUMBAI (TOI): Produce in this city has as many ways to enter the home kitchen as there are recipes for chicken. Here’s the newest vehicle: the Hari Bhari Tokri.

The Tokri is the doing of the Mumbai Organic Farmers and Consumers Association (MOFCA). This collective of about 10 urban farmers (lay folk from Mumbai who harvest organic crop from their fields), and votaries who feed off their stock, has been around for about a year.

“Some of us tried selling our stock independently before but that has limitations such as the challenge of constant supply, logistics, the overall expense of transportation and distribution,’’ says Ubai Hussein, the urban farmer who cobbled this group together.

With the Hari Bhari Tokri a consumer will, every week, Presents Traditional Indian food in a contemporary style receive a basket of fresh organic veggies grown locally Dinner (5:30 - 10 pm) and native to season (summer, winter, rains). These will Breakfast (10 - 11) Lunch: (11 - 3 pm) be forked out from fields in Maharashtra, from Bhiwan- Mumbai Organic Farmers and • Vegan Menu • Seafood • Gourmand Lunch • Parathas di, Ganeshpuri, Dahanu, Badlapur and Karjat.

Consumers Association have • Chicken • Lamb Combos • Omelettes Those interested in the scheme need to register with started the Hari Bhari Tokri • Soups • Salads • Breads MOFCA 45 days before the start of a season (this sea- (Fresh Greens Full Basket) • Chai • Kapi & More son’s registrations close on September 1), so the farmers encouraging local home We support local farmers and buy only the freshest produce for your plate have a handle on the quantity they have to sow. Families owners to register for a year in turn get fresh vegetables year round. The basket order to purchase fresh vegetables 11720 W. Airport @ Kirkwood, Suite 600, Meadows Place will contain four to six veggies out of a list of about 25 that will encourage local • 832-886-4291 vegetables which the families can rotate as they want. farming practices

Boutique Indian Cuisine

Chef Sunil Srivastava

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Indo American News • Friday, September 17 , 2010

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economic outlook

Indo American News • Friday, September 17 , 2010

IT Firms Creating Insourcing Jobs in Rural U.S.A.

By Vivek Sinha and Salil Mekaad

BANGALORE (HT): What offshoring? India is actually creating jobs in US The US state of Ohio has strictly enforced a ban on government projects from being serviced out of offshore locations.

Does that matter?

If Ohio is unwelcome, there are Oklahoma, Minnesota, Florida and other provinces peppered across the US that can continue to fuel growth in India’s software service companies, say industry executives.

As worried IT firms went back to the drawing boards to redraft their growth strategies, experts said it could well make greater economic sense to set up technology parks in smaller cities within the US. This would ensure that work is not “off-shored,” or moved to a foreign locations – something that hurts American jobs — and also make them eligible for US government projects.

An anti-outsourcing campaign is gathering political steam ahead of US Senate elections in November.

“In the best case an IT company can save close to around 40 to 45 per cent costs through offshoring. But if they set up campuses in smaller cities in the US, they could still enjoy tax breaks, qualify for government projects and create job opportunities locally,” Avinash Vashishtha, CEO of offshore service advisory firm Tholons, told HT. In the final analysis this would help offset costs—economic as well as political, Vashistha said.

In fact, Indian firms could be creating jobs in the US. Experts expect Indian IT firms to ramp up their capacities there in the coming years.

HCL Technologies, which currently works with numerous state and local government agencies in the US, said its projects are managed and staffed almost exclusively through local service delivery centres located Raleigh, North Carolina and New Jersey.

“HCL has been increasingly creating domestic delivery capabilities in the US,” the company said.

Many of HCL Tech’s peers have also executed similar strategies.

Americans may start getting outsourcing jobs, but they will be working for TCS or Infosys.

Wipro has invested in expanding presence there through partnerships with States like Georgia where it has built a development centre.

