SPAN: July/August 2010

JULY/AUGUST2010

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Ramayana's Modern Avatar

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SPAN is celebrating 50 years of conversation with our readers, bui Iding a bridge from America to India. In this spirit, we are inviting artists, photographers, writers, filmmakers-professional s or amateurs-to reflect on the relationship between our natiQns. Submit your entry by September 1, 20'1o.

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Theme:

Theme:

Theme:

U.S.-India Relations, Entrepreneurship, Technology Cooperation , Education, Democracy

Tog ether We Can~ What can th e U.S. and India accomplish together?

U.S. and India Connections

Prizes:

• An iPad to the first prize wi nner.

• Online U.S. magazine subscriptions to second and thi rd place winners.

• Winners' articles will be published in the SPAN e-zine .

• An iPad .

• The wi nner's artwork will appear on a SPAN cover.

• SPAN will invite the winner to spend a day at the SPAN art studio.

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Prizes: • An iPad. • The wi nning video wi ll be featured in the SPAN e-zine.

July/August 2010

SPAN

Cover package

Front cover: Photo Š Getty Images.

VOLUME LI NUMBER 4 Publisher: Editor in Chief: Editor: Associate Editor: Hindi Editor: Copy Editors:

Art Director: Deputy Art Directors:

Editorial Assistant: Production/Circulation Manager: Printing Assistant: Research Services:

Michael P Pel letier Lisa A. Swenarski de Herrera Laurinda Keys Long Deepanjal i Kakati Giriraj Agarwal Richa Varma Shah Md. Tahsin Usmani Hemant Bhatnagar Khurshid Anwar Abbasi Qasim Raza Yugesh Mathur Alok Kaushik Manish Gandhi Bureau of International Information Programs,

46 * Lifestyle: Flash Mobs

By Kaitl in McVey

50 * Innovation: From Oysters to Crowdsourcing

By Jane Varner Malhotra

Readers ' Memories On the Lighter Side

24 *Education: New Pathways to Learning 55 * US-IndiaStrategic Dialogue Agriculture

By Shai la Mahan

Books: Ramayana Reborn with a

56 * Addressing India'sWater Needs 59 * Achievers: U.S.-IndiaCorporate

By Carrie Loewenthal Massey

Partnership for a Green Sports Stadium

By Shalini Kathuria Narang

Monitoring the Environment

By Paromita Pain

19 * Women's Empowerment on a Full

By Giriraj Agarwa l

Stomach

Letters to the Editor

By Beth Brownson Published by the Public Affa irs Section, American Center, 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001 (phone: 23472000), on behalf of the U.s. Embassy, New Delhi. Printed at Thomson Press India lim ite d, 18/35, De lhi Mathura Road , Farr dabad, Haryana 121 007. Opinions expressed in this 68-pagemagazine do not necessari ly reflect the views or policies of the U.s. Govemment

36

Golden Oldies: The Fabindia Story

By Sunil Sethi

40 * Shaheen Mistri: Fostering Entrepreneurship from Class One

By Sebastian John

22 * Consumers: Getting Your Money's

By Charles Bel l

AConnecticut Yankee in India

By Sunil Sethi

42 * Holiday: Memorial Day Honors American War Dead 44 * Citi zen or Not, the US Census

By Mi chael Jay Friedman

Counts Everyone By Jane Morse

* Articles with astar may be reprinted with permission.

Those without a star are copyrighted and may not be repri nted Contact SPAN at 011 -23472135 or editorspan@state.gov

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A LETTER FROM THE

PUBLISHER t's an exciting time for Americans and Indians to be doing business together. This is why we have dedicated so many of our pages to this theme.

Increasing economic and innovation linkages between our people, organizations and businesses is one of the most dynamic aspects of U.S.-India cooperation, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted during the recent US.-India CEO Forum in Washington, D.C. Our governments, business leaders, entrepreneurs and social activists are creating new ways to share expertise and solve challenges in development of clean energy, infrastructure, education, information and biotechnology.

As India's Finaflce Minister Pranab Mukherjee said at the CEO Forum, "Together we must try to reach for the stars." Trade, business and development of all kinds were also high on the agenda of the U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue just a month ago. And many Indians and Indian Americans attended President Barack Obama's summit on entrepreneurship in the spring.

We begin this edition of SPAN with "Doing Good is Good Business" by Erica Lee Nelson. She writes about American companies and their Indian employees who have found it pays, economically and personally, to be good neighbors and good citizens and to take responsibility for the communities in which they do business. Microsoft, for instance, does not hide its corporate hope that poor children who benefit from free, company-sponsored, computer classes will do well in school, get good jobs, and someday buy Microsoft products.

The U.S Consulate General in Mumbai follows the same logic, writes Beth Brownson in "Women's Empowerment on a Full Stomach." The consulate supports an NGO that saves the lives of destitute or hard-pressed women, teaches them to cook and to save and use their money wisely The benefit to the Americans and Indians who work at the American Center in Mumbai?

Great food at the canteen and a joyful sense of connection with the community around them.

If you are planning to travel to the United States on business, for education, to visit friends and family, or see the sights, you'll find some good tips and insights from US. Consul General James W. Herman in his interview with SPAN Editor Laurinda Keys Long. For Indians planning to attend U.S. universities in the fall, now is the time to finalize your documents and make sure you get your visa in time to attend classes.

U.S.-India links in business go way back, as we see in "The Fabindia Story" by Sunil Sethi, reprinted from 1998 as part of our 50th SPANniversary Golden Oldies series. It tells how a young man from Connecticut, working with his Indian wife and staff, built up one of this country's most successful retail enterprises. The value of hard work is something Americans and Indians learn early in life, whether it is slogging in school or helping in the home or family business. In his article, "For American Youngsters, Work Is Part of Growing Up," Steve Fox introduces us to young people earning money to help pay their way through college or university, just as Ambassador Timothy J. Roemer did.

Some of our pages in this issue are devoted to just plain fun. And that's what the "flash mob" movement that started in the United States is all about, according to Kaitlin McVey's story. Using the latest technology of tweets and text messages, and relying on their constitutional right to freely assemble, Americans are spontaneously gathering, doing a dance, singing a song, posing for pictures, and then going on with their lives. Quirky? We don't deny it But it's happening in India, too.

We look forward to your feedback on this issue of SPAN. And don't forget to look for us at http://span.state.gov.fo~ ~

I

2 SPAN JULY/AUGl1ST 201O

In

By ERICA LEE NELSON

Coca-Cola's coastal clean-up activity at Mumbai's Vasai Beach, in partnership with the NGO Family Service

n ancient times, it was not just noblemen who undertook great public works.

Businessmen also set aside a portion of their profits from a successful venture to give back to the community. In Rajasthan during the 1500s, this took the form of building bawaris- step-wells to provide water for thirsty travelers on the dry, dusty plains. Of course they didn't call it CSR back then, but the spirit was the same. And then there's the CSR record of the Tata Group, whose former leader, J.R.D. Tata, took to heart Mohandas K. Gandhi's idea that businesses should act as trusts for the wealth of the people.

American companies are adding their own chapter to this long history. In an example of bringing things full circle, Coca-Cola India worked with Rajasthan government bodies to restore some of those ancient CSR projects- two bawaris around the city of Jaipur-to their former glory. Once filled with waste and silt, the Sarai Bawari in a small village off the Delhi-Jaipur highway is now home to healthy schools of fish, and provides water for residents without plumbing systems.

"It's beautiful underneath; it has so many stairs," says Mohanlal Saini, a villager who played a key role in the restoration. The water level is so high now that the elegant archways are largely hidden-a happy problem indeed.

Today, American companies' CSR efforts are more comprehensive than ever- so that even an accountant's job responsibilities

I

include finding ways to serve the environ- says Carmine D' Aloisio, minister counselor ment. The commitments go deep into the for commercial affairs at the U.S. Embassy business, past the posters of smiling children in New Delhi. in the hallways and into the cubicles, where a recording system sits open for employees Bevond philanthropv to read out textbooks for the blind. And Though it's a frequently heard term, deeper into the ground itself, with rainwater harvesting systems that reach the water table Villagers of Bawari Gaon carry water for below the summer-parched surface. American bathing from a step-well in Rajasthan. The businesses take corporate citizenship "very step-well was restored by Coca-Cola India, seriously and do much in the way of educa- the Jaipur Municipal Corporation and the tion, outreach and employee involvement," Rajasthan Ground Water Department.

Hirakud Reservoir, Orissa: AES, an American company operating in India's power generation sector, has helped to build water infrastructure for villages. AES manages the Orissa Power Generation Corporation plant, which funded and executed an entire project to pipe drinking water to six villages.

expertise to create rainwater harvesting systems in schools to ensure drinking water for the students. This was done in Gwalior, Indore, Bhopal and Jabalpur.

Mumbai, Maharashtra: Abbott, an American pharmaceutical company, partnered with Rotary International to run a series of Mega Wellness Camps. Doctors Pondicherry: As part of Project Jyoti, Microsoft part- and laboratory assistants provided free consultation nered with local NGOs to set up a Community and education to walk-in patients. Other camps were Technology Learning Centre and trained fishermen to held ,in New Delhi, Lucknow, Kanpur and Varanasi. use computers. These fishermen now check timely weather information and the locations of fish schools Shillong, Meghalaya: As part of its global CSR initiavia satellite connectivity provided by Microsoft. tive to help underprivileged children, Amway's local office sponsors education and free health check-ups Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh: In a public-private partner- for children at the AW Thomas Girls' Home. ship with UN-HABITAT and local and state government Employees and distributors donate money out of bodies, Coca-Cola donated funding and technical their own paychecks, which is matched by Amway.

CSR is hard to define. Bradley Googins, an expert from Boston University who is bringing his message to India this summer, explains. "Many people think CSR is charitable giving, but it's a much broader framework that covers how a company lives out its values through all of its behaviors: the products they make, how they treat their employees, how they ensure sustainable environments, how they govern the company, etc."

It need not be a separate activity. Indeed, Emory University professor Jagdish Sheth ~ has found that when both employees and ~ management believe in CSR and make it ; part of their profit system, it's more likely ~ to be carried out over the long term. ~ Moreover, his co-authored book "Firms of ~ Endearment" found that companies which seek to maximize their value to society as a Corporate social responsibility is not the same as charity or philanthropy, which usually whole, "develop a significant and lasting entails giving funds or goods, or spending money to help others in need, not necessarily competitive advantage over their counterwith any expected business link. Individuals, companies, organizations and foundations parts who subscribe to the more traditional engage in philanthropy. One example is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, funded shareholder perspective." They also found by interest-bearing donations from the Microsoft founder and dedicated to fighting that such companies had better long-term diseases such as AIDS and polio, as well as other causes. Gates' foundation is separate stock performance. from the Microsoft company. The foundation has committed nearly $1 billion for health An il1!egrated CSR program doesn't just and development projects in India. Gates comes often to check on the projects, as he did improve a company's image, It also in May 2010, visiting with villagers in Aulali, in the Khagaria district of Bihar. improves employee recruitment and morale. As qualified job seekers get more discriminating, they look not just for big Coca-Cola's iournev tions. One of the men given new duties was pay packets, but a company with a positive Take the case of Coca-Cola. In 2009, the Praveen Aggarwal, a general manager who image that is active in the community. company won the Social and Corporate came from a straight business background.

After they join, the opportunity for team Governance Award for Best Practices in The job has changed his outlook, he bonding during the implementation of a CSR, given by the Bombay Stock Exchange, reports. "From me and a typical NGO guy, CSR project is something that cannot be Nasscom Foundation and Times Foundation. you won't find much difference now," he reproduced at say, a holiday party. Plus, as In 2008, it also won multiple awards for its says, laughing. "We are happy to work in Ajay Singha, executive director of the CSR efforts. These are the fruits of changes fields and dirty our hands."

Hands-on leadership like his, from high American Chamber of Commerce in India within the company and its approach to levels, has caused enthusiasm for CSR to notes, when you have a good environmen- CSR. tal and social track record, more state govEarlier this decade, some Indian com- trickle down the company hierarchy. "We ernments will invite your company to do l1)unities felt that Coke's bottling plants were not talking a language that was totalbusiness there. '!' ' were adversely affecting the local water ly alien to the balance sheet side," says Aggarwal. "We realized we can't expect a Corporate leaders in India readily admit tables, and a widespread debate ensued. that their earlier efforts often lacked cohe"The fact is, we have come a long way," production manager to leave behind his sion and follow-through. They have says Deepak Jolly, the vice president for production and sales and come for tree learned that the old method of simply public affairs and communications at plantation. But if he realizes that while writing checks to charitable organizations Coca-Cola India. "We realize that building doing tree plantation people will respect is clearly no longer enough. "Corporates, sustainable communities around our plants you more, he will be more sustainable in U.S. corporates especially, are very is equally important as building sustain- business."

In addition to other measures such mature now in their presence in India.... ability of the plants."

They are fully aware now that CSR activCoca-Cola began its formal CSR activi- as increased wastewater recycling, Coke ity is an integral part of their existence ties in 2002, but realized it needed to go has created an Advisory Council on here," says Singha. So much so that the further, leading to their consolidation under Environment and Sustainability. Including Chamber has instituted a CSR award for one office in 2006. Manager positions the former chairman of the Central Ground American companies, which will be hand- responsible for CSR were created at the Water Board, Saleem Romani, the council ed out later this year. company level and at the bottling organiza- visits all bottling plants once in a quarter

Philanlhropv or CSRii

SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

5

and audits their water usage and overall It also provides the resources and organiza- instance, national blood donation camps environmental impact. These changes have tion-wide vision for big initiatives. organized by the head office have consisled to concrete results: Coke's total water That's not to say that doing an effective tently had big turnouts. "The agency would usage across India went down from 5.62 CSR program is easy, even路 for a company run out of bottles," says Yoginder Singh, a billion liters in 2004 to 4.43 billion in as big as Microsoft. Goswami points out member of the Amway Opportunity 2005. It crossed the 6 billion liter mark that India has "more than three million to Foundation executive committee. At one after a 37 percent production increase in four million" NGOs, and finding the right such camp in Orissa, more than 800 people 2008, the company said in its environ- one to partner with is critical for success. donated blood in a single day. mental report in the same year.

For community technology centers and Distributors and employees find themyouth job training programs, the company selves emotionally invested in such projThe importance of pannerships experiences different challenges through- ects because they are allowed to choose The scope of Microsoft's India-wide out India. In rural areas, they discover they them. The selection process is largely CSR effort is impressive. For its education- need to ensure a regular electricity supply. decentralized because, as Singh says, the al initiative alone, part of a global Partners In urban areas, merely finding the space to , head office in New Delhi recognizes that it in Learning program in III countries, $40 set up a center is a challenge. A local NGO ' does not have the ground knowledge to say million is allotted to India for 2003-2013. must have a solid track record to ensure what would work best for Kolkata or Project Shiksha, which trains school teach- community participation, as well as the Imphal. Local implementation committees ers in technology, has already passed of three distributors and two Amway 470,000 participants. staff in a city plan all charity and fundSuneet Sethi, who heads the proj raising activities. The CSR efforts are ect, says it was conceptualized in also monitored and evaluated.

2004 when IT penetration was not Globally, Amway CSR focuses on very high in India. As is the case in underprivileged children, and in India many areas, schools are finally getting the corporation has adopted more than the resources to provide computer 50 orphanages and sponsored programs labs to students, but, "Teachers were for the blind or sight-impaired. In New not even comfortable touching a comDelhi, this has taken the form of puter. They were scared of it," he says.

Amway's financial and technical supThe program is carried out under a port for an advanced computing job t;aining center run in association with public-private partnership model with state governments, and Uttarakhand the All India Confederation of the was the first to take it up. The state Blind. government provides conveyance and For a 12-month course, Amway proaccommodation for teachers who vides computers, instructors and the 路,/t路s one of the advantages of having your own business. ,.

JAWS software that allows the stuspend days in Microsoft classrooms.

The company provides equipment, dents to navigate a desktop just as fast Copyright 漏 "The Saturday Evening Post" magazine. Saturday Evening Post Society. Reprinted with permission. trainers, curriculum, post-training supas someone who can see. Inside the port and assessment. classroom, one hears a cacophony of Since the project is carried out according sustainability of the center. computer-generated voices, asking for to the build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) Focusing on youth and education was a commands, reading out text and surfing the model, after a few years Microsoft will natural choice for Microsoft. "It makes Internet. It speaks far too fast for the averhand over the staff and center to the gov- sense to invest in people who will be assets age sighted person to comprehend, but stuernment, check in periodically on the tech- to the country," Goswami says, especially dent Deepashi Sharma slows it down for a nical infrastructure and provide updated those who cannot afford access to technol- visitor's benefit. Sharma has been placed as curriculum. ogy. But isn't Microsoft also creating an assistant scientist at the Indian Defence Microsoft's computer academies in potential customers? Yes, Goswami, says, Research and Development Organisation, Uttarakhand and Andhra Pradesh have that is part of the point. "You need a busi- and another student recently completed an already been transferred to the state govern- ness connect. It can't just be seen as philan- initial interview for a headline writer posiments and are running smoothly. Shiksha is thropy, otherwise it's the first thing to go tion at NewsX. running in 12 states, and also worked to when business gets bad."

Amway works with the human resources rebuild computer labs and train teachers in agencies it uses for its own recruitment to the Andaman Islands after the 2004 tsunami. Empowering emplovees reach out to other businesses and show them Being a global brand does have its beneAmway India's unique business model- the value the visually impaired can provide fits. Vikas Goswami, Microsoft's head of based on 5.5 lakh independent product dis- as employees. Amway has also hired one CSR, says, "The international experience tributors in a nationwide direct product sell- graduate for its own offices. Many students does help us to see how it's done in Africa ing network-has allowed the company to have been hired as technical writers and call and Asia and other developing countries." adopt a grassroots CSR approach. For center workers in IT companies-fulfilling

6 SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

---- --------...---

Left top: Madukar, a visually challenged teacher (center), takes an Amway-sponsored Hindi shorthand class with students at Braille Bhawan in New Delhi. Amway helps provide financial and technical support to the center.

Left: Bini Kumari takes computer lessons with help from Amway.

Top: Yoginder Singh, a member of the Amway Opportunity Foundation executive committee.

Above: Vikas Goswami, who is leading Microsoft India 's CSR efforts.

J.L. Kaul's dream of seeing his students placed into modem corporate sectors.

Kaul, secretary general of the All India Confederation of the Blind, relates the common story of businesses visiting the organization with offers to provide meals for the students. "All will try to feed them," says Kaul, "but no one tries to give them training so they can be competitive in the market." For the 30 graduates that have completed training so far, it's a gift that will last a lifetime.

Erica Lee Nelson is a Washington, D.C.-based jour~ nalist currently living in New Delhi.

SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

7

Aneesli Cliipra

Promoting Technology lor BeUer Governance

By JANE VARNER MALHOTRA Photographs by SEBASTIAN JOHN

The U.S. government's first chief technology officer, Aneesh Chopra, spoke with SPAN, reflecting on his first year in the position, and the challenges and opportunities of advancing President Barack Obama's technology agenda.

8 SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

Describe what you do as chief technology officer for the U.S. government. . My job is to harness the power and potential of technology, data and innovation to transform the nation's economy and improve the lives of everyday Americans.

ties in health care IT, education technology and smart grid .

And third, to collaborate with the private sector to close the lab gap; that is, to increase the rate at which our research investments translate into industries and jobs in the future.

How important is it for every American to be connected to the Internet?

The president has been very clear that key to success in the 21 st century economy includes universal access to broadband. In the domestic context is where we are focused immediately. We have been working in collaboration with the Federal Communications Commission in the implementation of the nation's first national broadband plan to do just that. But in analytical terms, universal access is necessary but not sufficient to transform an economy and to empower the lives of everyday Americans. There's more to be done. And that's a lot of where I'm focusing. How we think of policy tools-energy, education and health care-in a broadbandenabled world has a slightly different connotatiOli' just by having access ,to the Internet.

Meaning research at universities?

That's right. The federal government spends roughly $150 billion a year on research and development in the U.S. A great deal of that is in the area of technology, whether it be nanotechnology, information technology, biotechnology. The opportunities to take the work of our terrific research professors-university professors and also federal labs-and better connect them with market forces, we believe, can lead to a new wave of economic growth.

This is, as my mentor Desh Deshpande notes, the idea that innovation occurs at the intersection of ideas and relevance.

How do you see the relationship between India and the United States evolving in the field of technology?

We are hopeful the president will meet with the prime minister in India this year and we are fairly confident that the agenda will include technology and innovation as a key pillar of collaboration. I have been meeting with my counterparts in India and am very confident we will have both formal and informal strategies to strengthen the relationship, which will evolve over time.

What are your top three priorities?

My top priority is to fulfill the president's vision for an open government that we believe will lead to an increase in government accountability, and an improvement in the way government works by tapping into the expertise of the American people and streamline the method by which we deliver public services by increasing collaboration.

Numbertwo is to engage the [U.S . government] agencies in exploiting technology, data and innovation in national priori-

January- he named it as a member of his team early in his tenure. And then I was officially announced in April, confirmed in May [2009] .

Are you bringing the different federal agencies together'!

Correct. On any given issue, we lead through the National Science and Technology Council, which is our inter-agency framework. This offers us the opportunity to bring senior level officials from about 25 of the federal agencies that have an interest [in] technology or the opportunity to take advantage of technology. We work together on broadband, on health care IT, smart grid, standards policy and a whole range of issues.

How does your position connect with Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra?

The CIO position, in place in statute since 2003, serves as the E-government Why was the position of U.S. chief administrator for the federal government. technology officer, or CTO, created?

Created by the E-Government Act, the role The CTO position builds on an existing of the position is very clearly defined in position that's been here for years ... and law: to take responsibility for the now $76 elevates its role .... It was created because billion of information technology spendthe president believes that to tackle the big ing within the federal government. My challenges that we face today, there is vir- colleague, the CIO, has delivered trementually no path that doesn't involve some dous innovations through the role of govrole for technology, data and innovation. ernment as consumer of information techTo increase our capacity to find those nology. We formally come together in the opportunities and to take full advantage of president's management agenda by workthem, he elevated the role of CTO such ing on the role of technology to not only that on all major issues that come before transform the operating culture of governhim, we have an opportunity to engage ment, but to serve as a catalyst for private where we think the role for technology sector innovation. So government transand innovation can be enhanced on any parency might help us run the government given issue. more efficiently but might also allow an entrepreneur to build a' new business on Can you give an example? information that's now more easily accesYes, in the president's Economic sible from the government.

Recovery Act, his first major initiative to stimulate the economy, out of the $787 Is there anything that people in India billion of investments, roughly $100 bil- might find surprising about your expelion of that was on forward-looking inno- rience, especially as an American of vations, much of which was in the tech- Indian descent? nology domain. Clean energy technoloWell, I would say the most shocking gies, health care information technolo- thing of all is that the president's two sengies, research and development capabili- ior-most technology positions-the CIO ties that are focused on industries and jobs and the CTO- were filled by Indian in the future. You can see the president Americans in their 30s. It is unbelievable taking action here swiftly-this act was how committed this president is to excelsigned in February of 2009. The president lence, and open-minded in his pursuit for established the position of CTO in finding talent. I just find the mere fact that "

SPAN JULY/AUGUST 20 10

9

I exist in this role alongside a CIO who very much looks and sounds like me pretty exciting.

Can you describe a specific example of how you worked together on something that we can see now?

The very first month we were here, the president asked the CIO and me to collaborate to modernize the citizenship and immigration service customer service.

Within 90 days. It came as the president was meeting with members of Congress talking about immigration reform and as part of his strategy he announced that while we are working on comprehensive immigration reform, we must improve the way it works today. And our first step in that process was to reform our communications with applicants. So we accomplished three things by September, which we launched that month at USCIS.gov.

First, we increased transparency on where an application sat once we received it, so we created seven "buckets." You now know the application has to go 10 SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

through these seven steps in order to be processed, and for the first time you can see where you are in those seven steps online. Second, we felt that the way in which people receive this information should be like Burger King-have it your way. You can come online if you want, or you can register your cell phone number and receive a free text message. That text message would alert you to where you were in those seven steps. I believe 30,000 people signed up for text message service within a couple months of the site launching. Third, we've created greater accountability for turnaround times by publishing the statistics online for the average processing times by form type for every processing center within the USCIS . So now you can see how quickly the New York office processes Form 400 against Chicago or Dallas or other centers ....

went public, in the health care domain but with an increasing focus on technology.

So I was with a firm for roughly 10 years called the Advisory Board Company, and following my run there I was invited to serve in the Governor's Cabinet in Virginia in the position of secretary of technology. It was the first such cabinetlevel position of any state government in the country on technology that had been established about six years prior to my appointment. So I was the fourth . I joined in January 2006. The president, in calling for the creation of the CTO position, looked at states like Virginia as a model, so I was honored to have served in the position that had some role in shaping what the federal role would be.

How will new technology impact health record keeping?

In the current regulation that we put out in December as part of the Economic Describe your background that led Recovery Act, [it] suggests that doctors who want to use the information techno'lyou to this position.

I began as a member of a startup that ogy incentive program must provide their

patients with an electronic copy of their I1)edica\ records within 48 hours of a request. You could start to store electronic versions of your records, and new businesses will be created to help you manage all of that information when you get it.

This will give you the freedom and the tools to manage your own health information.

How will the information be secured?

We' re setting policies and standards for security and privacy. If you get a copy of the record yourself, it's in your control, so all you have to do is have a secure connection to get it from the doctor's office into your hands, and that process can be relatively easy to keep secure and private.

How did you develop an interest in the field of technology?

I've always been fascinated by innovation and entrepreneurship. Part of my responsibility in serving the health care industry was to think about new products and services, new ideas to help bend the health care cost curve, improve quality and inc rease customer satisfaction.

Increasingl y you could not do any of those things without some technology program ....

"Whether it's improving our health or harnessing clean energy, protecting our security or succeeding in the global economy, our future depends on reaffirming America's role as the world's engine of scientific discovery and technological innovation. " -President Barack Obama Apple U-e and the Commodore VIC 20, and eventually into the PC world.

What is the evolving role of social networking in government in the 21st century?

First, it allows for more frictionless participation. We just put out a request for information on Scientific Grand Challenges through the traditional process of posting a notice in the Federal Register. And we added a blog. And very few people responded. We then took the same request, two days before the deadline, and posted it What did you study in school? on Twitter and Facebook, on the presiI studied undergraduate health care poldent's account, and 1.5 million people reicy at Johns Hopkins, and health care poltweeted or pasted a link to the request and icy was the subject of my Master 's thesis over 2,000 comments were registered and at the Kennedy School of Government at nearly 700 formal submissions were sent Harvard. to our e-mail inbox-all within 48 hours.

Did you have a favorite gadget as a That points to the same topic, same concept, same request- we just used social child?

sion of health care data.

And then third, it has improved our policy making, because now before we issue major reports or strategies, we open up for public comment in new and creative ways.

The national education technology plan was just released a month ago, and it was released in a draft form on a wiki that allowed for comments, and for people to vote each other's comments up or down .

And that helped to inform our final product, as was our open government initiative, which began with social networking tools that would allow for folks to collaborate on recommendations for what open government should mean for the president.

What about for citizens with less access to or comfort with the latest technology, such as older Americans or those in rural areas?

What's powerful about technology, data and innovation is that we' re not restricted to a computer screen and a keyboard to engage. So we launched a program called Text4Baby, which actually was an innovation in rural Africa, where pregnant women can sign up to receive three maternal and child well ness information text messages a week at no charge. We established a collaboration in the U.S. to work with the cell phone carriers to waive text message fees and with nonprofits who financed the content development and software, so that in less than three months over 35 ,000 women have signed up to get the information. In rural areas and areas where people don' t have computers, most folks have cell phones. And so you can see the immediate benefits from this for people who had previo).lsly not been as connected, mostly poor and many minority populations-it was actually launched in English and Spanish at the same time.

Technology, data and innovation can be resources that power on offline product innovations that you may not otherwise know are powered by technology.

I was a subscriber to Compute Magazine ~etworking . and I would write programs-mostly ':'.," Two, we.' re seeing greater collaboration games-as a child with the computers my 111 the deh:ery o~ governm~nt. So, we parents had given me, starting with my lau~ched, thIS website NHINdlrect.org, the NationWIde Health Information Network, back on the health care IT theme, that For more information: asks how do we safely and securely transmit health care data by using social networking in the context of Web 2.0 capaWhat is the most diflicult thing about bilities, wikis and so forth . From this, your job? we' ve been able to build multiple, real Time. The demand for what we need to time, virtual .teams, open to anybody, do and the supply of time is an equation made up of indi viduals, companies and not yet in balance. researchers, who are designing the stanE-Government Act dards , protocols and policies so we can Jane Varner Malhotra is a freelance writer deliver on that safe and secure transmis- based in Washington, D ,C. SPAN JU LY/AUGUS T 20 10

11

ike many American teenagers , week with what 1 earned. My dad also sat Massachusetts, her mother's alma mater.

"As a kid, I didn't always see the point, Heidi Novaes began working in me down with his stockbroker at about high school, teaming up with a age 12 so 1 could invest a small sum in a but as I've gotten older I've learned that it girlfriend in Toledo, Ohio to form company and read their annual reports. He was to instill not only an understanding of an amateur catering business that wanted his kids to understand how to working for what I want, but also an understanding of the value of money. My friends helped couples throw parties. Not all of invest, how businesses work and grow."

Entering the business world as a young- and 1 did things like babysitting or pet-sittheir behind-the-scenes efforts in neighster had a positive impact on Novaes, who ting, bagging groceries in a supermarket, borhood kitchens were met with praise.

"The best comment 1 ever overheard is now a senior marketing executive. She was, 'This coffee could kill a horse,' " she fully expected that her daughter, Anna, Below left: Amanda Hebeler takes a recalls . "What did I know about making would also begin working at an early age. reservation at the pizza restaurant where she "I was always encouraged to do extra works, in Chicago. coffee at age 15? My house was down the street from a small neighborhood savings chores around the house to earn a little Below: David Nalette clears a table in Vito's and loan, so 1 would ride my bike there spending money," says Anna, now a stu- pizzeria and restaurant in Wethersfield, and make deposits to my account every dent at Smith College in Northampton, Connecticut.

L

Working at an early age is seen as a Character-building endeavor that teaches real-world skills, develops self-reliance and positions the young for greater success later on.

SPAN JULY/AUGUST 20lO

13

Heidi Novaes (left) graduated from Smith College in Massachusetts, where her daughter, Anna, is now a student. Heidi began working in her teens and expected Anna to do the same.

:. ,

working as a waitress in a restaurant or a clerk in retail stores. It's pretty common that a teen goes out to find a job on his or her own accord to earn money, gain experience, and even to network for the future," Anna says.

The generational transmission of attitudes described by Heidi and Anna Novaes is typical in the United States, where working at an early age is revered as a character-building endeavor that teaches real-world skills, develops self-reliance

and positions the young for greater success later on. Some observers believe this value system has its roots in America's earliest years, when one of the nation's founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, warned against idleness, cautioning that "time is money."

(Perhaps fittingly, Franklin is pictured on U.S. $100 bills, which are sometimes called "Benjis" or "Franklins.")

"There's a certain pride in making your own spending money, and at the same time a certain guilt that comes from

Law on Child Labol= [ = he u.s. Fair Labor Standards Act sets 14 as the minimum age for most non-agricultural work. Many individual states set a higher minimum age than the federal law.

The U.S. law says: Children 13 and younger can: • babysit • deliver newspapers • work as actors or performers.

At 14 and 15 they can work at • grocery stores • retai I stores • restaurants • movie theaters.

At 16 and 17 they can • do any non-hazardous job.

Hazardous jobs include mining, logging, meatpacking, excavation, demo Ii-

T

For more information:

tion and working with radioactive materials, A special minimum wage of $4. 25 per hour must be paid to employees younger than 20 during their first 90 consecutive calendar days of employment. While there is no limit on the number of hours or times of day for workers 16 years and older, 14- and 15year-olds can only work during nonschool hours, three hours on a school day or eight hours school day.

mooching off of your parents continually," says Ruth Spurlock, a classmate of Anna Novaes who began babysitting at about 12 and progressed at 16 to working in a library, a job she has held on and off through her school years.

"I suppose our history of rags-to-riches stories like those of Benjamin Franklin and [turn-of-the-century industrialist] Andrew Carnegie, and self-motivated entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and [Facebook co-founder] Mark Zuckerberg, has something to do with it. It also is a kind of more selious 'playing house,' getting ready for a life of great geographic and social mobility and independence that requires a certain amount of money."

Many employers in the United States are favorably inclined toward applicants who had childhood jobs, sometimes because that was their own experience.

"I like to see an early work history on resum~s when I'm looking for new help," says Mei-Lee Ney, an investment advisor in Pasadena, California who began working at 11 and juggled several jobs at once during summers off from school. "I believe the earlier you start, the sooner you ' ll benefit from the skills, know ledge and maturity that you'll develop from working. So hooray for hard work, and the earlier the better!"

America's capitalist orientation influences parents and youngsters alike , observes Sunny Oberoi, who came to America from New Delhi to get an MBA at Rutgers University in New Jersey and later became a citizen.

Right: Mei-Lee Ney, an investment advisor in Pasadena, California, gives precedence to job applicants who began working at an early age, as she did.

Far right: John Murray of the Newspaper Association of America says delivering papers is still a great way '" for youngsters to enter the workforce. :;,

i

"We equate success very much in rponey terms and individual achievements, and the desire to propagate the American dream runs deep in our psyche," says Oberoi, now a senior vice president of an intem ational investment firm. hen Jaipur-bom Harsh Bhargava saw a "Also, the idea that 'all men are created presentation on helping inner-city youths given by Steve Mariotti, founder of the New equal' is a cultural bedrock for us, so there York-based Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, is no job that is too big or too small for he realized the program could be of great benefit in most folks. Parents encouraging kids to his homeland. So, he "Indianized" it and founded I work part-time makes complete sense in Create, Inc. (www.icreateinc.org). Ten years later, I such an environment. A good conseCreate has become a national organization with quence of this is the early reinforcement offices in Kolkata, Bangalore, Jaipur and Baroda in of a work ethic that, over time, manifests Gujarat, and support from companies that include itself in client orientation, creativity, riskMerrill Lynch in the United States, Bajaj Group, The taking, and plain old hard work-some of Chatterjee Group and Viteos Technologies in India. the ingredients that have contributed to "I recognized that it would be great if instead of looking for a job, some of our low-income kids American success." could be trained to become job creators. Steve and Oberoi knows about this first-hand-he I talked about it and the result was that we started found himself suddenly looking for work our first training program in April of 2000. We in Newark, New Jersey when a fi nancial wanted to leverage existing organizations rather crunch at Rutgers meant the loss of his than reinventing the wheel, so we did training of scholarship . trainers-in this case, professors, "I did all kinds of part-time jobs for school teachers, instructors at almost two years, working all kinds of technical institutes, leaders of hours," he recalls. "Some of my more women's and youth groups-peomemorable jobs were as a limo driver at a pie who were in a position to influfuneral home, a cleaner at an arumal shelence the thinking of youngsters so they would consider entrepreneurter, and a waiter at a soul food restaurant. ship as a viable option," Bhargava If I had done the same jobs in India, I says. "We estimate that we've now think my fami ly would have disowned reached more than 30,000 students me. In the U.S., I had no qualms about and our focus is not on the elite but doing rough jobs to sustain myself- I on the children of housemaids, really had no choice. But I didn ' t tell my bricklayers, porters, day laborers parents about these jobs until after I gradand others who may not be able to uated from Rutgers- they would have get a regular job." worried for my safety, but also would I Create's programs stress the have fretted a lot about me working in a practical aspects of starting a busifuneral home or an animal shelter." ness, focusing on opportunity Kellie Guentert, assistant director for research grants and contracts at Oregon Harsh Bhargava, founder of I Health Sciences University in Portland, . Create, Inc., teaches young says it was always assumed she would ':' . ' Indian men and women how to start their own businesses. begin working at an early age.

"I don' t remember having a choice," she says. "It was what the fields even earlier and picked tobacco. you did; you got a As I raise [her daughter] MacKenzie I find job. You tum what- myself trying to brainwash her the same ever age (13 , maybe way I guess my parents brainwashed me."

14) and if you ' re a While the widespread emphasis on girl, you babysit, if teenagers working has survived significant you ' re a boy, you get changes in the American economy, some a paper route or mow of the jobs once held up as character-buildlawns. I also grew up ing for most youngsters have not. For in Connecticut so example, 30 years ago most newspapers some kids went in were delivered by boys and girls under 16

ICreate, Inc.

Fostering Entrepreneurship in India

W

recognition, sales, marketing, operations, distribution, accounting and cash flow management, communication, networking for business, negotiation skills, interview skills, and managing time and stress in start-up situations. The nonprofit organization has expanded in recent years to provide programs for disadvantaged women on starting micro and small businesses, meals and snacks to high school students in selected villages, adult literacy courses, even seed money for some of the aspiring entrepreneurs who have taken I Create classes.

Bhargava, who emigrated to the United States in 1975 and received his MBA from Harvard University in Massachusetts, is now president of Bankworld Inc., an intemational consulting firm in Washington, D.C. He and his wife, Aruna, an author and former professor of sociology with a PhD. from Rutgers University in New Jersey, work for I Create on a pro bono basis.

