A LETTER FROM
THE
PUBLISHER ince before independence, Americans ave been convinced that an informed citizenry is the essence of a democratic society. We have treasured the right of independent choice in seeking information through unmonitored, unregulated access to the printed word. Pamphlets, books, newspapers and journals spread the idea of liberty among the 18th century American colonies, in the same way that writings on similar themes encouraged Indians in their struggle for independence. Freedom of the press-the liberty to write, print, publish and read-is enshrined in the First Amendment to the US. Constitution and was extolled by American leaders as an essential principle of the republic and a necessity for a free society. Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, helped establish the Library of Congress when he later became President, to ensure that American legislators had access not only to the latest newspapers and magazines, but to the full range of human wisdom from centuries past. Sharing knowledge and information globally is one way to encourage the growth of democracy. That is why the State Department has set up American Information Resource Centers and American Corners-stocked with publicly accessible books and other information sources-in India and elsewhere around the world. That is also why the U.S. Library of Congress is working with India and other countries to establish a world digital library project aimed at reaching towns and villages that have no local libraries such as those in the United States. The steps must be carefully thought through, however, to ensure this easy spread of words does not violate the Intellectual Property Rights of the people who produce the words, thus stifling the creative impulse that enriches us all. Our cover package explores these issues and celebrates books, writers, libraries and the benefits of reading.
Publisher: Michael H. Anderson: Editor-in-Chief: Carina R. Sanders; Ednor: Laurinda Keys Long; Associate Editor: A. Venkata Narayana; Urdu Ednor: Anjurn Nairn: Hindi Editor: Giriraj Agarwal: Copy Editor: Deepanjali Kakati; Art Director: Hernant Bhatnagar; Deputy Art Directors: Sharad Sovani; Khurshid Anwar Abbasi; ProductiowCirculation Manager: Rakesh Agrawal; Printing Assistant: Alok Kaushik; Business Manager: R. Narayan; Research Services: American Information Resource Center, Bureau of Internationallnformafion Programs.
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Libraries in America
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Writing What Needs to Be Read By Kaltlin Americans Love Self-Help Books Queen of Dreams
The Map that Named America
R. McVey
By Steve Holgate
by Ranjita Biswas
The Infinite Library
A New Read on Teen Literacy
A Tale of Two Candidates
By Kaitlin R. McVey and Laurinda Keys Long
By Wade Roush
By Anne McGrath By John R Hebert
By Ashish Kumar Sen
32 34 36 President Lyndon B. Johnson hosts Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in Washington, DC. in 1966.
American Shikha Uberoi, one of the new faces of tennis, has played on the Indian Federation Cup team.
Discovering New Horizons and Markets By Dinesh C. Sharma
Published by the Public Affairs Section, American Center, 24 Kastur!Ja Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001 (phone: 23316841), on behalf 01 the American Embassy, New Oelhi. Printed at Ajanta Offset & Packagings Ltd.. 95-8 Wazirpur Industrial Area, Oelhi 110052. The opinions expressed in Ihis magazine do not necessarity renectthe views or policies at the U.S. Govemment. No part ot this magazine may be repmduced without permission. This magazine contains 68 pages.
Is a Cinema Studies Degree the New MBA? By Elizabeth Van Ness
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Spotlight: Raymond N. Bickson By Laurinda Keys Long
Libraries in America he only noises are the distant ruffling of pages and the clicking of fingers on a keyboard. Diana Formway organizes a stack of multicolored children's novels as she speaks in a hushed voice, her eyes bright behind metalrimmed glasses. "Libraries showed me what was out there in the world as well as connected me to other people and places outside my small town in upstate New York," she says. Early in life Formway realized the importance of a meeting place for the ideas and words of those who have influenced the world. That is what led her to become a librarian, and brought her to the Bellingham Public Library in western Washington state. The first free, tax-supported public library in the United States was established in Peterborough, New Hampshire, in 1833. Free libraries are an essential aspect of American culture, society and democracy. "Libraries are a great equalizer," says teacher Maurya Moriarty of Covina, California. "No one has to be rich to be well read. Growing up, there was very little extra cash in our house. But the
library allowed us to read bestsellers, expensive children's collections, all the latest magazines, as well as newspapers from around the country." Public libraries are funded by local governments-counties, cities or towns-and are run by appointed board members who may be paid stipends or volunteer their services. Anyone, regardless of income, social status or age, can stroll among the shelves, choose books or periodicalsnow DVDs and videos-to scan through on the spot or borrow for reading at home. Every patron can receive professional help finding an answer to any question, without charge, judgment or review. Anyone living in Bellingham can apply for a library card and borrow books. A charge is applied only if the books are lost, damaged or returned past the due date. The children's section is designed to be comfortable and inviting so the young will enjoy reading. There are low tables, chairs and fun display~ and decorations. Librarians help children learn how to use reference materials and gather information for school projects. At Bellingham, there are story hours several times
a week, for children aged 18 months to eight years. Teens issue a library newsletter and organize book discussions. There are puppet shows, dramas and other events to lure families and make reading exciting. Books are organized according to the Dewey Decimal Classification System, invented by an American, Melvil Dewey in 1876. It is the world's most widely used library system and is owned by the Online Computer Library Center, a worldwide library cooperative. It assigns numbers to books in 10 main groups-such as natural science, religion, language, arts, geography and history-and then into sub groups. A book, and others related to it, can easily be found on the shelves, after checking the subject, or looking for the author or title, on a computer database. Fiction is organized separately by the author's last name. Most libraries offer free Internet access. Natalie Cooper, a 21-year-old student at Western Washington University, uses the Bellingham library for research and the free Internet as she can't afford to subscribe. "The library allows me to have
access to a world of chat rooms and interesting Web pages," she says. Computer databases have mostly replaced the card catalogs. Librarians kept them up to date by typing three index cards for each book; author, title and subject. The cards were stored in tiers of narrow drawers, allowing users to thumb through them, connecting ideas and finding unexpected sources. The book checkout system is also computerized now. Librarians, teachers and parents sometimes miss the old checkout cards that were slipped into paper pockets inside the back covers of the borrowed books, showing the names of those who had read them before. It provided a connection to other town residents. Online databases and indexes have also changed how books are purchased and used. Patrons can access information through a library's Web site using their library card numbers and passwords from home. This helps those unable to get to the library and also reduces the number of printed copies the library needs to buy. Formway, the Bellingham librarian, says . that the self-service Internet searches build
Left: Cami Moffat scans the shelves at the Salt Lake City library in Utah. Right: Kathy Borkholder, of the Amish community, clutches her choices from the Geauga County Public Library's bookmobile in Parkman, Ohio.
independence in acquiring knowledge. The unencumbered ability of citizens to enrich their minds through life-long learning is a foundation block of vibrant, transparent democracies. As noted American TV journalist Walter Cronkite said, "Whatever the costs of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation." Libraries not only offer access to information but-aside from children's story time-many still provide a respite from the noisy, fast-paced world we live in. Dave Huynh, attending Western Washington University, remembers how the local library offered an escape from the chaotic household of his youth in Seattle. "It was nice to have somewhere to go and study, read or just allow my imagination to wan-
der. The public library ... made me feel studious as well as gave me hope that I would accomplish my dreams. My public library inspired me to continue on to higher education." Librarians love books, but they also must administer a complex organization, interpret information, do research, maintain good public relations and manage personnel. With a bachelor's degree or its equivalent, and the ability to read one language besides English, they can enter library training schools accredited by the Board of Education of the American Library Association. 0 About the Author: Kaitlin R. McVey is a political science student at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.
BRENDA FlANAGAN
writing What Needs to be Read renda Flanagan climbed onto the wooden stage and immediately set the tone with her laughter. "I feel like I have come home!" the energetic, black American-Caribbean writer told 120 students and professors of New Delhi's Dayal Singh College as she adjusted the microphone. The audience listened attentively as Flanagan described the smells and sounds of India as being ever-present in her first 19 years, growing up in Trinidad with neighbors and friends of Indian descent. Though she was from a poor family within a highly class-based society, Flanagan never let her situation keep her from achieving her dreams. She tries to get across one thing to young Americans: "Regardless of what's happening around them, they have to believe in the possibility of the achievement of their dreams." Not being able to complete high school because of a lack of money did not discourage Flanagan as she clung to the inspiring lines she had uncovered as a child in an old Harper's magazine: The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But J have promises to keep, And miles to go before J sleep, And miles to go before J sleep. "I was convinced in my heart that if I could get to America I would be able to do what I wanted to do," she recalled. She did not know then that the stanza was from a poem by Robert Frost. Flanagan visited India as a U.S. State
Department cultural ambassador in September 2005, and spoke on "Colorizing the Canon" to students and professors in Calcutta and New Delhi. Her travels have given her an opportunity to exchange stories and ideas on AfricanAmerican literature, its impact, multiculturalism and diversity in Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Chad and Panama. Flanagan arrived in the United States in 1967 at the age of 19 with $10 and no high school diploma. She came with the intention of acquiring a job to help her family back in Trinidad but she alw:ays harbored the desire to continue her academic career and one day reach as high as her home country's prime minister. She obtained a general education diploma with the assistance of student loans. A rock solid will to succeed and the help of every book she could get her hands on helped Flanagan advance from "being a maid, working in factories, from washing laundry, cleaning hotels, cleaning out hospitals ... to go from that to school, to the classroom, to really living the dream." She received her B.A. in print journalism in 1977, and later earned a master's degree in educational technology journalism and her doctorate in public health education from the University of Michigan. She "believed in the power of stories, and that if you have the opportunity to explain to people what you want and the way you would like to get it done they will be there to help you." As she readily states, "I have never
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been turned down anywhere in America for anything that I have gone out and asked for." Her story stands as an inspiration to people everywhere, especially in India. As the caste system strongly controls and mandates an individual's limits and opportunities, breaking out of one's social caste means swimming against a strong, deep current. "Caste is really about class, and caste and class are operating hand in hand," Flanagan says. "And although I grew up in Trinidad where race wasn't generally talked about, we knew very well, as quietly as we kept it, that caste and class played a major role." Flanagan focuses on African-American and Caribbean literature. While visiting
professors of English literature and writers in West Bengal, she found that African-American literature resonates so strongly with Bengalis because "they see so many of the themes that AfricanAmerican writers dealt with embedded in their own culture," and look "to learn from the struggles that African-American writers write about, to learn about how they can then empower themselves." As to being influenced unknowingly at a young age by a white American male poet, she learned early on about the power of literature to "transcend race, to transcend gender, transcend culture and transcend nationalism." For this reason she takes time from writing and teaching literature and creative writing at Davidson College in North Carolina to lecture and discuss AfricanAmerican literature, accomplishments and hardships with people around the world. "Caste means that at a certain level of government, and at a certain level of institution that should be open to everyone, there are people who say
, I I Head. Inlormatics Cenlre, Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi Fulbright scholar, 1996-97, University of Maryland, College Park
I was asked to make a presentation. I went to the reference desk of the library at the UMCP and asked the librarian for help. She listened to me carefully, and said 'I will see what I can do.' Next morning, before entering my room, I checked the pigeonhole to pick up any communication for me. I was amazed to find an envelope containing reprints and some references that were exactly what I was looking for. After my presentation I went to thank her personally.
no, that affirmati ve action does not exist," she says. "No one affirms ... that this person should have an equal chance." Giving people "a sense of hope, that they can achieve something, like that girl who came from Trinidad," has been the motivation for her writing and travels. She says that too many people "want the larger system to change," while in "daily operations we don't do anything to help each other." She stresses how important it is to individually help others and that to make a change within our societies we have to begin by helping those around us and helping ourselves. While having the dream to overcome caste or class is the first step, she says: "A dream with an operative plan on how you're going to do it and what you are going to face to get over it is very important." Asked what she was going to take with her from India, Flanagan said, "I want to tell people how much American literature is appreciated in India, and how embracing Indian professors are." She spoke sadly of how lonely a life of teaching literature can be when the work of great African-American, NatiJe American and Hispanic writers are still significantly under-appreciated within America. Being an author of more than 17 short stories, poems, a play, a novelYou Alone Are Dancing (University of Michigan Press)-and a collection of short stories, In Praise of Island Women and Other Crimes (KaRu Press), Flanagan knows firsthand how reaffirming diverse appreciation is. "If people would know and understand that what we are doing is making a difference, what we are producing makes a difference to people throughout the world, I think we would be much more embracing of the idea that we can't give up, that we need to say the type of things that need to be said, and we need to write the types of things that need to be read." 0 About the Author: Kaitlin R. McVey, a political science student at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, wrote this article while working as an intern with the U.S. Embassy Public Affairs Office in New Delhi.
orne titles say it all: Overcoming Anger, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution. Others are less direct, but manage to convey a sense of their contents: Chicken Soup for the Soul, Awaken the Giant Within, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff And maybe a few over
promise, such as Life Without Limits: Conquer Your Fears, Achieve Your Dreams, and Make Yourself Happy. As you might have guessed, these are titles of some of the most popular self-help books in the United States. Many can be found in translation. For all their differences, these titles have a lot in common: they present themselves in optimistic terms; they speak directly to the reader in clear language; and they imply an ability to help the reader live a fuller life. Each year, Americans purchase millions of books to make them slimmer, calmer, smarter, richer and more attractive. The most prominent self-help authors can gain a celebrity status rivaled only by the biggest movie stars and athletes. Phillip C. McGraw, author of several self-help books, including the bestseller, Self Matters, has an immensely popular television talk show. The author of The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands, Laura Schlessinger, has played her popularity into similar multimedia success. Anthony Robbins, author of several popular self-help books, including Awaken the Giant Within and Unlimited Power, has gained a huge international following. Books on self-improvement have been part of American culture since the founding of the country. If the New York Times self-help bestseller list had existed at the dawn of America's independence, Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac would have been at the top. Its balance of practical help and pithy advice-such as "a penny saved is a penny earned," and
"early to bed and early to lise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise"--characterizes many self-help books even today. Of course, the idea that readers could find in books the means for self-improvement goes back much further than the founding of the American republic. The doors of the great library in ancient Thebes bore the words ''The Healing Place of the Soul." Nor does the popularity of self-help books restrict itself to the United States. Virtually every country that has a . written language offers selfhelp books by local authors or translations from abroad. The Beijing Times reports that Chinese bookstores have been swamped with books on selfawareness and dealing with loss and misfortune, especially since the SARS epidemic. Fatima Mernisi's ground-
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breaking books on women's issues have found broad popularity beyond her native Morocco. Even Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair has weighed in with How to Deal With Problems: The Tony Blair Way. Yet, there is also a particularly American flavor to selfhelp literature that comes from its own national character, a certain "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" appeal that speaks to Americans' sense of rugged individualism. Today's wave of bestsellers might have begun with the publication of Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People in the late 1940s. Others say that the boom really took off during the late 1960s and early 1970s with such books as Games People Play and I'm O.K.-You're o.K., which came out at a time of
great social and political ferment, when Amelicans questioned their institutions and valued personal exploration. Although self-help books have, in the years since, offered an easy target to skeptics and satirists, their optimistic and down-to-earth tone and their emphasis on personal empowerment have had immense appeal, in paIt because they offer advice, inspiration and motivation in such a wide vaI'iety of the challenges that face people, not simply in the United States, but around the world. Some tell us how to battle depression or loneliness or our bulging waistlines. Others advise parents on how to have stronger families, teachers on how to have more productive classrooms, girls on how to face the special challenges of young womanhood, boys on how to face down the class bully. Many books give pointers on how to handle our finances or make our maniages stronger. Few are openly religious, but most have a strong spiritual element. An article in Psychology Today has pointed out that there are now more self-help books in print in the United States than cookbooks. While cautioning that some of these books oversimplify complex problems and make unrealistic promises on how easily readers will find solutions to serious challenges, Psychology Today acknowledges that many of these books can help people gain the skills and motivation to produce positive change. D About the Author: Steve Holgate is a correspondent for Washington File, published by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.
