Friday, July 29 2011 | Vol. 30, No. 30
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style with substance
new Foreign minister for Pakistan
Sangeet Natak Akademi Honors Rathna Kumar P5 India’s Vice President Hamid Ansari honors Rathna Kumar while the chairman of Sangeet Natak Academi Leela Samson looks on.
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NEW DELHI (HT): There were no bigbang announcements, but there were no fireworks either. Hailing a “new era in ties”, India and Pakistan foreign ministers on Wednesday agreed to continue the dialogue process though differences on core issues such as Jammu and Kashmir and terrorism remained. Pakistan’s youngest and first woman foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar has got people talking about her impeccable style sense during her ongoing Delhi visit.
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sankalp Puts an Innovative s s spin on traditional t c cuisine
City of Sugar Land council members and Office bearers of the Fort Bend Chamber of Commerce join Sankalp’s Shah family in a traditional ribbon cutting celebration. Photo: Krishna Giri
in their hometown whenever the craving for idlies and dosas struck. Now they find pleasure in serving others. “Starting with our grandparents, our family has a tradition of entertaining people. We love to see people eat, and this business fuels our passion,” said Niraj who is a trained certified public accountant by vocation. Rachna and her husband Shrayat Shah manage the restaurant. There are two trained chefs, a kitchen aide, and a rotating wait-staff of seven. Jyotsna and Nilesh divide their time between Houston and Ahmedabad; when in this city, as they are at present, they help by manning the cash register, greeting guests, and with other everyday logistics involved in running a restaurant. Niraj comes in during the evening hours and on weekends and his wife Shari also pitches in when
her busy schedule permits; she also has a day job and is studying part-time for a degree in nursing. Completely a la carte, Sankalp caters for parties and other events, but is expected to expand that service exponentially in the next few months with on-site cooking. The menu dazzles with a stellar cast of 19 varieties of dosas, each brimming in flavorful diversity; popular among them are the Chet-
tinad Spicy dosa, Mysore chatpata dosa, and the capsicum chilli garlic dosa. Every visit elicits little pots of Sankalp’s signature chutneys and a coveted mulga podi (pulse and red chilli powder) that defies description. Also featured are pineapple uttappams and an idli stall featuring crispy cheese idlies and those storied vaghar idlies spiced and stoked with red chilli peppers. The sambaar served here speaks
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to the prowess of the chef; it is addictive. The menu is inordinately extensive and offers rice dishes like kaikari biryani, bisi bela huli anna, and bhagala bath. There are combo meals, lunch specials, and desserts. Sankalp is open seven days a week. Jain food could be prepared upon request. The food is arguably slightly pricier, but high in quality and freshness. Last week at the ribbon cutting ceremony heralding the opening of the banquet facility, the City of Sugar Land council members and office bearers of the Fort Bend Chamber of Commerce attended the event and got to sample Sankalp’s fetching fare. The flagship location in Gujarat received the Times of India’s Times Food Award for Best South Indian Restaurant in the year 2008 as well as in 2009. For Niraj and his family, it is a goal to aspire towards – local kudos. “Our heart and soul are in this endeavor no matter what the future may hold. We are living our dream right now and we are relishing and cherishing every moment of it,” said Niraj. For information about Sankalp, or to view the menu and pricing, visit sankalpsugarland.com.
Photo: Karthik Datta
By Kalyani Giri HOUSTON: Niftily sprawled at the end of a cul-de-sac on Kensington Drive in the upscale City of Sugar Land, is Sankalp – The Taste of India. The restaurant formally debuted for business on April 1, 2011, a budding ingénue on the culinary scene. But this semi-casual, family-oriented eatery that yields a bounty of tasty South Indian vegetarian cuisine, holds its own against stalwarts in the field and has in a short three months secured an ardent following of foodies that appear to have memorized the menu. “Guests come in and without even glancing at the menu, ask for fresh sweet lime soda or lemon litchi fuzz, and masala boondi or paneer dosa,” said Niraj Shah, who owns and operates Sankalp along with his family. “They’re pretty conversant with items like Telangana aloo and vaghar idlies,” added Niraj in bemusement. He’s not complaining; he’s an astute young man who is well aware of the power of wordof-mouth communication. And word has spread about Sankalp’s innovative spin on traditional dishes. Spacious, comfortable, and tastefully ambient with recessed lighting, Sankalp, which means resolve, sits on 3200 square feet; an adjoining and newly inaugurated banquet hall boasting walls of windows offer a relaxing, picturesque view of a shimmering lake. It is a wonderful venue for parties, celebrations, and small weddings. Parking is ample in front and to the rear of the building. The restaurant is part of a franchise based out of Niraj’s native Ahmedabad in Gujarat, with a chain of over ninety satellite eateries globally. Sankalp adheres firmly to the tenets set down by the franchise and all recipes are prepared in accordance to specifications. For Niraj and his sister Rachna, the restaurant brings back memories of childhood when their parents Jyotsna and Nilesh Shah took take them to the flagship eatery
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For A Guinness world w record, “Have Bike, will r w travel” t
By Jawahar Malhotra HOUSTON: Travelling alone along the long backroads can have its share of adventures, especially if you’re doing it on a bicycle and also happen to be in a foreign country and don’t know the language or customs. “I was in Yugoslavia, about 10 kilometers before the Hungarian border, minding my own business in a bar,” recalled Avijit Chakraborty of that cold, winter day as he rested in the hot, muggy Bayou City between destinations this past weekend, “and this lady came upto me, very friendly and talkative. She wanted to know all about me.” Chakraborty told her he was an Indian from Calcutta on an around-the-world bicycle tour. “She was impressed, but when she looked at my biking clothes, she said ‘You must get cold! Here, wear this,’ and she handed me a really heavy jacket,” continued Chakraborty in his heavily Bengali-accented Indian English during our phone conversation. “I said ‘No, I warm up once I start riding, so I don’t need it’, but she tried to push it on to me.” Fortunately for Chakraborty, he spurned her advances and crossed into Hungary, where the border guard told him he did the right thing by refusing her. Chakraborty learnt that the area was run by the drug mafia, that the jacket was heavy because it was full of drugs and that he had been watched. Once across safely, they would have come to get the jacket and who knows what would have happened to him. The fear of such misadventures certainly didn’t deter Chakraborty as he started his bicycle tour in Calcutta in December 2009 to beat the previous around-the-world title of 45 countries and 50,000 km in 23 months and 7 days held by John Hathaway, to get into the Guinness World Book of Records. So far, Chakraborty has gone through 46 countries and logged 49,600 km and wants to add another 12 countries to finish in 20 months by September 2011. Chakraborty had always been an athlete and fitness enthusiast in school and college and joined the cycling program at the National Institute of Sports in Patiala, Punjab in 1996. He participated in international cycling tournaments, coming in 41st in the 2002 Tour de France and one from Los Angeles to Maryland in 2004/2005 (on a Hero cycle) in which he was first out of 19 contestants and was awarded a Cannandala T-1000 bicycles, one of the industry’s finest, by President George W. Bush. The now 39-year old Chakraborty got married to a high school teacher and has an 8-year old daughter. But the lure of cycling for a record to ride around the world was too much to pass up, especially as he was selected by the Sports Authority of India to be the one to take up the challenge. Since Guinness does not allow sponsorships, he had ride as an amateur, and count on contributions: Rs. 5,000 ($111) from the Chief Minister of West Bengal, and Rs. 15,000 ($333) from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and another Rs. 40,000 ($890) from private donors. While going around the globe, Chakraborty has received both financial and lodging support from about 10 Sikh Gurudwaras that he
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During his visit to Houston, Avijit Chakraborty, who hopes to get into the Guinness World Book of Records for around-the-world cycling, met with members of the local Indian community and received accommodations and financial support from them. Rajinder Pal Singh, who is a talented tabla player hailing from Patiala and New Delhi met Avijit at the Sikh Center of Houston and members of the Durga Bari showed him around at their temple complex. From left: Santosh Mukerji, Jayanta Bandyopadhyay, Champak Sadhu, Avijit Chakraborty, Partha Ghosal, Partha Sarathi Chatterjee, Gopendu Chakraborty.
has stayed in. In Houston, the Sikh Center of Houston on Prairie where he stayed overnight felicitated him with a contribution of $400 and Gurudwara Sahib of Houston on Breen contributed a similar amount. During his sojourn here, Chakraborty Champak Sadhu, who offered him lodging at his home and then took him to the Durga Bari for a visit, where several members raised $1,000 to give Chakraborty, along with a plaque commemorating his achievement. Chakraborty left Houston on Monday, July 25 to pedal upto Austin, then San Antonio and Laredo before entering Mexico. Usually, he rides between 85 to 90 miles a day at 10 to 12 mph for three hours at a stretch. As required by the Guinness’ rules, he has to report to the local police station to authenticate his visit and usually stays overnight at the station or a church or a Gurudwara if there is one there. Camping is a last resort, and motels are outside his budget, though an Indian couple (Gujarati husband, Bengali wife) offered him two nights for free in their Day’s Inn motel in Albuquerque. When he started, Chakraborty flew to Hanoi and then went through Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, S. Korea and Japan; flew to Australia, went through New Zealand, then
flew to South Africa, went through Africa through Sudan to Turkey, then through Europe, eventually taking a flight from London to Miami and then through over three dozen cities in the US and Canada before arriving in Houston from Dallas. After he goes through Mexico, he will travel through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Ecuador, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, where he will conclude his around-the-world odyssey and take a fight back to New Delhi, presumably with a new record in hand. “I wanted to make a positive statement with this voyage,” explained Chakraborty about his motivation, “but I have also promoted pollution-free living and environmental causes wherever I have gone.” To spread this message, he has spoken at over 150 schools around the world. Chakraborty is impressed by the milk of human kindness which has nurtured him over the past 19 months on his long trek. Like the time outside of Ft. Lauderdale when he was accosted by three guys, who stopped him and gave him a rough time, rummaging through his knapsacks. “I told them my story and showed them my press clippings,” he remembered. “and they asked me to follow them to a Burger King. They went in and came out with food for me, then sped off. The manager came running out and asked me about them, saying they just robbed them at gunpoint and ordered food for me!” But the best episode must be in Columbus, Ohio. Since Chakraborty has no US bank account or Social Security number, a saleswoman wouldn’t let him buy a local cell phone, but after pleading with her and since she had seen his interview of Fox television, she allowed him to get pre-paid service under her name and use it while in the US. “She only asked that I discard the phone after I left the US,” explained Chakraborty, “and as soon as I leave Laredo for Mexico, I will honor that.”