- S.F.

in what the Newspaper Association of America called the Little Merchants program. Today, only 20 percent of deliveries are made by youths, says the association's vice president of audience development, John Murray.

"The nature of the business has changed," Murray says. "It's more complex, papers have to be delivered a lot earlier and you have to have an automobile for most deliveries. But it's still a viable SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

15

~ value that exists independently of the

I financial status of the family. In America, ~

even wealthy parents urge their offspring

i to get jobs, with some turning to Joline

~ Godfrey, whose company, Independent

Famous Americans Talk About Work "The idle man does not know what it is to enjoy rest."

-Albert Einstein, physicist and Nobel Prize winner

"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary."

-Donald Kendall, considered the co-founder of PepsiCo, Inc.

"Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work."

-Bette Davis, Hollywood actress

"Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle."

-Abraham Lincoln, U.S. president

"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."

-Will Rogers, humorist

16 SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

~ Means, bills itself as "the provider of 'o5 choice for affluent families who choose to ~ instill values-based financial mastery to Q the younger generations." ::; "American mythology is that anyone can become a millionaire-structurally and culturally, you can do anything," says Godfrey, who lectures and writes about • financial education and entrepreneurship . ." "It has everything to do with the early Calvinist folks who came over here and the old 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' attitude. From our earliest beginnings as a country it was always about making your own way, starting from scratch. And that still works for us . It Vincilla Bell of West Monroe, Louisiana makes people get up in the morning. But worked at a Taco Bell restaurant during the the work environment is changing, and summer. it's harder for kids to get a foot in the door.

That may trigger a new entrepreneurial way for kids to enter the work force. Both generation where kids make a job rather of my sons have afternoon paper routes. than take a job. If that happens, it would Delivering papers teaches youngsters how be a very good thing for our country."

An emphasis on creating your own to interact with adults at an early age and that there are consequences to your opportunities, in this case at the other end of actions. It also teaches them independ- the income spectrum, is the mission of the ence, because they're doing something Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship in completely on their own, something that's New York, a 23-year-old program that helps not driven by peer pressure. They also young people from low-income communilearn to think about the value of money ties build skills and unlock their entrepreearned versus what's available to spend neurial creativity and whose founder, Steve out there."

Mariotti, has a slightly different view of There exists no trade association for work.

"Historically, work has been an end in another enterprise long associated with youthful work-the lemonade stand, itself, but that's not the right way to talk to usually set up on the front lawn. However, kids about it," says Mariotti, who inspired anecdotal evidence indicates that things an India-born executive to start a similar have changed in that field, too. The City program, I Create, Inc., in India (See page of Tulare in California earned nationwide 15.). "Work is a subset of creating value ridicule on television and in newspapers and achieving your goals. At NFTE, we in August 2009 when a municipal code talk about the value of hard work at a very enforcement officer shut down an 8-year- young age, but we always hook it to ownold girl's lemonade stand, telling Daniela ership. We always talk about owning the Earnest and her mother that they needed output for your work, about being an a $44 business permit. A similar infrac- employer and employee and investor."

Wealthy, low income or middle class, tion around the same time in Riverside Park, New York resulted in a fine, later work is part of growing up for American rescinded after news media inquiries, for youths. ~ lO-year-old Clementine Lee, who was illegally peddling lemonade with her Steve Fox is a freelance writer, former newsfather. paper publisher and reporter based in Ventura, Encouraging youngsters to work is a California.

ach Bonner may be only 12 years old but that doesn't stop him from doi ng stuff that would have stumped a lot of grown-ups. Founder of the Little Red Wagon Foundation, Bonner says, "Thi s was started in 2005 with a whole lot of dreams. It is meant to help kids in need-young people who have been hit by hurricanes, don't have a home or can't afford school supplies."

Bonner believes we all have the ability to make a change in the world if we try. The inspiration can come from anywhere. In Bonner's case, his toy wagon proved to be more than just a plaything. It inspired him to collect drinking water for the victims of Hurricane Charley when it hit Florida in 2004. Estimates peg damages at $15.4 billion, as the hunicane worked its way across four states, causing 10 deaths and much devastation. Falling trees damaged power and water utilities. Bonner's mother helped him write notices asking neighbors to conttibute and he came around with his wagon to pick up the donated goods. The wagon and its owner did so well that 27 delivery trucks were soon on their way to Florida. "I did not raise money for victims of Hurricane Charley. It was just supplies," says Bonner.

Z

Mom's the word He was 7 when he sent a letter to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service asking for his foundation to be registered as a tax exempt charity. "My mother helped me with the application," says Bonner.

Born in Arkansas, he now lives in Tampa, Florida, with his mother, Laurie, brother Matt and sister Kelley. His work now involves making backpacks, known as Zachpacks, which are handed out to young people living Zach Bonner on his March Across America.

"Every day after his walk, Zach would check his e-mail and patiently answer my queries. Phone connections weren't always too clear so he would sit and write his answers. He always had time to chat about the homelessness situation and how he hoped his efforts might be able to help young people in such situations. Once while he was in Tampa, he stayed awake till 11 p.m. to send me some information: in shelters and contain fun this after walking an entire day." candy, as well as sewing kits, food, toothpaste and deodorant. "It may seem a bit dumb to give a homeless kid a sewing kit but most ask for one. They might need to fix a tom sock or shirt," he says. About 3,000 packs have been given out already.

Reading and loving the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" at the moment, Bonner does his schoolwork online through a program run by his local public school system. That does provide a certain amount of flexibili -

spirit of a child is combined with the experience of an adult great things can be accomplished," he knows he alone can't help all of them and that's why he wants more young people to support his cause. He hosts an event called "24 hours," in which..:. children from across Florida gather to simu" late conditions of homelessness and learn more about the situation. This helps gather funds as well as create awareness. Bonner

used to help underprivileged kids."

Walking the talk

Bonner's life today might seem to be a living testimony to the saying that the smallest good deed is better than the grandest good intention. But his philosophy is even simpler. "Start with one child at a time," he .~ says, "If you see something needs to be done ยง then just do it." ~ This spring, Bonner started his next big 1 project, a March Across America, 3,988 kilo~ meters from Tampa, Florida to Los Angeles, 5 California. Currently in Abilene, Texas he ~ knows it will mean wearing out a few sneak8 ers and giving his legs the workout of a lifetime. But most of all it will draw attention to the cause of homeless children, a cause that sure c~uld use all the interest it can' get.

"In America I am allowed to walk for a dream I believe in," he says. The walk will take approximately six months to complete.

He is living in a trailer home that travels along with him. While waking up in a new place every day may seem fun, it is coupled has hosted five such events. with walking 20 to 24 kilometers a day.

Zach Bonner's March Across America seeks "People join us for a mile or five miles.

The Little Red Wagon Foundation runs to draw attention to the cause of homeless children. on bare minimums. "No one gets salaries. We do miniature projects for homeless youth Nor is there any fixed annual income. Our on the way. I am really excited about that. ty so that he can do his charity work. His overheads are extremely small. It's run Once, while eating lunch at a McDonald's (a mother is an inspiration and more than just out of my house and we use home utili- sponsor), the coolest thing happened. A man great help. "Mom works from home doing ties," explains Bonner. "My mom pays for came up to me and said that he was living at real estate. She helps with my school. She is my work cell phone. We get funding from a shelter I had held a holiday party at and had a full time mom and full time Little Red a number of different ways. When I speak, given gifts to his kids. He had managed to Wagon volunteer," says Bonner proudly. I donate all the money back into the Little get his family out of the shelter to an apart"She encourages my ideas and does her best Red Wagon Foundation. We get dona- ment. I was amazed by the kind of pride he to make them work." tions. I win awards and I put that back. I had in his job," Bonner says.

After all, Bonner knows something that would say about 97 per cent goes to the The nonprofit organization, Philanthropy most don't want to acknowledge: that there homeless and 3 per cent is used for over- Project, will soon be producing a movie on are kids out on the streets simply because heads. We actually raise money for our the Little Red Wagon Foundation and they don't have a home to go to. The overhead cost separately. So when people Bonner. But while filming is exciting, National Alliance to End Homelessness esti- make donations online or through the Bonner's ultimate aim is that every kid must mates about 5 to 7.7 percent of children- mail, 100 per cent of those donations are have a home and an education. about 1 million to 1.6 million per year under For more information: Paromita Pain is a journalist in the age of 18--experience homelessness.

Austin, Texas.

Though Bonner believes that "when the

18 SPAN JULY/AUGUST 20 10

路Women's

Emp.owerment Full Stomach A

on a

By BETH BROWNSON

merican corporations, mindful of their public image, often set up their own community service initiatives or ask their employees to participate In the work of local charities. Here in India, the U.S. Consulate General in Mumbai reaches out to companies in western India to talk to them about being agents of social change in their communities. To be able to speak credibly when urging others to step up to the plate, the consulate walks the talk as well. Consulate staff touch lives in rnany parts of the city through events such as cornmunity volunteerism, charitable giving and providing NGOs a place to hold their fundraising sales. In addition, the consulate acts out good "corporate" citizenship on a daily basis, through its canteen at the American Center, which is staffed by members of a self-help group that employs widows and other destitute women.

It's a win-win proposition: the American Center staff gets hot Indian meals at a relatively affordable price- 100 rupees or less for lunch- and the women have gainful employmen.t and dignity. The canteen is a godsend for American Center employees, many of whom travel up to 90 minutes to get to work each day. Lalita D'Souza, one of the reference librarians at the American Center praises the canteen offerings for both breakfast and lunch, "especially their hot, wheat flour chapatis." Indian staff describe the fare as "just like home-made."

Kutumba Sakhi , which means "family friend, " is the NGO that runs the canteen. The women make typical Maharashtrian food such as modak (a sweet made of rice flour, coconut and jaggery), puran poli (roti with a sweet lentil filling) and junka bhakri (chickpea meal with spices, served with chapatis made from sorghum flour) . On occasion the canteen features south Indian dishes like idlis , dosas , wadas , sambar and chutneys.

The organization was founded by Vandana Navalkar, the wife of a former sheriff of Mumbai , who wanted to find a way to give widows, divorcees and other destitute women a means for self-support and dignity. It's an NGO comprised of more than 200 ~oli1en who might otherwise be living on the street. Once hired , they receive iwo to three months of onthe-job training, then work as a trainee for a year before becoming a permanent member of the organization.

At that point, the women become shareholders in the business, earning a salary, plus a share of the profits. A portion of the NGO's earnings is paid into a provident fund to provide a pension after the members reach mandatory retirement at 65. Retirees also continue to earn dividends from their shareholdings in the company. Kutumba Sakhi now has 550 shareholders (current and Canteen staff members work under the supervision of manager Sandhya Belw alkar (right) .

Behrooz Avari buys snacks from a Kutumba Sakhi staff member at the canteen in the Mumbai American Center.

retired members). The NGO paid out 12 percent in dividends in 2009, with over 1.1 million rupees in profit. The organization prides itself on full accounting and transparency, opening its books for all members to inspect.

The women have structured the business to deal with the tough realities of their lives. Since those who are not widowed may have alcoholic or abusive husbands who do not contribute to the family financially, the women arranged for direct-deposit of their paychecks into their bank accounts. As a consequence, the women have also learned to manage a bank account and have established financial independence.

The NGO not only saved the women from homelessness, but opened up life-changing possibilities for their children. One of the women Nagabhushan Joshi , says that because she was a member of Kutumb~ Sakhi she could save money and send her son to college. He is now a software engineer with IBM, she says. Rashmi Narwekar is another proud mom she says her daughter is a college graduate working for Citibank.

Kutumba Sakhi operates 11 such food service centers in Mumbai , including fast food stalls opposite the Congress party headquarters, near the Mehdan police station and across from the state secretariat offices. The company also runs a government subsidized food program for the poor.

The NGO has built a wide base of fans, customers who enjoy the hot lunches or the specialty treats Kutumba Sakhi makes during Diwali and the Ganesha festival. Sandhya Belwalkar, manager of the consulate 'Scanteen and a vice-chairman of the organization, reports that many customers order large quantities of snacks ahead of time so they can take them to parties in the evening. Americans who work at the consulate, ~i ke many of Kutumba Sakhi's loyal customers, stock up on treats made by the NGO before traveling home, bringing a taste of Maharashtra to the United States.

U.S. Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Steven J. White dined at the canteen on a recent visit to Mumbai. "It is such apleasure seeing that, after years struggling to find a suitable vendor, the American Center canteen is being operated successfully by an NGO of dedicated and caring women," he said.

"The food was absolutely wonderful- just like home- and the warm smiles and obvious delight of the cooks in being valued by their customers made the experi~ , ence even more heartwarming. " Beth Brownson is a U.S. diplomat who recently completed an assignment as a public affairs officer at the U.S .

Consulate in M umbai.

Shaheen Mistri

Fostering Entrepren From Class One Text and photographs by SEBASTIAN JOHN

The word "entrepreneur" may conjure up visions of computer start-ups and public offerings; yet social entrepreneurs are similar.

They create a new product or service which provides social profits for society as a whole. n 1989, Shaheen Mistri was an 18year-old Indian American visiting Mumbai during the summer of her freshman year at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts. While many visitors shake their heads and put some money into a donation box after witnessing children living in poverty, Mistri decided to take things into her own hands .

She left Tufts, enrolled at St. Xavier 's College in Mumbai, and endeavored to establish her own nonprofit organization for after-school education-all without knowing a bit of Hindi or Marathi.

"I first tried with government schools and totally failed," Mistri tells SPAN.

I

20 SPAN JULY/A UGUST 2010

"They absolutely said no. I went to about 20 schools and got rejected on grounds that were sometimes frivolous. I think they were not comfortable with children from a different background at their place." After finding a school that would give her space, Mistri developed her own curriculum in order to get children excited about learning. This curriculum emphasizes play, personal expression and social skills while slowly introducing math and English training.

This kind of innovative approach used

by Mistri's Akanksha organization is the essence of social entrepreneurship, a calling highlighted during the recent Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship in Washington , D.C. The word "entrepreneur" may conjure up visions of computer stmt-ups and public offerings; yet social entrepreneurs are similar. They create a new product or service which provides social profits for society as a whole.

As U.S. Secretmy of State Hi limy Clinton pointed out at the summit, "The realm of the entrepreneur exists beyond business.

Entrepreneurs are tackling problems of povelty and inequity, like Shaheen Mistri, whose nonprofit provides after-school tutoring to children in slums in India. " Clinton learned about Mistri's work during her visit to India in July 2009, when she spoke with volunteers from another organ-

ization Mistri founded in 2008, Teach For India. Clinton expressed then that she had the "highest respect and regard" for Teach For India and others working on education, ,\nd would like to see the sector become a "top priority" in the world.

Akanksha expanded from serving 15 children in one center to 4,000 children in more than 50 centers and six schools in Mumbai and Pune. Even with this success, Mistri was driven to do more. She wanted to see more people like herself starting small, effective organizations that could make a difference in children ' s lives.

"That was really the inspiration for Teach For India," she says. "In some way it was sort of stepping back from grassroots, and helping create the leaders that will do the work, because that is where we are getting stuck." Teach For India, which is modeled after the Teach For America program in the United States, reclUits graduates and young professionals from India and abroad to teach underprivileged children. (See September/October 2008 SPAN article: http://span . s tate. go v /wwwfspseptoct 087.pdf) Mistri 's attendance at the Washington summit on April 26 and 27 , on the recommendation of the U .S. Consulate in Mumbai, led to new connections ana ideas. "I had interesting conversations with the delegates there about how entre-

President Obama On

Pfp'lk:h,m tlol Summit Qn

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Left: Akanksha founder Shaheen Mistri in Washington, D.C.

;(l.mtlQI Summit O!'l

'REPRENEURSHIP

R ight: President Barack Obama at the Presidential Summit on En trepreneurship in Washington, D.C.

preneurship relates to scaling our efforts stand that making a mistake is a good to reach many more children. After hear- thing-that you learn from making mising Chris Hughes from Facebook, it also takes ." The proof of her approach is in the sparked thoughts of how to better lever- companies her graduates have worked for: age technology."

Wipro, Westside and an NGO, Magic Bus. Like any good entrepreneur, Mistri has For Mistri, Akanksha alumnus Seema plans to expand to other Indian cities. Kamble counts among her biggest sucMeanwhile, she is busy expanding the cesses- it is not just an inspiri ng story of opportunities for her kids in Mumbai, such educational empowerment, it also brings as being able to meet one of their heroes, together Mistri's two projects. Kamble Sachin Tendulkar. Working with the Indian lives with her mother and two brothers in Premier League, Akanksha students were a less than one square meter room in able to attend matches and even hand out Mariamma Nagar in Mumbai. Kamble awards . These opportunities, though excit- was one of the 116 applicants chosen out ing, are not just patches of glamor, but of 4,000 as a Teach For India fellow. "She learning experiences. "For our kids, the actually now has an opportunity to break exposure is so limited. So can you give out of poverty. She is going to leave them opportunities to interact with differ- . 路Bombay and teach in Pune. She will be ent kinds of people, get them to meet peo-路~ 路 living on her own there," Mistri says. pie from different backgrounds, get them Kamble has written her own story of to explore arts and music," she says. success on the Akanksha Web site. "I have The spark of independence needed for learned so many things in Akanksha that it entrepreneurship is found at the earliest is difficult to list. I have learned to be level, Mistri points out. "When you are in courageous, confident, to believe in yourprimary school, are you being allowed to self and never give up. I remember a time ask basic questions? Is your curiosity when I used to be irregular at my encouraged? These are things that in our Akanksha center and didi used to pull me Indian school system, especially for our out from my house. But now I tell other low-income kids, are just not happening. people to be regular at Akanksha, whether You are just taught to rote-memorize, to it's students or volunteers." learn without thinking, to be a little fearful in class. We are trying really hard to Sebastian John is an Indian journalist living redefine education .... Making kids under- in Washington, D.c.

I know some have asked- given all the security and political and social challenges we face, why a summit on entrepreneurship? The answer is simple.

Entrepreneurship-because you told us that this was an area where we can learn from each other; where America can share our experience as a society that empowers the inventor and the innovator; where men and women can take a chance on a dream- taking an idea that starts around a kitchen table or in a garage, and turn ing it into a new business and even new industries that can change the world.

Entrepreneurship-because throughout history, the market has been the most powerful force the world has ever known for creating opportunity and lifting people out of poverty . .

And social entrepreneurship- because, as I learned as a community erganizer in Chicago, real change comes from the bottom up, from the grassroots, starting with the dreams and passions of single individuals serving their communities " http://www .wh itehou se. gov /the -pressoffice/remarks-presidenl-presidenlial-summilentrepreneurship

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n every country, and every society, there are many important things that need to be done to inform and educate consumers, to help them participate effectively in the economy. The specific list of priorities can vary widely, from securing basic rights to food, housing, health care and clean water, to working for protection against unsafe products, dangerous drugs, contaminated food and deceptive forms of advertising. In virtually every sector of the economy and civic life, we can find opportunities to inform, protect and activate consumers.