Queen of Dreams ward-winning writer Chitra Banerjee American writer Divakaruni did not know that she had a Chitra B. Divakaruni storyteller inside her until she went to the United States for further studies. The 19-yeardraws on her old from Calcutta had never traveled abroad. Indian heritage and She felt lost amid the cornfields of Ohio. She missed her immigrant home terribly, and then her grandfather, with whom she was very close, died. "I couldn't go home. Lying on the experiences of13 bed I tried to visualize how it was back home, and loneliness and is~ couldn't. Writing made me remember. I wrote for myself, to keep linked, but never thought that I'd take acceptance. u up writing as a career one day," she recalls. "America >~ <D made me a writer. Being in a whole different culture 'i o u suddenly changed me. It made me question many things, especially about women's roles." Divakaruni's experiences-as well as those of many like her, was born in 1991. Today, it is a large organization with branches caught between cultures and conflicting loyalties-are woven into across the United States. It helps women find jobs, gives her short story collection Arranged Marriage, which received the scholarships, connects women to job training programs and American Book Award in 1996. Her other best-selling works are provides long-term housing for those who need a place to stay. It . the novels Sister of My Heart and The Mistress of Spices and the also works to prevent violence among teenagers. "Domestic story collection The Unknown Errors of Our Lives. Divakaruni violence exists everywhere," Divakaruni says. "It is not a matter also writes poetry and children's literature. of how technologically developed a country is." As a writer, Divakaruni is an admirer of magic realism. She An American citizen now, and mother of two boys "who often finds many similarities between Indian folktale traditions and give me good ideas for my children's books," Divakaruni those of the American Indians, "particularly in terms of the teaches creative writing and contemporary Indian literature at healers with special powers. Both cultures consider them the University of Houston in Texas. important, and they are central to my novels such as The Mistress As an immigrant, she tries to balance both cultures. "Living in of Spices and Queen of Dreams, my latest work." another country is such an opportunity to learn ....At the same At present, she is researching a novel using characters from the time, it doesn't mean you have to forget about your own cultural Indian epic Mahabharata. "It's going to be a woman's story narrated roots." She says she allows her sons to make their own choices through protagonist Draupadi's eyes. I want to examine the epic's but guides them when she can, steering them away from wild other women characters in their many dimensions," she says. partying and drugs and emphasizing hard work and honesty. "I Sensitivity to women's private stories moved her and a few want them to have friends of all races." friends to found Maitri, a support group for South Asian women Does she still feel like an outsider in America, like some in the United States. When she began volunteering in local characters in her books? women's shelters in California, she became sensitive to "Yes and no. America has many diverse communities from problems such as domestic violence. "One day, an Indian woman different countries. Overall, the country is very hospitable and came to the shelter. She was thin and beautiful and was gives opportunities to grow. Saying that, I'd also say, because I obviously very scared. 'How will I survive in America?' she am not a white immigrant, but a South Asian one, the experience is different, compared to, say, a European immigrant. It has its asked. 'I am only a wife.' Though she gathered up enough courage to approach us, she went away when her husband came own advantage for me as a writer. I can see the differences and to fetch her. I never saw her again. Her face still haunts me." draw on them for my work." D Obviously, there were many more South Asian women like her who had left behind their homelands and were helplessly About the Author: Ranjita Biswas is a Calcutta-based freelance caught in abusive relationships. To help them the Maitri hotline journalist who also translates literature and writes fiction. ,
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LBRARY Does Google's plan to digitize millions of print books spell the death of libraries-or their rebirth? he Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford in England is the only place you are likely to find an Ethernet port that looks like a book. Built into the ancient bookcases dominating the oldest wing of the 402-year-old library, the brown plastic ports share shelf space with handwritten catalogs of the university's medieval manuscripts and other materials. Some of the volumes are still chained to the shelves, a 17th-century innovation designed to discourage borrowing. But thanks to the Ethernet ports and the university's effort to digitize ilTeplaceable books like the catalogswhich often contain the only clue to locating an obscure book or manuscript elsewhere in the vast library-users of the Bodleian don't even need to take the books off the shelves. They can simply plug in their laptops, connect to the Internet, and view the pertinent pages online. In fact, anyone with a Web browser can read the catalogs, a privilege once restricted to those fortunate enough to be teaching or studying at Oxford. The digitization of the world's enormous store of library books-an effort dating to the early 1990s in the United Kingdom, the United States, and elsewhere-has been a slow, expensive and underfunded process. But in December
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2004 librarians received a pleasant shock. Search-engine giant Google announced ambitious plans to expand its "Google Print" [now called Google Book Search] service by convelting the full text of millions of library books into searchable Web pages. At the time of the announcement, Google had already signed up five partners, including the libraries at Oxford, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Michigan, along with the New York Public Library. More are sure to follow. Most librarians and archivists are ecstatic about the announcement, saying it will likely be remembered as the moment in history when society finally got serious about making knowledge ubiquitous. Brewster Kahle, founder of a nonprofit digital library known as Internet Archive, calls Google's move "huge ... .It legitimizes the whole idea of doing largevolume digitization." But some of the same people, including Kahle, believe Google's efforts and others like it will force libraries and librarians to reexamine their core principles-including their commitment to spreading knowledge freely. Letting a for-profit organization like Google mediate access to library books, after all, could either open up long-hidden reserves of human wisdom or constitute the first step toward the privatization of the world's literary
heritage. "You'd think that if libraries are serious about providing access to highquality material, the idea of somebody digitizing that stuff very quickly-well, what's not to like?" says Abby Smith, director of programs for the Council on Library and Information Resources, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that helps libraries manage digital transformation. "But some librarians are very concerned about the terms of access and are very concerned that a commercial entity will have control over materials that libraries have collected." They're also concerned about the book business itself. Publishers and authors count on strict copyright laws to prevent copying and reuse of their intellectual property until after they've recouped their investments. But libraries, which allow many readers to use the same book, have always enjoyed something of an exemption from copyright law. Now the mass digitization of library books threatens to make their content just as portable-or piracy prone, depending on one's point of view-as digital music. And that directly involves libraries in the clash between big media companies and those who would like all information to be free-or at least as cheap as possible. Whatever happens, transforming milHons more books into bits is sure to
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Intellectual Property Rights: Publishers' View he Association of American Publishers, which opposes Google Book Search in its present form, is the principal trade association of the US book publishing industry, with 300 member companies. One of its missions is to nurture creativity "by protecting and strengthening intellectual property rights, especially copyright." Copyright is the legal right, for a specific number of years, to control selling and production of literary, musical or artistic works. The US. publishers identify the protection of intellectual property-creations, ideas and inventions that can be protected by law from being copied-as one of the fundamental issues confronting them. The association says, "Securing copyrighted works against unauthorized use in print and electronic format, in the domestic and international marketplace; protecting the integrity of copyrighted works in the digital environment. .. are essential if the industry is going to survive and grow" A former US Congresswoman from Colorado, Patricia Scott Schroeder (above), has been president and CEO of the publishers' association since 1997. Her planned visit to India, coinciding with the World Book Fair in New Delhi, is part of a drive to increase awareness and enforcement of intel-O.K. lectual property rights
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change the habits of library patrons. What, then, will become of libraries themselves? Once the knowledge now trapped on the printed page moves onto the Web, where people can retrieve it from their homes, offices and dorm rooms, libraries could turn into lonely caverns inhabited mainly by preservationists. Checking out a library book could become as anachronistic as using a pay phone, visiting a travel agent to book a flight, or sending a handwritten letter by post. Surprisingly, however, most backers of library digitization expect exactly the opposite effect. They point out that libraries in the United States are gaining users, despite the advent of the Web, and that libraries are being constructed or renovated at an unprecedented rate (architect Rem Koolhaas's Seattle Central Library, for example, is the new jewel of that city's downtown). And they predict that 21st-century citizens will head to their local libraries in even greater numbers, whether to use their free Internet terminals, consult reference specialists, or find physical copies of copyrighted books. (Under the Google model, only snippets from these books will be viewable on the Web, unless their authors and publishers agree otherwise.) And considering that the flood of new digital
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material will make the job of classifying, cataloging, and guiding readers to the right text even more demanding, librarians could become busier than ever. "I chafe at the presumption that once you digitize, there is nothing left to do," says Donald Waters, a former director of the Digital Library Federation who now oversees the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's extensive philanthropic investments in projects to enhance scholarly communication. "There is an enormous amount to do, and digitizing is just scratching the surface." Digitization itself, of course, is no small challenge. Scanning the pages of brittle old books at high speed without damaging them is a problem that's still being addressed, as is the question of how to store and preserve their content once it's in digital form. The Google initiative has also amplified a long-standing debate among librarians, authors, publishers and technologists over how to guarantee the fullest possible access to digitized books, including those still under copyright (which, in the United States, means everything published after January I, 1923). The stakes are high, both for Google and for the library communityand the technologies and business agreements being framed now could
determine how people use libraries for decades to come. "Industry has resources to invest that we don't have anymore and never will have," points out Gary Strong, librarian at the University of California, Los Angeles, which has its own aggressive digitization programs. "And they've come to libraries because we have massive repositories of information. So we're natural partners in this venture, and we all bring different skills to the table. But we're redefining the table itself. Now that we're defining new channels of access, how do we make sure all this information is usable?"
Breaching the Walls Even for authorized users, access to the Bodleian Library's seven million volumes is anything but instant. If you are an Oxford undergraduate in need of a book, you first send an electronic request to a worker in the library's underground stacks. (Before 2000 or so, you would have handed a written request slip to a librarian, who would have relayed it to the stacks via a 1940s-era network of pneumatic tubes.) The worker locates the book in a warren of movable shelves (a space-saving innovation conceived in 1898 by former British Prime Minister William Gladstone) and places it in a
Information Scientist, Centre for Computational Biology and Bioinformalics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Fulbright scholar, 2002-03 National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Maryland
I visited the National Library of Medicine at the NIH. The collections are really good and a system is in place so ~ that retrieval of documents is easy and the reader gets what he wants. Even those resources which are not [easily] available can be found on request.
plastic bin. An ingenious system of conveyor belts and elevators, also built in the 1940s, carries the bin back to any of seven reading rooms, where it is unpacked, and the book is handed over to you. The process can take anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours. But once you finally have the book, don't even think about taking it back to your dorm room for further study. The Bodleian is a noncirculating legal deposit library, meaning that it is entitled to a free copy of every book published in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, and it guards those copies jealously. The library takes in tens of thousands of books every year, but the legend is that no book has ever left its walls. But a digital book needn't be loaned out to be shared. And Oxford's various libraries have already created digital images of many of their greatest treasures, from ninth-century illuminated Latin manuscripts to 19th-century children's alphabet books. Most of these images can be examined at high resolution on the Web. The only catch is that scholars have to know what they're looking for in . advance, since very few of the digital pages are searchable. Optical character recognition (OCR) technology cannot yet interpret handwritten script, so exposing the content of these books to today's search engines requires typing their texts into separate files linked to the original images. A three-person team at Oxford, in collaboration with librarians at the University of Michigan and 70 other universities, is doing just that for a large collection of early English books, but the entire effort produces searchable text for only 200 books per month. At that rate, making a million books searchable would take more than 400 years. That's where Google's resources will make a difference. Susan Wojcicki, a product manager at Google's Mountain View, California, campus and leader of the Google library project, puts it bluntly: "At Google we're good at doing things at scale." Google has already copied and indexed some eight billion Web pages, which lends . credibility to its claim that it can digitize a
big chunk of the 60 million volumes (counting duplicates) held at Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, the University of Michigan and the New York Public Library in a matter of years. It will be a complex task, but one that is in some ways familiar for the company. "It's not just feeding the books into some kind of digitization machine, but then actually taking the digital files, moving those files around, storing them, compressing them, OCR-ing them, indexing them, and serving them up," points out Wojcicki. "At that point it becomes similar to all of Google's other businesses, where we're managing large amounts of data." But the entire project, Wojcicki admits, hinges on those digitization machines: a fleet of proprietary robotic cameras, still under
Librarian and head, Kalanidhi Division, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi Fulbright scholar, 2003-04 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg
I was really impressed with the systematic approach toward work adopted by the libraries of the United States, I also came across many digital libraries' collaborative projects where three to four universities were involved. This shows a common understanding among them in achieving set goals,
UPDATE THE
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CONTROVERSY
hen Google Book Search was launched, under the name Google Print in December 2004, the big question was whether the project involved violation of copyright. And sure enough, it didn't take long for publishers to raise objections. The Association of American University Presses, in a letter to Google in May 2005, expressed "mounting alarm and concern at a plan that appears to involve systematic infringement of copyright on a massive scale." A month later, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) got into the act. It asked Google to stop scanning copyrighted books published by members of the association for at least six months and assuage fears about whether the project conformed to copyright law. Last August, Google announced it would stop scanning books for three months. "Any and all copyright holders ... can tell us which books they'd prefer that we not scan if we find them in a library," said Adam Smith, senior business product manager of Google's library project. The move did not satisfy all publishers, however, and in September the New Yorkbased Authors Guild filed a suit against Google in the U.S. district court in New York. "It's not up to Google or anyone other than the authors, the rightful owners of these copyrights, to decide whether and how their works will be copied," said Nick Taylor, president of the Authors Guild. Then in October, the Association of American Publishers sued Google in the same US federal court on behalf of five of its members The McGraw-Hili Companies, Pearson Education, Penguin Group (USA), Simon & Schuster and John Wiley &.Sons. It sought a declaration by the court that Google commits infringement when its scans copyrighted books and an order to stop it from doing so without permission of the copyright owners. The publishers had proposed to Google that it should use the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) system to identify works under copyright and get permission from authors and publishers to scan them. Since 1967, a unique ISBN number has been assigned to every book, linking it to a particular publisher. Google said "no," according to AAp, and in November resumed scanning material. Its first online releases were 19th-century works of American history and literature. -Deepanjali Kakati
The Digital Library of India, a portal launched in 2003 to provide access to newspapers, journals, book collections and manuscripts in Indian languages, is part of the Universal Digital Library project of Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania and is also hosted by the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, and the Education and Research Network of India.
development, that will turn the digitization of printed books into a true assembly-line process and, in theory, lower the cost to about $10 per book, compared to a minimum of $30 per book today. Neither Google nor its partner libraries have announced exactly how the process will work. But John Wilkin, associate university librarian at the University of Michigan, says it will go something like this: "We put a whole shelf-full of books onto a cart, keeping the order intact. We check them out by waving them under a bar code reader. Overnight, software takes all the bar codes, extracts machinereadable records from the university's electronic catalog, and sends the records to Google, so they can match them with the books. Then we move the cart into Google's operations room." This room will contain multiple workstations so that several books can be digitized in parallel. Google is designing the machines to minimize the impact on books, according to Wilkin. "They scan the books in order and return the cart to us," he continues. "We check them back in and mark the records to show they've been scanned. Finally, the digital files are shipped in a raw format to a Google data center and processed to produce something you could use."