snA Honors r sn rathna Kumar
HOUSTON: At the Sangeet Natak Akademi awards presented by Vice President Hamid Ansari on Friday, July 22, 2011 in New Delhi was Houston’s own legendary Dr. Rathna Kumar Sangeet Natak Akademi is the country’s apex cultural body for music, dance, literature, theatre and visual arts. The awards given is the highest Indian recognition given for practicing artistes by the akademi. Amongst the 30 artistes honored was Houston’s Dr. Rathna Kumar, founder/ director of Anjali-Center for Performing and Visual Arts and also the founder/ director of Samskriti - society for Indian Performing Arts. It is for the first time that the akademi is honoring a practicing artiste outside of India and Rathna feel that this has really opened the doors for others who are not only in the US but other countries as well. The awards ceremony was a glitzy affair with many renowned artists from all over
India in attendance as well as many dignitaries from the ministry of culture and tourism. Following the awards presentation on July 22 and 23; on July 24, some of the awardees gave short performances at Meghdhoot auditorium . Rathna gave a soul stirring performance in Kuchipudi style for 45 minutes accompanied by none other than Rajeswari on the vocals ( another awardee of the Akademi this year ). An absolutely well organized and satisfying event that was, says Rathna Kumar who is back in Houston to conduct her Arangetram season all though the month of August and two major shows coming up in Miller Theatre in September ( Bollywood Blast&Incredible India) and an International Dance Conference on Indian Classical Dance in October. For Rathna, dance is her passion and service to the community through dance is her life ! Once again - congratulations on the well deserved recognition of her lifetime.
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Indo American News • Friday, July 29, 2011
HSA Appreciation Dinner in Houston
By Radhika Achari HOUSTON: July 17 marked the conclusion of “Walking Together: Feel the HSA Pulse” dinners by the Hindu Students Association (HSA) in Houston, Austin and Dallas. An enthusiastic crowd of over 115 people attended the most recent banquet in Houston, which was sponsored by the Hindus of Greater Houston. The dinner and classical entertainment evenings were primarily held to update the
chemistry exam?!” Pundit Suman Ghosh, the torch-bearing disciple of Sangeet Martand Padmavibhushan Pt. Jasraj, graciously accepted HSA’s humble request for a performance at the event as his donation to HSA. Before the performance, he encouraged the audience to realize that Bhakti yoga should “go beyond the barriers of our religion, the world should know about it, practice it, and allow individuals to get the opportunity to enrich
Community supporters with National HSA President Varun Mehta, National HSA CFO Ramya Ravi, and Branch Officers Photo: Vishnu Chowdavarapu
local communities about the organization’s progress. Over the past year HSA has successfully raised awareness of Hinduism on a national platform through their projects, such as Hinduism Awareness Week, the Animation Project, the Mantra Project and the Quickfire Video Project, and events, such as Gateway, Emerging Chakras, and Dharma Initiative. The evening began by showcasing HSA’s newest animation video, “What is Yoga?” which utilizes the social media and viral marketing to enlighten people on Hindu philosophy and practices. This video has attained over 3,500 viewings since June 26th on YouTube alone. HSA, realizing the overwhelming amount of time young adults spend on Internet media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, has capitalized on this medium as a way to engage people and begin dialogue on Hinduism. . Raj Pawate, an active parent in HSA, applauded HSA’s innovative decision, “Adopting social media technology is a significant milestone for HSA; I’m sure this will significantly increase the involvement of second generation Hindu Americans in HSA.” This video is a fun and stimulating way to learn more about Hinduism at the touch of a button. Ramya Ravi, HSA’s National Chief Financial Officer, discussed how Bhakti yoga can be used by all on a daily basis through the Mantra Project. Bhakti yoga is the spiritual practice of fostering loving devotion (bhakti) to a personal form of God; this could include dancing, singing or just listening to invocations of the scriptures. The Mantra project seeks to integrate Sanskrit mantras into the daily lives of the new generation by making them easily accessible on sites such as iTunes and YouTube. Varun Mehta, HSA’s National president, hit home with the audience when he said, “Wouldn’t it be great to have music which empowers you mentally as you study for your organic
themselves and their lives by following this.” Hindu mantras, ancient texts, scriptures, yoga and music are enriched with knowledge and the potential to enlighten all individuals. Along with the enchanting performance, which invoked Bhakti yoga in all who attended the appreciation dinner, Pandit. Suman Ghosh also pledged to dedicate his time and resources to help the younger generation with their efforts to increase the Hindu voice at various levels. Pt. Suman Ghosh expressed how HSA’s drive, initiative, enthusiasm, unity, and steadfast leadership have awed and impressed him, “The ability to have so many young level-headed individuals strive forward to reach a goal is the major strength which has gotten the support for the community.” HSA’s progress is steadily excelling on a national level with all the projects and the recognition it is receiving. HSA has also seen great strides from each of its branches across the nation. Supriya Aggarwal, the president of HSA at the University of Houston, commented on the achievements in Houston’s own backyard. “Hindu Students Association has progressed incredibly within this past year. The branch at the University of Houston successfully organized the first Holi and Diwali to be celebrated at the UH campus in a decade, as well as the first ever Hinduism Awareness Week. We’ve achieved so much in so little time, and we look forward to continuing these new-built legacies.” Houston’s community was touched at how HSA is engaging the young adult population. Vijay Pallod, a longstanding member of the Hindu community and key supporter of HSA, expressed his sentiments, “They are our future and I think that in the Hindu community we lack youth leaders, and we hope that HSA will bring forth talented individuals who will help guide the younger generations to be proud of their culture.”
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IAKF Commends the FBI for Exposing ISI’s Covert Lobbying Operations in the US
Announcement
Indo-American Kashmir Forum (IAKF, www.iakf.org) takes a strong note of FBI’s arrest of lobbyist Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai, the Executive Director of the Kashmiri American Council (KAC) and the Kashmir Center, in Virginia today and commends the FBI and other federal agencies for exposing Pakistan’s Intelligence Agency ISI’s role in covertly lobbying US lawmakers. FBI’s charge that Dr. Fai and a Pakistan based American colleague were allegedly ‘’participating in a long-term conspiracy to act as agents of the Pakistani government in the United States” exposes ISI’s dangerous designs of misleading US lawmakers and continuing support to terrorists and secessionists in Jammu and Kashmir, India. IAKF always believed that the KAC and the Kashmir Center, Washington, was funded beyond their means because it had full time staff and prime office space with media advisors bent on misleading the U.S. Administration, U.S. Congress and various Think Tanks. It was always clear that this group was following the official Pakistani version of the Kashmir story. In all instances, the truth was obfuscated by misinformation provided by our opponents masquerading as Kashmiri freedom fighters. It should be pointed out that our organization, in contrast, is run by volunteers, working on personal time and meager donations, to inform and educate the U.S. policy makers about the plight of our community that has been the worst sufferers of Pakistan’s State-sponsored terrorism. Since 1991, IAKF has been fighting for the restoration of fundamental rights of Kashmiri Pandits and other religious minorities who were ethnically cleansed out of Kashmir by terrorists supported and funded by Pakistan. Towards that goal, IAKF has never hesitated to condemn one and all that have victimized minorities in Kashmir, be they governments, terrorists, or members of the majority community in Kashmir. IAKF has always been steadfast in countering the disinformation campaign unleashed by organizations like Dr. Fai’s Kashmiri American Council (KAC), achieving limited success in getting across the story of “refugees in their own country.” Today’s developments and FBI’s affidavit filed in the
The arrest of the Executive Director of the Kashmiri American Council (KAC) Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai by the US authorities when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was on Indian soil could be described as her gift to Indian leadership
court along with the complaint against Dr. Fai clearly demonstrate the strong and wellfunded network behind the disinformation campaign of our opponents, which we nevertheless were able to surmount to the extent possible. With today’s exposure, IAKF is hopeful that these covert operations funded and supported by Pakistan will be finally dismantled and US lawmakers will get an opportunity to listen to the true stories of real victims of terrorism. IAKF completely believes in the US Justice system and is hopeful that the whole truth will finally come out in the open and justice will be served. IAKF was established in 1991 to inform the world community of the oppression against Kashmiri Pandits that led to their forced exile from Kashmir due to the influx of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism. IAKF wishes to raise awareness of the human rights violations suffered by the Pandit community, many of whom are still living in makeshift ‘refugee’ camps in Jammu, India. The organization seeks the return of Kashmiri Pandits to the Kashmir valley with guaranteed security and freedom to exercise their religious faith and cultural way of life without fear or intrusion. IAKF provides reports to the U.S. Administration, U.S. Congress, and several of Washington D.C.’s policy think tanks. For more information, please visit www.iakf.org.