The consumer movement is a movement for economic and social justice. It is now a global movement, and we in the United States recognize that we have both much to learn from, and much to share with organizations in other countries. As I prepare to visit India for a series of meetings with nongovernmental consumer organizations, I am excited and energized by the opportunity to share information about models and strategies for protecting consumers.

The organization I work for, Consumers Union, is one of the largest consumer organizations in the world. Next year, we will be celebrating our 75th anniversary. We have been able to grow and expand because our founders wisely recognized that it was not enough to make a single protest or pass a single law or win just one big victory. We had to do more. We have to build strong organizations and institutions that can work to test products, inform consumers and protect them from hazardous products and unfair business practices now and for many years to come.

The first consumer organization in the United States was created about 100 years ago. The National Consumers League was born at a time when the American economy was developing rapidly, and concerned citizens sought to speak out on two major concerns: Unsafe food and drugs, and the working conditions under which products were made.

At that time, the popUlation in the cities of the United States was growing rapidly, and there were overcrowded, unsafe housing conditions and unsanitary living conditions. Some very large corporations were building railroads, factories and mines in the United States, and business had great power. It was a time when the manufacturing process shamefully exploited young children, who toiled at their machines days, nights and weekends.

The founders of that consumer movement created a citizen voice to counteract the hard-hearted actions of business and the indifference of government authorities. The National Consumers League organized women to boycott and refuse to buy products made in unsafe factories.

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22 SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (left) and Charles Bell at a press conference to support financial services reform legislation in Hoboken, New Jersey in April.

.

In time, they succeeded, and laws regulating child labo r were passed.

Consumer protest was also significant in the enacting of the Pure Food and Drug Act, passed in the United States in 1906. It followed exposes of extensive food contamination and dangerous drugs.

Investigative journalists shocked the conscience of the nation with horrible, true stories about the conditions in meatpacking plants, and the deaths of consumers from unsafe medicine.

In both these instances, consumers urged government to curb the unlimited powers of American corporations by enacting protective legislation. This history is an early example of the role of civil society: the need for non-government, non-business organizations to organize and act to achieve social and economic justice.

It was a defining and critical moment.

Those first consumer organizations were made up of citizens who used their identity as consumers to work for economic and social justice.

They were good examples of civil society in action.

By the 1920s in America, a new kind of consumer organization was needed as well.

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By CHARLES BELL Special Guest Writer

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Today, our staff of more than 650 people tests products, evaluates services, informs the public of our research, and advocates in the consumer interest where decisions affecting consumers are made. We are totally independent of business and government, and take no funds, advertising or prodProducts were increasingly mass proucts from business. We are responsible only to conduced, and mass marketers spent millions sumers, who support us directly, primarily by paying of dollars exploiting the tools of psycholofor our information. In this way, we can be impartial and gy to manipulate consumers into buying their trustworthy in everything we say and do. products. There was a proliferation of different products and a virtual absence of uniform standards. So, for example, Our resources consist of 50 up-to-date labonltories, built in 1991 in the 23,500-square-meter building we own, and a light bulbs were not interchangeable among different brands of lamps. Every lamp needed its own type of bulb, which inhibited complete auto test facility bought and built in 1986. Our advocacy offices in Washington, D.C., California, Texas and New York are mass production and made them needlessly expensive.

A new idea was born-that a consumer organization could test staffed by over 50 consumer advocates who represent the consumer and evaluate products and report its findings in a magazine, so con- point of view to government authorities. Our total annual budget is sumers could make wise choices. The founders of the first testing now over $200 million a year. organization wanted to use science in the service of the consumer, Our major magazine, Consumer Reports, has a paid circulation to help consumers get better value for money, prevent economic of 4 million. We also operate a subscription Web site, www.conwaste and provide efficiency. They also published books denounc- sumerreports.org, that now reaches more than 3 million subscribers. ing marketplace abuses, such as dangerous foods, drugs and cos- We also publish health and financial newsletters, and a magazine metics in everyday life. One of the books was called "100,000,000 called ShopS mart, aimed at women, that reaches 200,000 subGuinea Pigs"-implying that Americans were-being used by busi- scribers a month. Our information also appears regularly in our ness as laboratory testing animals, to experiment with unsafe prod- newspaper columns and on our own television and radio programucts and unsafe drugs. Books like these helped arouse the con- ming that is distributed to stations across the United States. The media frequently report on our findings, which helps inform the pubscience of the American public.

Following these events, Consumers Union-my organization- lic and strengthen our influence with policymakers and companies.

The general approach that we have taken is a marketing strategy: was born. We began to publish a monthly magazine with comparative tests to help consumers choose products based on quality, price We develop information and we sell it to consumers. and other attributes. In the beginning, the magazine was very simConsumers Union also distinguishes itself by accepting no adverple. Over time, as we eamed more money from subscriptions and tising in its pUblications, and no free samples from manufacturers sales in stores and newsstands, we expanded our testing and for the products we test. We buy all of our products on the open marimproved the quality of the magazine. We experienced a p~riod of ket, just like an ordinary consumer would. rapid growth after World War II, when American consumers started to eam more and became more interested in buying cars and new Charles Bell is the programs director for the Consumers Union in the types of household appliances such as electric refrigerators, stoves, United States. The U.S. Embassy is sponsoring his speaking tour to washing machines and television sets.

New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai.

SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

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Representing India at recent programs in the United States for teachers of English as a foreign language, Shaila Mahan noted down all she saw, heard, felt and learned to share with other educators and SPAN readers. s my flight touched down at Dulles Airport on a windy March morning, I was overcome by a mixture of emotions ranging from excitement to nervousness. On my first trip alone to the U.S.A., neither the sharp chill in the air as we got off the plane nor the stem attitude of immigration officials at the airport could dampen my sOaling spirits. For months, I had been looking forward to participating in the English as a Foreign Language Educators' workshop at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and the TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc.) Convention in Boston, Massachusetts. As I stepped out of the airpOlt, the signs of the onset of spring, visible most notably in the snowy, white, cherry blossom flowers, made my first glimpse of the historic city of Washington, D.C. really beautiful and picturesque.

Soon, I met my fellow participants, all 35 of them from 34 countries. While each of us came from a different nation and vastly varying backgrounds and beliefs, what united us was a common interest in getting acquainted with and becoming proficient in the latest techniques for teaching English as a foreign language. In barely two days the whole group was like one big family. Of course, everyone had some special favorites, just as I instantly struck a chord with three of my fellow participants: Sumedha from Sri Lanka, Jenny from Columbia and Malu from the Philippines.

Our first glimpse of Georgetown University was majestic. I was taken by the imposing Gothic Georgian buildings and even more so by the lively atmosphere. The students were celebrating Saint Patrick's Day and their colorful green attire merged with the greenery all around. Soon, it was time to get down to the business at hand.

The workshop was a grueling yet stimulating exercise spread over

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24 SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

10 days of engaging lectures and numerous sessions of practical utility to train us in the most recent and innovative concepts and strategies to make English language teaching more creative and effective. Our program coordinator, Kara Figueredo, and workshop assistant, Alberto Dominguez, both extremely friendly yet professional, had broadly devised a three-fold focus to the workshop.

First, they asked us to identify and describe English teaching problems in our countries. The second phase, with a practical orientation, involved observation of four models of English teaching popular in large parts of the United States. Finally, we were asked to deliver team presentations proposing action plans to improve language teaching in our own nations or regions.

It's obviously impossible to summarize the entire workshop in a few paragraphs. Perhaps the most moving part was the trip to the Lab School of Washington, catering to the needs of students with moderate-to-severe learning disabilities like dyslexia, attention deficitlhyperactivity disorder, etc. Their limitations, slow pick-up and grasp in learning were tackled with skill and sensitivity. The basic approach, focusing on expelientiallearning, the leaming-bydoing method, gets translated into a flexible and extremely supportive environment that's greatly conducive to learning. The multi-sensory, arts-based curriculum helps students overcome their difficulties with reading, spelling, writing and math. A tour of this school revealed several striking examples of the artistic efforts and achievements of the students, a clear testimony that new paths and new routes to learning for these special children could be located via artistic endeavors.

Besides regular teachers, specialists like speech or languagg pathologists, occupational therapists, artists and psychologists were engaged in an effort to address the special needs of these children.

DUling our interactive session, Dr. Luanne Adams, head of the psy- English learners throughout the United States. Their novel method of teaching focused simultaneously on content objectives and lan~hological services department at this school, asserted that they regarded the students not as children with learning disabilities but as guage development by giving students a flavor of real-life objects. kids who are differently abled. Clearly, insightful guidance and Unlike the traditional classroom with one teacher, all classes here patience can bring out the best in these otherwise bright children have two teachers working simultaneously and collaboratively in a with slow-pace learning. In fact, its multiple experiments have bid to make classes more interesting and engaging for students. made the school a pioneering center for employing the arts in eduThrough lively discussions with the faculty in the English lancation through an extraordinary mix of learning techniques like role guage teaching department of Georgetown University and by play and theater. We were fortunate to witness the colorful, theatri- observing several of their classes, we got a peek into the learnercal recreation of some of the Renaissance characters Michelangelo centered approach they practice. The Center for Language and Leonardo da Vinci.

Education and Development offers a variety of English language An equally inspiring experience was our visit to the Carlos programs which are designed to inculcate and enhance the English Rosario International Public Charter School. Its mission is to edu- language proficiency of students, professionals, teachers and execcate and prepare the diverse adult immigrant population of utives. I got an opportunity to observe the English as a foreign lanWashington, D.C. to become a part of the mainstream by enhanc- guage program from close range. Overall, our interactions with the ing their language skills and honing their communicative abilities. faculty and students at the center gave us an insight on how their This award-winning model school runs English as a second lan- multiple programs facilitate the learning process by using new guage courses for adult learners. It provides crucial language, cul- ideas, concepts and innovations. Most impressive was the way techtural and vocational skills to help its students adapt better to the nology is integrated to make the whole exercise of language teachnew world around them. We got an insight into the innovative ing and learning a fun-filled and creative activity that's worth emumodel followed by this school by observing the classes of one of lating all over the world. Stimulating sessions centering around the its most gifted teachers, Sheryl Sherwin. As she taught her stu- four skills involved in language teaching-reading, writing, listendents to fill out bank checks, her enthusiasm was infectious and it ing and speaking- gave us a refreshing perspective to language was a treat to see the practical manner and the hands-on approach teaching. she used to teach vocabulary items like "bearer, memo, credit, A peep into this wide variety of models of education set us all debit," etc. thinking and collectively we pooled our ideas to formulate ways in Another absorbing session was to witwhich we could incorporate some of these ness students of different language cominnovations to make English teaching petencies mix together in a single class; more creative and effective in our own Level One students worked collaborativecountries. Based on the inputs of the lecly with those of a far more advanced tures, interactions with faculty and our Level Four. These pairings of different trips to various centers and institutions, it level groups was an attempt to ensure not was great fun to put up a joint presentation only that students of a basic, rudimentary with four other participants before the language skill learned from those of a workshop concluded. higher level but also that those at the Besides the hectic academic activity, higher level improved substantially as we also got a flavor of the sights and they mentored their fellow students with a delights of Washington, D.C. While a lower language proficiency. Inevitably, trip to the White House left us awethis unique approach helps to create Shaila Mahan (right) with TESOL Presidentstruck (and wondering what President increased awareness, confidence and elect Brock Brady at its convention in Boston, Obama might actually be doing inside), cornmunity involvement among students 0assachusetts. it's the huge SmithsoiIian museums that who come from a vulnerable section of .:"-"---- - -- - - - -- - - - - - became my personal favorites. Among society and might otherwise take years to become an integral part the cultural delights we savored, it's the interactive theater at the of American society. What made this trip more enjoyable was the magnificent John F. Kennedy Center that left a deep imprint on hospitality from college authorities in the form of a healthy, nutri- my mind. The Kennedy Center was staging "Shear Madness," tious and delicious meal prepared by their culinary arts department. the second longest-running play in the history of American theAnother memorable and thought provoking aspect of the work- ater. This engrossing drama engages its viewers by making them shop was the visit to the Sugarland Elementary School in Virginia armchair detectives to solve the murder mystery around which to observe the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol model the play revolves. To me the key to the play's enduring popularthat provides a framework for sound teaching and a way to organ- ity lies in its active involvement of spectators. It also set me ize lessons so that all the students can learn effectively. thinking how the student-centered classes and strategies that we Collaboration is a key feature of this model and also the major rea- were being initiated into can greatly facilitate the learning son for its effectiveness. Angela Robinson, the principal of this gov- process by involving learners themselves. ernment-subsidized school for children from poor backgrounds, told us that this research-based, powerful instructional method has Shaila Mahan is an assistant professor of English at the Rajasthan been extremely effective in addressing the academic needs of Department of College Education, in faipur.

SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

25

Scenes from Sanjay Patel's "Rilmayana: Divine Loophole. " Left: Jatayu fights Ravana during Sita 's abduction.

Below: Prince Rama fights Ravana.

Amix of cultures

Hamayana:

For four years, Patel did just that.

"Ramayana: Divine Loophole" gives the venerable Hindu epic a 21 st century makeover. "The art is divine, pardon the pun," quips Manish Vij, who runs the blog Ultrabrown.com. " 'Loophole' is recognizably Indian and . American but is also extremely original." ':1'hink Indian history meets [cable TV cartoons]. "Its bright, flat colors remind me of J-pop (Japanese pop)," says Vij . "The way anjay Patel is no stranger to the fan- J-pop's taken over America, I-pop (Indotastic. As an animator, he knows pop) could, too."

In Patel's "Ramayana," the evil demons about rats with culinary dreams, furry blue monsters and armies of are composed of hard-edged triangles. The evil grasshoppers. But he says that some of the most fantastic characters he could imagine didn' t come from storyboards at Pixar.

They came from a book 2,500 years old, written in Sanskrit, in more than 24,000 verses. The "Ramayana" is one of India's great epics-the saga of Prince Rama, born to rid the Earth of the demon king Ravana.

"There was a 10-headed demon king, characters that were half monkey, half human, gods, kings and queens. And it was all action as well," says Patel. " It was begging to be illustrated."

Reborn with a S Modern Touch

By SANDIP ROY

An animator with Pixar Animation Studios in California, Sanjay Patel has worked on movies such as "Ratatouille" and "Monsters, Inc." Now, he weaves magic with his own heritage, giving the "Ramayana" a 21 st century makeover in his new book.

For more information: San jay Patel 's books

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26 SPAN JULY/AUGUST 20 10

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noble hero has rounded edges. The jovial king of bears is all half circles. The monkey god streaks across a sooty chocolate sky, his tail on fire, setting the demon king's palace ablaze in a bonfire of orange and yellow.

It starts with an HB [hard, black] pencil.

It ends as thousands of vector points in Adobe Illustrator. Patel drew that tail-onfire scene for two days straight and worked for a week to perfect it. He has boxes filled with intricate sketches. Draft copies have little yellow Post-it notes with instructions like "Return to green."

Patel's journey to the heart of the "Ramayana" is longer than Prince Rama's own journey.

That prince, banished from his kingdom, spent 14 years in exile with his wife, Sita, and brother, Lakshman. It took 25 years for Patel to rediscover his own cul':ture. His heroes were Ninjas and X-Men. "The 'Ramayana' was all around me. Ijust didn't realize it," he says. "I'd sneeze, and

my parents would say 'Sita Ram.' I thought it was just their version of gesundheit."

Isolated as achild His parents ran a run-down motel off Route 66 in San Bernardino, [California] frequented by questionable characters. "I didn't have a lot of friends," says Patel.

"It was strange to tell people you were living in a motel and do you want to come over and play with the drug addicts and prostitutes. So I spent a lot of time reading comics and drawing."

He didn't have many Indian friends either. His family was cut off from the Indian community after his mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

"I've had the same four-sentence conversation with my mother ever since I can remember," says Patel. "What's my name, where was I living, what have I eaten and where my children are." He has no children.

He remembers drawing pictures of his mother. She would just tear them up. "I would be devastated," he says. "But I also know because she was not able to nurture me the way a healthy mother could, I

became more introspective and much more artistic. I kept myself company."

His art was his way out of the motel.

But a month before he was headed to art school, his father, who had been a champion of his artwork, balked. The motel was struggling. His father was running a gas station on the side. He needed Sanjay.

At that point, Sanjay's brother, Amol, stood up to their father and said he would stay instead. "Without him I think I'd still be at the motel," says Patel.

Now Patel, who has worked on films such as "Monsters, Inc." and "Ratatouille," has two books under his belt, "Ramayana" and "The Little Book of Hindu Deities"where even the fierce goddess, Kali, looks lovably cute with big eyes.

How to categorize Suhag Shukla, managing director of the Hindu American Foundation, got that book for her sons. She says Hindu epics

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Above: The cover of "Ramayana: Divine Loophole."

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have their fair share of violence and are not part of a religion practiced by millions. always kid-friendly. Patel, she says, does a ***** good job "trying to balance some of these When people ask Patel if the next step is more tricky themes with the goal of sharing "Ramayana," the Pixar movie, Patel hesitates. with others a heritage he loves and respects." It would be exciting, he says, but a film Foundation President Mihir Meghani agrees, "requires an army of people, things get watered though he wishes Patel would not call it down, you have to make compromises."

[His] "Ramayana" is uncompromisingly mythology. "Stories from other major religions are rarely called mythology, though they carry personal. "It's exciting to do something that's their own miracles as well," Meghani says. all Sanjay Patel," he says with a smile.

Therein lies the rub . The flying monkeys and golden deer make the "Ramayana" a treat Sandip Roy is an editor with New America Media for visual artists, but it's also easy to forget in San Francisco and host of its radio show "New that the "Ramayana" is not just a book, it's America Now."

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28 SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

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of •• Louisville and around:~: saysMic~lraCQYam~1?i\iIa.i$anager. of international programS'for Greater,Louisville, In¢, "Now more than ever, it is pOil~ible t6pea th,t;i;viUcg inte:g;laiiMal professional in our communityr thanks to tbI1iGreaterLoni,syi.l.le m~:~~.~~~velY prC'ID()tuJlg the city in partnership with the Indian International Professionals program. ::nus programisthefirsf of its kind in the nation, and helps international talent nefworkand says: VVlevH'll<.U and inspired with a progressive spirit of grow their ideas and businesses in the regiontMsays,.

Louisville is poised to continue attracting human and financial capital from around the world thanks to its current position in several strategic sectors, including advanced manufacturing and logistics, health sciences, research and development, food and beverage, franchise management, and aging care.

I saw a bunch of hospitals and research centers and met some of the top-notch people from the scientific and research community, including cancer researcher Dr. A. Bennett Jenson of the University of Louisville's James Graham Brown Cancer Center.

Jenson helped invent the world's first cervical cancer vaccine.