The Book Web Exactly how readers will be able to use the material, however, is still a bit foggy. Google will give each participating library a copy of the books it has digitized while keeping another for itself. Initially,
Google will use its copy to augment its existing Google [Book Search] program, which mixes relevant snippets from recently published books into the usual results returned by its Web search tool. A user who clicks on a Google [Book Search] result is presented with an image of the book page containing his or her keyword, along with links to the sites of retailers selling the print version of the book and keyword-related ads sold to the highest bidders through Google's AdSense program. Does it bother librarians that MobyDick might be served up alongside an ad for the latest Moby CD? "To say we haven't worried about it would be wrong," says Wilkin. "But Google has a 'good citizen' profile. The way they use AdSense doesn't trouble me. And if suddenly access were controlled, and there was a cost to view the materials, we could still offer them for free ourselves, or at least the out-of-copyright materials." In fact, Google may put the entire texts of these public-domain materials online itself. In the future, Google could even use those materials to create a kind of literary equivalent of the Web, says Wojcicki. "Imagine taking the whole Harvard library and saying, 'Tell me about every book that has this speci,fic person in it.' That in itself would be very powerful for scholars. But then you could start to see linkages between books"that is, which books cite other books, and in what contexts, in the same way that Web sites refer to other sites through hyperlinks. "Just imagine the power that that would bring!" (Wojcicki's example shows how history can, indeed, come full circle. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed BackRub, the predecessor to the Google search engine, while working on an early library digitization project at Stanford that was funded in part by the National Science Foundation's Digital Libraries Initiative. And PageRank, Google's core search algorithm, which orders sites in search results based on the number of other sites that link to them, is simply a computer scientist's version of citation analysis, long used to rate
the infl uence of articles in scholarly print journals.) The Michigan library, says Wilkin, may do whatever it likes with the digital scans of its own holdings-as long as it doesn't share them with companies that could use them to compete with Google. Such limitations may prove uncomfortable, but most librarians say they can live with them, considering that their holdings wouldn't be digitized at all without Google's help.
Closed Doors;' But others are more cautious about the leap Google's partner libraries are taking. Kahle, who is often described as an inspiring visionary and sometimes as an impractical idealist, founded the nonprofit Internet Archive in 1996 under the motto "universal access to human knowledge." Since then, the archive has preserved more than a petabyte's worth of Web pages (a petabyte is a million gigabytes), along with 60,000 digital texts, 21,000 live concert recordings and 24,000 video files, from feature films to news broadcasts. It's all free for the taking at www.archive.org, and as you might guess, Kahle argues that all digital library materials should be as freely and openly accessible as physical library materials are now. That's not such a radical idea; free
1:J1I:aHHi r:m Head, Library, Natronal Council of Applied Economic Research, New Deihl Fulbright scholar, 1992-93 Syracuse University Library, New York slate
For the first time I had exposure to online cataloging and its great usefulness to libraries, and online interlibrary services and the economic benefits of having such a system. It was during this period that I started using e-mail and the Internet for the first time. I was amazed by its usefulness for librarians.
and open access is exactly what public libraries, as storehouses of printed books and periodicals, have traditionally provided. But the very fact that digital files are so much easier to share than physical books (which scares publishers just as MP3 file sharing scares record companies) could lead to limits on redistribution that prevent libraries from giving patrons as much access to their digital collections as they would like. "Google has brought us to a tipping point that could define how access to the world's literature may proceed," Kahle says. In Kahle's view, every previous digitization effort has followed one of three paths; with a bit of oratorical flourish, he calls them Door One, Door Two and Door Three. (Kahle acknowledges up front that his picture is simplified, and that these aren't necessarily the only paths open to libraries today.) Door One, says Kahle, is epitomized by Corbis, an image-licensing firm owned by Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Since the early 1990s, Corbis has acquired rights to digital reproductions of works from the National Gallery of London, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and more than 15 other museums. In some cases, it's now impossible to use these images without paying Corbis. "This organization got its start by digitizing what was in the public domain and essentially putting it under private control," says Kahle. "The same thing could happen with digital literature. In fact, it's the default case." Behind Door Two, parallel public and private databases coexist peacefully. Here Kahle cites the Human Genome Project, which culminated in two versions of the D A sequence of the human genome-a free version produced by governmentfunded scientists and a private version produced by Rockville, Maryland-based Celera Genomics and used by pharmaceutical companies to identify new drug candidates. The model has worked well in genomics, and Google seems to be setting o.ut on a similar path, as it keeps one copy 'of each library's collection for itself and
~ :l: ~ ~ ~ ~ A smal/library of eBook titles in Microsoft Reader form displayed on a handheld computer during a demonstration in May 2000 in New York.
gives away the other. Kahle worries, however, that the restrictions Google imposes on libraries will prevent them from working with other companies or organizations to disseminate digital texts. Libraries might be barred, for example, from contributing material to projects such as the Internet Archive's Bookmobile, a van with satellite Internet access that can download and print any of 20,000 public-domain books. Door Three, Kahle's favorite, hinges on new partnerships in which private companies offer commercial access to digital books while public entities, such as libraries, are allowed to provide free access for research and scholarship. Here his main example is the Internet Archive's collaboration with Alexa, a company founded by Kahle himself in 1996 and sold to Amazon in 1999. Alexa ranks Web sites according to the traffic they attract, and its servers, like Google's, constantly crawl the Internet, making copies of each page they find. But after six months, Alexa donates those copies to the Internet Archive, which preserves them for noncommercial use. "Jeff [Bozos, Amazon's CEO] was okay with the idea that there
are some things you can exploit for commercial purposes for a certain amount of time, and then you play the open game," says Kahle. "Libraries and publishing have always existed in the physical world without damaging each other; in fact they support each other. What we would like to see is that tradition not die with this digital transformation." So which alternative comes closest to Google's plans? Google is no Corbis, says Wojcicki, but is nonetheless limited in what it can share. "Door One was never our intention, nor is it even practical," she says. "And we can't do Door Three, because we're not the rights holders for much of this material. So Door Two is probably where we're headed. We're trying to be as open as possible, but we need to hold to our agreements with different parties." Precisely to avoid questions about copyright, Oxford librarians have decided that only 19th- and early 20th-century books will be handed over to Google for digitization. "Some of the other libraries, including Harvard, have agreed to have some in-copyright material digitized," says Ronald Milne, acting director of the Bodleian Library. "They are quite brave in ~aking it on. But we didn't particularly want to go there, because it's such a hassle, and we didn't want to get on the
The U.S. Library of Congress announced on November 22, 2005, that it is developing a plan to build a World Digital Library for use by other libraries and public research institutions. Its first funding pledge-$3 million-came from Google Inc. They have already worked together to digitize 5,000 books in the public domain, whose copyrights have lapsed. More than half of the books in the Library of Congress are in languages other than English "A World Digital Library would make these collections available free of charge to anyone accessing the Internet," says Librarian of Congress James H. Billington.
wrong side of the book laws." At the same time, though, the American Library Association is one of the loudest advocates of proposed legislation to reinforce the "fair use" provisions of federal copyright law, which entitle the public to republish portions of copyrighted works for purposes of commentary or criticism. And two of Google's partner universities-Harvard and Stanford-are also supporters of the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse, a Web site that monitors allegations of copyright infringement brought against webmasters, bloggers and other online publishers under the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998. Mass digitization may eventually force a redefinition of fair use, some librarians believe. The more public-domain literature that appears on the Web through Google [Book Search], the greater the likelihood that citizens will demand an equitable but low-cost way to view the much larger mass of copyrighted books. "I think this will be another piece of good pressure, another factor in the whole debate over the DMCA," says Wilkin.
The Mixing Chamber If you're over 30, today's libraries are probably nothing like the ones you remember from childhood. Enter any major library today and you'll find an armory of computers and a platoon of specialists, from the reference librarians who are expert at accessing online resources, to the acquisitions officers who decide which books, CDs, DVDs and subscriptions to purchase, to the computer geeks who keep the building's network running. Digitization and the growing power of the Internet are making all of these people's jobs more complex. Acquisitions experts, for example, can no longer just rely on the traditional quality filter imposed by the publishing industry; they must evaluate a much larger mass of material, from newly digitized print books to the millions of Web pages, blogs and news sites that are born digital. "On the Internet, publishing is a promiscuous
Students Raymond Nunnelly (left) and Robert Edding study in the Lincoln University library in Jefferson City, Missouri.
activity," observes Abby Smith of the Council on Library Information and Resources. "Libraries are confused and challenged about how to collect and select from that materia!." Then there are the problems of preserving digital cataloging and holdings. Without the proper "metadata" attached-author, publisher, date and all the other information that once appeared in libraries' physical card catalogs-a digital book is as good as lost. Yet creating this metadata can be laborious, and no international standard has emerged to govern which kinds of data should be recorded. And considering the limited life span of each new data format or electronic storage medium (have you used a floppy disk lately?), keeping digital materials alive for future generations will, ironically, be much more costly and complicated than simply leaving a paper book on a library shelf. But even if every book is reduced to a few megabytes of 1s and Os residing on some placeless Web server, libraries themselves will probably endure. "There
is no one in the field of librarianship who thinks the library is disappearing as a physical space," says Smith. Seattle's exuberant new Central Library, for example, is built around a four-story spiral ramp that enables an unprecedented immediacy of access to its physical book collection. But at the same time, the library provides 400 public-use computers (compared to 75 in the library that previously occupied the site), buildingwide Wi-Fi access, and a high-tech "mixing chamber" where an interdisciplinary reference team uses an array of print and electronic resources to answer patrons' questions. More than 1.5 million people visited the new library in 2004almost three times the entire population of Seattle. "The real question for libraries is, what's the 'value proposition' they offer in a digital future?" says Smith. "I think it will be what it has always been: their ability to scan a large universe of knowledge out there, choose a subset of that, and gather it for description and cataloging so people can find reliable and authentic information easily." The only difference: librarians will have a much bigger universe to navigate. Stephen Griffin, the f01TIlerdirector of the National Science Foundation's Digital Libraries Initiative (a Clinton-era project that funds a variety of university computer-science studies on managing electronic collections), takes a slightly different view. Ask him how he thinks libraries will function in 2020 or 2050once Google or its successors have finished digitizing the world's printed knowledge-and he answers from the reader's point of view. "The question is, how will people feel when they walk into libraries," he says. "I hope they feel the same-that this is a very welcoming place that is going to help them to find information that they need. As we bring more technology in, the notion of libraries as places for books may change a bit. But I hope people will always find them a comfortable place for thinking." D About the Author: Wade Roush is a senior editor at Technology Review.
A NEW READ ON
TEEN LITERACY illard Brown teaches chemistry at Skyline High in Oakland, California. But what he really hopes his students master on their way to learning science is a skill most people, the teenagers included, assume they nailed long ago: the ability to read. Too often, he says, students have an incomplete notion of what reading actually means. "They think, 'My eyes passed over the page, and I pronounced all the words.' They don't notice that they really didn't get it." So rather than simply lecturing and assigning chapters for homework, Brown asks his classes to tackle new material-on how atoms bond, for instance-by marking up written handouts and then wrestling as a group with what the text really means. What can they figure out from the wording and graphics about . why atoms join together? What questions occur as they make their way down the page? What does the Eighth-graders process look like-can they see it in their Marisol Roman heads? What might strange terms such as "Coulomb force" and "covalent bond" (foreground) and Juan Gierbilini participate mean, given the context? in the summer reading On the other side of the country, Monica program at the Ouly is taking a similar tack in her family Chopin Elementary and consumer-science class at Springhouse School, Chicago, in Middle School in Allentown, Pennsylvania. August 2005. She recently asked students to read articles about calcium, salt, sugar and gaining weight; underline what they found most important; jot down questions and comments; and note any connections to, say, their own caloric intake. "Hmm, the way I eat, it's probably a lot," she quipped to the class. Language skills are also being stressed by a ~ surprisingly wide range of teachers at New York's Bronx Lab ~ School: Not only do Karena Ostrem's ninth-graders routinely trans- ~ late math equations into word problems, but her colleague Kristin 'i6 " a: Smith has created a "word wall" in her art room to get students talk- ~ ing about the meaning of terms like "contour" and "perspective." ~ UJ
Underperlorming
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As President George W. Bush and education policymakers .c"'C> turn their attention to fixing America's underachieving high i"8' . schools, more districts nationwide will need to address one i1 "-
Parents: How to Help
T
he habits associated with productive reading can be nurtured at home as well as at school, says Donald Deshler, director of the Center for Research on Learning at the University of Kansas. The center's model of literacy instruction is now used by some 400,000 educators.
What can parents do to promote an enjoyment of reading in an older child? You can be a good model-turn the TV off and have a conversation about what you've read, engage the family in a conversation about the ideas. You'll want to fill your home with materials around their interests and at their difficulty level-catalogs, magazines, books. There's a great metric called the "Lexile" that allows us to judge the difficulty level of a book or a magazine [wwwlexilecom]. If you know your child is reading at the 1300 Lexile level-generally, schools have students' Lexile levelsyou can go to the library and find appropriate books. If a teenager's grades are slipping, what might be the signs that he has a problem with the text? Perhaps he reads magazines but seems to shy away from more difficult material. He makes excuses for not reading the text: It's boring, or the teacher doesn't really use it. Or he reads a couple of paragraphs and can't give a brief explanation of what he just read. How involved should parents be? One of the toughest things a parent can do is try to be a teacher; better to be supportive and help kids problem-solve But you can suggest that it's important to focus on the critical vocabulary words-they might be in boldface, or in a list at the beginning of the chapter-and that before reading the chapter, it's a good idea to survey it. Begin with the questions at the end of the chapter, so you understand what the author thinks is important. Skim before you start reading in detail, then read subheadings for a sense of how the chapter is divided up. Then, periodically stop and ask yourself, What have I learned? The student is doing two things focusing on elements of the text that potentially deliver more meaning and actively interacting with the text. He's not just passing his eyeballs over the chapter. Any other advice? It's important for parents to understand that success in learning has a lot of emotional parts to it. If you fail in learning, you start to fear the learning process So there can be more going on than a problem with -AM. comprehension.
fundamental-but largely unheralded-cause of student failure: A huge number of teens simply can't make much sense of their textbooks. Close to 70 percent of eighth-graders read below the "proficient" level, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, meaning they can't easily spot the purpose of a passage and find supporting evidence. So do nearly twothirds of 12th-graders. In an economy increasingly reliant on workers with at least some postsecondary training, these stats have got plenty of people worried. In February 2005, when the country's governors convened with educators and business leaders in Washington for a summit on reforming high school, improving reading skills was a key ,
item on the agenda (alongside the more familiar priorities of rethinking the impersonal megaschool and beefing up coursework). "This isn't just about bringing kids up to grade level," says Matthew Gandal, executive vice president of Achieve, the policy research group and summit cohost. "If you don't have advanced literacy skills today, you don't have much of a chance at the good life." The new focus on reading in the middle- and high-school years follows a period of intense efforts to tackle the problem in the early grades, when lagging readers typically still need help decoding words. Now there's a growing recognition that reading skills need to be nurtured well into adolescence, when students struggle with comprehension more than anything else. Most well-regarded programs share common elements: an intensive class on basic reading strategies for below-grade-level performers, more time devoted to building the habit of reading for pleasure, and an effort to get teachers school wide focused on comprehension and writing. In New York City, more than a third of ninth-graders arrive unprepared to do college-prep work; henceforth, struggling sixth- and ninth-graders will take a double-period literacy class, and all students will be reading and writing more. At J.E.B. Stuart High School in Falls Church, Virginia, where President Bush announced his $1.5 billion plan to raise high-school standards and performance (including $200 million to support literacy instruction) in January 2005, 76 percent of students were reading below grade level eight years ago; today, onl y a handful are behind by 11th grade. "Ideally, I'd like every kid reading at the college level," says Principal Mel Riddile, who puts even honors ninth-graders through reading instruction in the computer lab and gives every struggling student 95 minutes every day of either reading or English. At many schools, including Stuart, all faculty members are being asked to become teachers of reading strategies appropriate to their disciplines. That can require a big adjustment when there's so much content to cover to prepare for state assessments, and when conventional wisdom says that reading is the job of instructors in kindergarten through third grade. ("My No.1 problem at first was teacher resistance," says Riddile.) Math, science and history teachers alike are trained to hit hard on new vocabulary, for example, and to help students find clues in root words, in similar words, in context. "So much of what we do outside of narratives is tied to vocabulary-a water table is different from a路 math table is different from tabling a motion," says Donna Alvermann, a literacy expert at the University of Georgia. "In literature, you can miss a lot of the words and still get the story. Students attack infOlmational texts the same way-and miss the substance."