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Indians may Have much m more than t $2.5 Billion Hidden in s swiss Banks
GENEVA (TOI): It’s official now -- Indians hold about USD 2.5 billion (over Rs 11,000 crore) in Swiss banks, but this figure of Switzerland’s central bank may be a gross understatement of the total wealth directly and indirectly held there by entities from India. The ever-growing judicial scrutiny and political outcry over alleged stashing of black money in Swiss banks also seems to be forcing Indian entities to move their monies to other safe havens like the Middle East, Singapore and Mauritius. Some half a billion dollars have been moved out in the last three years, according to the central bank’s figures. In the first-ever disclosure of money held in various Swiss banks by Indi-ans, Swiss National Bank (SNB) has said the quantum of such dede posits stood at 1.945 billion Swiss francs (about USD 2.5 billion) at the end of 2010. Giving a break-up of this amount, Walter Meier, the spokesperson for the SNB president, said this included about USD 2.1 billion dollars in the form of savings and deposits by Indian individuals, financial institutions and corporates. The remaining about USD 400 million is of fiduciaries largely operating for private individuals from India. Meier, however, said the bank had no further information when asked about the identity of these funds. He further said that two of the largest Swiss banks, UBS and Credit Suisse, account for a vast majority of the deposits of entities from India. Out of the 1.66 billion Swiss francs (USD 2.1 billion) held by Indian individuals and institutions at the end of 2010, the two banks accounted for 1.02 Swiss francs (USD 1.5 billion) and the remaining 636
Swiss francs (USD 775 million) are held in Swiss cantonal banks and private banks, he added. Experts say that the fiduciaries are essentially wealth fund managers who hold the money of Indian private holders and families in the so-called numbered accounts. A private banker, on condition of anonymity, said that the actual deposits by Indians could be as high as USD 15-20 billion, but also rubbished the figure of USD 1.5 trillion that has been reported from time to time. “I would argue that both the Swiss central bank’s estiesti mate of USD 2.5 billion as deposits of Indians, as well as the Indian media stories of USD 1.5 trillion of IndiIndi an private deposits, are incorrect and somesome what outrageous,” he said. “From my involvement with banks, I would place the Indian deposits anywhere between USD 15-20 billion,” the banker said. He also said there was a “perceptible flight of funds” of Indian holders from Swiss banks to banks in Singapore and Dubai, which are now the two main centres for Indian funds from undeclared sources. As per SNB’s figures also, the Indian deposits in Swiss banks have come down by USD 500 million (about Rs 2,250 crore) in the past three years. SNB figures show that the total money deposited by Indians, both individuals and companies, in Switzerland-based banks stood at USD 2.5 billion at the end of 2010, down from about USD 2.7 billion in 2009 and USD 3 billion in 2008. While the bank did not reveal the reasons behind the flight of money from these accounts, officials at regulatory agencies in India fear that Indians might be moving their funds to safer locations like Mauritius, Dubai and other places in the Middle East region. There have also been talks of Singapore being one such location where money is being moved from Swiss banks.
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His Holiness Pujya Swami Tejomayananda addressing the Balavihar children. Photo: Nilesh Shah and Jayesh Mistri
ated with joyful celebrations along with a gift of prayers to Lord Siva from all devotees for Guruji’s long life and continued good health. In the days that followed, Guruji presented the Slokathon awards to Balavihar children who had learnt over 260 sets of Sanskrit verses. He met with all the teams that have made Chinmaya Prabha, Houston, one of the unique centers in the USA. From the meeting with Balavihar teachers where Guruji said, “Do what you value and value what you do” to the Sound team that managed the microphones, where he said that he could not even hear a single squeak, Guruji admired the teamwork and acknowledged every volunteer’s effort. On July 3rd evening, Guruji addressed the Balavihar children who welcomed him with smiley faced balloons, a dancing caterpillar formation and their eager voices singing his own birthday song. For children in kindergarten to sixth grade, Guruji had an inspirational message, “Perform Selfless actions with enthusiasm – Do not
be lazy” through a sweet story of three sculptors. While talking with older kids and Yuva Kendra youth, Guruji recounted the importance of a purposeful life. He also answered questions on Bhakti and daily duties and relived the precious memories of his time with Pujya Gurudev. As the yajna concluded on July 4th, Guruji gave the sense of how real independence came only from scriptural learning. He said that our reflections on this grand path must continue and appreciated the guidance given by Acaryas Gaurang and Darshana Nanavaty to the Houston community. For many more years to come, Houston will remember the bliss of that week where Astavakra Gita came alive with Guruji’s presence amid a devoted and attentive Chinmaya Prabha, in an atmosphere too sublime for words. For more information, visit www.chinmayahouston.org or call Jay Deshmukh at 832-541-0059 or Bharati Sutaria at 281-933-0233.
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ALEXANDER P. MATHEWS, CPA
By PadMashree rao HOUSTON: Chinmaya Prabha, Houston glowed with joy, love and learning during a unique Jnana yajna conducted by Pujya Guruji Swami Tejomayananda from June 27th to July 4th ,2011 on the thought-provoking Astavakra Gita. What made the weeklong discourses more wonderful were some special events that will forever stay in the hearts of all those who witnessed them. Pujya Guruji took every listener on a soaring flight of Vedantic enquiry in a series of seventeen hourlong pravachans during the week. Even as his skillful explanations challenged the minds of the listeners, his examples drawn from daily life connected philosophy with practical application. And Guruji’s inimitable humor made all learning joyful with laughter. The Houston audience was mesmerized. Young children hung on to his jokes and the love that he showed in his gentle words; the adults were transported to a realm of knowledge where tough concepts like detachment and liberation became an enjoyable goal. The vibrations in the Chinmaya Smriti hall were truly divine as Guruji made the Vedic dialogue between the royal Janaka and the young sage Astavakra a discussion close to home. June 30th had its own special flavor since it was the 61st birthday of Pujya Guruji. The day started beautifully with Guruji’s discourse and Chinmaya Mission, Houston conveyed a quiet, heartfelt birthday greeting through the poetic words of Uma Aggarwal. In the evening a spectacular surprise was awaiting for him. As Acarya Gaurang Nanavaty escorted Guruji to the Saumyakasi temple after the discourse, the courtyard reverber-
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Arsha Vidya satsanga s celebrates Gurupoornima c
By ViVeK shanKar K Kar nataraJan HOUSTON: One of the most exalted sages in the Vedic tradition is the sage Veda Vyasa. His birthday is celebrated as Guru Poornima. It is a very auspicious day to offer one’s salutations to Guru Parampara (lineage). It also heralds a seasonal change from the sunny summer to rainy season. Orthodox saints observe Chaturmasya, a disciplinary practice of staying at one place for a period of four months. This period is used for contemplation on the vedic texts and conducting classes. The citizens of the place deem it a honor to host such saints at their place. In keeping with such a noble practice, the Arsha Vidya Satsanga celebrated the Guru Poornima in Sugarland, TX. Arsha Vidya Satsanga is a non-profit organization born of the inspiration derived from the teachings of His Holiness Swami Dayananda Saraswati of Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, one of the foremost visionaries and humanitarians of our time. The mission of the Arsha Vidya Satsanga is to reestablish the cultural self-identity, and reinstate agency (the capacity of a people to define their world) for Hindus. Ongoing programs of AVS include: Study of Bhagavad Gita including one exclusively for women, Vedic Heritage Classes and Puja for Children, Vedic Chanting, Puja on selected religious occasions, Meditation & Yoga classes, and Beginner and Intermediate Level Sanskrit classes and Camps and Seva Projects for Bhutanese citizens. Young students of AVS have gone on to win prizes at Hindu community events, at the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) next-gen essay contests two years in a row, HMEC conference and performed seva projects in India. Recently, they organized a successful series of talks by Swami Pratyagbodhananda Saraswati of Arsha Vidya Gurukulam. The day began in the wee hours in the most devoted family of the town just as it must have centuries ago. One can imagine Hema Chandrasekhar cleaning the kitchen and puja areas chanting prayers, plucking tulasi leaves, making prasad and awaiting the guests. About 60 devotees joined the puja with flowers, garlands,
Devotees immersed in the Gurupoornima celebrations.