The center is working with India's Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute of Kolkata on treating cervical cancer.

As I found out later from its director, Dr. Donald Miller, the center has strong Indian connections.

"We are very excited to try to develop a less expensive vaccine for cervical cancer and we chose India specifically because of our long-standing relations through our interest with the disease," Miller says. "We have a very close relationship [with Dr. Partha Basu of the Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute]. Locally, one of our board members, who is a native of India, Poorna Kemparajurs,

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has helped us activate the Indian community to support what they are doing."

According to Iacovazzi-Pau, the University of Louisville and the world-class research taking place there is a strong resource.

"Much of this research is being commercialized into products helping people around the world, like the new HPV vaccine for cervical cancer," he says.

The city is home to the headquarters of Humana Inc. , one of America's largest health insurance companies; GE Appliances & Lighting worldwide; Yum!, the parent company of Taco Bell, KFC, Pizza Hut and Long John Silver's; Brown-Forman, one of the largest American-owned wine and spirits companies; and Signature Healthcare, an innovative long-term care provider.

Yum! now plans to accelerate its expansion in India with an investment blueptint of about $120 million over the next fi ve years, apart from $100 million already invested.

Yum! targets India's organized food and beverage market, which is growing rapidly. The company plans to generate $1 billion in revenue by 2015. Its long-term plan is to put India on a similar platform as China, where it operates 3,500 outlets.

Brown-Forman is also eying India.

"The Indian market is extremely important for us. It is the world's largest whiskey market," says Arruit Singh, the Indian Amelican area director of the maker of Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey.

Jack Daniel's Distillery is owned by Brown-Forman.

Kentucky, meanwhile, is the third largest state for automotive production, creating thousands of jobs, from manufacturing to distribution and supplies. Both Ford and Toyota have a large presence in the state.

Interestingly, Louisville's burgeoning Indian American community is playing a big role in the promotion of their city. It is estimated that close to 4,000 Asian Indians live in Louisville, surpassing the number of those with Asian-Pacific heritage. As a

result, many Indian-owned small and medium-sized companies have surfaced, ranging from retail outlets and restaurants to consulting firms, outsourcing business services, technology firms and more.

Says India-born Sundeep Dronawat, president and general manager of Bellwether Software, and co-founder of Rural America Onhsore Sourcing: "I went from a lonely immigrant in Louisville to a graduate student to a successful business person. I have lived here for 18 years and call it my home. Louisville is a perfect location for businesses to grow and thrive. The University of Louisville and other universities can provide world-class talent. It is within driving distance of major cities in the Midwest and is a big transportation and logistics hub."

According to anG1J1er Indian American entrepreneur, Vidya Ravichandran, president of the IT firm GlowTouch Technologies, the business climate in Louisville has been a very open one, "welcoming people from various countries and embracing them into the local business community. Louisville is a hidden gem, a surpri sing cosmopolitan center for enterprising communities like the Indians."

Indian American entrepreneurs Puma Veer of V-Soft Consulting Group and Suhas Kulkarni of Omnisys vouch for that. V-Soft relocated to Louisville in 1998 so that Veer's wife could do her residency at the University of Louisville's School of Medicine. V-Soft is now a comprehensive IT firm that offers staffing, training, consulting and application-development services.

Other corporate leaders from the Indian American community working for large corporations are Rishabh Mehrotra, Raja Raj amannar and Micky Pant.

While Mehrotra is the CEO and president of SHPS, a provider of integrated health solutions, Rajamannar is the chief innovation officer at Humana Inc. Micky Pant is president of global brand building for Yum ! Brands.

In the university sector, Indians playa significant role in education and research, to the extent of creating relations with India cells to exchange business practices or share knowledge and research. The best example is perhaps the James Graham Brown Cancer Center, which is part of the University of Louisville.

According to Iacovazzi-Pau, Indians who come Bringing and growing the Indian commuto Loui sville represent a highly-educated pool of nity will bring the skills needed for the talent, which is essential for any company to prosfuture economies, which revolve around per in a global economy. The Indian community is knowledge, technology, and health, says heavily engaged in several strong sectors, includthe Chamber of Commerce, ing the medical field, technology, and corporate The Greater Louisville International leadership. Some of the surgeons, physicians, and Professionals initiative was created to specialists from India are highly ranked or have retain and attract foreign-born talent by opened their own successful practices. ensuring that when they arrive in Louisville "As a community, Indians play an integral part they are able to connect and engage with in developing the quality of life in Louisville. By the business community, The Web site blinging our culture, food, and music, and by celewww.Louisvillelnternationals,com acts as brating and exposing our values, Louisville is enriched in a true sense," says Dronawat. a social media network for people from around the world who already live in The Indian community also brings technological Louisville or are looking to move to skills often in short supply in the labor force.

Louisville, Several companies provide IT support or job placement for IT projects, from on- and offshore loca-

WhV louisville Beckons Talented Indians ccording to Greater Louisville Inc.The Metro Chamber of Commerce, bringing educated people from India helps local businesses find the right skills that will help them grow. Due to labor shortages in sectors such as engineering, technology and medical SCiences, Louisville needs to attract talented foreigners, it says.

The Indian community is already well established and recognized in the region , which facilitates the process for other Indians to relocate to Louisville . The amenities are already available to wel.come them. The many aspects of integration such as food , worship, schooling and work can be found throughout the town,

A

32 SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

Far left: The Kentucky Derby horse race.

Left: Bill Monroe, a veteran bluegrass

Bottom: Dave Salyers, a guide, describes the bourbon-making process at the Woodford Reserve Distillery in Versailles, Kentucky. The distillery is part of the Bourbon Trail.

here is more than one reason to visit Louisville, Kentucky.

T

Bourbon Trail: Kentucky is known for the famous Bourbon whiskey. For more than 200 years, Kentucky's legendary distilleries have crafted the world's finest bourbons, using secret recipes and a time-honored process passed down from generation to generation. The rich tradition is now a tour known as Bourbon Trail, featuring six signature distilleries amid the winding country roads and green hills. . http://kybourbontrai I. com/index. php Bluegrass Music: Kentucky is home to the bluegrass music style. The late musician William Smith Monroe or Bill Monroe from Kentucky is called The Father of Bluegrass, because of his

band, the Blue Grass Boys. His career spanned 60 years. http://www. bluegrass-museum .org/ Kentucky Derby: Horse racing in Kentucky dates to 1789 when the first race course was laid out in Lexington. However, it was almost 100 years later, in 1875, that Churchill Downs Racetrack in Louisville officially opened and began its tradition as "Home of the Kentucky Derby. " http://www.kentuckyderby路com/ Mammoth Caves: Mammoth Cave National Park is Kentucky's number one tourist destination. Mammoth Cave, currently measuring 560 kilometers long and 115 meters deep, is the longest known cave in the world. http://www.nps.gov/maca/index.htm

tions . Key corporate executives from India are now serving on the boards of Fortune 500 companies and fast-growing businesses.

"From a business perspective, Indians create jobs and help local companies fill challenging jobs in technological and medical sectors. They truly make it possible for Louisville to pursue its vision of becoming a "possibility city," by providing the resources and skills we need to make LouiS,ville known in the health science, logistics, and engineerfug and development world," says Iocavazzi-Pau. According to Dronawat, a former chairman of the India Community Foundation, as more Indians choose Louisville as their place to live and work, more people in India learn about the possibilities that Louisville offers.

In April, Louisville hosted former Indian President A.P.1. Abdul Kalam, whose visit was initiated by Devanathan Sudharshan, dean of the Gatton School of Business at the University of Kentucky.

This university, in Lexington, developed an India Institute of Excellence last year to foster exchange of knowledge and ideas and link Kentucky and India through scholar exchange programs and virtual conferences. Officials For more information: hope this improves the quality of Loui sville, Kentucky education and promotes the devel-

http://www.louisvilleky.gov/

opment of economic projects throughout Kentucky.

"This year for the first time, Dr. Kalam and Dean Sudharshan envisioned a more regional outreach, touching the business community and the University of Louisville and the whole Indian community here," says Dronawat.

The co-hosts of the visit were Greater Louisville International Professionals, the India Community Foundation, the University of Louisville, and the World Affairs Council of Kentucky and Southern Indiana.

For a period of six months, the four organizations collaborated to plan and execute a formal banquet that attracted more than 600 community leaders, professionals and executives.

"It was the first time in the hi story of Louisville that all the Indian organizations and communities came together to support such a prestigious event," says Iacovazzi-Pau. "Dr. Kalam brought world knowledge to Loui sville and enlightened our community with his vision of a world of shared knowledge and a peaceful planet."

Sujoy Dhar is a correspondent with The Washington Times in India, editor of India Blooms News Service, its portal arm, www.indiablooms.com and Trans World Features.

SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

33

ames W. Herman, the U.S. Consul General in New Delhi who coordinates consular operations at the five American consular sections in India, says the welcoming, friendly nature of Hawaii, where he grew up, is his model for the way to do business. He spoke with SPAN Editor Laurinda Keys Long about making the 路visa process transparent, comfortable, fast and secure.

J

What are your most useful tips for visa applicants?

The most important thing is come and tell us the truth. No one wants to be denied, but it's far better to be denied for a truthful application than to be denied for lying or presenting false documents , which could result in a permanent ineligibility. Don ' t try to hide things from us .

Come and tell us what you want to do and we will make the best possible decision .

We want to encourage legitimate travel to the United States.

T would also like to ask people to take a moment and look at your passport and make sure it's valid, and when it's going 34 SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

to expire, and then take a look at your visas. It's always a good idea to sit down and look once a year to make sure they have not expired.

We encourage everybody to apply as early as possible. On student visas, for example, we can actually accept the application 120 days before applicants are supposed to start school. Some don ' t get their travel information until the last minute, which is problematic, but students are high priority cases so we will make time for them.

The burden of proof is always on the applicant for tourist visas: they have to show that they qualify for the visa and they

For students attending U.S. universities or colleges in the fall, now is the time to get your documents in order and proceed toward getting your visa.

are going to come back to India. A lot of times what happens is that people come in thinking that they are entitled to a visa and they don't really have a good answer for what they are going to be doing in the U.S. There is no real reason to get here early for your appointment-some folks will come two or three hours before the interview. If you come just a little before your interview is scheduled, you don ' t have to wait outside, and our goal here in New Delhi is to get people through the entire process in under an hour. All of the consulates are doing the same thing. We track how long it takes people to get through our process. We realize people are very busy and we are trying to reduce the wait once people are here.

What is the normal waiting time before applicants can get an interview?

Currently wait times range between seven days in Chennai and 25 days in Kolkata for tourist applicants. Also, please note that we process 97 percent of the visa applications the same day we get them; 99.9 percent are processed within a month. So of the 600,000 actual visas we

process throughout India annually, only application is denied and they feel they ,about 400 are still pending after a month. don't know why?

We are required to tell people why they How were the improvements in waiting were refused. The vast majority of refusals time and other aspects achieved?

The Department of State has spent over are for the same reason: the applicant did $100 million over the past several years not show that he or she has sufficient ties trying to improve the operations here to to bring them back to India. We always make the process better for people. We give them a pamphlet to take away with have completely revamped the consular them so that they can better understand the sections in New Delhi, Chennai and reason for their refusal.

Kolkata. We are building a new consulate in Mumbai. We have opened a new consulate in Hyderabad, and have spent a lot of money on infrastructure. We have also increased consular staff by 40 percent to ensure we have the staff and resources to more expeditiously process visa applications. Several months back we had more than a six-month backlog; now we are at about a three-week backlog. This is higher than we would like, but we have recently seen our visa workload start to creep up and so we are throwing more resources at the interview stage to make sure we keep up our pace.

Are there still some problems or obstacles?

Perceptions are really difficult to overcome. For years and years this process was U.S. Vice Consul Nina Diaz ready to serve looked at as being demeaning to people. visa applicants in New Delhi.

We worked very hard to create a very welcoming environment here. Given our volumes it is hard to do that but our goal is to What if the consular officer has made treat each person with dignity and respect, the wrong decision? to give them a good, healthy environment I am just as concerned about refusing a in which to submit their application. We visa for someone who is qualified as givknow that it is very confusing for people ing a visa to somebody who is not qualiwho only have to be here once every 10 fied. Supervisors review a large percentyears, so we have here in Delhi nine of our age of cases at the end of the day to help staff members out in the waiting area try- minimize errors. We realize we are not ing to guide people through the process. perfect, but we seek to minimize errors.

Every consulate has something like that. ,It's a very difficult job; the officer has two Don't people get upset when their visa ':'. rrunutes to make a decision and we know Anu Kejriwal (left) and Kavita Bhola are part of the consular team in New Delhi,

that the vast majority of time we get it right.

The officers take two minutes to make the decision?

It's not a requirement; we don't have a timer. But I will use myself as an example.

I have done about 110,000 visas in my career so I am relatively quick in assessing an applicant. The goal is to make certain that the person you interviewed qual-

ifies for a visa, and so you are going to ask questions to help you make a judgment based on the evidence that they present to you and the conversation you have with that person. And we are very well trained to do that. If an applicant qualifies for a visa, we'll likely issue a visa. If an applicant is trying to get a visa fraudulently or do something illegal in the States, there is a high probability we will catch him or her. And if an applicant is caught, he will be barred from traveling to the U.S. Supervisors are als.o required to go back and review a certain percentage of decisions. It's all automated. If the supervisor sees something questionable, we will call the applicant back in and we will do are-interview.

Besides your training and experience is there anything in your background that helps you do your job here in India?

I grew up in Hawaii. One of the things that you learn in Hawaii is the aloha spirit, treating people with dignity and respect and listening to them, treating their culture with the same respect as your own.

It's certainly something I grew up with. I spent most of my life in the Pacific area. I feel right at home in India. ~ SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

35

For our 50th year, SPAN is reprinting articles from past editions that reflect on issues we are reporting about today. For this issue focusing on business, we are reprinting these articles from September/October 1998 about Fabindia, which is also celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

.

conomists, social historians and market researchers engaged in defining the Great Indian Middle Class are apt to lose themselves in a vast territory governed by approximate figures. The swelling numbers of such a class are elusive and its patterns of income and consumption much too variable: defining the nature of the beast, moreover, in terms of style and taste can be a waste of time. But if indicators must be found-and labels sought- then Fabindia would feature high on the list of trendsetting establishments that have shaped the way a prominent swathe of the urban Indian middle class dresses and furnishes its homes.

There cannot be many professionals in Indian cities who have not, at one time or another in the last 25 years, possessed either a Fabindia shirt, kurta, bed cover, dhurrie or napkin. More than any arriviste fashion dictator, social marketing whiz kid or aggressive foreign retail chain, Fabindia has defined the look of the Indian middle class. It has succeeded in doing so by adhering steadfastly, in four decades of planned growth, to principles of quality, fair pricing and customer satisfaction. But, above all, in its overriding commitment to provide work to thousands of village weavers and artisans, in more than a dozen states, who produce handwoven and handprinted fabrics, often solely for Fabindia.

A couple of unusual aspects of the Fabindia success story distinguish it from other Indian export cum retail enterprises.

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38 SPA N JULY/AUGUST 2010

Although it began in 1960 exclusively as an exporter of fabrics , Fabindia never went into direct manufacture. Without the draining costs of infrastructure and the encumbrance of labor unions, prices stayed low and profit margins were tight.

Unlike many export houses in the formative decades of the 1970s and 1980s who burnt their fingers in retail markets, or grew so fast in exports that they grew out of touch, Fabindia's retail business steadily overtook its exports. " In the late 1960s, if we managed to sell fabric worth Rs. 3,000 locally we considered it a boom month," recalls Meena Chowdhury, who joined Fabindia's American founder John Bissell as a part-time dogs body on a salary of Rs. 150 a month in 1962 and is now a senior shareholding director in the

company. Today, Fabindia's total turnover is Rs. 250 million and its retail outlets continue to grow apace.

Apart from the "parent body"-a nucleus of four famous shops in Greater Kailash market in south Delhi-and a three-storey outlet in the suburb of Vasant Kunj , Fabindia now has shops in Bangalore and Chennai. A 250-squaremeter twin outlet opened in Pali Hill in Mumbai in September, taking Fabindia's retail floor space to a total of nearly 2,230 square meters nationally. That was not the future Bissell could have imagined when he started his one-man export company in two small rooms adjoining his bedroom in his Golf Links flat. He called it Fabindia Inc. and incorporated the moaest venture in his hometown of Canton,

Above and left: Home products and men 's garments on display at Fabindia 's outlets in Greater Kailash, New Delhi.

Connecticut, thousands of kilometers away.

Two women provided the initial impetus that eased Fabindia's birth and changeCl the direction of Bissell's life. Not long after he came to India his grandmother died in Connecticut, leaving him a legacy of $20,000 that he used as start-up capital. And the day after he landed in Delhi he met Bim Nanda, whom he fell in love with and eventually persuaded to marry him, and who, in turn, persuaded him to stay on.

Fabindia Today • Number of retail stores: 116 across India and six abroad.

• Annual sales: Over Rs. 350 crores.

• Number of employees: 850 on the rolls, 1,000 consultants and on contract.

• Number of craftspeople supplying products: 40,000.

• Types of products available: Garments, home furnishings, linens, furniture, jewelry, organic foods and personal care products.

• Most popular product: Garments • Number of countries to which Fabindia exports: 33.

• Penguin will publish "The Fabric of our Lives: The Fabindia Story" to mark the company's 50th anniversary.

• Fabindia's revamped Web site: htlp://www.fabindia.com/

Two remarkable business partnerships, one Indian, the other British, also devel oped in the restless 1960s, as the sandyhaired American plowed through the dusty, small towns and villages of north India , knocking on doors, showing swatches to weavers and coaxing entrepreneurs to produce the flat weaves, pale colors and precise weights in handloom yardage and cotton carpets that he wanted.

After many trial and error starts in Panipat- not then the boom town it is now-he forged a link with the Khera family, a connection that flourishes to this day. In 1964 he also met Terence Conran, progenitor of the Habitat chain that ushered in a furnishings revolution in Europe, who believed that Fabindia's Bissell embodied the honesty and clarity of purpose to source the right materials out of India.

Like any business venture, Fabindia was susceptible to the winds of sweeping political and economic change but it prospered by abiding by the rules . In 1975-76, at the height of Indira Gandhi 's Emergency regime, Fabindia was forced out of its second premises in a house on Mathura Road. Bim Bissell recalls that, later on, John would laugh and say that he owed Sanjay Gandhi thanks for effecting the rule that barred commercial establishments from operating in residential properties because that is what prompted Fabindia to open its first big showroom in Greater Kailash market. "It was my father's belief that retail outlets should move to suburbs rather than the city center to service the needs of the newer and younger householders, " says William Bissell, John's 32-year-old son, who has ·been pushing Fabindia's growth in other . cities since he joined the business and will soon be introducing a Fabindia line in children 's clothing.