Strategies To make sure that doesn't happen, teachers increasingly spend time in class on "prereading" strategies, examining headings, captions, photos and graphics for a sense of where the author is going. They might sort out ideas using diagrams and think out loud as they make their way through a passage, demonstrating
how good readers constantly question the author's intent, backtrack when they're confused, make connections to prior knowledge, and predict what will happen next. Those who try these techniques in their classes often realize that they're covering more content, and more successfully, notes Cynthia Greenleaf, co-director of the Strategic Literacy Initiative at WestEd, a San Francisco-based education research group whose approach is used by many schools, including Brown's. When Brown began working on reading skills on his own several years ago, he found that other chemistry teachers typically got weeks ahead of him in the fall. "But I could get ahead by spring, because there was opportunity for independent learning-the text started to make sense," he says. Now, his colleagues are being trained in the same techniques. The needs are clearly most urgent in failing big-city districts, where students often enter secondary school reading several years below grade level. But many literacy experts point out that even capable and advantaged kids benefit by learning strategies that enhance comprehension. "We all eventually hit a wall," says Sharon Kinney, the reading specialist at Springhouse Middle School (who underscores her point by handing skeptics an article on "Thermonuclear Reaction Rates in Stars"). According to John Guthrie, head of the literacy research center at the University of Maryland-College Park, only the top 20 percent or so of readers move through school automatically mastering the skills necessary to find meaning in difficult texts-to suss out causal relationships, evaluate relevance and bias, and draw conclusions using multiple sources, for example. Many of the rest, Sixth-grader Amber Willingham copies her homework assignment from a list on the board at the Kellogg Elementary School, Chicago.
he says, begin to languish as their reading assignments become too formidable. That's a syndrome all too familiar to college professors. One recent study by researchers at the Manhattan Institute found that only 34 percent of high school grads are equipped for the rigors of a four-year college; many of the rest are forced to enroll in remedial courses. When Achieve recently asked professors and employers how well prepared high school graduates are for college or work, 70 percent of professors (and 41 percent of employers) said students' inability to read and understand complicated material is a serious deficiency.
Progress It's too soon to know how much of an impact these adolescent literacy programs will have on student achievement. Veterans caution that there's a long slog ahead. "I'm not going to tell you our reading scores [immediately] went way up," says Beth Lacy, principal of Cedar Ridge Middle School in Decatur, Alabama, which saw only incrementally better results for several years after joining the statewide Alabama Reading Initiative in 1999. But Cedar Ridge, where all sixth-graders take a reading class and content teachers reinforce what they've learned, has watched its writing scores improve quite sharply, and the most recent reading assessment showed significant progress, too. After introducing a literacy program plus extra instruction on Saturday and after school, Granite Park Middle School in South Salt Lake City has seen even its math and science scores-once the lowest in the district-rise considerably in the past two years. There's a message inl this reform movement not only for education policymakers but also for parents: If your son's grades in science or history have gradually slipped from As to Cs, the fix may lie elsewhere than a stern talking-to and a tightened social schedule (see box item on page 16). "Parents need to work with their kids until they're out of the house, making sure they're reading and comprehending," says Andres Henriquez, a program officer at the Carnegie Corp. of New York, copublisher with the Alliance for Excellent Education of a recent report on literacy. That's what Martha Machado did. When her daughter Stefanie entered seventh grade at Springhouse in 2004 reading at a sixth-grade level and unhappy with her grades, Machado signed her up for Sharon Kinney's Reading Seminar, 45 minutes every other day of individual time with a novel and class deconstruction of a range of texts. By June, Stefanie was reading with the skill of a lOth-grader-and in eighth grade, she's getting As and Bs. 0 About the Author: Anne McGrath is a senior writer with U.S. News & World Report.
n late May 2003 the Library of Congress completed the purchase of the only surviving copy of the first image of the outline of the continents of the world as we know them today-Martin Waldseemiiller's monumental 1507 ~ world map. The map has been referred to in various circles as America's birth certificate and for good reason; it is the first document on which the name "America" appears. It is also the first map to depict a separate and full Western Hemisphere and the first map to represent the Pacific Ocean as a separate body of water. The purchase of the map concluded a nearly century-long effort to secure for the Library of Congress that very special cartographic document which revealed new European thinking about the world nearly 500 years ago. Martin Waldseemtiller, the primary author of the 1507 world map, was a 16th-century scholar, humanist, cleric and cartographer who was part of the small intellectual circle, the Gymnasium Vosagense, in Saint-Die, France. He was born near Freiburg, Germany, sometime in the 1470s and died in the canon house at Saint-Die in 1522. During his lifetime he devoted much of his time to cartographic ventures. Thus, in a remote part of northeast France, was born the famous 1507 world map, whose full title is "Universalis cosmographia secunda Ptholemei traditionem et Americi Vespucci aliorum que lustrationes" ("A drawing of the whole earth following the tradition of Ptolemy and the travels of Amerigo Vespucci and others."). That map, printed on 12 separate sheets, each 45-by-60 centimeters, from wood block plates, measured more than 1.22 meters by 2.44 meters in dimension when assembled. The large map is an early 16th-century masterpiece, containing a full map of the world, two inset maps showing separately the Western and Eastern Hemispheres, illustrations of Ptolemy and Vespucci, images of the various winds and extensive explanatory notes about selected regions of the world. Waldseemtiller's map represented a bold statement that rationalized the modern world in light of the exciting news arriving in Europe as a result of explorations across the Atlantic Ocean or down the African coast, which were sponsored by Spain, Portugal and others. The map must have created quite a stir in Europe, since its findings departed considerably from the accepted knowledge of the world at that time, which was based on the second century A.D. work of the Greek geographer, Claudius Ptolemy. To today's eye, the 1507 map appears remarkably accurate; but to the world of the early 16th century it must have represented a considerable departure from accepted views of the composition of the world. Its appearance undoubtedly ignited considerable debate in Europe regarding its conclusions that an unknown continent (unknown, at least, to Europeans and others in the Eastern Hemisphere) existed between two huge bodies of water, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and was separated from the classical world of Ptolemy, which had been confined to the continents of Europe, Africa and Asia. ,
A postcard circa 1900 showing Wolfegg Castle in BadenWiirttemberg, Germany, where the map remained unknown to scholars until it was revealed in 1901 by Jesuit priest Josef Fischer, who was conducting research in the Waldburg collection.
While it has been suggested that Waldseemtiller incorrectly dismissed Christopher Columbus' great achievement in history by the selection of the name "America" for the Western Hemisphere, it is evident that the information that Waldseemtiller and his colleagues had at their disposal recognized Columbus' previous voyages of exploration and discovery. It is remarkable that the entire Western Hemisphere was named for a living person; Vespucci did not die until 1512. By 1513, Waldseemtiller had removed the name "America" from his maps, perhaps suggesting that even he had second thoughts about honoring Vespucci exclusively for his understanding of the New World. Instead, in the 1513 atlas, the area named "America" on the 1507 map is now referred to as Terra Incognita (Unknown Land). Cartographic contributions by Johannes Schoner in 1515 and by Peter Apian it) 1520, however, adopted the name "America" for the Western Hemisphere, and that name then became part of accepted usage. A reported 1,000 copies of the 1507 map were printed, which was a sizable print run in those days. This single surviving copy of the map exists because it was kept in a portfolio by Schoner (1477-1547), a German globe maker, who probably had acquired a copy of the map for his own cartographic work. That portfolio contained not only the unique copy of the 1507 world map but also a unique copy ofWaldseemiiller's 1516 large wall map (the "Carta Marina") [in which South America is called Terra Nova. (New World) and North America is called Cuba]. At some later time, the family of Prince Waldburg-Wolfegg acquired and retained Schoner's portfolio of maps in their castle in Baden- Wfuttemberg, Germany, where it remained unknown to scholars until the beginning of the 20th century. The portfolio, with its great treasure, was uncovered and revealed to the world in 1901 by Jesuit priest Josef Fischer, who was conducting research in the Waldburg collection at Wolfegg Castle. In 1903 an elaborate set of facsimiles of the 1507 and the 1516 maps, accompanied by a scholarly study by Fischer and Franz von Wieser, was published.
The Library of Congress' Geography and Map Division acquired the facsimiles of the 1507 and 1516 maps in 1903. Throughout the 20th century the Library continued to express a desire to acquire the 1507 map, if it were ever made available for sale. That time came in 1992 when Prince Johannes WaldburgWo1fegg, the owner of the map, revealed in a conversation in Washington that he was willing to negotiate the sale of the map. In 1999 the prince notified the Library that the Gernlan government and the Baden- Wiirttemberg state had granted permission for a limited export license. In late June 2001 the prince and the Library of Congress reached a final agreement on the sale of the map for the price of $10 million. In late May 2003 the Library completed a successful campaign to raise the necessary funds, after receiving substantial congressional and private support. The map serves as a departure point for the development of the division's American cartographic collection in addition to its revered position in early modem cartographic history. The map provides a meaningful link between the Library's treasured late medieval-early Renaissance cartographic collection (which includes one of the richest holdings of Ptolemy atlases in the world) and the modem cartographic age that unfolded as a result of the explorations of Columbus and other discoverers in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. It represents the point of depatture from the geographical understanding of the world based on Ptolemy's "Cosmographiae" and "Geographiae" (editions from 1475) to that emerging in the minds of scholars and practical navigators as reports of the "new worlds" of America, southern Africa and other
regions of Asia and Oceania reached Europe's shores. The Waldseemiiller map joins the rich cartographic holdings of the Library's Geography and Map Division, which include some 4.8 million maps, 65,000 atlases, more than 500 globes and globe gores, and thousands of maps in digital form. The map's acquisition provides scholars with an extraordinary opportunity to appreciate the earliest of early depictions of our modem world. Major portions of this 1507 world map have not received the same concentrated scrutiny as the American segments. The very detailed depiction of sub-Saharan Africa, the south coast of Asia, and even the areas surrounding the Black and Caspian seas merit further study and discussion in response to obvious questions regarding the cartographic and geographic sources that were available and used by the SaintDie scholars to reach the conclusions that they embodied in the 1507 world map. Through agreement with Prince Waldburg-Wolfegg and the Government of Germany, the 1507 Waldseemiiller world map is placed on permanent display in the Library of Congress' Thomas Jefferson Building. A second floor gallery, the Pavilion of the Discoverers, was chosen as an appropriate location to house the map, where it is exhibited with supporting materials from the Library's collections that assist in describing the rich history surrounding the map and its relation to its creators and the sources used to prepare it in the 16th century. 0 About the Author: John R. Hebert is chief of the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Preserving the World's Words he 200-year-old u.s. Library of Congress is the world's largest library, with 128 million publications. Laila Mulgaokar (left), born in Mumbai, is the American field director of the New Delhi office, one of six overseas offices that acquire, catalog and preserve published materials from around the world for use in the Washington, D.C, area Reading Rooms or the libraries of 49 American universities. The 81 local specialists gather materials in 65 languages: books, newspapers, journa~s' official gazettes, pamphlets, maps, audio and video recordings from India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, the Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Tibet. "The idea for overseas acquisitions activities for libraries arose in the 1950s at a time of widespread dissatisfaction in the Library of Congress
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and in American academia with the lack of non-European materials," says Mulgaokar. "We will collect anything and everything of research value, in all languages, in all formats, from all countries." To preserve the world's newspapers, law gazettes and legislative assembly debates for use by future researchers, the Library microfilms them. "We are working on a joint project with the American Institute of Indian Studies in New Delhi," Mulgaokar says. "AilS has published several volumes of its Encyclopedia of Indian Temple Architecture, which consolidates all essential historical and technical information relating to the Indian temples in their many regional and period styles. We will first microfilm and then digitize their site drawings of these historical monuments." -A.V.N.
D
Two politicians sought election to the New Jersey State Assembly in November 2005. One is a Democrat, the other a Republican. One won, one lost. The twist in this tale: Both are Indian Americans.
riving down Oak Tree Road in Franklin Township, New Jersey, storefronts bedecked with Indian saris, gold jewelry and posters of Bollywood stars flash past. Neon signs beckon passersby to try tasty treats at Kabab King. Another sign announces your arrival at Mahatma Gandhi Plaza in Iselin, a shopping center dominated by Indian stores. An hour's train ride from the bustle of Manhattan, this decidedly is the desi heartland of New Jersey. Of course, the posters at the railway station in the town of Edison, portraying Amitabh Bachchan promising the next crorepati, should have been a dead giveaway. Given this introduction to New Jersey, the image of two men of Indian origin vying for seats in the state's Assembly in the November 8 election was not an incongruous one. In New Jersey, state legislators are elected from 40 districts of substantially equal population. The voters in each district elect one senator and two members of the General Assembly. In District 17, where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans three to one, two incumbent Democrats were re-elected to the Assembly: Upendra Chivukula, a native of Andhra Pradesh, and Joseph V.
Egan. The two Republican candidatesDr. Salim Nathoo, an Indian American born in Tanzania, and Catherine J. Barrier-were defeated. Egan won 28,598 votes, Chivukula 27,364, Barrier 15,309 and Nathoo 13,204. News reports in India and the United States had misreported that the election was a direct matchup between Chivukula and Nathoo. "We kept trying to explain to voters that they could vote for both Upendra and me. There were two seats, it wasn't an either-or situation," says Nathoo. District 17 comprises Franklin Township, Highland Park, Milltown, Piscataway and New Brunswick, location of the campus of Rutgers University and the world headquarters of Johnson &. Johnson, the multinational firm that manufactures personal hygiene products. Once a center for immigrants from Eastern Europe, 14 percent of New Brunswick's population is now of Asian descent, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. It also has a 39 percent Hispanic and 20 percent African American population. Chivukula, 55, was born in Nellore district in Andhra Pradesh. He came to the United States in 1974 to pursue a graduate degree in electrical engineering from City
Upendra Chivukula (seated at right) interacts with his colleagues in the New Jersey General Assembly in December 2005 after re-election.