Chandra Raghu performs the Puja on the occasion of Gurupoornima Photos: Hareesh Janakiraman
bilva leaves and prasad. The formal puja included a ritual prayer to the Guru parampara (Dakshinamurthy “Shiva, the first teacher”, Sri. Veda Vyasa, Sri Adi Shankaracharya, and the entire Guru lineage). The rituals included the ritual bathing of Shiva Lingam in scented water and milk and archana (offering flowers to the recitation of 108 names of God or Ashtottaram). The assembly of devotees chanted Dakshinamurthy Ashtottaram, Veda Vyasa Ashtottaram, and Shankaracharya Ashtottaram. Then, there was the ceremonial Arathi - waving of lamp. The atmosphere reverberated with the deep, resonant, sonorous chants of the Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas by men and boys in training. Then the entire assembly broke into group chanting of Stotras and Bhajans. Then, the audience was blessed with a live telephonic address by Poojya Swami Dayananda Saras-
wati from Coimbatore. He was very happy to hear about the celebrations and spoke about the importance of the institution of Guru in Sanathana Dharma/ Hinduism. The 80th year celebrations for Poojya Swamiji are on currently. Dr. Subramanian Swamy, visiting Professor of Economics at Harvard and former Union Minister of Law, was kind enough to attend the function. He spoke about the greatness of Indian culture and the need to decolonize the Hindu mind. He reminded us of great sages and visionaries like Vishwamitra and Valmiki and freedom fighters like Shivaji, Kattabomman, Rana Pratap, Rani of Jhansi, Rani Chennamma, and Gandhi ji and reminded us that Hindus should likewise join hands in times of threats. He saluted Swamiji for bringing more than 200 prominent Hindu acharyas under the banner of Acharya Sabha and attributed several successful court cases such as the stay of Rama Sethu constrution to the foresight of Swamiji. Dr.Swamy also inaugurated the new web-site for AVS - www. avshouston.org. The function ended with prasada bhojanam. Arsha Vidya Satsanga plans more such events in the future and seeks support from the community. For, that will mean that our glorious Vedic heritage will be linked to our future in a more secure manner. For more information, contact Vivek Shankar Natarajan at 817917-3727 or email nvivekshankar@gmail.com
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Vikram c chatwal: Hotelier, in a n new Avatar By laura M. holson NEW YORK (NYT): Since opening the Time hotel more than a decade ago in Midtown Manhattan, Vikram Chatwal has been a fixture of glittering city life. He briefly dated the models Gisele Bündchen and Kate Moss. He entertained celebrity friends like Naomi Campbell at Nell’s, now closed. And in 2006, his family hosted a 10day, three-city Indian wedding for him and Priya Sachdev, a model and former investment banker, inviting guests like former President Bill Clinton, Deepak Chopra and Sean Combs. So it comes as something of surprise to encounter the Vikram Chatwal of today — the one who, at age 39, says he has put his partying days behind him; the one who is now single after a separation from Ms. Sachdev; the one who has embraced sobriety after two stints in rehab; and the one who says he is now more focused on being a successful hotelier than being a fixture in Page Six. On a rain-soaked Thursday in June, Mr. Chatwal was seated in a black chair in Suite 1108 of his new hotel, the Dream Downtown, sipping coffee poured by a whitegloved butler who used to work for the designer Tom Ford. Two publicists huddled off in the distance, one of them perched on the closed seat of a bathroom toilet, tapping on a BlackBerry. “Welcome to my world,” Mr. Chatwal said. It was the day after the opening of that hotel, his fifth in Manhattan and the eighth, over all, all managed and owned by Hampshire Hotels and Resorts, which is run by his father, Sant Singh Chatwal. And the talk was of Vikram 2.0, the more serious counterpart to his hard-partying younger self. Never mind that, a few months earlier, he had been photographed out on the town with Lindsay Lohan, another tabloid favorite who has passed through rehab more than once. (They are “just friends,” he said, having met her at a party in Los Angeles this spring.) “I was always told to be strictly business and to make money,” Mr. Chatwal said. “I got lost in the world of what I would do every day. There are two different tracks, the partying track and the getting serious. And it’s hard to balance those two things. You have to do one thing or the other. And my life has been a tricky balance.” He has been thinking a lot about his future lately, he said: the tug between his Western upbringing and his family’s Indian roots; his interest in the film business; the split with his wife; the expectations of his father, as well as his own sobriety. Early this year, he checked himself into Promises in Malibu, Calif., for alcohol addiction, his second rehab stint in five years. The first one came just a year after his marriage, and was not so voluntary. Friends expressed concern about his drinking. “They came in and told me to get my life together
Vikram Chatwal, in his new hotel, says he has put his partying days behind him. Photo: Richard Perry/ The New York Times
because I had been partying too much,” said Mr. Chatwal. (He was in New York; his wife was in New Delhi where she and their 4-year-old daughter, Safira, live.) “My parents and my wife made sure I got on a plane and went to Hazelden,” Chatwal said, referring to the treatment center in Minnesota. “It helped me realize that in life you obviously can’t do things by yourself.” His sobriety was short-lived, he acknowledged, and thus the recent stay at Promises and his subsequent attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. “It was just great to go to a 12-step meeting with people who really got stimulation hanging on to each other, and talking to each other about their problems and getting things out,” he said, talking publicly for the first time about his latest attempts at sobriety. “It was a real relief for me.” His family’s hotels, which include the Chatwal on 44th Street, home to the Lambs Club restaurant (as well as a newly opened Dream South Beach hotel in Miami Beach), lack the cachet of Andre Balazs’s Mercer or the indie cool of the Ace. Still, they exhibit a certain urban chic, one apparently coveted by the Wyndham Hotel Group, which owns the Ramada chain and which earlier this year signed an agreement with Hampshire Hotels to franchise as many as 150 boutique hotels under the younger Chatwal’s brand. The expansion is ambitious given the glut of new boutique hotels (“Frankenstein has been created,” said Ian Schrager, the pioneer in the market who is collaborating with Marriott International) and Chatwal’s early ambivalence about joining the family business. Chatwal was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the elder of two sons. His parents, originally from India, immigrated to Canada, then moved to New York in 1982. Mr. Chatwal has spent most of his life as a New Yorker, though his parents infused daily life with traditional Indian rhythms. As a child, he was sent upstate to Sikh camp to learn how to recite prayers. On his left shoulder is a tattoo of Guru Gobind Singh, a Sikh warrior Mr. Chatwal admired. Below that is a
Vikram Chatwal (center) had an acting role in the Mexican film “Dias de Gracia,” which was shown at Cannes in May. Photo: Guillaume Horcajuelo/ European Pressphoto Agency
Chatwal (right) with his bride, Priya Sachdev, after their ceremony in 2006. Photo: Amit Bhargava for The New York Times
tattooed pair of eyes and a “G,” a relic of his relationship with Ms. Bundchen. After graduating from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1994, Chatwal had trouble finding his way professionally. He flirted with a career as an actor and movie producer, appearing in small roles in nine films, including “Zoolander” and the Bollywood hit “Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd.” (Recently, in Cannes, he hosted a dinner on his yacht for the movie producer Harvey Weinstein.) “He has grown up in many ways but he is a child in many ways,” said Queenie Singh, a friend from Mumbai. Chatwal admitted to a certain diffusion of purpose. “It is a tremendous burden growing up,” he said. “It’s almost like that authoritative rule to be successful in life and, you know, make money and do all these things.” By the late 1990s, however, he said his father, who made a fortune after founding the Bombay Palace restaurant chain, expected
his son not only to apply himself in the family business, but also jettison the socialites and enter into an arranged marriage. In 1999 the younger Chatwal opened the Time, capitalizing on his social connections. In 2006, he opened the edgier Night on 45th Street. Finding a bride took more time. “I don’t know if I would have dated an Indian girl if I did not have the pressure,” Chatwal said of Sachdev, a long-legged beauty he first encountered at a dinner party in India. Chatwal’s father said that his son found purpose in marriage and building hotels. But the elder Mr. Chatwal, 65, suggested that the company also benefited from Vikram’s youthful sensibilities. “He brought new life” to the family business, Sant Chatwal said. “It was the way to go.” A few weeks ago Vikram Chatwal, his estranged wife, a family friend and his father were gathered at the Dream Downtown, seated on a round of silver lobby cushions. The usually gregarious elder Chatwal demurred when asked what role he played in his son’s recovery. “He had an idea to fix himself,” he said of his son, changing the subject. Pressed on the matter, he replied, “The mother sometimes sees more than the father.” The young Chatwal stared blankly at a cushion as his father spoke. “He’s very mysterious; he keeps his feelings to himself,” Priya Sachdev said of her husband, adding, “It erodes you and that is what I worry about.” Of course Chatwal had his own take on where he is headed. “There is that idea that home is where you make it,” he said. “That is, home with my family, with my daughter and with myself. When I go out and enjoy myself, that is home to me, too, because I have done that all my life. So I tend to be ok with it, until it gets to be a little bit too much sometimes.”
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Sai Baba’s Planned Mahasamadhi: The Symbol of Hope and Devotion BANGALORE: After the demise of the God man Satya Sai Baba, thousands of devotees waited eagerly for unveiling of the mahasamadhi as many have missed the last glimpse of the God man. Being the first Guru Purnima after Baba’s death, the day is considered to be auspicious for the unveiling of the Samadhi. Thousands of devotes from India and across the world have been camping in Puttaparthi for many days to witness the unveiling of the mahasamadhi for the first time. Location The Mahasamadhi was unveiled in Prashanti Nilyam ashram in Puttapurthi today. The samadhi is in Kulwant Hall where Baba used to give darshan to his devotees. It is engraved on the dais from where he’d watch devotees sing in his glory. Structure The mahasamadhi is a white marble edifice 9 feet long, 6 feet wide and 2 feet 2 inches high. It is in the form of a rectangle and has been constructed just above where Satya Sai Baba’s dead body was laid to rest on the 24th of April.
The construction of the Samadhi had been started just after the demise of the God man. Sai Central Trust Sai Baba’s spiritual empire is managed by the Sathya Sai Cen-
tral Trust. Satya Sai Central Trust had earlier announced that the mahasamadhi would be built in a grand and befitting manner. Some of the members of the Trust were under the scanner in connection with shifting of 35.50 lakh from Yajur Mandir to Bangalore. The government has also asked the Trust to submit a report on its activities in the wake of doubts expressed by devotees on its functioning.
Burial Satya Sai baba was buried inside the Sai Kulwant Hall at the Prasanthi Nilayam ashram in Puttaparthi. Sai Baba was a renouned figure therefore politicians and top bureaucrats attended his burial cerenmony, apart from family members of Baba and officials and members of the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust. Sai Baba’s nephew R.J. Ratnakar performed the last rituals .After the rituals were over, the God man was laid to rest in a 3 by 6 by 4.5 feet deep pit at a private ceremony which was conducted behind the curtains. The ceremony Thousands of devotees from all over the world gathered at the Sai Kulwant Hall in Prasanthi Nilayam where the Samadhi is located for the darshan of the mahasamadhi. Bringing back t he festive atmosphere in the town, the Samadhi was unveiled at 8 am which was followed by lectures from Indian and foreign speakers. It was a low scale event as planned by the Trust. Many personalities were present such as Andhra Pradesh ministers J Raghuveera Reddy, J Geeta Reddy and VHP leader Ashok Singhal.
Indo American News • Friday, July 29, 2011
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US Hindus to Donate Blood On the Anniversary of 9/11
WASHINGTON (SI): Hindus in the US plan to donate blood to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11 this year. The Hindu Mandirs Executive Conference (HMEC), an apex body of about 600 temples in the US, has appealed to the Hindus who form majority of the approximately three million IndianAmericans in the US to join the effort. Theinitiative is expected to benefit patients of Asian descent who require a closer blood match than that provided by ABO positive/ negative blood typi n g . The HMEC, which is coordinating the initiative with agencies such as the American Red Cross, said it is extremely important to increase the number of available blood donors from the Asian communities. This is for the first time that such an event will be held at temples across North America, the organizers said. Just five percent of the total eligible population in the US gives blood, however less than one percent of the Asian community donates blood, HMEC said in a statement.
Indo American News • Friday, JUly 29, 2011 • Online Edition: www.indoamerican-news.com
According to the US National Institutes of Health, nearly 14 million units of whole blood and red cells are required every year. Rahul M. Jindal, transplant surgeon at Walter Reed AMC and national coordinator for the e v e n t , has urged Hindus and Indian-Americans to donate blood on 9/11 or around that time. About 3,000 people were killed Sep 11, 2001, in the US when Al Qaeda terrorists crashed hijacked commercial jets into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and in a field. Dinesh G. Patel, chief of arthroscopic surgery, Harvard, said: “Our karma (action) is to follow our dharma (duty) and that is to perform our prescribed duty without anticipating any fruits. “What better causes to do than donate our blood where our spirit of giving is flowing and do without thinking about race, religion, gender or age.” The HMEC, an initiative of Vishwa Hindu Parishad America, seeks to promote the Hindu religion in North America.