Tata Consultancy Services, the country’s largest software exporter, and Number Two player Infosys also have service centres in the US. Infosys has a consulting unit that employs dozens of consultants.

Every time President Barack Obama repeats his opposition to offshoring work, he gets a bonus round of applause with a few “yeahs” thrown in. It’s an act he plays from the heart, the same way each time, never mind the uproar in India against US protectionism.

Actually, it’s not an act at all. A tax concession on US companies’ earnings abroad stands withdrawn and he has not shown a change of mind or heart on the issue yet.

“For years, our tax code has given billions of dollars in tax breaks that encourage companies to create jobs and profits in other countries,” Obama said on Wednesday. “I want to change that.”

Sharing the stage was Ohio governor Ted Strickland, who only a month ago banned offshoring of projects funded by government money.

If there are hopes of either gentleman changing his mind, here is what Strickland’s office told Hindustan Times, on Wednesday: “The governor’s executive order (issued in 2008) made it very clear that Ohio’s policy has been — and must continue to be — that public funds should not be spent on services provided offshore.”

But one company violated that

order. The governor’s office said the official responsible for policing the violation had been fired and the governor had redoubled his commitment to make sure public funds are not sent offshore at the cost of Ohio or US workers if they can do the job.

Both Obama and Strickland are Democrats whose supporters come from the section of people worst hit by offshored jobs. “They cannot afford to look soft on the issue,” said a political observer.

Unemployment is around 9.6 per cent countrywide and around 10 per cent in Ohio. They cannot be seen to be sending jobs abroad.

Republicans, with the traditional backing of the big businesses, stand in contrast. They support offshoring as do big businesses, as they don’t have to worry about laid-off workers. “The wrong approach is to implement measures that restrict trade, invite retaliation or violate the United States Constitution or our foreign trade agreements,” California’s Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said in 2004 when he vetoed an anti-offshoring bill.

An industry official admitted to difficult times. “We are for free trade but at times such as this politicians will look at their constituency,” he said.

India is unlikely to get anything from Obama during his November tour, said someone close to the preparations for the visit. Besides, he would be there immediately after the mid-term elections, in which the Democrats are expected to perform very badly. “Obama will not be in a mood to concede anything then,” he said.

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Charity challenge

Chef Anand George to Cook £15,000 Curry for Charity

CARDIFF, WALES (BBC): An Indian restaurant chef is facing what he describes as “the most challenging meal I’ve ever cooked” with a price tag of £15,000.

An anonymous donor bid that much for him to cook for 10 guests at his home.

Anand George, of the Mint and Mustard in Cardiff, was at a charity auction in aid of Ty Hafan children’s hospice in the Vale of Glamorgan. He said he was “truly honoured and humbled that someone thought so much of my food”.

Ten chefs from across south Wales were asked to prepare their signature dishes for a gala dinner, including Mr George, who moved to Wales in 2005 after training in the southern Indian cuisine of kerala.

Guests then had the opportunity to bid for the chef of their choice to come to their home and cook for a private dinner party.

“The first few chefs went for £4,000 and £5,000, and a lady had told me that she was going to bid £3,000 for me, so I was just re-

lieved that I wasn’t going to be embarrassed,” he said.

“I couldn’t believe it when the bidding kept going up and up,

Chef Anand George

and I almost fainted by the time it reached £15,000”.

Mr George, who has worked at some of Mumbai’s most prestigious five star hotels, has to work out how he’s going to replicate his Tiffin Cup-winning food in a domestic kitchen.

“I think it will be the most challenging meal I’ve ever cooked in my life.

Pan-fried seabass “I have all these ideas about what I’d like to create, then I have to remind myself that I’ve probably only got four rings, one

oven and one grill to work with.

“I think I might be allowed to take someone from the restaurant along to help me, but it’s the most frightening thing I’ve ever done.

“Cooking for 10 people in a household kitchen may seem like a big deal to me, but it’s nothing compared to the challenges the kids at Ty Hafan have to face.