College of the City University of New York. A resident of Franklin Township, he is the first South Asian to serve in the New Jersey Legislature, which comprises two houses: a 40-member Senate and an 80member General Assembly. He is also the fourth Indian American to be elected to state office in the United States and served as mayor of Franklin Township in 2000, deputy mayor in 1998 and on the Franklin Township Council from 1997 to 2005. Elected in November to his third term in the state Assembly, Chivukula attributes his political success to "constituent work." "Being accessible to the constituents is the most important thing in politics," he says. "I do have some good legislation in terms of science and tech, consumerrelated legislation ...and I am trying to get property tax relief for widows of veterans. I am also 100 percent supportive of the Democratic agenda of providing relief to local towns and schools." Chivukula's family was not political, but in the mid-1980s he felt Asian Americans were not engaged. "I wanted to work as a volunteer and get them involved in politics," he explains. "The [Indian American] community has been coming forward and at least trying, but I'm not so sure if they have been very successful." Chivukula, who is also managing director of the Antarctica Group, a New York-based consulting company in software and education, says a life in politics requires some sacrifices. "It is a real challenge in terms of balancing personal, political and business life. You have to manage your time reasonably well. At the same time you cannot deny your constituents and the problems facing them," he says. "What is important is being proactive." Chivukula says his wife Dayci and their children-Suraj and Damianty-played a significant role in his campaign. Like the Chivukulas, Nathoo's young - family-wife Sholina, an accountant who
is studying to become a teacher, and their "All our funds are being diverted overseas [to fight the war]. This fact was two sons, Isaac, 6, and Adam,S-handed highlighted when Hurricane Katrina out campaign leaflets at local supermarkets. A Muslim dentist who was born struck and we were helpless .... We have in Tanzania but has family roots in issues with respect to funding, homeJamnagar, Gujarat, Nathoo, 50, came to lessness, poverty, health care and ethics in government," he says. "We also need to the United States in 1980. After completing his PhD in biochemistry from look at medical malpractice, which is very New York University in Manhattan, he important to Asian Americans," many of whom are in the medical profession. was offered a job with Colgate-Palmolive Nathoo says the state is in dire need of and moved to Piscataway, where the property tax refonn, and alleges, "Our firm's research facility is located. Frustration with the callousness of the money gets wasted through no-bid local government drove him into politics, contracts and pay-to-play politics. If a contractor wants something he pays a he says. Nathoo asked the local mayor several times to reduce the speed limit of politician for a contract. The system gets 72 kph on the road running past his home. corrupt and all the services that we buy "I thought it was unsafe. I fought with the cost more. If these cost more we have to pay higher taxes." He feels the solution is township for 10 years and eventually told the mayor the only way I could get this to put a moratorium on property tax increases and for the state government to reduced was if I ran against him!" Nathoo's bid for a seat on the Piscataway renegotiate overpriced contracts. Neither candidate felt outsourcing of Town Council was unsuccessful, but the defeat did not deter him. ''The more jobs to India and China was a big election involved I got the more I found out that issue. "We all know businesses are shifting out of New Jersey because of how these people take everyone for grantedexpensive it is to do our taxes keep going up, our schools are prohibitively crowded. We are paying so much in business here," says Nathoo, who runs property taxes. There is no value for Oral Health Clinical Services, a firm that money," he says. Eventually the speed tests dental products. Dev Joshi, executive producer of the limit was reduced by eight kph, but Nathoo is not satisfied. "We want it to go _ "Glimpses of India-Bharat Darshan" radio show that airs on the New to 56 kph," he says. Brunswick station WRSU-FM 88.7 every While local issues like high property Sunday afternoon, says that President taxes and overcrowding at schools mold the political debate in District 17, voters George W. Bush's low approval ratings and candidates were not immune to among voters didn't help Nathoo and national issues. Chivukula says the war in other Republican candidates. Nathoo "had another disadvantage and Iraq was a "big factor" in the election.
Focus On: NEW JERSEY
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icknamed the Garden State, New Jersey is the home of the Miss America pageant, Princeton University and the laboratory where Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb. More than six percent of the population is of Asian heritage, most of them Indian Americans. It boasts the world's largest free-flying flag, the longest boardwalk and the biggest kite festival. Heavy industries such as petroleum, chemicals and pharmaceuticals are the backbone of the economy, giving parts of the state a reputation for bad smells and pol-
luted air. Yet the central coast is home to some of the cleanest beaches on the East Coast. New Jersey is completely surrounded by water, except for the 80-kilometer stretch that borders New York State. Many New Jersey residents commute to work in New York. Tourism is the second largest revenue earner. Atlantic City is a big draw, with its gambling and entertainment casinos. It was on the city's eightkilometer oceanfront boardwalk that the first Miss America contestants posed in their bathing suits in 1921. -A.Y.N.
that is he hasn't been involved in politics as long as his opponents. Chivukula is a smart guy who makes himself visible, accessible and approachable. He is genuine and honest," says Joshi. Joshi, whose show broadcasts across central New Jersey, concedes that Nathoo had some "very fresh" ideas about how to lower taxes and health insurance costs. Nathoo's statements on the war do not differ from the Democrats. He wants to see the troops come home as soon as possible. "We need a plan and we need a plan now," he says. "Being Muslim, I know that there are some Islamic communities [in America] that are very concerned about this." The outcome of the election is a close reflection of the political makeup of District 17, with almost three times as many registered Democratic voters as Republicans. Only three other districts in New Jersey had a lower percentage of registered Republicans in 200l. Besides Chivukula and Egan, Bob Smith, a Democrat and an attorney, represents the region in the Senate. Ironically, Nathoo was once a Democrat, and Smith is his next-door neighbor in an office complex in Piscataway. "Bob kept trying to persuade me to run on a Democratic ticket and would say I had a much better chance of winning that way," recalls Nathoo. However, he is disenchanted with the Democrats. "As a former Democrat I think they
take us for granted. They don't feel they have to do anything for the Indian American community because they already have our vote," he says. On the other hand, the Republican Party is more receptive, he says. "We have the same ideals. We have the same goals and objectives-there is a more natural connection." Nathoo was handicapped by the fact that he joined the campaign late after his friend and the original candidate, Charles Edwards, died of a heart attack. "I had been thinking about running ... and then when Charles died I had to do it for his sake," Nathoo says. At close to six percent of District ITs population, Indian Americans did not have enough voting power on their own to determine the outcome of the election. "In order to win elections you have to gain the support of the people. You cannot restrict yourself to the Indian vote," says Chivukula. He says that having another Indian Amelican in the running didn't change the way he conducted his campaign. Acknowledging that Indian Americans have also helped him, he adds, "It is relatively new for them to give money in political contributions. It's a matter of how they can effectively channel their Dr. Salim Nathoo buys paan in a shop on Oak Tree Road in Edison, New Jersey, in December 2005. He lost the November 8 state Assembly election.
funds. There are many differences within our community. Rather than 10 different organizations giving $1,000 it would be better if one would give $100,000." Nathoo, also, says he didn't go after the Indian American vote. "The issues that affect my district are the same that affect everyone else. However, I did get a lot of support from the Indian American community." There are some issues that are specific to Indian Americans, he says. Indian American children have more trouble getting into good schools and medical colleges, he says, alleging that schools are reluctant to fill their classrooms with straight-A students for fear of losing funding, while others are wary of creating a racial imbalance. "If they admit people based on grades then they would have far more Indians in schools. They don't want that racial imbalance. I think that is wrong," he says. Indira Sinha, shopping with her family at Rajbhog Sweets-a vegetarian IndianPakistani restaurant in Iselin, a city where according to the 2000 U.S. Census 17 percent of the population was Asian Indian, says the fact that there were candidates of Indian origin in the election was just an added bonus. "To me it's the issues that are important. Chivukula has delivered for us these past few years. You tend to stick with a familiar name," she says. Browsing among intricate gold jewelry at KB Zaveri jewelers in Iselin, Radhika Singh, an executive who commutes to work in New York, acknowledges it was unusual for two Indian Americans to be in the same race in District 17. Still, she says, "They may be Indians but when it comes to politics they are either Red or Blue-Republican or Democrat." Cynthia Jackson, tiptoeing across an icy sidewalk along Oak Tree Road, says she didn't realize Chivukula and Nathoo are of Indian origin: "They've both been a part of this community for so long I've never thought of them as outsiders." D About the Author: Ashish Kumar Sen is a Washington-based journalist working with The Washington Times. He also contributes to The Tribune and Outlook.
ON THE LIGHTER SIDE
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he first U.S. presidential visit was in 1959, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower spent four days in India during a 19-day, 11-nation peace tour, at that time the longest trip ever made by an American President. His wide smile answered chants of "Eisenhower zindabad" from a joyous crowd of 1.5 million Indians lining the motorcade route from Palam Airport to Rashtrapati Bhavan. All of New Delhi was decorated with lights and 25,000 American flags. In their enthusiasm, the friendly crowds swamped the motorcade, stuffing garlands through the window of the car carrying the President and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. President Eisenhower-who spent his boyhood in a farming area-visited villagers near Agra and met with farmers Kiran Singh and Tikam Singh. "It is my earnest hope and prayer that through the efforts of you and the other millions of farmers, India may prosper and progress," the President said in personal notes to them. Speaking to the largest crowd ever gathered,
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~ President Harry S ~ Truman greets Prime ~ Minister Jawaharlal ~ Nehru in Washington in ~ October 1949. Also iB shown are 8 Vijayalakshmi Pandit (jar left) and Indira Gandhi (jar right). t
President John F. Kennedy and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in the White House garden in November 1961. President Richard M. Nixon and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at the White House in November 1971.
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru plays holi with First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in March 1962.
Far left:Prime Morarji Desai Jimmy Carter House in June
Minister and President at the White 1978.
Left: Prime Minister Indira Gandhi with President Ronald Reagan at the White House in July 1982. Below: Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt tries her hand at a spinning wheel during her visit to New Delhi in February 1952.
up to that time, at the Ram Lila Grounds in New Delhi, President Eisenhower said, "I see in the magnificent spectacle before me a soul-stirring testimonial by half a million of India's people to America, a sister democracy-and to the cause for which both India and America stand: The cause of peace and friendship in freedom .... We who are free-and who prize our freedom
above all other gifts of God and naturemust know each other better; trust each other more; support each other." During the 110 hours of President Eisenhower's visit, said Prime Minister Nehru, there took place "a memorable event which will be recorded in the history of our times ... when two great countries opened their minds and hearts to
each other." That opening established the foundation for the decades that followed. Despite serious differences that developed on important international issues-even siding with opposite parties in wartime-the roots of joint commitments to democracy, human rights and the rule of law have carried the two great countries forward step
by step toward a close and valuable friendship. Seven Indian prime ministers have made state visits to Washington, D.C. Each meeting has been marked by frank discussion and steps toward understanding. This process culminated in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's state visit last July, when he addressed the U.S. Congress and resolved with President George W. Bush that India and the United States would build a global partnership based on cooperation in defense, fighting terrorism, development of clean energy supplies, civilian nuclear energy, space exploration, disaster relief, agricultural development, democracy, human development, freer trade, economic opportunities and the battle against HIV/AIDS. "Because of our shared values, the relationship between our two countries has never been stronger," President Bush said at a White House news conference with Prime Minister Singh. "We're working together to make our nations more secure, deliver a better life to our citizens and advance the cause of peace and freedom throughout the world." Prime Minister Nehru made the first such journey, meeting President Harry S Truman at the White House in 1949. At that time, Nehru also met Eisenhower, who was then the president of Columbia University, which bestowed a doctor of laws degree on the Indian leader. Prime Minister Nehru went again in 1956, to visit President Eisenhower, tour his farm and broadcast a radio address to Americans. "No Indian can forget that in the days of our struggle for freedom, we received from your country a full measure of sympathy and support," he said. Nehru also paid his respects to Eleanor Roosevelt, the widow of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and hosted her when she came to India in 1952. But it was Jacqueline Kennedy, 10 years later, who became the fIrst First Lady, wife of a sitting President, to visit India. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in March 1995, was the only other First Lady to represent the President on a visit to India. Accompanied by her sister, Princess Lee Radziwill, Mrs. Kennedy stayed two days at the home of Prime Minister Nehru and his daughter, Indira Gandhi. She fed bamboo shoots to the Himalayan pandas in the gardens and rode a horse belonging to President Rajendra Prasad's bodyguards. She also visited craftsmen, donated American paintings and music records, and made hospitalized children
(From left) President Ronald Reagan, First Lady Nancy Reagan, Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in Washington in June 1985.
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:Ii ~ ~ ~ ~ laugh and clap when she poured out a bag of American sweets. Mrs. Gandhi, representing her father, met with President Kennedy the next month, just as he announced a high point in 11 years of Indian-American economic collaboration: three loans for hydroelectric and thermal power stations, financing of Indian imports of critically needed industrial commodities and fertilizers, and a $20 million loan to the Industrial Finance Corporation of India that provided credit to private enterprise. Mrs. Kennedy was returning the visit made to Washington in 1961 by Prime Minister Nehru and Mrs. Gandhi. Mrs. Gandhi had accompanied her father on his visits to the United States. "I look forward to renewing an old friendship," she said, upon making her first trip to Washington as Prime Minister in
March 1966, as the guest of President Lyndon B. Johnson. "India and the United States cannot and should not take each other for granted," she said. "As friends committed to common ideals, they can together make this world of ours a better place in which to live ... .India is as important to the U.S. as the U.S. is to India." President Johnson referred to her as "a woman with an understanding heart. .. a leader with a matchless vision." Touring Asia after the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, President Nixon spent a delightful 23 hours in New Delhi. He stood up in his opentopped car to wave with both hands at cheering crowds. He hopped out of the car three times, exuberantly shaking outstretched hands as the motorcade wove through New Delhi's roundabouts. Pursuing peace "means building
a structure of stability within which the rights of each nation are respected," Nixon said during a state dinner attended by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He said the United States "respects the determination of Indians-and their Asian neighbors-to work out their destiny and their security in their own way, emphasizing national independence while accepting the interdependence of nations." Prime Minister Indira Gandhi reciprocated President Nixon's visit with a White House meeting in 1971. It was seven years later that President Jimmy Carter and Prime Minister Morarji Desai signed the Delhi Declaration, in January 1978. It said, "The disparities in economic strength that exist among nations must be bridged and a more equitable international economic order fashioned if we are to secure international peace." It recognized "the right of each people to determine its own form of government and each nation its own political, social and economic policies" and spoke against war and stockpiles of nuclear and conventional weapons. President Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, were closely surrounded by smiling, hand-shaking, flower-bearing crowds wherever they went, including Daulatpur village, 30 kilometers from New Delhi, which was later renamed Carterpuri. President Carter shareq a vision of greater agricultural productivity with Prime Minister Desai, who
Americans traditionally observed two national holidays in February, remembering the birthdays of President Abraham Lincoln, born February 12, 1809, and the first US President, George Washington, born February 22, 1732. This changed in 1971, when President Richard Nixon proclaimed one single federal public holiday, Presidents' Day, to be observed on the third Monday of February, honoring all past U,S, presidents
toured a soybean farm in Nebraska during his U.S. visit in June 1978. During the July 1982 visit of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi with President Ronald Reagan, there was a sense of both sides having turned a corner. Mrs. Gandhi described her visit as "an adventure in search of understanding and friendship," and explained, "No two countries can have the same angle of vision, but each can try to appreciate the points of view of the other. Our effort should be to find a common area, however small, on which to build and to enhance cooperation." President Reagan responded, "We recognize that there have been differences between our two countries, but these should not obscure all that we have in common, for we are both strong, proud and indepen-
dent nations, guided by our own perceptions of our national interests." Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and President Reagan met in Washington in 1985 and reaffirmed the friendship between the two countries in October 1987, when they drew up an ambitious agenda for still closer cooperation. During the two years between their meetings, bilateral trade had expanded and collaboration between the private sectors had intensified. "We've enjoyed cooperation in defense production, notably the Indian light combat aircraft," said the President. "A memorandum of understanding on technology transfer has been implemented and the United States is working with India to launch its satellites. The U.S.-India Fund for cultural, educational and scientific cooperation has been inaugurated and we're working together to combat terrorism." At that time, the Soviet Union was intact, East-West relations were strained and India was somewhat economically isolated. "Not letting years of irritating estrangement caused by the Cold War get in the way, Ronald Reagan created friendly and productive relationships with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, which opened new opportunities for expanded cooperation and trade between our two nations," U.S. Ambassador David C. Mulford said of the former President after his death in 2004. "He also laid a strong foundation for U.S.-
India cooperation in science and technology-the kind of strategic, futuristic vision so characteristic of this man." By the time Prime Minister P.v. Narasimha Rao met President Bill Clinton in Washington and visited New York City, Boston and Houston in 1994, there had been significant changes. The American administration was downsizing the U.S. military after the Cold War (a move welcomed by India) and had identified India as one of the 10 most important emerging markets for U.S. exports. The two countries had successfully cooperated in peacekeeping operations. "I think we'll have a deeper and better partnership now, and I'm looking forward to building on it," said President Clinton. In a speech at Harvard University, Prime Minister Rao warned against permitting "Cold War attitudes" to block the growing friendship. "This is a decisive opportunity and we miss it at our own peril," he said. It took six more years and another serious disagreement-over India's testing of nuclear weapons and U.S. economic sanctions-before President Clinton was able to visit India in March 2000, and give a major thrust toward the new relationship. He addressed Parliament, made friends and enjoyed the vibrant Indian hospitality across the country, in the company of his daughter, Chelsea. President Clinton and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee signed a vision statement, acknowledging
there had been times "when our relationship drifted without a steady course," but resolving to create a closer and qualitatively new relationship between the two countries. "We are nations forged from many traditions and faiths, proving year after year that diversity is our strength," it said. "In the new century, India and the United States will be partners in peace, with a common interest in and complementary responsibility for ensuring re-
gional and international security." A few months later, President Clinton reciprocated, and Prime Minister Vajpayee addressed the U.S. Congress. The quick exchange of visits was a positive step. "People ask whether the new day in Indo-U.S. relations will continue beyond a new administration," then-U.S. Ambassador Richard Celeste wrote in a SPAN article. "To me the answer is emphatically yes." 0 Above: President Bill Clinton, First Lady Hillary Clinton and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee at the White House in September 2000. Left: President Bill Clinton at Nayla, Rajasthan, in March 2000. Far left: President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter at DaulatpLtI; Haryana, in January 1978.