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Reforms: Bees Saal Baad India has had 20 years of economic reforms. Its growth story sells well. Gone are the days it lived ship-to-mouth. Or choked industry with controls and red tape. Or served up gold reserves as borrower’s collateral. In 1991 we embraced liberalisation. And India’s never looked back since. Or has it? Nostalgia remains, on the political left and right. Some say reform has widened the rich-poor gap. Others decry corrupt “crony capitalism”. These apologists for the licence-permit raj should turn the argument around. Where would we be if reforms hadn’t happened? For starters we would still be shackled to the “Hindu” rate of growth, instead of being the second-fastest growing major economy. Shielded from overseas competition, our industry wouldn’t be world class. Our poverty rate wouldn’t drop since the 1970s from 65% to 35%. Nor would millions have aspirational and entrepreneurial drive, from farmers buying tractors to corporate biggies acquiring overseas stakes. We always had welfare. What did the trick if not private sector-led high growth? Look closer. The problems the anti-reform lobby highlights can be traced to inadequate reform, not excess of it. Every free society has its share of inequality because it allows for play of competitive forces. So, let’s focus less on income disparity than creation of income-boosting opportunities. As for corruption, blame tardiness in systemic overhaul. And note the vicious cycle: the more common people are deprived educational avenues or organised sector employment, the more scope for kickbacksdriven politics. To change this reality, we need more reform not less. For farm output and incomes to rise, we need to modernise agriculture through retail and marketing reform. For workers’ incomes and skills to increase, we need mass-scale factory jobs. Rapid industrialisation in turn demands labour and land reform. If rigid labour laws keep the bulk of the workforce shackled to low-paying, insecure jobs, drift on land acquisition revamp suits politically blessed land mafias, not industry or infrastructure developers. Clearly, access to land and other natural resources must be determined by market forces, not opaque systems of patronage that blight everything from housing to mining. The more choice people have - whether to buy cellphones or access food outside PDS - the more transparent systems become. Choice isn’t a hallmark of public sector monopoly but of private sector competition. Telecom, aviation or banking, sector after sector shows that to be true. So, India needs a second wave of reform: spurred disinvestment, tax revamp that creates a common market and investment-friendly policies for sectors ranging from insurance and energy to education. We’ve come a long way since 1991. We can go much further, much faster. Let’s not be shackled by nostalgia now. Times of India
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Arresting Moment for ISI By Shekhar Gupta First the disclaimer: no, I did not attend any of Ghulam Nabi Fai’s now infamous conferences. Then the disclosure: of course, I knew him. He was a constant presence on the South Asian conference circuit in Washington, and specially sought out Indian speakers. An amiable sounding fellow carrying a bunch of pamphlets and calling cards, both of which he dispensed with a generous smile, laced in humility and warmth. But all of it, the injured air of Kashmiri victimhood, and Americanised English would not fool you about who he exactly was, and what precisely he was after. He was a Pakistani lobbyist for “their” Kashmir cause, leading a very cleverly constructed overground support base for the malevolent movement that was picking strength in the early nineties. You would have to be utterly nuts, delusional or smoking some awful prohibited substance to not figure this out. Would you have known he was funded by the ISI? Again, you had to be from another planet to believe anything else, although, two decades back, the CIA was considered about as hostile to India as the ISI and I do remember one of the most able members of our almost all-woman diplomatic team in DC elbow me in my side at one of these conferences to whisper, dekha, yeh inki company ke logon ki sewa mein hai (see, he serves their “company” here). Company was the usual euphemism for CIA. In DC those days, CIA would look more like the usual suspect. Either way, the choice was CIA or ISI. But there was no doubt that Mr Fai was “well-funded”. The rest was left to your own judgment, sense of discretion and prevailing norms of disclosure. Or it depended on how difficult you found it to say no to the next junket to Washington, DC. To many of us who had covered terrorism in Punjab closely, and were used to dealing with globalised Khalistan activists, particularly Ganga Singh Dhillon (Khushwant Singh famously suggested once that he rename himself Potomac Singh, since he was betraying the nation of Ganga and lived in Washington), there was no mystery
“Foundations of the ongoing militancy in Kashmir were laid in Zia-ul-Haq’s last years. He had seen the strategy of “death by bleeding through a thousand cuts” work against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and decided to replicate it in India. That is how the Khalistan campaign was launched in Punjab in the early eighties. Its initial success led to the idea being expanded to Kashmir subsequently.” to the fact that these overground campaigners worked in close coordination with militant movements in India and enjoyed the backing of hostile intelligence agencies with unaudited funds. The larger argument, however, is about what the FBI move on Fai and his network means for the cause he and his masters have been campaigning for. Foundations of the ongoing militancy in Kashmir were laid in Zia-ul-Haq’s last years. He had seen the strategy of “death by bleeding through a thousand cuts” work against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and decided to replicate it in India. That is how the Khalistan campaign was launched in Punjab in the early eighties. Its initial success led to the idea being expanded to Kashmir subsequently. The Congress party’s dabbling in Sikh politics and hijacking of the 1987 Kashmir elections did add fuel to the fire, but both militant movements were planned, funded, led and sustained from Pakistan, as was the expansion of terror into the rest of India, starting with the serial Bombay blasts in 1993. Why else does Dawood Ibrahim have such an exalted status in Pakistan? For
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Kashmir, as they had done for Punjab, the ISI built a strong, overground “civil-society” network in the West, particularly in America and Britain. That is how the Fai network came into being. And for more than two decades the Americans did nothing about it. Surely they are not so delusional as not to have known who was funding it. That is why their destruction of the Fai network now is so important. It is one of the most important turning points in India’s ongoing battle with Pakistan-sponsored Kashmir militancy. It is a firm indication that the Americans have dumped all pretence and are no longer willing to ignore — and thereby tacitly support — the ISI’s campaign in Kashmir. Of course they are not doing so because they have discovered a new love for us. They are doing it because they love themselves. Howsoever strong their strategic interests, they can no longer overlook the fact that the ISI is essentially a one-dimensional (anti-India) organisation that sees no issue with sponsoring violence and terror in pursuit of its main objective. Afghanistan and Pakistan’s own western borders are secondary in its calculations. Its old and too-clever-by-half argument that it would help the Americans in the west as long as they overlooked what they were doing in the east (in India) has now been trashed. The central message of the FBI move against Fai is, essentially, this: that Pakistan’s own stalwart allies and moneybags will no longer accept this utterly cynical double-nuancing of the war against terror. This is the real import of this week’s crackdown on Fai. Of course, we in India are too distracted by our own problems, too internally focused to think about this. This is a real turning point in our war against terror. It helps further that it comes at a time when militancy in Kashmir is at its lowest ebb. It’s an opportunity we need to find the focus to build on. Who accepted Fai’s free tickets and hospitality, knowingly or unknowingly, is entirely irrelevant in the big picture. Particularly when Fai, and this entire ISI-funded operation, is now history. Indian Express
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Hindu diners s sue Indian restaurant r
By Moni BaSu u& ChelSea ea Bailey NEW JERSEY (CNN): A small tray of vegetable samosas costs $35 at the Mughal Express restaurant. But one particular tray, sold to strict Hindu vegetarians, might end up costing the Edison, New Jersey, restaurant a whole lot more. The Hindu customers said the restaurant served them meat samosas, harming them emotionally and spirituality. A state appellate court ruled Wednesday that they can sue for the cost of travel to India to purify their souls. Two summers ago, Durgesh Gupta and Sharad Agrawal walked into the popular Mughal Express on Oak Tree Road, in the heart of Edison’s Indian community, and ordered samosas. They were strict vegetarians, they said in making sure there was no meat in their order of the traditional Indian snack. Gupta said a restaurant employee assured them that it did not make meat samosas, according to court documents. A half-hour later, the two men picked up a tray labeled “VEG samosas.” But after Gupta and his group of 16 people began eating the triangular deep-fried pastries, they grew concerned they were eating meat. When they went to return the uneaten samosas, the restaurant said it had made a mistake, court documents showed. Yes, the vegetarians had consumed meat and believed they were com-
plicit in inflicting death and injury to God’s creatures. They sued Mughal Express but a lower court deemed they did not have a case - until this week, when the appellate court reversed that decision. What the 16 Hindus want is compensation for a trip to the Hindu holy town of Haridwar, India, where the Ganges begins its downward flow to the ocean. There, they want to take dips in the river and, by Hindu belief, cleanse their souls of sin. And they want the restaurant to pay for it all. K. Raja Bhattacharya, the lawyer for the vegetarian diners, and David Novack, an attorney representing the
restaurant, both declined comment because the case is ongoing. In 2002, McDonald’s Corp. paid $10 million to Hindu, vegetarian and other groups in order to settle a lawsuit against the company for failing to disclose that beef flavoring was used in French fries. The company began advertising the fries were vegetarian after they switched to vegetable oil to reduce cholesterol, but the fries contained small amounts of beef flavoring added at the processing plant.
But the New Jersey lawsuit may be more compelling by virtue of it being against an Indian establishment and one owned by a Hindu at that, said Suhag Shukla, legal council for the Hindu American Foundation. “I think the fact that it was an Indian restaurant makes it a bit more compelling because the restaurant owners probably would have been more sensitive to being careful (about vegetarianism) and to not make that kind of mistake,” she said. But some Hindus felt the diners were taking things too far. They doubted whether there was any kar karmic debt associated with the consumption of meat. Pradip Kothari, president of the Indo-American Cultural Society in Edison, suggested the diners could easily go to a temple to cleanse their souls. Indian-Americans have much to be grateful for in America, he said, and the lawsuit takes advantage of a U.S. judicial system that has afforded them individual protections. “I understand how they feel,” Kothari said. “I myself am a Hindu. But this is hypocrisy of the law.” And of religion, he said. “If you are a true religious person, God teaches you to forgive.” He did not know the diners, he said, but they should be ashamed for bringing a bad name not just to Hindus but to the Indian-American community. As for Mughal Express, there were no non-vegetarian samosas on the online menu Thursday.