In compliance with a Reserve Bank diktat of the early 1970s instructing foreign companies to reduce their foreign equity to 40 percent of the total , Bissell offered shares in Fabindia to close family members and associates. Madhukar Khera, son of a Punjabi refugee family resettled in Panipat who helped his father run a small, struggling carpet business, had decided early on to manufacture for Fabindia.

When Bissell's letter offering the shares came in 1976, Khera, by then a key figure

sp-«,

in Fabindia's success, bought them for Rs. 45,000. Today, he reckons, they are worth at least 400 times as much . That letter, thumped out on Bissell's trusty Olivetti portable, set down the company 's simple, heartfelt credo: "In addition to making profits, our aims are constant development of new handwoven products, a fair, equitable and helpful relationship with our producers and the maintenance of quality on which our reputation rests."

Throughout his life Bissell remained a prolific letter-writer-notes , memos and accounts flowed from his Olivetti with the same regularity as pithily voiced observations and opinions, some bitingly funny, others astutely argued, all usually helpful.

(After his stroke, he began again from scratch-first painfully holding chalk to slate, then pad and pencil, before graduating to a PC with enlarged lettering. ) Almost anyone connected with the Fabindia story- and there are hundredshas lovingly preserved every scrap received from Bissell, as if, says his daughter Monsoon Bissell, "we were all being invited to participate in some great unfolding adventure story."

It was also his custom to personally type the company 's annual report, which he would then dispatch to shareholders, employees, friends and-much to the irritation of Fabindia managers- to the company 's competitors. Bissell espoused transparency in all business affairs just as he held on to [Ernst Friedrich] Schumacher's small-is-beautiful theory of development economics-he hated the office paraphernalia of peons and secretaries and everyone in Fabindia even now prepare their own invoices and make their- own tea.

Working for endless hours on Fabindia's annual financial report, Meena Chowdhury remembers that Bissell would shout across the dividing screen to ask: "How many people do we now employ? One year I said 20, the next year it was 40 and the year after that, I think, I said 82." A dead silence would follow this exchange, so Meena would go over to assure him, and find the same look of exasperation, worry and unanswered questions writ on hi s face. " ... Meena," Bissell would say year after year. "How did we grow this big?" ~ Sunil Sethi is a consultant editor at N ew Delhi Television.

SPAN JULY/AUGUST 20 10

39

By SUNIL SETHI

Fabindia, the business the late John L. Bissell built, set trends in the textile trade.

But it was for different reasons the transplanted American was so highly esteemed by associates.

A friend recalls the man and his work.

ith their antennae pennanently positioned to lure the passing customer, retailers tend to be the most sensitive denizens of the marketplace. Everything affects thembad weather, rent laws, shrinking wallets or a depressed economy. But there are some shops that acquire an immunity to these and allied bazaar disorders. One such exception is Fabindia-drop in on any slow-selling summer afternoon and its showrooms are a buzzing hive of activity. John L. Bissell, the man who started Fabindia as a small enterprise 38 years ago and turned it into a household word representing good taste at affordable prices, was an exceptional man himself.

He was a highly individual American who brought New World merchandising to Old World handlooms, and succeeded in striking the precise balance between commercial profit and social commitment. He left the world of Seventh Avenue retail to make India his home but carried with him the lingering spirit of American liberalism that staunchly defends the virtues of honesty, self reliance and respect for the dissenting voice. In this he remained, as his banker friend Peter Jeffreys put it, "the quintessential Connecticut Yankee ... captivated but not deceived by India.... His observant eye and critical tongue were not the least of the innumerable contributions he made to India."

Together with his wife, Birnla Nanda, John struck a talent for friendship and hospitality that placed the Bissells at the heart of political, social and diplomatic Delhi for 40 years. A more consistently successful, influential and enjoyable IndoAmerican partnership can scarcely be imagined.

W

John L. Bissell, the founder of Fabindia.

Reprinted from the September/October 1998 issue of SPAN.

When Bissell died in March, aged 66, after a long, valiantly-borne illness, John Bums, The New York Times' South Asia correspondent, sent a couple of personal dispatches to his managing editor, Joe Lelyveld: " .. .1 went to a memorial gathering for John Bissell this evening, along with Ie tout Delhi. Ministers, top bureaucrats, academics, aJtists, industrialists, writers, journalists, philanthropists, ambassadors, friends; all were there, about 300 people gathered under a shamiana in the drizzling rain that EI Nino has brought to north India this yeaJ路." I.K. Gujral, then prime minister, was po~itely requested not to come lest his security di;'-turb others; but M.S. Gill, the chief election conunissioner, was there, reported Bums, "fresh from shepherding 330 million souls into his polling booths .... " Unknown aspects of Bissell came to light that evening, as family and friends took turns to remember him; most moving of all was a tribute read out in an emotion-choked voice by Arun Shourie, the writer and member of Parliament, on behalf of Mita Nandy, the moving spirit behind the Spastics Society, herself too ill to attend the memorial. "I met John 19 years ago," she wrote, "when we started the Spastics Society in rented premises without the money to pay the first month's rent....

He not Qnly gave us all that we asked for continuously but also, unsolicited, gave us very large donations which helped to pay our salary bills. There was such dignity in John's giving. He was a shy giver, he did not want to be thanked."

spAii, â&#x20AC;˘ Strong impulses, freak occurrences and unshakable convictions shaped the life of this lanky New Englander, with his slight stoop, air of quizzical concentration and donnish wardrobe composed entirely, it seemed, of crumpled kurtas and worn trousers. Professor Bissell, you were most likely to assume. But suddenly the gruff voice and taciturn mannerfor he was hopeless at small talk-would dissolve into loud guffaws at a ribald joke retold with a string of expletives ("John, John!" Bim would remonstrate, and ever the decorous Punjabi matron, color deeply to the roots of her hair).

Bissell came, though he would be appalled in any way to show it, from a wealthy, well-connected family. His great-grandfather had presided over the fortunes of one of the great Midwestern railroads, and from that came his endless love of train travel. His grandfather was president of the Hartford Fire & Life Insurance Company, in the insurance town of Hartford, Connecticut, who later bought and lived in Mark Twain's house. That gave Bissell the confidence to handle money responsibly and the feeling for spacious, comfortable homes. And his father, later an editor at Newsweek magazine, who had traxeled to India after World War II, fired his son's imagination about the subcontinent. Young Bissell went to an exclusive prep school in Andover, Massachusetts, later to Yale, and spent two years in the U.S. Navy in Korea.

Emporium he met the young woman who had been asked to vacate her office for him. She had just returned from America, after taking a degree in education, following the breakdown of her fi.rst marriage. L.C. Jain, till recently India's ambassador to South Africa, was her boss and felt sorry about asking her to give up her room. "Don't worry, Bim, he's a Yank.

Won't last more than three months."

Remarriage, says Biro Nanda, was not on her mind but Bissell courted her so assiduously for five years that she finally relented. "He would send me a rose and a note every morning. He waited and waited and wouldn't take no for an answer." By this time, she was working as social secretary to Chester Bowles, the U.S. Ambassador. Richard Celeste, the present U.S. Ambassador, was Bowles' personal assistant. Celeste remembers "a lanky American lurking in Bim's shadow Who danced the jitterbug terrifically." Celeste attended their wedding in 1963 and the Nanda-Bissells, he says, became "my surrogate family."

Bissell himself, typically, summed up the turning point of his life more succinctly: "I'm the guy who struck lucky twice," he would tell friends, "I got the job first-then I got the girl."

But it was India, their Indian family and Indian enthusiasms that held them together. Only once dUling his years in his adopted country, did he ever express the desire to return to Ametica.

"His parents were ill and he wanted to take a sabbatical year in 1984 but we compromised. Instead of two trips a year, he made three," says Bim. Monsoon Bissell, his daughter, says that her father's greatest contribution to her life was that he never made ***** Laila Tyabji, chairperson of the crafts society, Dastkar, who her feel "culturally divided ...his essential Americanness, whatevdealt with him professionally for 26 years, says: "All doors er that is, remained. For 17 years he took Hindi lessons but never opened to the Bissells, just as their doors were always open to mastered the language. The simple reason was that he was too everyone, but I don't ever remember John in a five-star hotel." interested in masterji's everyday life for the lessons to matter."

Bissell's work ethic was essentially founded on the belief that In the summer of 1993, while driving home in Connecticut, his successful merchandising must benefit the producer and con- wife beside him, Bissell suffered a massive stroke. At first he sumer equally. As a middleman he saw his role as that of catalyst, could neither speak, see, swallow nor walk but as soon as he not as percentage man or empire builder. The first inkling he had could communicate he wanted to return to India. Very slowly he that he liked selling was during a coast-to-coast trip during col- taught himself to eat and read and write again; he would go to lege, which he financed by selling Isamu ~oguchi lamps. After Fabindia each morning in his wheelchair and got a special Trax Korea, he went to work for a fabric importer in New York who vehicle made that enabled him to travel. Once he demanded to go had landed the contract to supply costumes for the film "Anna and to Lucknow and, on arrival, was taken to several weavers' vilthe King of Siam." John found Indian fabrics attractive but won- lages outside the city. At one such village, the weavers wanted to dered why they never got what they ordered. know who he was and what he was doing there. On being introSoon afterward came his chance to find out why. He was train- duced as the man from Fabindia, some of the weavers echoed the ing at Macy's when its president, Martin Uzzi, received a request name. "Fabindia?" they said, "you mean, the kurta people from from the Indian government for an Amelican professional who Delhi?" Meena Chowdhury, his oldest associate at Fabindia, says would help design and market Indian textiles for export on a Ford that it was his favorite story during his last days.

Foundation grant. Uzzi put up his son's name but at the last minute Richard Celeste places John Bissell's life in a wider context when the fellow backed out. Bissell was asked if he was interested and he says that he was a spiritual child of Thoreau's New England who he said he could leave the next day. He landed in Delhi on August discovered himself in a Gandhian setting. "It's hard for me to imag15, 1958; on his first working day at the Cottage Industries ine that a couple like them will ever exist again," he says. ~

Memorial Day American War Dead

By MICHAEL JAY FRIEDMAN

This U.S. holiday started in 1866 to commemorate those killed in the Civil War. he Memorial Day holiday celebrated ~

by Americans on the last Monday of ~ May represents for many the unoffi- ~ cial beginning of summer. Many 6 travel over the long holiday weekend ~ to seek out friends and family, beaches and is amusement parks. But most pause at some a: point to recall the holiday 's true purpose: 1865, which caused the deaths of more than honoring those who died defending their 550,000 people, many citizens began to nation. place flowers on the graves of the war dead.

Memorial Day entertainments through- A number of northern municipalities conout the United States range from large tinued these "Decoration Days" after the sporting events to quintessentially small- war ended, but the decisive event occurred town celebrations. The Indianapolis 500 in 1866 in Waterloo, 450 kilometers from motor race attracts an estimated global New York City. audience of more than 320 million.

Meanwhile, in Waterloo, New York- The lirst annual observance In 1865, Waterloo resident Henry C. the place where Memorial Day began (at least according to Waterloo)-festivities Welles, the town 's pharmacist, hit on the include a parade, arts and crafts show, a idea of formally setting aside a day to honor strawberry festival, music, tours of the those killed in the war. He was supported by town's Civil War museum and an antique one of his customers, John B. Murray, who car show. Civil War buffs in period uni- had risen to the rank of brigadier general in forms and dresses hold a two-night the Northern Union Army, and Murray's encampment and stand by for live cannon- friend, Major General John A. Logan, fire demonstrations. Those not too full another retired Union commander. In 1866, from the pizza-eating contest can compete Waterloo held the fIrst formal , village-wide, in a five-kilometer race. annual observance of a day dedicated to The story of Waterloo, and that of the honoring the war dead, and it has continued holiday itself, is woven deeply into the to do so for 144 years. On Memorial Day weekend, visitors inflate the town's populanation's history.

During the American Civil War of 1861- tion to several times its normal size (5,118

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42 SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

according to its Web site www.waterloony. com).

Logan, founder of the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans, in 1868 designated May 30 as a day "for strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion , and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land."

Among the ceremonies held that day was one at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. President Ulysses S. Grant presided. After the speeches and tributes, thousands of war orphans, veterans and others decorated the graves of the Civil War dead. There were more than 20,000 such graves at Arlington Cemetery alone.

By the tum of the century, nearly every state had declared Decoration Dayan official holiday. After World War I, Decoration Day was expanded to honor those killed in all of the nation's wars, and after World War

Above left: Kimberly Stultz and her daughter, Lilyan, look at the flag placed on the grave of Stultz's grandfather, Korean War veteran Tom Logsdon, at the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery in Dixon, California.

Above top: Spring Turner at the grave of her husband, Air Force Sergeant Jack Turner, at the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery.

Above: Lionel Ritchie at a rehearsal of the 2010 National Memorial Day Concert on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Above right: Bikers from across the United States ride past the U.S. Capitol as part of a traditional Memorial Day motorcycle parade. Many of them are war veterans.

For more information: Memorial Day photos, videos, articles http://www.history.com/top ics/memorial-dayhistory

II it became known as Memorial Day. (Veterans Day, which honors all veterans, living and dead, is celebrated each year on November 11.)

Several Northern and Southern cities claim to be the originators of Memorial Day, but in 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaimed Waterloo as its official birthplace. ". The U.S . Congress established Memorial 路i . Day as a federal holiday in 1971 and fixed its observance on the last Monday in May.

U.S. president or vice president typically presides at Arlington National Cemetery and places a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns. Solemn observances are held at Civil War battle sites, including Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and Sharpsburg, Maryland where 23,000 Americans were dead, wounded or missing after the 12-hour Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest one-day battle in U.S. history.

At 3 p.m., a National Moment of Remembrance unites Americans in prayer and thought as they contemplate the sacrifices made in their behalf.

Honoring the war dead The original Waterloo commemoration Thus, even as Americans enjoy their long centered on the decoration of soldiers' weekend and the prospect of summer, they graves, the lowering of flags to half-staff, also can be found in more somber moods. and veterans' parades. These ceremonies Wreaths are laid, thanks given and heads continue in cities and towns across the bowed in recognition of those who made the nation on Memorial Day. ultimate sacrifice. ~ There are more than 2.9 million gravesites at 130 national cemeteries around Michael Jay Friedman is director of the Office the United States. For Memorial Day, vol- of Publications in the Bureau of International unteers decorate most of these veterans ' Information Programs of the U.S. Department graves with small American flags. The of State.

SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

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Tb~RSU.S. Census Counts Everyone he u.s. Census Bureau has kicked off its monumental $14.5 bi ll ion effort to get an exact count of the estimated 309 million people living in the United States. It seeks to include everyone: citizens and noncitizens, those with permanent residence and transients alike.

The U. S. Constitution says the "resident population" -not just U.S. citizensshould be counted, says Daniel Weinberg, Census Bureau assistant director for decenni al census programs. The one exception is foreign ambassadors and staff who li ve in embassy compounds, he says, because that is technically foreign soil.

In a briefing at the Foreign Press Center in Washington, D.C. recently, Weinberg explained that the Constitution mandates a full count of the U.S. population every 10 years to ensure that Americans are fairly represented in the U. S. Congress.

Population determines how many representatives a state can send to the U.S.

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44 SPAN JULY/AUGUST 20 10

House of Representatives. The more populous states are allowed more representatives, and, by extension, more potential political clout. (Each state has a minimum of one representative.)

Another reason for the census is "to draw the districts so that they' re of equal size," Weinberg says. Each person in the House of Representatives represents a district in his or her state, and each district in a state must include the same number of people. States redraw their districts- both for the U.S. Congress and their own legislatures- based on the census findings.

No matter what their status, all immi grants are included in the population calculations for seats in the House of Representatives. "Everybody should be counted," says Weinberg, adding that "the courts have upheld the current interpretation for centuries."

The census also has a big financial impact on everyone living in the United States. The federal government uses the

census figures to determine how much conununities will receive of more than $400 billion allocated in federal funds each year. These funds help pay for hospitals, job training centers, schools, senior centers, emergency services and public works proj ects such as bridges and tunnels.

Reaching out to immigrants and minority populations Weinberg acknowledges that many foreigners living in the United States without proper visas may be afraid to have any contact with federa l authorities. The Census Bureau tries to reach these reluctant respondents through advertising and in partnership with activists, ethnic church leaders and others who are trusted by people in the immigrant communities.

The census questionnaire is available in six different languages, and language assistance guides are availabl e in 6Q languages including Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu

A crowd of people in New York City. The U.S. Constitution mandates a full count of the population every 10 years to ensure that Americans are fairly represented in the U.S. Congress.

"We do share the data with the National Archives, and they keep them confidential as well," Weinberg says. The individual records are not released to the public for 72 years, and this old data forms the basis for a lot of genealogical research, such as tracing family trees.

The main census questionnaire for 2010 has 10 questions about the age, sex, race and ethnic heritage ofthe respondent. This year, for the first time, an English-Spanish questionnaire was mailed to about 13 million households . "We think that will improve response rates in the heavily Hispanic neighborhoods," Weinberg says.

Questions about religious affiliation are prohibited by U.S. law. The religion data the Census Bureau publishes in its statistical abstracts is assembled from reports provided by religious organizations, he says.

The data collected via the short questionnaire will be supplemented by the American Community Survey, which seeks to collect more detailed information and Urdu. from samples of residents throughout the "That's a challenge: to reach people country. About 3 million people are asked who don 't speak English as a primary lan- to participate, Weinberg says. However, guage," Weinberg says. "It's not easy, but the detailed questions in this year's survey, we really make an effort to reach all of as well as the question about race, have them." raised objections from many Americans, The Census Bureau goes to "extreme who feel they are inappropriate. lengths" to protect the identity of anyone Late in April, approximately 635,000 who responds to the census questionnaire, . ~ensus workers, or "enumerators," started Weinberg says. The Census Bureau per- ':' , visiting households that didn't retum the sonne I who collect and process the infor- short questionnaire to make sure they are mation " are swom for life to protect the counted. Some work at night, visiting confidentiality of these data," he says. places "where the homeless might con"We do protect these individual respons- gregate and try and get them counted," es; [we] put out basically just tables, just Weinberg says . . tabulations, and not even the Patriot Act can oven'ide these protections.

Jane Morse is a staff writer with America.gov.

Confidentiality of the census data is strictly protected by law.

America's 23rd Census in Numbers • 360 million: The total number of questionnaires printed. Stacked one on top of the other, a pile of these forms would stand 47 kilometers high.

• 24(7(7: Printing questionnaires delivered by mail to residential addresses required one printer using three printing presses, with one running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for seven months and the other two for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for about seven weeks.

• 5.3 million kilograms: The collective weight of the paper the questionnaires were printed on.

Their printing required 133,927 kilograms of ink.

• 3.8 million: The total number of people recruited for 2010 census operations during 2009 and 2010.