The shooting of James Meredith 40 years ago, searingly documented by a rookie photographer, galvanized the civil rights movement.
Civil rights activist James Meredith grimaces in pain as he pulls himself across Highway 51 after being shot in Hernando, Mississippi, on June 6, 1966. Meredith was leading a "walk against fear" to encourage blacks to exercise their voting rights.
ne sweltering morning in June 1966, James Meredith set out from Memphis, Tennessee, with an African walking stick in one hand, a Bible in the other and a singular mission in mind. The 32-year-old Air Force veteran and Columbia University law student planned to march 350 kilometers to the Mississippi state capital of Jackson, to prove that a black man could walk free in the South. The Voting Rights Act had been passed only the year before, and his goal was to inspire African Americans to register and go to the polls. "I was at war against fear," he recalls. "I was fighting for full cit-
izenship for me and my kind." It wasn't the first time Meredith had charged into hostile territory all but alone. Four years earlier, he'd become the first black person to enroll at the University of Mississippi, in Oxford, despite vehement protests from Governor Ross Barnett and campus riots that left two people dead and more than 160 wounded, including dozens of federal marshals. When Meredith graduated from "Ole Miss" in 1963, he wore a segregationist's "Never" button upside down on his black gown. On the second day of his self-described "walk against fear," a handful of reporters, photographers and law enforcement officials
awaited his arrival in the late afternoon heat near Hernando, Mississippi. Jack Thornell, a 26-year-old cub photographer for The Associated Press in New Orleans, was sitting in a parked car along with a colleague from arch-rival United Press International, waiting for a Life photographer to bring them Cokes, when Meredith and a few followers came into view. All of a sudden, a man started shouting, "I just want James Meredith!" Shotgun blasts rang out across the highway, striking Meredith in the head, neck, back and legs. Thornell jumped out of the vehicle and started clicking away, taking two rolls of pictures with his pair of cameras. He then drove back to Memphis in a panic, convinced he would be fired for failing to photograph both the assailant and the victim. Meanwhile, minutes passed before an ambulance reached Meredith, who lay in the road alone. "Isn't anyone going to help me?" he remembers shouting. Of the many photographs that Thornell made of the incident, one shows the fallen man on dusty Highway 51 screaming in agony. It was published in newspapers and magazines nationwide and went on to win a Pulitzer Prize [the highest journalism award in the United States]. The image suggests the very pain and frustration of being black in the Deep South of the 1960s. "When people saw scenes like this in newspapers and on TV-when they saw what was actually happening down South-they couldn't believe it," says Thornell, who is 66 and retired and lives in Metairie, Louisiana. He says his one lasting regret about that day four decades ago is that he didn't put his camera down to help the wounded Meredith. As it happens, Thornell took one picture of the incident in which the gunman can be seen. But it wasn't needed for evidence. An unemployed hardware clerk from Memphis named Aubrey James Norvell was apprehended at the scene of the shoot-
James Meredith (left) and Jack Thornell walk outside Meredith's Jackson, Mississippi, home.
ing and pleaded guilty before the case went to trial. He served 18 months of a five-year prison sentence, then all but dropped out of sight. Now 80, Norvell lives in Memphis. He declined to discuss the past. After Meredith was shot, civil rights leaders gathered in his hospital room, among them Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael and Floyd McKissick. The civil rights movement had lately been strained by internal dissent, with leaders such as King calling for nonviolence and integration and others such as Carmichael promoting a more radical black power stance. But for now the leaders put aside their differences to carryon Meredith's pilgrimage. While Meredith recuperated from his wounds, scores of people gathered in Hernando to resume what was now called the "Meredith March." Led by King, Carmichael and McKissick, the marchers
walked for nearly three weeks, helping to register thousands of African-American voters along the way. Meredith himself rejoined the pilgrimage on June 26, its final day, as some 12,000 triumphant protesters entered Jackson surrounded by cheering crowds. Looking back, he says he was inspired by people on both sides of the color divide. "You can't forget that whites in the South were as unfree as any black," he explains. "White supremacy was official and legal-it was enforced by judges and the law people-and a white that failed to acknowledge and CaIry out the mandate of white supremacy was as subject to persecution as any black." Meredith would graduate from Columbia Law School, run (unsuccessfully) for Congress in New York and Mississippi, and work as a stockbroker, professor and writer. Then, in the late 1980s, the former civil .rights icon shocked many admirers when he joined the staff of the ultraconservative U.S. Senator from North Carolina Jesse Helms and endorsed former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke's campaign to become governor of Louisiana. Meredith, still fiery at 72, defends those choices, saying he was "monitoring the enemy." Married with five children and five grandchildren, Meredith lives in Jackson and still occasionally addresses groups on civil rights issues. "He helped make significant strides in the overall struggle for civil and human rights, and none of that is diminished by what happened later," says Horace Huntley, director of the Oral History Project at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, in Alabama. "Those accomplishments are etched in stone." D About the Author: Carolyn Kleiner Butler is a contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report.
President John F. Kennedy takes the oath of office.
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marked the beginning of a new era for America with the inauguration of I F. the 35th President of the United States and the first to be born in the 20th century. Kennedy's inaugural address on January 20 stirred not only America with his clarion call of, "Ask not what your country can do for youask what you can do for your country." The world in general was inspired to ask not what Amelica would do for them, but what together they could do for the freedom of man. Kennedy was already familiar to India as the co-sponsor of the Kennedy-Cooper resolution in the Senate, providing long-term aid to India. He called for increased assistance to developing countries. In one address in Washington in 1959 he said: "India follows a route in keeping with human dignity and individual freedom."
1961 K n ed~"
In November 1960, the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi launched magazine. It was to serve, as a note to readers explained in the fIrst issue, as "a span of words and images to link [India and America's] common hopes, our common pleasures and delights, our common goals and values." For the past 45 years SPAN has been publishing articles by
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Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru with Representative Dalip Singh Saund.
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leading American and Indian writers and helping promote greater understanding and people-to-people contact.
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~IIIII' went where only one man, Russian Yuri Gagarin, had gone before. On May 5, 1961, the Freedom 7 spacecraft launched Shepard beyond the earth's atmosphere, making him the rust American in space. The fonner U.S. Navy test pilot, who made a 15-minute suborbital flight, five of those minutes in space, prophetically called it "just the fIrst baby step, aiming for bigger and better things."
rose to a position that no Indian American had reached before. The pioneer from Punjab went from being a foreman of a cotton-picking ranch in California to U.S. Congressman when he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1956 from the 29th congressional district, representing Riverside and Imperial Counties in California. Saund was re-elected for his third term on November 8, 1960. In July 2005, the U.S. Senate unanimously voted to honor Saund by naming the post office at 30777 Rancho California Road in Temecula, California, after him. Then in December the U.S. House of Representatives authorized the commissioning of a portrait of Saund, which will be placed at Capitol Hill. A majority of Americans were hooked on - in 1961. The highest-rated show of the year, the NBC series followed the adventures of pioneering families as they traveled from Missouri to California soon after the American Civil War. Each episode was built around the story of a passenger in the convoy of covered wagons, pulled by horses. The cast included John McIntire, Robert Fuller, Robert Horton and the show attracted top guest stars like Ernest Borgnine, Shelly Winters, Lou Costello and Jane Wyman. William Shakespeare traveled to New York City in the movie V6$l Si I1m'짜. The riveting tale of feuding gangs-whites against Puerto Ricanswon 10Academy Awards in 1961, including for best picture and best directors. Inspired by Romeo and Juliet, it combined racial conflict, juvenile delinquency and inner-city problems with electlifying music and higWy stylized dance sequences.
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It was one master's tribute to another. On the occasion of Nobel laureate
fe's birth centenary in May 1961, Satyajit Ray made Rabindranath Tagore, a documentary which wove together dramatized moments from the wliter's life with rare documents and images. It won the President's Gold Medal in New Delhi. As part of his tribute, Ray also made Teen Kanya (Three Daughters), an anthology film adapted from three short stories by Tagore. On January 26, 1961, the United States issued a unique tribute to India. It dedicated two new stamps of the American Champions of Liberty Series, which commemorates international leaders in democracy, to Mohandas K. Gandhi. The stamps were dedicated in a Republic Day ceremony held in the reception room of the U.S. Postmaster General J. Edward Day in Washington, D.C. A drawing by Indian artist R.L. Lekhi provided the basis for Gandhi's image on the stamps. A Portuguese colony for about 450 years, became a part of India in 1961, after Operation Vijay by Indian troops ended on December 19, 1961. It was part of the Union Territory of Goa, Daman and Diu until 1987, when Goa became a separate Indian state.
lobi' C Indian-born Americqn conductor, made his debut in the United States in the late summer of 1960, conducting the Lewisohn Stadium Symphony Orchestra in New York City and the Robin Hood Dell Symphony Orchestra in Philadelphia. Famous for his interpretations of composers Anton Bruckner, Richard Strauss and Gustav MaWer, the flamboyant conductor went on to serve as the musical director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (1962-78) and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra (1978-91), among others. []
From top: Alan Shepard, JI:; Rabindranath Tagore; Goanese people welcome Indian troops; Wagon Train.
AMERICANS
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'thin days of the 7.6 magnitude earthquake in Pakistan and parts of India on October 8, 2005, American doctors of Indian and Pakistani origin were teaming up on emergency surgical operations, trekking into cut-off villages and pooling thousands of dollars to aid the injured and homeless. After helping in the crisis, some returned to the United States to organize appeals for medical equipment and recruit more doctors for follow-up trips. "People must realize that this tragedy is not by any means over," says Dr. Imtiaz Khan, an Indian American family physician in Greenville, South Carolina, who was invited by a Pakistani American doctor to be part of one of the first teams into Pakistan after the quake. Born in Chennai, Dr. Khan was six months old when his family moved to the United States. He had been to Pakistan only once, a stop at Karachi on his way to India, and was eager to return. Dr. Khan and the rest of the team arrived in Muzaffarabad at nightfall on October 10. They could barely see in the pitch darkness as the quake had cut off the power supply to the region and the only source of light was the distant flickers from the volunteers' generators. "In the morning we woke up to this devastation ... .It was absolutely horrific in some areas," he recalls. Doctors of South Asian origin had an advantage over their Western counterparts as they were familiar with the local language. "Most of our people were able to communicate, even though they might have had a vi/ayati accent," jokes Dr. Tariq Cheema, a Chicago-based orthopedist of Pakistani heritage. "Traffic and crowds don't bother us. But these are big concerns for the Westerners." Dr. Cheema helped found Doctors Worldwide, an organization that provides medical aid to disaster victims. It was on his invitation that Dr. Khan went to Pakistan. Helping victims as a team "brought us together like brothers," says Dr. Saeed Bajwa, an Endicott, New York-based Pakistani American neurosurgeon and clinical professor of neurosurgery at Upstate Medical University in Binghamton, New York. "My Indian friends helped me raise money. There were no borders." Dr. Faiz Hussain, who was three months old when his family moved to the United States from Hyderabad, India, was part of a team of medical professionals who arrived in Ghadi Dupatta in northern Pakistan on October 14. Most of the townspeople had been killed. Nevertheless, he says, it was "very heartwarming to see the hospitality extended to us by the native Kashmiris and their resilience."
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,3 A specialist in internal and emergency medicine in Los Angeles, Dr. Hussain says victims ofthe quake were "relieved to . see that anyone, regardless of ethnic background, religion or race, was there to help them ... .In our immediate group there were people of several ethnic origins. The bonding factor was that we were all there for the same reason." Jebaraj Joshua, a member of the same team, agreed. A registered nurse working at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C., Joshua came to the United States 12 years ago from Chennai. He says his wife Esther, also a nurse at the hospital, was "extremely nervous" when he first told her he was planning to travel to Pakistan. "She hid my passport for six days ... she was so worried about my safety," he says with a laugh. But when she realized her husband was determined, Esther gave in. In Pakistan, Joshua was overwhelmed by the reception he received. "When the locals learned I was of Indian descent they would say 'Yeh hamara bhai hai [He is our brother]'," he says. Joshua says that when some Pakistani security officials treated Indian American medical workers with suspicion, the Pakistani patients stood up for their healers. "They told us that we should not worry, that they would protect us. It was a very emotional experience," he says.