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Pune e engineering Grad redefines r s sports car BANGALORE (SI): Victory touches the feet of the people who are pioneering and audacious. The young chap from Patna Aum Ravi who has attained triumph in the world of motor sports. Ravi a mechanical engineer from university of Pune recently developed “Formula 800” his own innovative technology for developing a new racing car with the help of his team mates. His team named resonance racing in Chennai on July 3 participated in a motor race competition. His racing car came first and won the national championship trophy along with the prize money of 4 Lakh. “The team effort was the reason for success. We all worked together for 1.25 years for this race. Designing took around 3-4 months; fabrication around 6 month and the hardest things was to find the sponsors. We worked hard, we got our fruit and now we all are proud of ourselves.” Aum Ravi said. Moiyav Vora, Harsimran Singh
the designer, captain and the driver Aditya Dandwate, the parts procurement team consisting of Mukul Bararday and Akshay and the fabrication coordinator Bharath Gaikwad with
Aum Ravi are the champions all together. The pit stops was the main task to manage in the race which should be the minimum and they made it in 34.66 seconds where as the car that was placed second managed to have a pit stops of 1min 9 sec. “It was our dream to win the national championship for which we have
been thriving for three years. Our first achievement was in the year 2009 and 2010 when we won the race organized by BAJA at Indore and we were placed all over third using a all terrain vehicle which can move on sandy and muddy surfaces.” For Formula 800 got to be the best excelvation and also for hill climbing of 45 degrees. “We used Maruti 800 engine which is a big risk as playing with the car’s engine can complicate things. The built up of the car should be aerodynamically friendly and the centre of gravity should be beneath the driver. We worked on the steering as well. We designed it which had 240 degree left lock and right lock and it just takes a turn in one move of the steer.” Aum had a great passion for motor sports from his childhood days. He made movable objects using motors and had a great passion for car racing which has brought his dedication to this level.
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“doc, Please Talk to my m dad”
Breaking the sex ed taboo is raising awareness in kids—and parents By advaita kala I often wonder what it would have been like to come of age in today’s world. My own experience oscillates between an all girls school coyness and the bra-snapping bravado exhibited by the nastier boys in the co-educational school I finished at. Hence, it is to my embarrassment that I often display naivete in response to the younger generation’s sexual awareness. At a recent dinner party, an 11-year-old girl with a plump and wide-eyed disposition cosied up to me and admitted that one of the best things about a recent film based on my screenplay were the naked torso shots of Ranbir Kapoor. Although in general agreement, I was still at a loss. Having none of my own, I am inclined to think of children as little people. But this time, the pedantic voice in my head warned: “This is not a conversation we should be having.” I was spared the trauma of having to give a response when she scurried away upon the arrival of her mother. ‘Mom’ apologised discreetly for the clumsy carriage of her dinner duties and her lamentable reduction to barking orders because of her period. It forbade her entry into the kitchen. Nestled as I was between the two generations and their moments of unguarded feminine confidences, I contemplated ways to take the conversation forward. The little one’s censorious glances did nothing to aid the offsetting of my absent gift of repartee. At least one thing was familiar, there were still things that mothers were not telling daughters and daughters were not telling mothers. But was that a fair assumption? My friend Sarita, mother to both an 11-year-old and a nine-year-old, is often regaling me with stories of her travails as a mother. Most recently, it was the dreaded sex talk at her son’s school. She is all for sex education and, as it turns out, the sex ed team made up 20 per cent of the class
and psychologically precocious and it is mostly conservative parents who “struggle” with this aspect of raising a child. Enlightened parents move with the times and their kids become as comfortable with their sexuality as their parents. But there are other social networks that influence sexual awareness and, to some extent, play a role in shaping a child’s sexuality—the other day, my grocer was grumbling about the state of television serials and how he can’t watch a show with his kids in the same room. And then there is the issue of including sex education in school cur curriculums and whether it really is the right way to go. Dr K counters that sexual education starts in the cradle and ends in the grave. It can never come too early but can and often is too late. Besides, there’s always an
at this posh school. The school, recognising the contentiousness of the issue, had elected to share the presentation with the parents first and the kids after. What amazed and amused her in equal measure was the session’s metamorphosis into a class on sex education for the parents. Thirtysomethings asked the most basic questions—and listened in rapt engagement—as the debate about “too much information” was forgotten. How did they ever manage to make babies, she wonders. However, my friend had her own lesson to learn. Over the weekend following the class, her son studiously avoided his parents. Deciding this state of affairs could not continue into the week, she cornered him into a conversation. His reply? He had known about ‘this stuff’ all along. When his friend had told him in class two that his mother and father ‘do it’, he had refused to believe him. And now that he knew it to be true, he was just too embarrassed to look at them.
Class two?? Really? I decide to speak to Dr Sudhakar Krishnamurti (Dr K), author of Sex is Not a FourLetter Word and a leading andrologist and sexual health expert. He was once my paediatrician too—the way doctor uncles and aunts become when you are a kid with an early onset of hypochondria. He doesn’t find this phenomenon surprising. Sexuality has become biologically
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age-appropriate sexual education model. I decide to enquire about his own experiences as a father of two girls. His advice: “Just don’t make a fuss about it.” At times, he would walk into a room and encounter “female speak”—and it would continue as before despite his presence. But while that might work with doctor dad, one wonders if it would pass muster with, for instance, banker dad? “Look,” he says, “one cannot be comfortable with the subject of sex unless they are comfortable with their own sexuality.” With the onus placed so squarely in the parents’ corner, it just seems like additional pressure. But as Dr K reminds me, parents need to wake up and realise the days of the “Chee, chee, get your hands off your pee pee” culture are over. Outlook India
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Peter Honegg: A German Gypsy’s Indian challenge c The MD and CEO of Mercedes-Benz India wants to make the brand young and hip
By Shally Seth Mohile MUMBAI (Mint): Peter Honegg doesn’t conform to the stereotypical image of a hard-nosed, no nonsense, supremely structured German businessman. The self-proclaimed “abnormal German” says he is truly a gypsy at heart. “I don’t make plans in personal life,” he says, chuckling. We meet at the Mercedes-Benz Café that overlooks lush lawns at the heart of the company’s 100-acre facility in Chakan near Pune. The only embellishment in the themebased, minimalist lounge is the threepointed star present in various forms such as at the counter, on the central table and on the wall adjacent to the sofa. After a few minutes’ wait, Honegg strolls in. He greets me in a thick Ger German accent, with a warm handshake and we camp on the beige leather sofa. His crisp white shirt, red striped silk tie and black trousers complement his freewheeling, candid style of communication, of often laced with humour that makes us both break into laughter several times. It’s not surprising when he says he has made lot of friends— both in and outside the company in all the countries he has worked in. And he has worked in a lot of countries. My first experience with Honegg and his wisecracks was in Mumbai some months ago when Mercedes invited reportreport ers for an evening function to welcome him to the country. “My speech will be like a miniskirt—long enough to cover the bare essentials and short enough to keep the interest sustained,” he said then, as the respectful silence gave way to roaring laughter. Honegg, 56, who has been with the company for 36 years, took over the reins of Mercedes Benz India Pvt. Ltd as the managing director and chief executive in January. He has come with a specific mandate—to revitalize and project brand Mer Mercedes, which has been losing ground to rival BMW, as a sporty young brand for the hip. Honegg is the third-generation family employee at Daimler Benz— a 125-year-old firm—with both father and grandfather having served the company for 44 years each, respectively. His tryst with the “threepointed star” was more by default and not by design, he says, as he runs his fingers through his bushy white Einstein moustache, reminiscent of an era gone by. As a young man who wanted to be a bioscientist several years ago, Honegg was reluctant to take the scholarship he got from Mercedes to do a master’s in business economics. He wanted to opt for biology in Stuttgart, his hometown in Germany. But that was not to be. “My father said, you study business for three years and then go back to university. But I eventually got
sucked in,” he says. Honegg joined Mercedes in 1976 as a salesman and there was no looking back after he moved to the export department in 1982. He says in jest that the lure of travelling across the globe drove him to the “family business”. In the subsequent years, his job took him to several countries—from East Europe and Iran to North-East, South-East Asia and the Asia-Pacific, as he kept moving up the company ladder, straddling various roles within the firm. In 1992, he was appointed regional director of Mercedes-Benz Iran, his first posting outside Europe. There was initial resistance from his wife Daniela, who was unsure how life would take shape away from the comfort of familiar surroundings. After a lot o f
persuasion and the promise of an opportunity to see a land they wouldn’t have otherwise, the Honeggs agreed to shift gears and move. Daniela loved the place so much that even before he had officially accepted the position, she got their two children enrolled into local schools. Thus began the Honegg family’s continuing Oriental sojourn. Credited with turning around the Mercedes-Malaysia operations, playing a key role in expanding sales in theAsian region and making China the No. 1 market for the company in three years, Honegg is Mercedes’ Asia expert. Under his stewardship (2002-05), sales for the company in China catapulted to 150,000 units a year from 4,000-5,000. Malaysia started selling 5,000 cars a year, dur during his stint from 2006 to 2010, from virtually nothing. Honegg is optimistic that India too will see similar growth trajectory, and emerge as one of the world’s largest markets for Daimler Benz in the near future. But he remains intrigued by the Indian market because, “it’s quite different from the breed I have known so far”. “It’s important for me to know what the Indian customers want as I
don’t think one size fits all.” Daniela was not reluctant to move to India because a three-week visit to the Kumbh Mela in 2001 had given her an instant liking for the “world’s spiritual epicentre”. So when the of offer to head India came by, Honegg says, in the last quarter of 2010, she couldn’t have been happier. Several years of work in Asian countries— including Hong Kong, Singapore, and now India—have made the Honeggs, particularly son Mario, fond of Asian culture. So deep is the influence on Mario that the 20-yearold chose a Malaysian university over an Australian one for his graduate studies in economics. His elder sister Marienne, 24, completes her father’s dream by pursuing biology in Germany. Honegg’s next project is to give the brand a sporty perception in India which he plans to leverage with the Formula One (F1) connection similar to the way the Mercedes brand has been built in other Asian markets. Mercedes is the only other luxury car-maker associated with F1— its team is McLaren-Mercedes— besides Ferrari. He has already launched various models which concon form to the new perception like the Maybach 57S & 62, Mercedes-Benz G 55 AMG, Mercedes-Benz SL 350 and Mercedes-Benz GL-Class 500. “Our customers here do not recognize it as a sporty brand. Few know that besides Ferrari, we are the only company in F1,” says Honegg, who adds that India is known only for its three sports—cricket, cricket and cricket. He has already set his mind on selling F1 tickets through the company’s dealerships and catching consumer fancy as India gets ready to host the world’s most adrenaline thumping motorsport event for the first time in Delhi in October. Come autumn, the wine aficionado also plans to brew his own wine. He wants to go plucking grapes from his friend’s vineyard near Pune. “I don’t like the wines available here. Some Indian wines give me a headache,” he complains, as he goes on to explain the intricacies of winemaking and invites me for a tasting session. “You will be the guinea pig,” he remarks mischievously. Honegg’s wide range of interests— from golfing, motorcycling to architecture, books, love for wine, watches and cooking propelled by his love for chicken tikka and dal from Shere-Punjab, Pune— and his ability to leap from one subject to the other with dexterity, makes 1 hour and 45 minutes whizz past. “What more can I ask for, I get paid to talk,” he says, laughing. As the “gypsy” leaves for his next pit stop—his office—he appears to be in no hurry, strolling through the sprawling premises, with a philosopher-like air, his tie fluttering in the cool breeze.