“I’ll do it, and make it the best meal I’ve ever cooked, because I’m not just cooking for the gentleman who bid for me, I’m cooking for all the children who need the money so badly.

“After it’s all done, I’d love to visit Ty Hafan, and see what we’ve helped to achieve, it’s all thanks to my mystery man’s generosity”.

Mr George is hoping that his benefactor asks for his signature dish, and his favourite to cook: panfried seabass, in a mango, ginger and coconut sauce.

He is prepared to make anything they ask for, though the dish which would give him the most sleepless nights would be a roasted loin of pork.

Indo American News • Friday, September 17 , 2010

39

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Indo American News • Friday, September 17 , 2010

sports

S. Aussies Pull Off Heist vs. Mumbai

ONLINE EDITION: www.indoamerican-news.com

Mumbai were at

By Siddarth an unsatisfactory 79 raV a indran for 3 after 12.1 overs DURBAN when Pollard walked (Cricinfo): South in. Tiwary and PolAustralia pushed lard smashed sixes the much-fancied over long-off in the Mumbai Indians rest of the over to kick to the brink of start the innings. Polelimination after a lard blasted another pulsating match in over long-on in the Durban, pulling off next before showing a massive chase to off his touch, paddling make it two wins a full ball wide of fine in two and get a leg for four to move to toehold on a place 18 off 8. in the final four. In It was then time a game filled with for Tiwary to take frenetic scoring, over. He mauled leftMumbai’s abysarm spinner Aaron mal fielding gifted O’Brien for 25 in the the opposition plenty of lives and Cameron Borgas and Tom Cooper smashed 24 off the last seven 16th, belting two sixes free runs, which balls to see South Australia home as Harbhajan Singh watches over midwicket and another over wide proved to be the in disappointment. long-on off consecumajor difference tive deliveries. In four hajan Singh. The third delivery was between the two whipped to deep midwicket where JP overs, the Mumbai run-rate sprang sides.

Mumbai seemed overwhelming Duminy dived to keep it to two. The from 6.5 to 8.5 Pollard and Tiwary provided most favourites when Kieron Pollard and next was swiped way over the stands Dwayne Bravo were dancing to the to make the equation three off four. A of the pyrotechnics, but contrasting music after Pollard mowed Shaun full toss was offered, duly thumped efforts from Ambati Rayudu early on Tait for the biggest six of the tourna- past mid-on for four leaving Cooper and Dwayne Bravo at the end were ment in the penultimate over. How- in dreamland. He finished with 19 also important contributions.

Rayudu had scratched around early ever, there were cameos to outshine off 5, making Borgas’ 14 off 5 seem on when Mumbai was in trouble. He the Trinidad duo, as a nerveless South a little bit pedestrian.

Before the manic finish, Harris was just opening out by cracking the Australia plundered 69 off the final 5.3 overs to snatch victory. The late and Klinger got over a rough begin- left-arm spinner O’Brien for a four fireworks would have been to no avail ning full of swings and misses. They and an effortless six over extra cover had it not been for the solid 112-run also capitalised on the many chances when he mishit Cullen Bailey to opening stand between Daniel Harris Mumbai offered - Tendulkar and Ti- hand him his first Twenty20 wicket. wary dropping catches, and Duminy Bravo came in with Mumbai on top and captain Michael Klinger.

With 41 needed off 18 deliver deliver- missing a run-out - and started to and pushed them into a position of ies, and with two new batsman at hit out once the main bowlers, Za- command with a four-filled cameo, the crease, South Australia seemed heer and Lasith Malinga, were taken looting 22 off 12 deliveries.

The tall total that Mumbai finished headed for defeat. The choice for off. Murtaza was welcomed with a Mumbai was to go with either Bravo couple of sixes, Bravo taken for 18 in with hardly looked possible given or the spinner Ali Murtaza. Sachin the 11th and Pollard slapped around their insipid start. Shikhar Dhawan didn’t bother with footwork and was Tendulkar opted for Bravo, who was for 16 two overs later.