• 15: The minimum age a household member must be in order to fill out the questionnaire.

• 28: The number of languages census advertisements wil l appear in. These include Hindi and Bengali.

• $133 million: The cost of the advertising campaign to boost participation rates.

• $1: The approximate cost per household that the Census Bureau is spending to motivate people to fill out and mail back their 2010 census forms.

• 0: The number of organizations with which the Census Bureau shares confidential information. Census Bureau employees take a lifetime oath swearing to keep information confidential. Penalties for violations include up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. - RV.

SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

45

ou are invited to take part in MOB , the project that creates an inexplicable mob of people in New York City for ten minutes or less. Please forward this to other people you know who might like to join."

This e-mail was sent out to gather the first known orchestrated and successful flash mob on June 17, 2003, at a Macy' s department store in Manhattan, New York City. It began when Bill Wasik, now an editor at Harper's Magazine, created an e-mail address-themobproj ect@yahoo.com.

Wasik forwarded the e-mail to himself, to make it seem like he had gotten it from someone else, and then to about 40 or 50 friends.

The mob gathered at four different bars, and 10 minutes before the event was to occur, small pieces of paper were handed out stating the final destination. The participants descended quickly upon Macy 's home furnishings department. From 7:27 p.m. to 7:37 p.m., 200 people surrounded a $10,000 rug, and, as instructed, the "mobsters" informed the bewildered salesperson that they all lived together in a Long Island City commune and they were looking to purchase a "love rug." For 10 minutes the "mobsters" discussed the rug among themselves and then quickly dispersed.

A flash mob, as defined by MerriamWebster's Dictionary, is "a group of people summoned (bye-mail or text message) to a designated location at a specified time to perform an indicated action before dispersing." What started as an e-mail inviting people to join an "i nexplicable mob" has turned into a global fad that continues to grow, spread and amaze bystanders everywhere.

Flash mob performances have included an impromptu pillow fight in North Carolina, silent group dance routines in

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London's underground metro, and a huge snowball fight in Washington, D.C. The Indian media wrote about what it called the first flash mob in the country in October 2003. About 60 people entered a Mumbai mall and began shouting like stockbrokers and gesticulating agitatedly.

"Before the stupefied security guards could react we broke into an impromptu garba dance, clapping our hands and whooping. At a shouted signal, we froze dead in our tracks, holding the pose for exactly half a minute," Bijoy Venugopal, a participant, later wrote on rediff.com . The group then opened the umbrellas they had been asked to bring along and melted away into the crowd.

It wasn't until June 2006, when Wasik published an article about his flash mobs in Harper's Magazine, that the source became publicly known.

The flash mob was originally created as a social experiment in the study of "scensterism," derived from "scenester." According to Wikipedia, the term "scenester" is often used to "describe types of young, recentlysettled, urban, middle class adults and

Above: Seemingly spontaneous aerobics by a flash mob surprise lunch-goers in Denver, Colorado.

Right: Participants dance during a flash mob based on the TV show "Glee" in Seattle, Washington.

older teenagers with interests in non-mainstream fashion and culture, particularly alternative music, indie rock, independent film and magazines."

Wasik said in an interview with Stay Free! magazine that the "original idea was to create an e-mail that would get forwarded around in some funny way, or that would get people to come to a show that would tum out to be something different or surprising. I eventually came up with a lazy idea, which was that the thing would just have one simple, in-your-face aspect to it, there wouldn ' t be any show, and that the email would be up-front in that it was inviting people to do basically nothing at all."

The idea became that the people themselves would become the show and that just by responding to this random e-mail, they would, in a sense, create something.

What started as an e-mail inviting people to join an "inexplicable mob" has turned into a global fad that continues to spread.

46 SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

By KAITLIN MCVEY

Why would people come to the flash mob?

"Well, it would be the fact that if it went off as planned, lots of other people would be coming. The desire to not be left out was part of what would grow it," says Wasik.

Following media exposure, Wasik 's email account started to be flooded with eager messages from people wanting flash mobs in their hometowns. Wasik originally created the flash mob as a localized "parody of New York insiderness, and I didn' t anticipate the fact that it would take off in other places."

Once it spread outside New York, it was seen as a movement. One of the first cities it spread to was Minneapolis, Minnesota, where a flash mob, known as "MOB the MOA," took place in the Mall of America.

It occurred on July 22, 2003 at 6:25 p.m. and the mobsters broke out in a robot dance routine that lasted for 10 minutes.

Those who organized it wanted to send a message of opposition to corporate space.

Howard Rheingold, author of "Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution," saw the flash mob as part of a larger trend.

"Right now, it's just people wanting to do something silly and it's not hurting anybody, so what's the harm?" he commented on smartmobs.com, a Web site that is dedicated to his book. "But it shouldn ' t come as a surpri se when this becomes a major outlet of political activism soon as well."

Two strains of flash mobs have since developed: one explicitly political. An example of this was the First Amendment flash mob that took place every Tuesday for 30 weeks in 2004 near the site of the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York City. The mobsters went to locations around the Ground Zero site and pretended to talk on their cell phones, but were really reciting the First Amendment ofthe U.S. Constitution.

Over 10 minutes they slowly got louder and louder until they silently dispersed .

Devin Glaser assisted in putting together a zombie thriller flash mob in Seattle, Washington on October 25, 2009 to support one side in the national political debate over health insurance. "We all showed up dressed as zombies-some were pretty amazing. We held signs indicating that we had died because we lacked access to affordable health insurance, and performed a quasi-choreographed dance to Michael Jackson's 'Thriller. ' "

48 SPAN J ULY/AUGUST 20 10

Many people have used flash mobs for Bernstein, a student at Tufts University in political objectives since there is a natural Massachusetts, was in a flash mob on intersection between flash mobs and the November 18,2009 comprised of students seemingly spontaneous ability to launch a in the dining hall. "There were about 300 of protest. us from a dance group on campus that parThe other popular flash mobs are silly ticipated. We had learned a short dance to ones in which people take part simply for the song 'Waking Up in Vegas' (by Katy the fun of it. In San Francisco, on July 16, Perry) and started dancing at different times 2003 mobsters went into the center of the when the song was played dUling dinner." financial di strict, on Market Street, and Instead of text messaging and social-nettwirled along the crosswalks. According working sites, Bernstein "found out about to media interviews, they simply wanted the flash mob through the dance group; we to bring silliness to a conservative place. were taught the choreography at rehearsIn Seattle, a flash mob dedicated to the 路 :,al." Bernstein says she "thought it would popular TV show "Glee" took place out- . be fun and had a great time doing it. Most side a busy downtown shopping center on April 10, 2010. Flash mob enthusiast Right: A humans versus zombies flash mob Glaser spent more than eight hours prac- at Hermann Park in Houston , Texas. ticing for the event.

Below: Ty Hallock (left) and Drew Carter "At exactly 1:00, 'Don ' t Stop Believing' take part in a pillow fight flash mob in (by the band Journey) came on over a loud- Asheville, North Carolina.

speaker as a small group ... began to dance.

People crowded around and acted surplised, as if we had no clue what was going on. At pre-planned moments in the mashup, more people would jump in and begin dancing in line with those already moving, until we had approximately 1,000 people dancing in the park," says Glaser.

A lot of preparation went into the event and "there was something magical about dancing in sync with a thousand other Seattleites," says Glaser. "Feeling that connected to that large a selection of strangers from all age ranges and walks of life was absolutely amazing."

Flash mobs can be comprised of strangers or be homogenized. Anna

people were surprised and enjoyed watching the flash mob."

While fl ash mobs are usually seen as harmless and fun , a resistance is growing toward them as some turn aggressive and violent. Events in Philadelphia; Boston; South Orange, New Jersey and Brooklyn, New York City resulted in arrests and injuries in 2009 and 2010. In those cases, teenagers ran through the streets or malls, vandalized property, fighting with each other and attacking bystanders. According to a report in The New York Times, Philadelphia police are receiving help from the FBI in monitoring social networking sites in an effort to stop flash mobs or at least keep them from turning

into riots. assembly rights. flash mobs are becoming a commonplace Bill Wasik commented to The New Also, city and town governments have occurrence in society and pop culture.

York Times that he was surprised by the the right to require permits for large gath- ShOltly after Oprah Winfrey kicked oU her new focus of some of the gatheri~gs and erings that may interfere with traffic or television talk show's 24th season on that "it's terrible that these Philly mobs require extra clean-up. Holding a large September 8, 2009, her staff and more than have turned violent." In May 2008, police gathering in a public place without a per- 20,000 people performed a choreographed stopped a planned flash mob in the United mit may be illegal in some municipalities, dance piece to the Black Eyed Peas' "I Kingdom over concerns for public health but flash mob organizers have not, as yet, Gotta Feeling." and safety. been targeted by law enforcement. This is Even Holl ywood is falling in step.

Flash mobs are covered in the United probably because the gatherings have Entertainment Weekly recently reported States by the First Amendment under free- been mostly peaceful and of short dura- that the NBC television network was in dom of assembly and association statutes tion. The San Francisco Chronicle reports, talks with pop si nger and dancer Paula that protect the rights of individuals to however, that local oUicials there are con- Abdul to create a competition show that come together peacefully and collectively sidering enforcing their permit laws after a would incorporate flash mobs. express, promote, pursue and defend com- massive Valentine's Day pillow fight in The future of flash mobs is as unknown mon interests. The right to freedom of 2009 cost the city more than $20,000 to and unpredictable as the event is itself. As association has been included in a number collect mounds of feathers that clogged it grows and spreads, it will be changed of national constitutions and human rights storm drains. Many people, especially and adapted to fit different cultures and instruments, including the U.S. Constitution" "bystanders and store owners, are intirni- people. Wasik explained in an interview the European Convention on Human': 路 dated by the sudden mass of people, and with CNN in August 2009: "I called ours Rights and the Canadian Charter of are nervous about what the mobs may turn ' inexplicable mobs.' For some people, it is Rights and Freedoms. However, the U.S. into. purely funny. For others, it is social-they Constitution does not give individuals an Once an underground phenomenon, like being out with people. For others, it is absolute right to enter and remain on political- just getting out in the streets private property to exercise their right For more information: is a political act. I personally like it to free expression. Due to this, most My Crowd by Bill Wasik because it is aesthetic. I love seeing all flash mobs occur on public property, http://harpers. org/arch ive/2006/03/0080963 the people come together, seemingly such as streets and in parks. The gov- "Glee" flash mob out of nowhere." ernment does have the right to inter- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5PyIVVKoWU Glaser is sure that flash mobs will vene if the flash mob turns violent. continue. "They are too much fun to "Bollywood Hero" flash mob in Times Square However, there must be a "clear and miss." present danger" or an "imminent http://www.youtube.com/watch?v = NXclwb _6LkE& feat incitement of lawlessness" before gov- ure = player _embedded#!

Kaitlin McVey is a writer living in ernment officials may restrict free- "Beat It"- Bangalore flash mob Seattle, Washington. ~--C'-=-=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= XEzR51950vs&NR = 1 SPAN JULY/AUGUST 20 10

49

E~om Oysters to

ruw suureln

An American foundation supports the next generation of entrepreneurs in India and the United States.

By JANE VARNER MALHOTRA

ighways stretch across America's central plains and Midwest farmlands, following the trails of early European settlers seeking a better life in the new frontier. Many of these roads pass through Kansas City, Missouri, which began as a trading port and supply station for west-bound wagon trains. With roots nurtured in the spirit of adventure and capitalism, Kansas City is a natural home for one of America's leading organizations on entrepreneurship, the Kauffman Foundation.

Founded in 1966 by the late Ewing Marion Kauffman, today the foundation's mission is to foster individuals' economic independence through entrepreneurship and education, to develop a society of engaged citizens who then contribute to the improvement of their communities. Offering workshops, research support, mentorship programs, grants, online resources and more, the foundation with a $2 billion asset base today grew from the humble beginnings of

H

Right: Ewing Marion Kauffman with his calcium supplement derived from oyster shells.

50 SPAN JULY/AUGUS T 2010

a man with an entrepreneurial spirit.

Kauffman was born on a farm in Garden City, Missouri in 1916 and later moved with his family to a modest neighborhood in Kansas City. After serving in World War II, he returned home and worked as a pharmaceutical salesman. He

quickly began earning more than the salaries of the company's top executives, so they cut his sales territory in half. Again his hard work and natural sales ability paid off and his income grew, and again his territory was cut in half. Frustrated, he decided to start his own company.

Studying the science of start-ups at the ' Kauffman Laboratories for Enterprise Creation.

"As a guy who believed in incentive alignment, he was pretty upset," laughs Lesa Mitchell, the Kauffman Foundation's vice president for advancing innovation.

"Aligning incentives is everything in entrepreneurship."

Kauffman began Marion Laboratories in 1950 in the basement of his family home, where he made calcium supplement pills out of crushed oyster shells he collected from area restaurants. Oyster shells are not exactly plentiful in Kansas City. In addition, legend has it that the family 's washing machine was destroyed in the process of crushing the shells. But these challenges did not stop Kauffman, and with sales of $36,000 and a net profit of $1,000 in his first year, the company steadily evolved into a major player in the international health industry. By 1989, when he sold the company to Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Marion Labs had grown to nearly $1 billion in annual sales with over 3,000 employees.

Kauffman believed that more people could succeed as entrepreneurs as he did.

He dedicated his legacy and foundation to

For more information: Kauffman Foundation http://www.kauffman.org/ Development Dialogue ----http://www.deshpandefoundation.org/development.html USC Gl obal Impact Program http://stevens. usc. edu/uscg lobal impact. ph p supporting innovation and education. Today, the foundation also works on advancing innovation through commercialization of university research. It also studies public policy and how it can be developed to best support entrepreneurship. Pattnering with the U.S. Commerce Dep3.ltment's International Trade Administration, the foundation has developed a clearinghouse to discover and share best practices in entrepreneurial leadership and grow the world's economy: www.entrepreneurship.gov.

The organization's focus on education can be seen through its Kauffman Scholars program, providing four years of college tuition to Kansas City middle and high school students from disadvantaged neighborhoods. Children are offered tutoring, counseling and mentoring throughout their high school years if they commit to keep on track for a university education.

This program is modeled on the original founded by Kauffman himself in the 1980s. Called Project Choice, it was an unusual approach at the time to supporting the education of children from struggling families and communities. He began Left: The Kauffman Foundation 's campus in Kansas City, Missouri.

Below: Lesa Mitch ell, the foundation 'S vice president for advancing innovation.

the program at his alma mater, Westport High School, where over 50 percent of students did not complete high school.

The children were his priority, and often came to Kauffman's office to meet with him and share good report cards and other successes. Within four years, the drop-out rate had been reduced to 25 percent.

Today, many programs around the United States are based on Kauffman's early concepts, the results of which have been researched and documented by the foundation to share with other educational organizations. "Kansas City is an incubator for us, especially in education," explains Mitchell.

"When Project Choice began, it was one of the first of its kind. Now there are a number of similar programs across the country. We publish our findings and share them with other leading education organizations such as the Gates Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. We're continually building on the latest and greatest educational practices to put on the ground in Kansas City and around the U.S." Over the years, the Kauffman Foundation has also reached beyond the U.S. borders to support entrepreneurship worldwide. In India, the foundation helps fund ventures such as the Global Impact Program in partnership with Stevens Institute for Innovation at the University of Southern California, and the Deshpande Foundation, a philanthropic organization with offices in Massachusetts and India supporting innovation, entrepreneurship and international development.

"The purpose of the grant is to build a program teaching students the skills to create innovations that promote entrepreneurship in developing countries," says Elisa Wiefel Schreiber, communications director at the USC Stevens Institute. Teams of three or four students design nonprofit or for-profit projects in response to needs as outlined by Indian NGOs, civic activists, business leaders, academics and government officials at the annual Development Dialogue conference in Hubli , Karnataka SPAN JULY/AUGUST 201 0

51

Left: The 2009 University of Southern California Global Impact Hubli water and health team visits a family living near the water plant.

Above: A recent college-bound graduate of the Kauffman Scholars program celebrates with his mother.

Some Current Projects FrontlineSMS The project utilizes low-cost SMS messages in place of paper forms to enhance health services for HIV testing and follow-up patient services in Hubli , in partnership with the Karnataka Health Promotion Trust. Launched in 2009, this year's student team from the University of Southern California is working to increase the number of trained staff and expand the capacity and impact of the program.

Mobilizing Health Villagers will be connected to licensed doctors through quick and simple text messages.

Already piloted in Udaipur, Rajasthan the

hosted by the Deshpande Foundation.

"Students are put together in interdisciplinary teams and explore their own ideas for projects and also ideas identified by USC Stevens and the Deshpande Foundation. All proposed projects must be scalable and sustainable, and most involve local champions," Schreiber explains.

Juan Felipe Vallejo, director of innovation development at the University of

52 SPA N JULY/AUGUST 2010

University of Southern California team plans to help the program expand so that more patients can get immediate attention, diagnosis and treatment round the clock.

Crowdsourcing Challenges A program of the Deshpande Foundation is being supported by a University of Southern California team, who will build a Web platform to ease communication between the foundation and applicants from around the world proposing projects for the Hubli-Dharwad region of Karnataka. The university students also aim to create a three- to five-minute documentary each week for the Web site (www.deshpande foundation.org/), highlighting new challenges.

allows them to actually live that. Of course the benefit to the NGOs is also great: They can leverage the expertise and passion of the students to address issues of concern in their communities," Vallejo says. "We're grateful that the Kauffman Foundation has the vision to support us.

For them, we' re an experiment. They help us learn what is the best way to formalize this kind of program and make it sustainable, so that if it's successful it can be easily replicated somewhere else."

In the field of social entrepreneurship, Kauffman's Mitchell sees projects like the Global Impact Program, now in its third year, as an opportunity for both countries to leam from each other. "For one thing, India can teach us a lot about scale," she notes.

"In general, India is far ahead of most developing countries in understanding entrepreneurship, with educational systems in place, and a large number of for-profit ventures already on the ground. At a recent TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) conference in Bangalore, there were more than 1,700 participants- the largest turnout we'd seen by far. Indians get entrepreneurship, they embrace it, and they're doing more of it than anyone realizes."

Southern California's Stevens Institute, sees the biggest impact for students as the opportunity and challenge to become entrepreneurs and run their own projects.

"The students who come to us to participate in the program usually already know what they want to do with their careers; they have a social commitment and they're innovative and they are interested Jane Varner Malhotra is a freelance writer in social entrepreneurship. Our program based in Washington, D.C.

SP Henrv Thiagarai. Chennai orn and brought up in rural South India, as a high school student I read articles about America in periodicals available in the school library. I got in touch with the American Library and the U.S.-run cultural center in Chennai. As a student of Madras Christian College during 1952-57, I participated in USsponsored seminars. These contacts with the American Center motivated me to visit the USA. I was fortunate to get a scholarship to study and participate in community activities in the U.S., including an internship at the U.N. in New York.