PAKISTAN HELP QUAKE VICTIMS eled to Pakistan. "I could give them firsthand information so they were better prepared when they left," he says. Dr. Cheema's first exposure to a natural disaster was the earthquake in Turkey in 1999. When he heard about the October 8 quake, he felt he was suited to go and help. "But nothing can make you an expert in natural disasters. No experience could prepare you for this devastation," he says. Dr. Cheema lost two distant relatives when the quake caused an apartment complex to collapse in Islamabad. "For me there was a personal side to this story. You WOlTY about your own family. But when you see such a disaster you forget your own pain," he says. As the scale of the crisis became clearer, he contacted Dr. Khan and by October 10, Doctors Worldwide teams had started operations in Muzaffarabad and the Neelum and Jhelum valleys in Pakistan. Since the roads were badly damaged, the doctors did a lot of traveling on foot and some walked up to seven hours to get to some towns. In the first month, the team focused on emergency medical relief. "After a month it is natural in a disaster of this scale that the number of emergency cases decline-people don't survive that long under rubble-and we get more and more primary care cases," says Dr. Cheema. As soon as he heard about the quake, Dr. Hussain Malik, a plastic surgeon based in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, got on the phone with other Pakistani American doctors to strategize how they could help from thousands of miles away. "After the tsunami in Southeast Asia we raised funds and donated to charities. But this disaster, it was in our country of origin and we were eager to serve in those areas," he says. "Our physicians have been serving in tent clinics and field hospitals in the devastated region," says Dr. Malik, who is president of the Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA), an educational and charitable organization that represents 10,000 doctors. In the initial phase Far Left: Dr. lmtiaz Khan, an American family physician of Indian origin, administers treatment to an injured child. Left: Dr. Saeed Bajwa, a Pakistani American neurosurgeon, treats a quake victim.
Joshua worked long shifts managing the operating theater from 6 a.m. to 2 a.m. Dr. Khalid Athar, a Pakistani American anesthesiologist at George Washington University Hospital and part of the team that included Joshua and Dr. Hussain, says Joshua helped the team provide the same level of care that patients would get in the United States. "It was a briUiant gesture on his part to come with us to Pakistan," says Dr. Athar. "It is amazing how people come together in times of crisis." Dr. Athar's team treated more than 500 patients a day in Ghadi Dupatta. "It was an unimaginable experience ... .There were patients with severely infected wounds; a lot of them required amputations. It took some days to come down from the mountains for treatment," he says. Dr. Athar and Dr. Hussain both spent a week in Pakistan and are keen to return. The World Economic Forum sponsored Dr. Hussain's mission. He says that Pakistani soldiers assisted at his medical camp, and army helicopters frequently flew in supplies and transported patients. "The humanitarian effort is multifaceted and medical relief is just one part of it. Once medical needs are met the long-term need is to sustain the population through the harsh Himalayan winter," Dr. Hussain says. Being able to witness the problems . helped Dr. Hussain raise awareness upon his return to the United States. He spoke to many physicians, some of whom later trav-
A team of doctors, including Dr. Saeed Bajwa, operate on a quake victim. Dr. Bajwa estimates he performed at least 28 operations in two weeks.
of relief efforts APPNA members raised funds and provided tents, sleeping bags, blankets, food and water to organizations in Pakistan. One of the groups that got in touch with APPNA to coordinate relief efforts was the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI), which donated $5,000. Indian American doctors had worked with survivors of the Gujarat earthquake in January 2001 and subsequently used that expelience to develop a disaster response strategy. Vijay N. Koli, the San Antonio, Texas-based president of AAPI, made plans to take a delegation for a "series of discussions with our Pakistani counterpatts and see where exactly they need us." AAPI also drew up a system to appeal for medical volunteers. Dr. Koli's wife, psychiatrist Dr. Malathi Koli, had worked with patients suffering from post-traumatic disorder in Nagapattinam after the December 2004 tsunami and she was eager to help quake survivors. Dr. Cheema describes the group of volunteers in Pakistan as "quite a melting pot. Everyone worked together, shared jokes, talked about Indian movies! There is devastation on both sides of the mountain, but there is a border between us .... We all had this feeling that this disaster has actually brought people closer," he says. Volunteers who worked in the region describe being overwhelmed by the scale of the suffering and destruction. Dr. Bajwa and his team arrived in Islamabad on October 17 and traveled by helicopter across Abbottabad, Balakot, Bagh and the outskirts of Muzaffarabad. In two weeks, he estimates, he performed at least 28 operations. One of his patients was a man who had slipped into a coma after bleeding from a head wound. Dr. Bajwa rushed the man back to Islamabad in a helicopter and operated on him. "That person survived and made a very good recovery," he says. Dr. Bajwa, who has relatives in Rahim Yar Khan in southern Punjab, Pakistan, recalls treating an 18-year-old girl who was paralyzed from the neck down. "The look in her eyes ... the helplessness haunted me," he says. Two days after he operated on her, the girl managed to move her hand. "That was worth more than
anything in the world. It is one of those memories that is going to stick with me. It shows how much difference we can make in people's lives." In the villages in the upper reaches of the mountains, Dr. Malik says he found people suffering from chronic injuries that had not been treated for many days. Members of his team walked about 20 kilometers to a village near Muzaffarabad to deliver immunizations. Many local hospitals were among the buildings that were reduced to heaps of rubble in the quake. APPNA decided to upgrade existing medical facilities in Islamabad and field areas instead of setting up new ones. Acquisition of medical equipment such as anesthesia machines, X-ray equipment, surgical equipment and other trauma-related supplies became a priority. Dr. Malik says his group collected about $2 million worth of medicine and equipment. In order to focus efforts and avoid overlapping, NGOs and volunteer teams were asked to adopt villages and towns. APPNA picked Kathai, a village located a few kilometers from the Line of Control. "When we got there we heard the villagers had not had any food for three days," says Dr. Malik. The doctors arranged for helicopters to fly in food, tents and sleeping bags. Doctors Worldwide is working with Pakistan's Minjstry of Health to develop a basic health unit at Komikot, about 30 kilometers southwest of Muzaffarabad. The group purchased an ambulance for the town and will provide a prefabricated fiberglass hospital, where local doctors will be trained and employed. Doctors say there is a pressing need for prosthetics and facilities to provide rehabilitation for amputees and people with spinal cord injuries.APPNA hopes to set up a 30-bed rehabilitation hospital either in Muzaffarabad, Abbottabad or Islamabad. Noting the importance of the Jaipur foot, an affordable and durable prosthetic developed in India, Dr. Bajwa says, "Indians have a high level of expeltise in developing prosilietics. It would be a godsend if they could help with this ... .It would be the best kind of humanitarian help." He has gathered almost $3 million wOlth of spinal surgery equipment for Pakistan. Doctors Worldwide also plans to set up a physical therapy and rehabilitation center in Muzaffarabad. Physical therapists from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, are training 10 local people at the center. "We want at least half of our trainees to be females so they can help the women, who are not comfortable being treated by male therapists," says Dr. Cheema. Doctors are worried about the effects of winter on the people with whom they have developed a bond. While tents have been provided to almost all survivors, most of these are not suitable protection against the harsh winter. APPNA is providing corrugated metal sheets to residents of Kathai to build shelters. "They need mud walls and metal roofs," says Dr. Cheema, "A lot of catch-up is necessary." 0 About the Author: Ashish Kumar Sen is a Washington-based journalist working with The Washington Times. He also contributes to The Tribune and Outlook.
Girls and women are participating as never before in all levels of organized sports in the United States, .thanks to changing public attitudes and a landmark law.
~en C. Vivian Stringer,..0 t~.e beginningj_ stages of what has becorilie a hall oT fame career, saw her women's basketball team from tiny Cheyney State College in Pennsylvania qualify in 1982 for the first women's national championship sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), it was like reaching for the moon. If the event was merely new and uncharted territory for the NCAA, it was unprecedented in women's ranks. The NCAA is the leading organization that governs inter-collegiate athletics in the United States and that, for years, had sponsored every highprofile men's championship tournament. Even for the most celebrated names in women's basketball, achievements had always occurred well under the radar of major college men's sports, with their generous donors and revenue-earning television exposure. So to qualify for that first championship, Stringer's team had to, well, get there. The road from rural southeastern Pennsylvania to the inaugural event, held on the Norfolk, Virginia, campus of Old Dominion University, had many stops along the way for bake sales, raffles, pleas for donations, and any other fundraising technique Stringer and the team from the historically black college could devise. "1 remember going to a church to solicit money so that we could have little white Cs sewn on our sweaters so we'd look nice getting on airplanes," Stringer said of the long road to that first title game in which Cheyney State
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Wendy Palmer, wearing the red jersey of the Connecticut Sun team, endures a hair-raising block from an Indiana Fever opponent in a Women's National Basketball Association shootout.
lost to storied Louisiana Tech. "A sporting goods store volunteered to give us uniforms so that we'd have more. than one set. Our administration solicited local companies. On campus, there was as much a fear of our being successful than not, because there was always the thought, 'How are we going to pay to go to the next round?' " Now, fast-forward to the year 2000. Stringer was coaching her current team, nationally ranked Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. When Rutgers upset the University of Georgia in the NCAA Western Conference finals, it meant a third trip for Stringer to the "final four," the championship round of games involv-
ing the four SurvIVIng teams. By then, the coach learned, the mode of transportation for such teams was very much first-class in every way.
Life at the top for such women's teams, at the dawn of the 21st century, was nothing short of top-of-the-line. Women athletes not only had access to national televinational television funding-but sion audiences-and also expected, and received, staples that once were the sole province of the men's basketball teams. These included, in addition to major media coverage, custom-built team buses, chartered air travel, first-rate hotel lodging and-not the least of the benefits-loyal fan bases. In fact, the "final four" destination in 2000 was not a sleepy college campus, but metropolitan Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where a sparkling new professional sports facility, with its 20,000 seats, stood ready to receive the women athletes and their enthuThe flood tide of talented siastic followers. Capacity crowds turned out to women athletes onto see not only Rutgers, but also American playing fields several superlative, nationally renowned squads-such as the benefited from the women's University of Tennessee and the movement of the late University of Connecticut, the modern-day basketball dynasty 1960s and 1970s. But the that has become something akin to the Beatles of a generation ago true impetus was Title IX, when it comes to popularity the law signed by President among prepubescent girls. Nationally televised in prime Nixon in 1972 that guarantime, the two-day weekend event teed equal rights for women was completely sold out. The semifinal round brought out the in every aspect of educalargest crowd ever to see a college game-women's or men 'stion, including athletics. in Pennsylvania's history, as well as a record number of media. Looking back, Stringer, now a member of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, recalls that weekend as a major development. "To walk in and see that giant arena filled, to see the impact of the sport in Philadelphia and elsewhere, was something you never would have dreamed of in 1982," she said. Women's sports have changed dramatically on so many levels in recent decades. To be sure, there have been bumps in the road; one was the demise of the professional Women's United Soccer Association, the result of low revenue and sagging ticket sales. Yet despite such setbacks, the growth of women's sportsfrom youth programs to secondary school and university levels and on to professional leagues and competi-
tions-can only be described as phenomenal. Surely, tennis legends Althea Gibson and Billie Jean King never might have envisioned the success, worldwide recognition, and unprecedented earnings of today's women tennis stars like Serena and Venus Williams. Legendary golfer Babe Didrikson Zaharias could not have foreseen the explosion in popularity of women's golf, with its galaxy of international stars such as Annika Sorenstam of Sweden and Se Ri Pak of South Korea.
The Impetus 01Title IX The dramatic flood tide of talented women athletes onto American playing fields-and the opportunities that came along with them-no doubt benefited from the women's movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, with its emphasis on self-empowerment at every level. But the true impetus was Title IX, the landmark U.S. law signed by President Richard Nixon in 1972 that guaranteed equal rights for girls and women in every aspect of education, including athletics. As colleges and universities began to enforce the law, partnerships arose between women athletes and the many institutions that drive sports in the United States-among them the NCAA, the Olympics and television. Once the world of amateur athletics for women opened up, so, too, did the doorway to corporate America, which led to more and more sponsorship for professional women's sports. Many will debate whether Title IX has ever been properly or fully enforced, let alone realized to its fullest intent. Clearly football and men's basketball remain the towering forces on the nation's campuses. There's an argument, too, that Title IX fueled, rather than calmed, a gender war, with evidence that the enforcement of the law may have had a detrimental effect on men's sports; a 2002 U.S. General Accounting Office study found that 311 men's wrestling, swimming and tennis teams were eliminated from American inter-university sports programs between the years 1982 and 1999. Hot button issue or not, Title IX still stands. In July 2003, the U.S. Department of Education issued a report, based on a year-long review, in which it reaffirmed Title IX's existing compliance rules and regulations, with only slight changes in emphasis. Evidence of the determination across the United States to take Title IX seriously can be found in the November 2003 decision by a federal judge in Pennsylvania ordering a university in his jurisdiction to reinstate its women's gymnastics program. Because of budgetary shortfalls and a cut in state funding, West Chester University had eliminated the program in April 2003, along with the men's lacrosse team. But the men's squad was much larger; as a result, the court
found, the university did not meet its legal obligation to accommodate women athletes proportionately under Title IX. Gymnastics is part of the school's athletic landscape once more. Arguments as to the law's merits and tangential effects likely never will go away. It is a debate for the ages. What is not debatable is this: Title IX changed the sports landscape in America forever.
Women's Professional Basketball A stunning example is the professional Women's National Basketball Association. It exists with glitter and glamour that girls could not have imagined 30 years ago, in major-league cities and state-of-the-art arenas. Members of the two-time world champion Los Angeles Sparks, that city's women's team, garner as much "show time" as the men who play for the Lakers, the National Basketball Association (NBA) team that sponsors the Sparks. "When you walk into Madison Square Garden to see the New York Liberty, you take a step back and say, 'This is women's professional basketball!'" Stringer said of the New York's team entry. "There are just some trungs I could not have envisioned." As much as Title IX allowed for the trickle-up effect, it also unleashed a cascade of opportunity onto the playing fields where young girls now do more than merely observe or lead cheers. Statistics speak loudly: According to the Women's Sports Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group, before Title IX was enacted, only one in 27 girls participated in sports at the secondary school level. The foundation now puts that number at one in every three girls. And as the teenagers have moved on, so has their interest in sports. The latest Education Department statistics show that some 150,000 young women are involved in collegiate sports-five times the 32,000 who were estimated to have participated in inter-collegiate sports in 1972. There are undeniable success stories behind the myriad statistics. For instance, it was rowing-not basketball, soccer or softball-that first propelled women to an unprecedented status at the NCAA level. In January 1996, the NCAA elevated its women's rowing division to championship status, but did not do the same for the men. That decision meant not only that the NCAA agreed to fund the sport's national championship, but also that rowing-historically enjoying strong participation by both men and women-only has NCAA sanction and championship status for its women crews. Nikki Franke is living proof of the quieter successes that are telling in their lasting impact. Franke, a former Olympian and the longtime coach of the renowned fencing program at Temple University in . Philadelphia, traces the growth of her women's team
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Women:S National Ice Hockey team goaltender Erin Whitten (34) and other members of her team listen to the introduction of the Russian Women:S National Ice Hockey team in March 1997, at Lake Placid, New York, before the start of their second game. The American women won 13-0.
directly to Title IX. In 1972, the year Title IX went into effect, the school elevated fencing from the club level to a team sport for women. "There were no scholarships at the time, but they had a team," Franke said. "That's how it all started." Today, she observes, with all the status her squad has achieved, there are "walk-ons," young women with no history of competition at secondary school levels. And they are accepted, just as they are on men's teams. "If a lady wants to work hard and learn," Franke notes, "we will work with her."
Tiffeny Milbrett practices with the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team at Klockner Stadium in Charlottesville, Virginia, in June 2005.