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Katrina Kaif
Katrina to do an Item number n for salman s Salman Khan has a way with ladies. Not only has the man dated some of the most beautiful women in Bollywood, he’s managed to convince them to be part of his other ventures too. Sallu’s ex Katrina Kaif will soon be seen sizzling in an item number in Salman’s upcoming Bodyguard. And allSallu had to do is ask. This item number will be played along with the opening credits of the film. Much to chagrin of leading lady Kareena Kapoor. “When Salman asked Katrina to be a part of Bodyguard, she didn’t even blink before saying ‘yes’. But on hearing Salman’s grand plans for the item number Katrina got a little unsure,” a source revealed to Mumbai Mirror.”Salman’s brief was simple, an item song for the opening credits that would put Sheila to shame. Considering Kareena was the leading lady of the film, Katrina feared that this might not go down too well with her.
The walt w disney studios unveils A Trio of Indian-made Films for north America The Walt Disney Studios has announced the North American release of three films from India, Do Dooni Chaar, Once Upon A Warrior and Zokkomon, releasing on July 26. The movies will be released simultaneously on DVD, video-on-demand, and digital download and will be featured on iTunes - all on the same day. Designed to expand the entertainment options of diverse cultural groups in North America, the movies feature some of the most recognizable local talent from India. Disney was involved in production of each film which will be released in their local language and subtitled in English. About the films: DO DOONI CHAAR DO DOONI CHAAR is a heart-warming comedy about the dreams and challenges of a middle-class family who take a chaotic journey to fulfill their dream of owning a car and discover the true meaning of family along the way. The film was written and directed by Habib Faisal (co-writer of “Salaam Namaste”) and features Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Kapoor, Aditi Vasudev, Archit Krishna, Akhilendra Mishra, Natasha Rastogi, Supriya Shukla, Mohit Chaddha and Avtar Sahni. It won India’s prestigious National Award for Best Hindi Film of the Year as well as the Best Actor Award from the 2011 New York Indian Film Festival for Rishi Kapoor.
Format: DVD, Movie Download & On-Demand Run Time: 111 minutes Languages: Hindi (subtitled in English) www.Disney.com/DoDooniChaar ONCE UPON A WARRIOR As the first ever Disney Telugu fantasy adventure, ONCE UPON A WARRIOR is about a swashbuckling warrior on an epic quest to save a mystical young girl from a wicked Queen in the ultimate battle between good and evil. In the tradition of “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Prince of Persia,” the film features an all-star cast including Siddharth, Shruti Haasan and Lakshmi Manchu. The background score is from Salim-Sulaiman and the Music Directors are Koti, Mickey J. Mayer, Salim-Sulaiman and M.M. Keeravani. The film is produced by Prasad Devinini, Prakash Kovelamudi and Written & Directed by Prakash Kovelamudi. K. Raghavendra Rao who has over 100 Telugu films among his credits, is also a producer. Format: DVD, Movie Download & On-Demand Run Time: 133 minutes Languages: Telugu (subtitled in English)
Indo American News • Friday, July 29, 2011
Kareena:
Heroine was Always my Film Bebo has broken her silence on speculation that she may be doing Madhur Bhandarkar’s Heroine, which was shelved after lead actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan announced her pregnancy. “The whole world knows that Heroine is my movie, that it was written for me and Madhur was in talks with me.
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Kareen Kapoor
IamINdoeNterta NtertaIN tertaINme INmeNt NtNews
“relationship relationship relationship with john over o ver for Good” Bipasha Basu is furious at media reports that she is heartbroken after her former beau, actor John Abraham spoke about their relationship on national television. She says there’s no point in talking about a break-up that happened “almost a year ago”.”Waking up to stories about my life everyday is no fun! Making me sound tragic when I am in a happy place is not ok with me! (sic)” Bipasha posted on her Twitter page. It was Bipasha who had admitted that she had parted ways with John, after being in a relationship for eight years. For a long time, John chose to remain silent about it, but he poured his heart out on veteran actress Simi Garewal’s talk show India’s Most Desirable.”Wht happens between 2 ppl is supposed 2 stay between d 2 when its over, that’s d dignity that I have grown up with and the respect I deserve. I dn’t need to be on a talk show 2 prove my goodness! My relationship with John Abraham is over fr good, fr reasons knwn best to d both of us,” Bipasha tweeted.”My break up happened almost a year ago! Why r these stories coming up now? Is it a pr exercise for a film or overimaginative journalism?” she added. The break-up became public in May this year, but considering Bipasha’s statement, the two might have split a long time back.
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Bipasha Basu
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Indo American News • Friday, July 29, 2011
IamFoodNews
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Indian Govt to campaign Against Food w wasted at weddings w NEW DELHI (NDTV): When the daughter of businessman Mohammed Sultan got married recently, guests were treated to a lavish 30-course meal served in super-sized silver platters. The Kashmiri feast, prepared by an army of chefs, included more than 20 meat and kebab dishes rich with spices to go with the saffronflavored rice and naan breads. Hours later, after the more than 500 guests had eaten their fill, the leftovers were dumped by the cartload at a nearby garbage site. As the ranks of India’s wealthy surge with rapid economic growth, many families are staging extravagant displays of food at their children’s weddings to show off their newfound affluence. The prodigious waste that follows has horrified many in a nation where food prices are skyrocketing and tens of millions of young children are malnourished. At the recent wedding of the son of a ruling party leader, more than a 100 dishes representing Thai, Chinese, Mediterranean and Indian cuisines were served to over 30,000 guests. About 20 percent would’ve been thrown away. India’s Food Minister KV Thomas wants to curtail what has become known as the Big Fat Indian Wedding. He says about one-fifth of the food served at weddings and social gatherings is discarded. “It’s a criminal waste,” Thomas said. The tons of food wasted at social gatherings across the country each day contrasts sharply with the food shortages, often bordering on chronic starvation, faced by millions of poor Indians. Like elsewhere in Asia, food prices in India are rising fast - by 8.4 percent in June alone - as demand outstrips production. And the burden is falling disproportionately on the poor. Experts say the jump in prices for staples to record highs over the past few months has pushed another 64 million Asians into poverty. According to the food minister, around 100,000 weddings and social events are held in India every day. He says food wasted each day at weddings and family functions in Mumbai alone would be enough
cap on wedding guests as a measure to curb food shortages. “It’s a knee jerk reaction, a populist measure,” says Ashish Abrol, a former IBM executive who in 2010 set up a wedding planning firm, Big Indian Wedding. “It would be an utter failure since it’s impossible to implement. The net result would be more corruption,” Abrol said. Suresh Misra at the Indian Institute of Public Administration, a New Delhi-based think tank, agrees that legislation to end the waste may not be “feasible or workable.” “It is true that we cannot force people to cut back on wasteful displays of food and spending, but if we get people thinking about the enormous amounts of food that’s wasted, that itself would be a step forward,” says Misra, who is a member of Thomas’ committee. But efforts to pick up the leftovers and distribute them to the poor have not taken off due to lack of infrastructure. Also, many Indians are reluctant to eat leftovers, partly because food spoils quickly in the country’s hot climate. Before cracking down on weddings, the government plans to cut back on its own excesses. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s of office has sent out letters to government departments urging austerity at seminars and conferences. And in what could prove to be
to feed the city’s vast slum population. The International Food Policy Research Institute ranks India 67 out of 84 countries in its 2010 global hunger index, a survey of the prevalence of child malnutrition,
wedding caterers while planning her daughter’s December marriage. “My husband and I have worked hard all these years. Now we want a spectacular celebration to invite all our friends,” she said. Sociologist Abhilasha Kumari
child mortality and the proportion of people who are calorie deficient. A committee Thomas established toyed with restricting the number of guests at weddings and the number of dishes that could be served. But the idea was quickly shot down by critics who said it would simply give corrupt inspectors another reason to solicit bribes. Instead, the committee has decided on a public awareness campaign through the media and outreach to schools and social organizations to spread the word that less is more when it comes to weddings. If the awareness campaign fails to make a dent, Thomas said he would consider resurrecting the guest limit proposal. It would not be the first time. In the early 1960s, in the after aftermath of a brief border war with the Chinese, food shortages led the government to impose a ‘Guest Control Order’ limiting the number of wedding guests. The restrictions were short-lived, although it did focus public opinion on adopting a measure of frugality. Today, austerity is far from the minds of India’s wealthy, who fly in orchids from Thailand to decorate overstuffed buffet tables. “It’s my only daughter’s wedding. I don’t want to stint on anything. And certainly not on food,” said Alka Gupta, a businesswoman, as she studied a sheaf of menus from
says that for the burgeoning middle classes, making a spectacle of weddings has become quite the accepted norm. Bollywood has done much to popularise the theme of the big Indian wedding, says Kumari. “Conspicuous consumption is no longer viewed with distaste as it once was under India’s earlier socialist ethos,” she said. “It’s a new India where there are new value systems. Over-consumption is the norm.” The mere idea of scaled down celebrations has, not surprisingly, prompted a host of objecSubscribe to Indo-American News Today tions from businesses We cover your world! who bank on big wedThe Indo Queen is Name: ____________________________________ Dead dings. American News Cutting down on slumdog million Phone: ____________________________________ aire the number of dishes may not be an easy Address:___________________________________ task, says Nitin Luthra, a leading New Delhi caterer who __________________________________________ has organized some of Delhi’s most specNumber of Years: 1 2 5 10 Lifetime tacular weddings. (circle one) $30 $58 $130 $277 $399 “People have begun demanding exotic Credit Card: Master Card / Visa (Circle One) cuisines. What they want is a memorable _________________________________________ evening for everyone Your Signature: who attends the wedExp Date: ___/___ 3 digit code:______ ___________________________ ding,” Luthra said. Do cut and mail to: 7457 Harwin Dr, Ste 262, Houston, TX 77036 (OR) Scan and E-mail to: Wedding planners Indoamericannews@yahoo.com • Call us at 713-789-6397 • Call us to sign up for E-mail Blast Indo-American News is community oriented. We thank you for your subscription & support. scoffed at the idea of a
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a landmark initiative, the government has prepared a draft law that would make access to food a basic right of every citizen. Under the proposed law, almost 70 percent of the population would be entitled to subsidized food. Rising food costs, coupled with steep increases this year in the price of cooking gas and gasoline, have led poor families to pare food budgets. But there are no such concerns for India’s moneyed elite. Gupta, the businesswoman, says for the affluent classes, rising prices are not the overriding concern when planning a wedding. “I would like to scale down things, but feel helpless. There are so many expectations riding on the children’s marriage. Very often it’s not in our hands,” she said. “If we resort to a scaled down wedding, it could send the wrong signal to our business associates.” Another problem is that most Indians don’t take the RSVP seriously. Wedding planners and caterers have to be prepared for huge turnouts at wedding parties, with the danger that the food may run out. If attendance is lower than expected, that extra food is scrapped. “You have no idea how many will turn up at the wedding reception, and have to plan for both contingencies,” said Gupta. “We would lose face, and it would look so bad, if the food ran out.”