Mumbai hit back, taking a wicket in caught out by the away swing of carted for three fours in his over by Dan Christian and Cameron Borgas. each of the next four overs to reduce Gary Putland in the second over. TenStill, Zaheer Khan removed Christian South Australia to 140 for 4, but the dulkar was also not at his fluent best, in the next over. Borgas was on 9 off tenacity and brilliance of Borgas and swinging and missing several wide 3 at that stage, and after a sliced four Cooper proved too much in the end. deliveries. He handed Dan Christian a Mumbai had earlier showed their pasting in the fifth over, but struggled over point handed strike to the new man, Tom Cooper, formerly of the batting wasn’t overly reliant on their otherwise, nearly stumped in the sixth captain, Tendulkar, by fighting back before being cleaned up by O’Brien, Netherlands.

Cooper faced the next five deliver deliver- from 59 for 3 at the halfway stage to charging down the track and attempties, which was all he needed to wrap finish at a strong 180. After South ing a swing towards long-on but up the game. The first was a full toss Australia’s unheralded spinners sti- beaten by the lack of turn.

South Australia celebrated the dison the pads nonchalantly flicked over fled the scoring in the middle overs, fine leg for six, before a yorker was Saurabh Tiwary and Pollard clob- missal wildly, but the celebrations kept out for a single to retain strike. bered 58 from four overs to transform weren’t as big as when Borgas and Cooper turned it on at the death.

Eleven off the final over from Harb- the match.

Shiv Sagar

England Wins in Tight Finish HEADINGLEY: This was the game the summer so desperately needed. A tight contest, in front of a full house, fought to the bitter end as England held their nerve, secur securing a four-wicket victory with three balls remaining to ensure Andrew Strauss’s fantastic 126 didn’t go to waste.

For a while that looked a close-run thing as the middle order stuttered in the final 10 overs, but Michael Yardy and Tim Bresnan retained their composure to keep the home side’s winning run going, and hoist them up to No. 2 in the World ODI rankings.

Strauss and Jonathan Trott added 146 for the second wicket to break the back of a stiff 295-run chase after Pakistan’s most complete batting display of the tour. England were never in total command of the asking-rate, but the requirement was looking more challenging than they would have liked after some less-than-clear thinking during the batting Power Powerplay. After 40 overs they were 221 for 3 - exactly the same score that Pakistan had reached - however, Strauss fell lbw sweeping at Saeed Ajmal before Eoin Morgan, England’s coolheaded finisher, picked out the only fielder on the off-side boundary at deep point. Ravi Bopara then failed to clear long-off against Ajmal in the penultimate over to keep the punters on tenterhooks.

But Yardy is also proving himself to be a consummate closer of run-chases having twice been in the middle dur during the Twenty20 internationals, and

he collected a pair of vital boundaries off Umar Gul and Ajmal.

Needing 13 off the last two overs, all that was required was clear thinking, but Bopara tried to take advantage of the fielding restrictions and failed, which left Bresnan to guide the side home in front of his home crowd. He cut his first ball through the covers then, in the last over from Gul, top-edged a pull off the keeper to level the scores and extinguish the doubts.

Bresnan had shown calmness ear earlier in the summer against Australia, at Old Trafford, as England nicked a one-wicket win having looked like throwing victory away, but it was fitting that this win was secured in mar marginally shambolic fashion as Bresnan chanced a non-existent single to midoff only for Fawad Alam’s throw to miss. So after a few deep breaths and nervous moments England could celebrate a 2-0 cushion in the five-match series and it would have been harsh on Strauss if his innings had ended in a losing cause.

There are still those who question Strauss’s place in the one-day side because of a concern his style - dominated by square-of-the-wicket shots - won’t be so successful on the slower subcontinent pitches England will face during the World Cup. But he can do no more than score a bucketload of runs, which he has done in recent one-day matches with this being his second hundred in three games following the 154 he struck against Bangladesh at Edgbaston.