When I returned to India, SPAN became a communication link for me to learn about the latest developments in America and about the achievements of the Indians who migrated to the US., availing themselves of the great opportunities of life offered by America. As it is the official American Embassy magazine, SPAN is reliable, authentic and informative. It covers a wide variety of subjects like arts, culture, education, science and portrays the lives of both ordinary and famous Americans. The articles in SPAN often kindle my desire to see the parts of America I missed during my first two years in the USA (1958-60) and they fulfill my longing to know more about America.

President Kennedy's election and his assumption of office heraided a new era in Indo-American relations, which was reflected in SPAN's first publication in India. SPAN became an expression of the change, a reflection of' the new yearning for freedom and quest of the American people for world peace in the post-Vietnam period. SPAN's articles are always colorful , pleasing and refreshing. I usually save the SPAN issues for two years and then distribute them to students in rural areas who are eager to learn about America.

Having been a reader of SPAN for 50 years, I can say it contributes to the development of one's personality. It brings out the best in the two cultures of our great countries, that is, a synthesis of East and West, allowing one to acquire a global perspective.

Personally the article on ''Lincoln's Legacy Today" (November/ December 2009) deeply moved me and revived my memory of

B

Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address," which has been an inspiration for me since my school days. SPAN highlights the freedom enjoyed

by American citizens. I have been highly motivated by the articles on civil liberty, democracy and equal opportunities offered in a culturally and racially diverse America. The articles on personalities from Martin Luther King, Jr. to President Barack Obama reveal the legacy inherited from Abraham Lincoln and they strengthen my commitment to serve the cause of human rights of the oppressed people in India and to be active in civil society movements. I was delighted that my comments on Mohandas K. Gandhi and Bhimrao Ambedkar were quoted in the SPAN article on Martin Luther King , Jr. SPAN magazine has been a source for Indo-American relations for the last 50 years. SPAN has made very unique and positive contributions in educating people about the friendship and ties which exist between America and India, in particular, its July/August 2007 issue on 60 years of U.S.-India friendship. The present generation of American students express great interest in Indian culture and the life of Indian people, which was brought out in the article on Semester at Sea, or the floating university (November/December 2009 issue), which serves to promote peace and understanding in the world. Some of the Semester at Sea students who visited Indian villages and found rural life fascinating returned , after their voyage and studies, as volunteers in local communities. This is again an expression of American goodwill and voluntary service to make this world a better place to live.

Both India and the U.S. have an important role to promote world peace and contribute to the progress of humanity, in which SPAN plays a significant part. I applaud its 50 years of service through print media and congratulate its staff and editorial team for their dedication.

Henry Thiagaraj, retired from the Tamil Nadu government, is a human rights activist and author of "Human Rights from a Dalit Perspective. " , Henry Thiagaraj (left) receives an award in Chennai in October 2009 from Nicholas lammarino, executive dean of the Semester at Sea's 100th voyage, in appreciation of Thiagaraj' s services to the program 's Dalit village visits for the past 20 years.

Also present were R.K. Chauhan, secretary of the University Grants Commission, A.M. Swaminathan, chairman of Ethiraj College for Women, Radhakant Nayak, member of Parliament and Andrew Simkin, U.S. consul general in Chennai.

~I4EALTH CLINIC

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.. Yeah , bill he always loses to the cat.

Whell he gets a good halld, he wags his tail. "

"Sillce we both have the sallie symptoms, let'sjllst olle of LIS go ill alld we'll split the cost."

Reprinted from The Sawrday Evening POSt magazine.

Copyri ght © 2010 SalUrday Evening Post Society.

Reprinted with permi ssion.

© Saturday Evening Post Society.

" You li ved the fi rst 70 years of your life lVithollt a cell phone; why is fo rgellillg it at hOllle now a cause for panic?"

Copyright © Tribune Media Services. Inc. All rights reserved.

54 SPAN JULY/AUGUST 2010

Reprinted from The Saturday £l'elli'lg POST magazine.

© Saturday Evening Post Society.

eb Cha The Next Level

U.S. -India Strategic Dialogue merican and Indian government and business leaders gathered for four days in June to discuss how to take the U.S.-India relationship to the next strategic level in preparation for President Barack Obama's visit to India in the fall and for strengthening and expanding cooperation in the future. Assistant Secretary of State Robert O. Blake, Jr., former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, answered questions from Indians during a Web chat on June 2. Here are excerpts.

Blake: President Obama has said India is going to be one of the indispensable partners of the United States in the 21 st century and we think that it's very much in our own strategic interests to help advance the growth of India on the world stage How does this matter to the people in India or the United States? ... Because we're going to be focusing not only on important bilateral issues that directly affect your security and prosperity, things like

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counter-terrorism, ...but also very important issues like developing crop and weather forecasting. We're looking at ways to improve the supply chain in agriculture. We 're looking at ways we can participate in improving agriculture in other countries. We're looking at ways to improve trade and investment. ...

Is there any education policy being discussed in the Strategic Dialogue? ... A particular interest of ours is in encouraging higher education cooperation .... We are very happy that 100,000 Indian students now External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna met with Secretanj of State Hillary Clinton in her office on June 3 as part of the four-day U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue.

Their talks included the importance of India 's leadership to promote world security, stability and prosperity and how best to take advantage of the doubling of trade between the United States and India over the past five years.

"We consider our strategic partnership with the United States as one of our key foreign 'policy priorities ....

There are few relationships in the world that have so much potential .... " -External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna

study in the United States, which is the largest single group of foreign students in America.

And they perform a very important function , not only in terms of coming here to study but then bringing back a lot of the ideas and bringing back an understanding of the United States that helps to serve as a bridge between our two great democracies .. " This education bill that is now pending would allow American universities to invest in India for the first time and to offer degrees to Indian students. And that will. .. help India to maintain its edge as a knowledge economy and as an innovation economy just like the United States.

Do we see any assistance from the United States in the area of health?

Health has been one of the longstanding areas of cooperation between the United States and India .... We now want to take that to the global level as well. So that's why ... Prime Minister Singh and President Obama agreed to establish a global disease detection center in India where our scientists will be able to work together to look for the cures to some of these most deadly diseases and look at ways that, again, we can work together to not only address some of the challenges inside India, but also some of the challenges like polio in other countries ....

How can the United States or India profit from the collaboration? " .There are really tremendous opportunities now for the United States in India and, indeed , for India in the United States. And that's why we've established a forum of our top CEOs, our top chief executive officers on both sides to advise our two governments about how we can continue to make progress to lower trade and investment barriers between our two countries .. " One of the very interesting trends is" . investment by Indian private sector companies in the United States, which almost equals that of U.S. investment in India .. " I think there are going to be tremendous opportunities in infrastructure development, in energy development, in the nuclear area ... and then services areas like insurance, banking and retail ~

for more information: Video recording f\t ps: stateaep .connec solutions. com

p97188087/ JULY/AUGUST

By CARRIE LOEWENTHAL MASSEY

Columbia Water Center partnerships focus on agricultural innovations. population's well-being.

New methods are being used in the 2010 planting season, with more than 500 farmers participating in different field experiments.

"We're looking at how agriculture influences groundwater depletion and what types of changes would, at bare minimum, slow down groundwater depletion, hopefully stabilize it, and over time hopefully increase the groundwater table," says Dan Stellar, assistant director at the Columbia Water Center.

Founded in 2008, the center is a division of Columbia University's Earth Institute, which focuses on sustainable development throughout the world. As part of its work, in March 2010 the center collaborated with NASA, the U.S. Agency for International . Development, the U.S. Department of State â&#x20AC;˘ ..' ~¡ and-Nike-Inc. on the LAUNCH initiative, to ide~~~~erging technologies that can help combat water scarcity worldwide.

Since its inception, the water center has worked to bring such technologies to Punjab. A three-year, $6 million grant from the Pep.siCo Foundation supports the center's efforts in Punjab and projects being deve10ped in Gujarat.

e rice and wheat fields of Punjab have successfully fed the people of India since the Green Revolution of the mid-1960s. But how to feed those crops without starving India's water resources is a challenge that partners in India and the United States are working on.

Columbia University's water center, based in New York, has partnered with Punjab Agricultural University to devise innovative farming solutions that take aim at water overuse and scarcity. This is an environmental issue with a profound impact on sustainable productivity and the

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Known as India's breadbasket, Punjab produces nearly half of the total grain purchased by the Indian government, according to the Columbia Water Center. As a result, the farmers have a guaranteed market for their crops. The Columbia Water Center and Punjab Agricultural University have taken this economic reality into consideration, and are therefore focusing on methods that allow for continued high-volume production of rice and wheat, but with less water consumption.

One such water-saving solution involves experimenting with cutting back on the number of times rice farmers flood their fields each season as a means of irrigation .

"Pumps connected to groundwater send water splurting out into canals that lead into the fields, sometimes 35 to 40 times a season," Stellar says. "Some really simple things are: Could you irrigate fewer times?

Twenty-seven times instead of 32? That right there is a huge savings in water."

Less flooding of the fields would greatly increase the amount of water available for other human needs.

Left: Jennifer Swift-Morgan of Columbia University's water center meets a farmer participating in the center's program in Punjab.

Below: Farmers must pump water from deeper underground as groundwater is depleted.

Columbia Water Center is helping to make sure groundwater is used efficiently.

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"Just saving one or two irrigations is very significant, especially when you convert it into domestic use," Stellar says.

Other farmers are trying a method called direct seeding: instead of flooding the field before planting, the farmer plants the rice directly into the soil and waters as needed.

Stellar explained that the farmers participating in this experiment will use tensiometers or soil moisture probes, to gauge the precise level of moisture in the soil before they irrigate so that they only water when the soil is truly dry. Presently, farmers work by sight and flood the field whenever it appears dry to the naked eye.

The Columbia Water Center plans to calculate the water savings from fewer irrigations and the use of the tensiometers and assess this data in relation to farmers' productivity. The goal is to save water without reducing farmers' yields or the quality of the crops, Stellar says.

Diflerem crops,less water Another project involves working with farmers to grow entirely different crops that naturally use less water. In partnership with FieldFresh Foods, a joint venture between

For more inlormation: Co lu mb ia Water Center

India's Bharti Enterprises and America's Del Monte Foods, the center and the university are helping about 100 farmers shift from rice and wheat to vegetable crops including com, baby com and green beans.

While shifting to other crops will save water (the Columbia center hopes to calculate how much this season), the market remains a barrier to the success of the new crops.

"We're working with corporations to try to set up contracts so farmers know they'll be able to sell their crops," Stellar says. "We want to give farmers the same level of guarantee they have from the government [for rice and wheat]. Iffarmers could make more money and use less water to grow these crops, it's potentially a true win-win."

If successful, the Columbia Water Center and its Indian partners hope to increase the amount of crop varieties in Punjab and help shift rice and wheat to other regions of the country with more substantial groundwater supplies that could benefit economically.

"We don't want the overall production of rice and wheat to suffer," Stellar says.

With the planting experiments in Punjab just underway, the center aims in six to nine months to have quantifiable data on the efficacy of the water-saving technologies they are trying.

"It will be a really exciting season for us because we hope to get a lot of answers to questions," Stellar says.

Relieving critical water shortage in GUiarat In Gujarat, groundwater depletion has reached a dire state, according to the 58

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Columbia Water Center.

"There is a very serious risk of salt water entering the groundwater system because they are digging so low to pump water now," Stellar says. "If salt water comes in, they will no longer be able to use that water for irrigation."

The center has partnered with the Gujarat government and Sardarkrushinagar Dantiwada Agricultural University to devise a three-phase solution, seno begin this year. The process involves an awareness campaign to familiarize farmers with the reality of the groundwater situation, explain the possibility of irreversible damage, and emphasize the risk to their livelihoods if salt water enters the irrigation system.

Next, the American and Indian partners will review potential water-saving technologies and use that data to explain the benefits of each technology to the farmers.

Finally, the Columbia Water Center and its partners will work to reform an energy subsidy farmers receive to pump their water. At present, the state pays more than twice the amount in subsidies that a farmer earns for selling a rice crop, Stellar says. The center wants to design an incentive-based system that would benefit all parties, allowing farmers to save water and energy while earning larger profits and saving the state considerable money. ~ Carrie Loewenthal Massey is a special correspondent at America.gov

U.S.-India Corporate Partnership

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merican and Indian corporations have worked together to provide a renewable energy, rooftop, solar-power plant for the stadium that will host the Commonwealth Games netball events in October.

California-based Suniva Inc. has made the silicon solar cells that India's Reliance Industries Limited Solar Group is using for the one-megawatt plant atop Thyagaraj Stadium in New Delhi. The power plant will generate some 1.4 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year to meet the stadium's requirements, and produce surplus for the electric grid in New Delhi, whose government planned it to be a model green structure.

"With the solar plant at Thyagaraj Stadium, we intend to minimize the over-

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all footprint of the plant, while generating enough energy for the stadium's requirements," says Rabi Satpathy, president of Reliance Scilar Group. "Suniva's solar cells generate more power per cell, enabling us to build a one-megawatt plant.'!

The CEO . of Sun iva, John Baumstark, says, "The Thyagaraj project demonstrates Suniva's prominence in the rapidly growing solar market in India. Our commitment to increasing solar Gell efficiency will enable our partners like [ReliaQcej Solar Group to buifd powerful plants." â&#x20AC;˘

$un:ivawunder A.jeet J\ohatgHlejtXand Chie!firtancialOfficerJames Modak on: thesolarcpttneledroC!fC!fthe ,Thyagaraj SÂŁaaium'iJi Ne!lfJfJtflhi.

understanding soil, atmosphere, hydrologyand land cover.'?

Participants received scientific instruments to train teachers in their home al to learn more about our planet cities. The trained teachers are then brought 31 professionals from encouraged to work with students in their cross India, Nepal and Bhutan to a schools to collect scientific data on their four-day workshop in New Delhi in June. environment, usi ng procedures develThey learned to scientifically observe oped by GLOBE (Global Leamiog and and record data on the air, soil, plants, Observations to Benefit the Environment). trees, rivers and lakes around them and The 'data is loaded onto ~,'!Jla~~~ are now ready to transfer this knowledge for use by researchers around the world. ,fOur youth lead us in committing ourto others, especially teachers. This "train the trainers" workshop was organized by se Ives to protecting the Earth, and GLOBE's Asia-Pacific regional office and GLO~E is designed to help them build the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi. India's their knowledge and their networks in Ministry of Environment and Forests this field,'" says Michael Pelfetier, the U.S. Embassy's minister counselor for collaborated, too.

"Introducing this program into all our public affairs. "We look forward to conschools is very vital," says partiCipant tinuing our cooperation in this area in the Payal Bhojwani Molur, an education future, as India incorporates environmenconsultant. "We need our kids to help us tal studies in the school curriculum clean up our mess and that begins with separate subject."

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J.A.L. Baynes, Chennai, Tamil Nadu The article in the May/June 2010 SPAN on Elvis Presley revives fond memories for me. Elvis was popular for rattles and rolls and rightly so. For me, I can never forget his soul stirring, "Love me tender, love me true."

S.M. Goyal, Ajmer, Rajasthan Normally the bigwigs remain confined to their cozy, ivory towers, hardly ever bothering for the commoners. Exceptions are rare, rather rarest. US. Ambassador Timothy J. Roemer sets that exceptional image (May/June). Visiting our prestigious ISRO, playing basketball with college girls, tasting delicacies with Indians, driving an occupied rickshaw, posing with a poor family with a green chulha, moving out in an unbearable 42 degree Celsius temperature and thus setting an example of mixing with the high and the low.

Environment pollution is a global concern. Not all nations pay heed to it.

"Environmental Education for Every Student" (May/June) ~ is a significant step undertaken by the United States.

Learners of today will be the consumers of tomorrow. If they learn about ecology, safekeeping of the environment, climate change, impact of population growth, biodiversity etc., their future will be healthy and bright. The need is to know the environmental solutions, not just the problems, as they are there in abundance. In India, we do have subjects like environmental studies but it is not studied seriously. It should not be taken as an ivory tower discipline but be considered in an interdisciplinary way.

Aswini Kar, Bhubaneswar, Orissa The first copy of SPAN came to me as a pleasant surprise. While traveling to Colombo via Chennai , I came across the March/April copy of SPAN. I was attracted D:Y the magazine cover and I picked it up and kept it in my bag but'dld not find time to see it. After my return , one day, I just opened the magazine and went through the articles. I started with "What We Understand, We Respect and Protect." I was delighted and went on to read all the articles. The articles What We are very informative and Understand, educative. The best part We Respect is every article gives a lead for more informaand Protect tion at the end. Every article is worth reading.

I was so impressed that immediately I filled up the subscription form.

Keep it up.

Aditya Ganjoo, Jammu SPAN contains a brief elaboration about the status of Indians living in the U.S. and also reflects the cultural roots of those who are directly/indirectly linked to India. I liked the article in the travel section, "Behind the Scenes in Monument Valley" The writer provided a proper image of the development of the area on the Hollywood map and how it became one of the favorite destinations of Hollywood. I also liked the section "Roaming Roemer" as it showed the different side of US Ambassador Timothy J. Roemer.

Fulbright grantee Gwen Kelly is analyzing beads, bangles and pottery pieces from the 2,000-year-old Kadebakele excavation site in Kamataka to discover how and why economic and social connections changed in that ancient society. Preparing her Ph.D. thesis for the University of Wisconsin, Kelly has also lectured , in Tamil, to students at the Tamil University in Thanjavur and has founded the Intemational Association for Women Archaeologists Working in South Asia. A talk on her research is scheduled at Fulbright House in New Delhi on July 31. www.iawawsa.org Radhika Plakkot, who teaches biology at a high school in Maryland, received $10,000 and a trip to Washington, D.C. in June when President Barack Obama named her as one of 103 recipi- ~ ents of the Presidential Award for 0:: Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. www.paemst.org The U.S. State Department has hailed Andhra Pradesh police officer Sattaru Umapathi as a hero, one of nine from around the world honored this year for devoting "their lives to the fight against human trafficking ...despite resistance, opposition and threats to their lives." The State Department said that Umapathi has rescued victims, arrested traffickers, contributed to multiple convictions and worked to change mindsets to view trafficking victims with empathy, rather than as criminals. www.state.gov/gJtip

India-born Prachee J. Devadas and her husband, Anand , who employ 120 ful l- and part-time workers at their Synergy Enterprises, Inc., joined other small business owners for a chat with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office on June 11. The "promise of being able to build your own dreams and be your own boss led Prachee Devadas to come to this country, become a citizen, and open up what's become a successful technology services company," the president told a Rose Garden press conference. www.sba.gov

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Before their bilateral meeting on June 27, during the G20 summit in Canada, President Baraek Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh referred to each other as friends and looked forward to working together in the lead-up to President Obama' s visit to India in November.