Friday, July 31
2009 | Vol. 28,
No. 31
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has th hel e movie ped o in ndiar hurt ’s im age ?
Read all about it inside.
BollywoodShow EXPLOSION 200 s4U Brings 9 to Houston HOUSTON: Sonu Nigam, Sunidhi Chauhan and Hard to make a stunning Kaur are set the Explosions eventappearance in Bollywood Shows organized by 4 by Moid Khan. The U conducted event is set to be held at the Reliant Arena on August 7, 2009.
ers to Houston thus
making Houstonians dreams organizing “Explosion come true, by 2009” Concert. “Explosion 2009 will Houston residents be giving a night non-stop session of long rockrock ing Bollywood melodies, promising one of the most memorable musical treats like never witnessed before. For tickets log on to www.bollywood oodshows4u.com or call 281-2354711.
Moid Khan informed that Houston residents have been waiting for a long time to see the live performance of Sonu Nigam. Bolly Bollywoodshows4u is bringing the performperform
Houston. The Foundation could not have chosen to raise awarenessa better topic among IndoBY PRAMOD KUL Americans in Houston K KARNI about its HOUSTON: If there’s one recent Indian studies programs. Prior movie that has to polarized opinions the discussion of the film, Parul about India, it Fernandes is lionaire. The movieSlumdog Mil- explained and Krishna Vavilala ements of entertainmhas all the el- is currentlythat the Foundation ent conducting designed to glue you to Hindi Level I and Level your II courses as awe, amusemen seat – shock, well as t, love and inspiration disgust, true Jainism classes on Hinduism, and the Anthropolo have seen movie . Some people India. gy of The each time moved several times, received Foundation has also to tears and joy. support from There are a few Indian others, however, government’s Ministry of Overwho could not get past the slum seas Indians to fund a Chair for kid’s jump into Indian studies at the UH. blinding of a child. cesspool or the An 11-minute clip of Slumdog More than 120 people with prob- Millionaire, edited by Anil Kuably 200 opinions about the movie mar, was screened to stimulate assembled at a the discussion. The town clip included held at India House hall meeting scenes depicting negative last Sunday afternoon. aspects of India such as religious The town hall mony, child prostitution disharmeeting was oror , and ganized by the Foundation for lice brutality. These scenes poIndia Studies at were the University of followed by uplifting scenes in CONTINUED
ON PAGE 4
Ambassador Ambassador MeeraMeera Shankar Shankar visits Houston Visits Page 11
Houston Page 11
Central Texas Temple Grows
Page 6
NRI nvestors Lose Money Chilled IACCGH to Maytas Waterm Helps elonto Proper ties in Soup Hire India Page Page 5 26
NRI Investors Lose Money to Maytas Properties in India Page 21 Indo-American
News • Friday,
July 31, 2009
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25
WEEKLY HOROSCOPE
www.GaneshaSpeaks.com
ARIES Mar 21 - Apr 20: This phase marks the onset of a new trend, which extends well into August. Your impulsiveness changes into a calm and serene disposition you become inter interested in philanthropic activity. You go to the extent of even sharing your resources with the underprivileged. You take the lead in getting things done at the office or home or at social functions. Your approach to your environment is very humane, and become helpful. Your bond with your partner will grow stronger. TAURUS Apr 21 - May 21 You set out on your quest for true happiness. You are very extravagant while declaring your love, and your bonding and consequent bliss will increase. You are prone to getting depressed during the new moon phase, and at such times you feel like exploring esoteric issues of life. Meditation and other relaxation techniques help you develop a more positive frame of mind. It is also a good time to fix financial targets and plan various projects. GEMINI May 22 - Jun 21: You make dramatic changes in your personality, and your new exuberant attitude will have an dramatic impact in the personal and professional spheres. A feeling of delight radiates through your being, you will benefit immensely from the positive changes. You will be busy with your work, there will be picnics and parties with your friends, colleagues, family members and even distant relatives. Your days will be filled with happiness and have a comfortable cash flow, you will enjoy all the good things of life. CANCER Jun 22 - Jul 23: The new moon signals the onset of a potent new phase in which you will be creative in everything you do, and you will enjoy it! Your ego will receive a boost, but you will have to be careful of that nasty tongue! Crabs are normally soft people but can sometimes turn harsh. You enjoy beautiful things and enjoy wearing them. It puts you in high spirits! Compliments, even flattery, will pour in from all quarters, and you will relish every moment of it. It is an auspicious time to make new beginnings. LEO July 24 - Aug 23:You are feeling very adventurous at the moment and will be inclined to spend a lot of time in outdoor activities. Playing with your children reminds you of your own childhood and youth, it will fill you with an irresistible sense of nostalgia. You will find all these activities extremely entertaining and beneficial. On the relationship front, things are a bit cool! However, your work is both fascinating and rewarding. You will squeeze out time for your hobbies, and perhaps even enroll for a new course. International travel is likely. VIRGO Aug 24 - Sep 23: You will introduce many modifications in your life and work, reexamine all facets of your life to bring about a radical change in your personality. There will be new work, new contacts, and since you have realized the importance of genuine relationships, you will be keen to make the best of what life has to offer. Relatives and siblings count for a lot, and you will realize how vital their support is. You will be attracted by intellectual pursuits, advanced studies, research and the IT sector. You will pay more attention to neglected areas. LIBRA Sep 24 - Oct 23: Keep an eye out for a sudden turn of events! You will broaden your outlook and look for real personal growth
more internal than external and your role in the big picture as far as your community’s af affairs are concerned. You will do some introspection and examine your limitations, in stark contrast to the worldly activities that kept you engrossed in the recent past. You will give quality time to welfare activities and charitable institutions. Since your focus now is on your growth as an individual, you will do all the required things and make progress in the right direction. SCORPIO Oct 24 - Nov 22: You sport an optimistic outlook this week, which is very favourable for you, and excel both in work and extra-curricular activities. You manage to cross all obstacles that come your way. And you do it with typical panache! You will develop a spiritual inclination, which will be very helpful for you in strengthening all your relationships. You are able to relax and stay balanced under all kinds of circumstances. Luck will favour you, but you will have to grab the opportunities that happen to come your way. SAGITTARIUS Nov 23 - Dec 22: You are now set to take off in a big way! Expansion and appreciation are both on the cards. Your self-confidence touches a new high! Your new job is also profitable, despite the teething troubles that you had faced. But, `no pain, no gain’is true. Your labors today will certainly bear fruits in the future. In projects with an overseas connection, your performance will be remarkable. You are gaining a truly global perspective! There is peace and compatibility even on the domestic front. You are a warm and compassionate person. CAPRICORN Dec 23 - Jan 20: You set about spending your hard earned income on the many requirements that have cropped up. You develop an aesthetic sense, and will want to beautify your surroundings. Your latent creative abilities will flower. You will perform well in your job, and both your peers and superiors will appreciate your work. You may even get a promotion, and you relish every moment of this favourable period. If you are self-employed, you will do well. Cupid’s shafts will pierce your heart, and if you are single, enjoy this phase! AQUARIUS Jan 21 - Feb 19: This is a daunting period, but regardless of it you will continue to work hard and make substantial progress on all fronts. You are pepped up, raring to go, and will have success in everything that you do! You are set to enjoy life like there is no tomorrow! Both home and wardrobe will be overhauled! You will make judicious investments, perhaps even buy a piece of property. You will be tempted to indulge in a bit of speculative trade. Guard against excesses! PISCES Feb 20 - Mar 20: Everything you undertake now will be fruitful and will increase your prestige. This is a beneficial period and you will coast along with the momentum, or if you don’t, you will risk being left out! It doesn’t get better than this, and you ought to grab it with both hands. Family life is coming along smoothly, no problems on that front, but you will scarcely have any time for your near and dear ones. Your priorities are clear, the period is financially good, and you aim to make the best of it to the exclusion of everything else!
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