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literature

Indo American News • Friday, September 17 , 2010

Global Ganesha: How Writers View the Diety

By Vikram Doctor

(ET) PART 1: Getting a taxi outside Mumbai’s crowded Byculla station can be a problem and it wasn’t any easier 123 years ago. In her journal for 17th September 1885 Nora Scott, the wife of a Bombay High Court judge, records how, along with an Army Major friend, she was trying to find a carriage when they were stopped by the carts of a Hindu procession: “All round the cart were man carrying little plaster images. ‘Gunpatties’, exclaimed the Major and I at the same time. So they were – funny little clay figures – pinkish or yellowish – they always give their gods fair complexions. This god Gunpatti has a long elephant nose and the dress was of gauze and tinsel.”

As with today, some of the depictions were elaborate – Scott notes one with clay figurines of women spinning around. Rather oddly she notes that the poorest people, who could not afford idols, just carried empty chairs, presumably for the god. And just as today the processions seemed endless: “Procession after procession carrying gunpatties came along the streets. It was nearly 5.00 o’clock and I suppose the devotees were all on their way to the sea – to dip the gunpatties in the water.”

But there was one difference: “Only a few of the most zealous worshippers throw the god in altogether and lose it – most of them think enough to dip him in the sea and bring him back to serve for another year.”

Scott’s description of the Ganapati festival (taken from her diaries, published by her grandson in 1994 as An Indian Journal) is not just an early description of the festival which will reach its height in Mumbai this weekend. They also indicate how Ganesha with his instantly recognizable elephant head has always been the Hindu god most easily identifiable by non-Indians. Only perhaps Krishna with his lover-boy appeal and orange robed acolytes chanting his name in foreign streets might come close and perhaps Shiva with his untamed appearance and aura of violence.

Robert Oppenheimer is famously said to have uttered a verse from the Bhagavad Gita invoking Shiva as he watched the first atomic bomb explode in the Arizona desert, but it was Shiva’s son who oversaw a more modern and benign revolution when, in 1995, the news that he was drinking milk spread instantly across the world. It was one of the first demonstrations of the power of global connectivity, and also affirmed global knowledge of Ganesha. Even Bridget Jones took note, bonding in one of her books with her Mr.Darcy after hearing of Ganesha drinking milk and replicating it with an earthen jar!

Such views of Ganesha are mostly benign, focussing on his obstacle removing abilities and promotion of prosperity. But this was not how he was first perceived by Western visitors to India. As Partha Mitter notes in Much Maligned Monsters, his

study of European reactions to Indian art, their instinctive reaction was to see idols as horrifying or demonic particularly when the gods were zoomorphic, meaning either in the form of animals or with parts of animals like Ganesha: “From the very beginning zoolatry was either plainly disliked or some justification was found for it.”

Mitter quotes the description of gods in a temple in Cambay by Pietro della Valle, an Italian traveller and scholar who was genuinely interested in Hindu traditions, and who felt there had to be symbolic meaning under the perceived absurdity: “Another had the head of an Elephant and was called Ganescio....

Some of the Idolets say upon Sundry Animals, as Tygers and the like, and even upon Rats; of which things the foolish and ignorant Indians relate ridiculous stories. But I doubt not that, under the veil of these Fables, their ancient Sages (most parsimonious of the Sciences, as all Barbarians ever were) have hid from the vulgar many secrets...”

Missionaries were less interested in understanding, and it suited them to have scary stories to relate back home to underline the importance of their mission in saving ‘heathens’ from worshiping animal headed gods.

Mitter describes how an early Western image of Ganesha was created by mistakenly combining a Jesuit report, from 1533, of the main BrahmaVishnu-Shiva trimurti at Elephanta, with another Jesuit report from 1560 of an elephant headed God. It appeared in a popular book of that time, Vincenzo Cartari’s Images of the Gods, which presented the ‘barbaric pantheon’, and was updated in 1615 by the scholar Lorenzo Pignoria to include the new discoveries of Indian, Japanese and Mexican gods.

The illustration showed a Ganesha with three legs, three arms and three elephant heads! A later example, by French engraver Bernard Picart in 1723, shows an elephant headed god of wisdom with the legs of a goat, rather like the Greek god Pan. More scholarly contact with India corrected such mistakes, and brought out Ganesha’s benign side. Already

by Picart’s time his association with wisdom and literature was being made, and as scholars translated the Indian epics, this aspect of Ganesha became better known, particularly as Vyas’ scribe for the Mahabharata,.

This spirit was what Fanny Parkes evoked in her memoirs Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, which William Dalrymple has described as “the most exuberant and enjoyable travel book to come out of the south Asia of the East India Company.” Parkes was that rarity, a British lady who, far from being afraid of India, fell in love with it, even liking the climate of Calcutta. She soon escaped from the life expected of a minor Company official’s wife and travelled across India, learning the sitar, giving some of the first Western descriptions of zenana life and even criticising aspects of British rule. It was well within character then for her to start her memoirs with a poetic dedication to both her mother and

Ganesha!

It reads, in part: “Work-perfecting Ganeshu! Salamat/ Ganesh! – Ganesh!/ Two-mothered! One-toothed! / Portly-paunched! Elephant-faced Ganeshu! Salam... Thou who art invoked on commencement of a journey, the writing of a book / Salam!!..”

After a bit more, she ends on a charming personal note: “God of Prudence and Policy! / Patron of Literature! / Salam!! / May it be said, / “Ah! she writes like Ganesh!’”

During Parkes’ time most foreigners in India were there to work or, like her, because they were married to someone who was. But as British rule in India stabilised into the order of the Raj casual visitors started appearing in the form of tourists brought by pioneering travel agents like Thomas Cook. An encounter with Ganesha was on their travel itinerary, as Mark Twain instructed in Following the Equator, his travel book which offers a sardonic American corrective to the British tendency to either romanticise or criticise.

Twain described Benaras as a religious supermarket where “every conceivable earthly and heavenly good is procurable under one roof, so to speak – a sort of Army and Navy Stores, theologically stocked.” Ganesha was one more heavenly good on offer: “Protection Against Hunger. Next, you must fortify yourself against the sorrowful earthly ill just named. This you will do by worshipping for a moment in the Cow Temple. By the door of it you will find an image of Ganesh, son of Shiva; it has the head of an elephant on a human body; its face and hands are of silver.

You will worship it a little, and pass on...”

Twain doesn’t mention purchasing Ganesha idols, but this surely must have been done by many tourists.

Such idols would have indicated that their owner was well-travelled or cosmopolitan, which is why in Western stories you occasionally encounter a description of a Ganesha idol, alongside other Asian deities like Buddha or the Chinese goddess of mercy Kwai-Lin. Ganesha was becoming an Asian brand, instantly recognisable, exotic but not too threatening, and with suitably benign and calming influences that could be ascribed to him. The continued popularity of the image appearing, often to the distress of orthodox Hindus, on everything from T-shirts to hand-bags, shows how enduring this brand appeal is.

Yet there were reminders of his more complex, even fearsome side.

Rudyard Kipling could always be counted on to provide pictures of India that might seem simple, but have complex and contradictory depths, perhaps even more than he intended.

His story ‘The Bridge Builders’ is an excellent example, one of his best Indian stories, with that characteristic Kipling mix of the macho and the slightly mad, with offensive yet deeply sympathetic views of India and a final message that might seem tritely modern if it was not undercut by an acknowledgement of darker, more ancient forces.

PART 2 >> Rudyard Kiplings’ Treatment Part 2 next week

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Indo American News • Friday, September 17 , 2010

india far away

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There’s a Mumbai Suburb in Australia - An India Far Away MELBOURNE (TOI): If you are an Indian living in Australia and want to have a feel of being close to home, then all you need to do is to buy a house in one of Melbourne’s newest immigrant suburbs - popularly called Mumbai Cook.

Gordon and Julia de Silva live with their young baby in a twomonth-old house in Point Cook’s Alamanda Estate.

Both of them work in the city - Gordon is a financial planner, while Julia works for a bank.

While at home or as they go to the local shops, they get the feeling that they are almost in a known country - their country of origin, India.

“We heard that every third or fourth home is of an Indian family, out of the 1,500 homes. We’ve seen a lot of Indians here. In fact, they all call it Mumbai Cook,” Julia was quoted by The Age here as saying.

A new breed of buyers in the city’s real estate market are young, professional, family-oriented and educated migrants, the newspaper said.

The de Silvas chose to buy a house in Point Cook because it was affordable, cosmopolitan, close to the city and had good facilities, says Gordon.

A latest survey of about 3,500 home buyers by the Oliver Hume Real Estate Group shows 10 percent of home buyers in fast grow-

able housing supply, they don’t necessarily represent the right conditions for strong growth.

But that doesn’t concern Julia.

“Point Cook is one of the newest

suburbs closest to the city. If you would like to live 19 or 20 km the other side, you would have to really be a millionaire, I guess, to buy a house,” she says.

MORE ON POINT COOK: A fresh start by the bay provides an excellent location.

The only thing between it and the coast is the magnificent Point Cook Coastal Park and the plains and paddocks of Werribee South, an important food-growing area.

Even here there is change, with the construction of Wyndham Harbour starting soon. As elsewhere in the new west, there is strong buyer interest here, with house prices ranging from $310,000 to about $1 million for the best properties at Sanctuary Lakes.

Estates such as Innisfail offer plenty of open public space, wetlands and walking tracks.

Point Cook is 20 minutes from

Melbourne and close to the established retail, educational and sports facilities of Werribee and Hoppers Crossing. the existence of so much undeveloped land close to the city and Port Phillip has given Wyndham Council, developers, architects and the business community a rare opportunity to create a model living environment from scratch.

Apart from Point Cook Homestead, with its heritage-listed gardens and stables, few houses in this flourishing suburb are more than five years old, and most of the shops, schools, playgrounds and child-care and medical centres are brand new. And it’s walking distance from many estates.

C

Melbourne’s best kept secret is finally out One of the fastest growing suburbs in Australia - Point Cook is an active, vibrant community offer-ing families modern homes, an abundance of parks and walking trails and close proximity to public transport and other community facilities. Point Cook offers residents handy proximity to the City via the Westgate Freeway (approx 15 min drive off peak) and to most other regions of Melbourne. Residents also enjoy the benefits of living close to Port Philip Bay. The Sanctuary Lakes Resort with its lakes and Greg Norman designed golf course has provided Point Cook with a much higher profile in recent years. The new Point Cook Town Centre with two major supermarkets.

ing suburbs were born in India.

Buyers with Chinese and British backgrounds were the next largest group at three percent, closely followed by Sri Lankans at 2.7 percent. The country of origin has little influence on buying habits, the survey found.

With an average of 2,236 people

arriving every week in Victoria - 1,800 of those move to Melbourne, and most end up in the new suburbs. In the Dandenong area, 70 percent of the population is of non-Australian origin. In the Sunshine-Brimbank area, the figure touches 67 percent.

While the suburbs deliver afford-

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culture & style

Indo American News • Friday, September 17 , 2010

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Postcards from the Raj! Where India was and Now is Today

By NoN oNa Na Walia NEW DELHI (TOI): Storytellers on the steps of the Jama Masjid, old gramophone records, nautch girls... recreates magic of the 40s It was an era of simplicity. The days of punkah-wallahs and palakis, of tonga rides and gramophones! The days of the Raj evoke nostalgia for something modern India can only romanticize about as we celebrate the start of India’s 64th year of Independence.

As we move on, we’ve lost some things from the past that are imbued with a romantic aura. The charpois on the verandahs of Lutyens bungalows, with baggis in the corridors and rotary dial telephones in living rooms. Men going to college in pyjamas, women wearing saris in their family portraits. The walls festooned with sabres swords, Raj-era paintings and embroideries, the melody of KL Saigal’s voice from the gramophone — all flawless snapshots from another age, something the young generation of this decade will never experience.

These aren’t just glimpses from the past, but an integral part of our cultural configuration. The old was cast away and we value only the new. Who can forget the timelessness of the emotion Lata Mangeshkar’s Ae Mera Vatan ke logon stirred or the romance of

sepia photographs! Says Pavan Varma, author of Being Indian and Becoming Indian, “It was an era that makes every Indian nostalgic.

There was a certain simplicity in lifestyles as we travelled by ton-

With time, cultural nuances changed and newer ways of living emerged. Says cultural entrepreneur Navina Jafa, who specializes in heritage walks, “It was a time when culture suddenly changed

dom, which expressed and manifested itself in the way everyone lived. “Idealism set the mood those days. In the 1940s, the nautch girls were seen as prostitutes overnight as the courtesan culture ended. We celebrate the image of the original courtesan especially through cinema.”

In his book, Nautch Girls of India, author Pran Nevile talks about how the original nautch girls were a talented lot and went on to become the first generation of Bollywood stars. “Cinema had replaced the gramophone era, hence brought about ripples of cultural change,” says Nevile. According to art restorer Aman Nath, “There was clean air and space, I would ride to school in a tonga for 25 paise. That makes me nostalgic.”

This isn’t just a glimpse from the past, but an integral part of our cultural Ultimately, it’s the tangible configuration. The old was cast away and we value only the new. It was items of the 40s that trigger an era that makes every Indian nostalgic. There was a certain simplicity waves of sentimentalism.

The swish malls don’t comin lifestyles as Indians traveled by tongas and ships. pare to the laziness of the gas and ships. The aangan-ka-ghar almost overnight in the 40s. There bazaars and nautanki performers. was the original ancestral home, used to be Kharkhano ki Zubaan, Says Manjeet Bhullar, art restorer which has been forgotten because a special language which was and designer, “Everyone travelled of mechanized flats. At that time, spoken by those working in fac- with old steel trunks and bistarletter writing was considered an tories. Don’t we miss the aangan bands and rode in tongas, baggis art. The music lyrics of the 40s vala ghar that triggered terrace ro- and ikkas, food was all about slowwere also of robust literary qual- mances and kite flying.” cooking; the Peshawari Katlama is ity.”

There was a euphoria of free- rarely heard of today.”

Can cultural timelines get blurred as we move on? “I think so,” says OP Jain, founder of Sanskriti Museum and conservator, “We have to make an effort that the old and new are always connected, there has to be continuity. On the steps of Jama Masjid, there used to be three or four storytellers, who would sit and narrate tales, known as Kissa Kahaniyan experts!”

That’s something Nilabh Sinha, director of INTACH agrees with, “We miss those huge film posters from a bygone era. Of course, one misses the 1940s Morris Minor, the small car that was seen in India. We don’t see saris with family portraits anymore, worn by stylish ladies of yesteryears.”

Photographer Avinash Pasricha on his sojourn to Mussorie would often sneak into TE Devin Company and listen to music on the gramophone. “It was a timeless experience, youngsters today have formed communities to keep alive that music.”

Yet, nostalgia can’t recreate the lost legacy. Says architectural restorer, Sunita Kohli, “We’ve lost the past simplicity to materialism, there’s a loss of moral uprightness.

Those were the leisurely and less stressful times, culturally richer. It was an era which gave a different freedom. We valued it, as it was sacred.”

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