Continuing Challenges But challenges remain. Gender remains an issue in coaching ranks. Wanting to be like the men in some ways has meant turning women's sports over to the men. Yes, Franke can point to an unending string of successes. She can also point to a lonely legacy. As of 2002, Franke was one of only three women serving as head coach of the top lO-ranked fencing teams. "I would like to see a lot more women involved, more coaches on all levels," said Stringer. "We need to encourage more women in that regard." The women's game in the United States also needs more women as consumers-to bring the full weight of their spending dollars to bear-particularly at a time when women have increased their presence geometrically as wage-earners in the United States. The downfall of the Women's United Soccer Association-with its stellar athletes-resulted from an inability to build corporate support and sponsorships at a time when the U.S. economy turned downward. Its demise was a bitter disappointment. "It's frustrating," said Lynn Morgan, a former soccer association executive, at the time of the association's folding. "You put in so much effort and so much investment but the needle moves so slowly. You see the potential, but you just can't make the quantum leap to get there." What is left, in professional league ranks, is the] 4team Women's National Basketball Association, in partnership with the men's National Basketball Association, supported passionately by the NBA commissioner David Stern. Yet it, too, must increase revenue, or it could suffer a similar fate.
Bevond the Field 01 Plav Countering these challenges, though, are other successes-just beyond the field of play itself. Sportswriters and sports broadcasters were once exclusively male. But no longer. Women now often handle the commentary and announcing for tennis and golf telecasts in the United States, and they also provide extensive color commentary on the sidelines at football路 and basketball games. They are not just window dressing, but serious sports journalists. For a while, in the 1970s and 1980s, women battled against great odds to be allowed into professional teams' locker rooms along with their male counterparts for post-game interviews. Double standards continued to exist. As Chris Beman, a broadcaster for the ESPN cable network, observed in the mid-1990s, he could mispronounce a name without any repercussions, but women who did the same would be in deep trouble. "Rightly or wrongly," he said, "some viewers might look at a
woman sportscaster as guilty until proven innocent, and the males are innocent until proven guilty." But gradually, the criticisms and double standards have eroded. When this reporter was physically forced out of the (professional baseball) San Diego Padres' locker room during the 1984 National League Championship Series, the response from varied-and very male-dominated-bastions was immensely medicinal, not to mention helpful. The Baseball Writers Association of America strenuously protested the Padres' policies to the office of the baseball commissioner-not because a woman had been evicted from the workplace, but because a baseball writer had. Within a month of taking over as baseball commissioner [in 1984], Peter Ueberroth opened professional baseball's doors to all officially credentialed reporters, regardless of gender, just as they previously had been opened in the NBA and National Hockey League. Eventually, the National Football League followed suit, putting an end to a struggle that had started long before
in the courts and in the dank hallways of Colorado Silver Bullets pitcher Lee Ann Ketcham opens for her stadi urns and arenas across the land. As momentous a decision as team against the men s Senior Ueberroth's was, I'll always remember Baseball League Team in most the action taken by the Padres' Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium first baseman, Steve Garvey, who fol- in Georgia in September 1994. The Silver Bullets lost 9-6. lowed me out of the locker room the day 1 was ejected to assure that 1 would have at least one interview for my report on the game. "1 will stay as long as you need," Garvey said in an attempt to calm the situation. "But you have to get yourself together. You have a job to do." Two days later, Garvey elaborated: "You had a job to do, and every right to do it." Garvey had summed up not only the struggle, but also the continuing reason to wage it. D About the Author: Claire Smith is assistant sports editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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housands of excited tennis lovers, parents and kids filled the grounds of the Delhi Lawn Tennis Association on December 3, 2005, to see the new face of tennis in India-which now includes young women stars. It was not a Davis Cup or Federation Cup match, but a tennis clinic conducted by Indian tennis sensation Sania Mirza, Indian-American player Shikha Uberoi, doubles grand slam ace Mahesh Bhupathi and former Wimbledon champion Richard Krajicek of the Netherlands. It was a rare opportunity for hundreds of kids to learn a few basic and technical skills of the game and chat with their favorites. "I wanted to use this opportunity and learn a few trademark forehand shots from Sania," said nine-year-old Sirnran
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Kaur Sethi, who has been playing for three years. "I met Sania in Delhi earlier, but I did not get a chance to play with her. I am excited today because I got the chanc~ to rally a few balls with Sania and Shikha, my idols," said Sirnran, who could hardly conceal her joy. "Every great champion goes through the process at some tennis clinic or the other during her or his formative years. It is important that players like Sania, who generates excitement and mass hysteria, have been part of the clinic," says Shikha. "Sania and I participated in a few such tennis clinics last year and the most significant point is that girls outnumbered boys at most of them. Girls are interested to take up tennis and a lot of them want to play at the competitive level. I feel satisfied if I am able to help and inspire a few kids at these clinics." Until last year, the power of women in Indian tennis was virtually unknown. But suddenly the country is dreaming of becoming a world tennis power one day. Sania and the Uberoi sisters (Shikha, 22, and Neha, 19) have competed well in the
world championships and the Grand Slam events. Though Shikha and Neha have had modest success on the international circuit, they enjoyed a spectacular run at the junior level in the United States. Shikha was born in Mumbai before her family moved to the United States, where Neha was born. Shikha joined the Indian Federation Cup team last year and provided a boost toward the team's second place finish in the Asia-Oceania zone. Neha is not far behind and hopes to don Indian colors for the Federation Cup if an opportunity arises. The sisters have been doubles partners in several tournaments, and they displayed the fighting spirit in the Sunfeast Open 2005 international women's tennis tournament in Calcutta in September, reaching the finals. Shikha, who began playing tennis at the age of six, sees a lot of talent, but a shortage of opportunity, in India. "To succeed at the international level, we have to do a lot of things, like catching them young at school. Unfortunately, many parents in India do not
Shikha Uberoi plays against Anastasia Myskina of Russia during their singles quarterfinal match at the Sunfeast WTA Open in Calcutta in September 2005. Myskina won 6-4,6-2.
Left:
Right: Neha (left) and sister Shikha hug their father, Mahesh Uberoi, to celebrate their victory in the Sunfeast tournament doubles semifinal in Calcutta. The Uberoi sisters won 7-6,1-6,6-3 against Melinda Czink of Hungary and Yuliana Fedak of Ukraine.
encourage their daughters to take part in sports and games. Sports are not normal in households yet; there may be a few exceptions. To make it more popular, obviously sports as a curriculum has to be introduced at the school level. Both schools and the government have to work in tandem to develop sports facilities and encourage kids to be competitive right from the beginning." Shikha tried other sports before deciding to play tennis. "My father, who used to play only recreationally, was my first coach. That's how it all started. Later, when I was about 12, I joined a professional tennis academy in New Jersey. And when I was about 18 our family shifted to Florida, where I got training at the world famous Harry Hopman Tennis Academy in Tampa. Because of intensive coaching and
tournaments. Also, the sponsorship and endorsement scenario is very bright and many players derive a benefit from it once they are in a winning rhythm." The U.S. Tennis Association conducts tournaments year-round, all over the country. "The difference of approach to ~ sports in the United States and India is that ~ it is being promoted at the grassroots level. ~ The national federations can only organize a; tournaments and encourage the top talent, rigorous fitness trammg I [was able to but the real nurturing should come from the play in] many tournaments at the school, local level," says Shikha. The challenges county and state level. When I was about for girls are greater in India as compared to 18 I had the great honor to play for the America, because of reasons connected U.S. national junior team," says Shikha. with family, school and society, she notes. She became the top junior women's "Depth in women's tennis in India has player from Florida and was among the increased over the years. We need to top five in the United States. inspire younger players to play the game The Uberoi sisters draw inspiration from and pick up from where Leander Paes and Amelican tennis stars Venus and Serena Mahesh Bhupathi left off," she says. "The Williams, who live about 50 kilometers whole school system is built around away in Florida. Shikha admires the academics. It does not give you any Williams sisters' competitive spirit. opportunity to have a creative mind either Shikha says sports has progressed in the in sports or music. I think that is the worst United States because every high school thing happening. It is hurting the kids so much by putting them under pressure." or middle school has a soccer, football, The power of women in tennis could be basketball or tennis team, for girls and boys. "Sports is advocated in the routine. realized if they have a goal, says Shikha. "It The competition was very tough as there is really important to have a goal, combined were a lot of players, and this helped us with self-belief, which will help them to get stronger to compete in international .come out stronger in all situations." D
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Real-world entertainment is offered by Discovery Channel and its subsidiaries through programs about people, places and wildlife.
ushagr is five years old. Like most children of his age, he loves watching animated cartoons every day. While surfing channels between commercial breaks, his fingers often stop when he sees images of a space shuttle taking off or a submarine diving or a giant crocodile with its jaws open. He enjoys watching kids fiddling with mechanical gadgets or playing with electronic pets and mini robots. He picks up sounds and commentary in Hindi and is often mesmerized by visuals that are quite different from what he sees on the channels watched by other family members. Then comes a barrage of questions to his father or elder sibling. It is people like Kushagr and his family, who have gotten
hooked on a different kind of television programming in India, pioneered by the Discovery Channel 10 years ago. In its formative years in India, the channel was often linked with wildlife programming and children's educational shows. Since then it has developed into a general interest channel for viewers of all ages and diverse interests, and competes with mainstream infotainment channels. India is one of the world's most vibrant television markets with nearly 300 cable, satellite and terrestrial channels in about two dozen languages. Nearly 20 satellites beam in television programming. There are more than 100 million television homes and more than 60 million of them receive TV through cable or satellite. Discovery added a new niche to the Indian market, what it calls real-world programming, not to be confused with science or education programming. It covers a broad spectrum of subjects-science, technology, medicine, engineering, health, environment, wildlife, adventure, culture and traditions, agriculture, cinema, fqshion, sex, and so on. "Discovery Channel's success in creating a new genre of television in India, real-world entertainment, has encouraged the launch of many channels in India," says Deepak Shourie, managing director of Discovery Networks India, a subsidiary of the U.S.-based Discovery Networks International. Since its launch in the United States in 1985, Discovery has spread to 160 countries. It offers 13 international brands, reaching 665 million subscribers. In India, another major competitor is National Geographic Channel, but Discovery says it also competes with channels beyond this segment. Says Shourie: "The presence of more channels in the space has only helped grow the market. In fact, our current competition is more with the English movie and news channels." Prior to Discovery, programs on science and technology, medicine or environment were rarely seen on Indian television. Such themes were usually categorized as educational and produced in rather unimaginative style and broadcast on the government-run network, Doordarshan. They rarely attracted advertisers and were thus financially unviable for private producers. Discovery, with its international experience and gripping production style, changed this. Educational themes became entertaining and began getting commercial sponsors-
vital for any channel to survive. "The programming relating to science and technology, health and environment on Indian television is pathetic. This is despite the proliferation of channels, including round-the-clock news channels, where there is so much scope for such coverage," says N. Bhaskar Rao, director of the Centre for Media Studies in New Delhi. "Our research has shown that hardly two percent of space in news bulletins is devoted to anything which could fall in the category of science and technology. Discovery certainly offers an option, an impressive choice." Rao says that is the reason Discovery has been able to sustain its position in a "market driven competitive scenario." Today, Discovery reaches 32 million subscribers in India, roughly half of the cable and satellite homes. Animal Planet reaches 22 million homes, the channel's officials say. Almost all top television advertisers sell their brands on Discovery Channel. Big contributing factors to this success are customized programming in Hindi and a dose of India-specific themes. The channel decided to localize its content early. It started a Hindi feed with programs dubbed from English in 1998, to attract viewership in smaller cities and towns. In addition, its "Discover India" series projected different aspects of traditional and modern India, successful Indians in various walks of life and advances in science and the arts. The idea of the series is to let Indians get a glimpse of their country from a global perspective. Discovery's English feed also continues to be available to Indian viewers. "The Hindi feed has helped us reach millions of viewers across India," says Raja Balasubramanian, brand director at Discovery
India. The local content has been mostly acquired from independent producers, both Indian and international. Now the channel has started commissioning local production houses to produce India-centric programs. Some of these will be shown in Discovery Channel's other markets as well. The next logical extension of the India strategy would seem to be further customizing in other Indian languages, but the channel is not ready for it yet. "The costs of dubbing and technical reasons do not pennit more language feeds. There is no plan for any other regional languages at the moment:' Balasubramanian says. Along with India-specific content and the Hindi feed, Discovery followed a different path to market the channel among advertisers and distribute it nationwide. "We introduced the timeband strategy, keeping in mind viewers' diverse media consumption habits," points out Shourie, who had worked with leading Indian print and television corporations. Shrugging off its image as "a documentary and wildlife channel," it created new bands of programming such as Sunrise, Women's Hour, Discovery Kids, Late Night Discovery, targeting specific viewer groups. The move paid dividends almost immediately, with the channel's viewership increasing manifold. It also helped advertisers, allowing them to reach out to a welldefined consumer segment more efficiently, says Shourie. Yet another contributing factor for the rise of Discovery in India is its distribution strategy. In a cable and satellite distribution market with several players and local distribution channels, selection of the right partner is a must for any channel. For nationwide distribution, Discovery entered into a partnership with Sony Entertainment Television India. This platform is known as One Alliance. It distributes channels of Sony, Discovery and NDTV, besides AXN, Animax, SAB TV and Ten
Clockwisefrom far left: Globe Trekker host Ian Wright; a Discovery Travel & Living program;,and a history show on the Sphinx,
Sports, This distribution partnership substantially helped Discovery reach the present level of viewership, say channel officials. Animal Planet was launched in India in 1999, overlapping Discovery's programs on wildlife. But Discovery officials say there is a difference. "Discovery presents real-world entertainment and covers genres like history, science, adventure, engineering, mystery, etc., while Animal Planet is completely dedicated to people's fascination with animals," explains Balasubramanian. The company plans to market Animal Planet aggressively this year. The latest member of the Discovery family in India is Travel & Living, which was launched in October 2004. It is aimed at the so-called global Indian. Its programming mix includes travel, cuisine, design, decor and fashion. The channel has commissioned two India-specific series, as viewer demand for Indian content is rising, in India and abroad. The series-on Indian cities and food-will air this year. "Discovery has been a successful pioneer. National Geographic Channel and the History Channel which followed had the market opened for them by Discovery," says Sevanti Ninan, me,dia critic and editor of the media portal thehoot.org. "Its blend of Indianization and mainstream international content has worked well, made non-fiction programming popular and created a formula that other international non-fiction channels can copy." While the Hindi feed and local programming has helped Discovery attract new audiences, some feel that the channel at times reinforces stereotyped images of India with extensive coverage of tantrics, witches and the supernatural. The quality of Hindi translation~it is too literal-and the level of knowledge required to grasp science and technology programs also are points of criticism. "Their science and technology programs are excellent, but they are targeted more at elite audiences with a certain level of education and prior knowledge," says Subodh Mahanti, a scientist with Vigyan Prasar, a science popularization arm of the government's Department of Science and Technology. In fact, localization of content has been the cornerstone of success for satellite television in India as well as South Asia. As David Page and William Crawley pointed out in their book Satellites over South AsJa: Broadcasting, Culture and the Public Interest: "The satellite revolution enables the international media to speak to the English~knowing middle class in one language and the greater Indian middle class in others. The fact that these audiences watch programs in different languages does not prevent them from being targeted with similar products and lifestyles." 0 About the Author: Dinesh C!c Sharma is a science and environment journalist based in New Delhi. He contributes regularly to News.com (U.S.) and The Lancet (U.K.).
Can left-brained scientists be trained to be right-brained filmmakers? Montana State University's Science and Natural History Filmmaking program thinks it has the answer.
he location of the only science and natural history film school in the United States seems unlikely: After all, the peaks and prairies of Montana are far from the cutting-edge scientific laboratories of the country's East Coast Ivy League schools or the preeminent film schools of New York and Los Angeles. Yet, at closer focus, Montana State UniversityBozeman makes perfect sense. "If you want to use the outdoors as a classroom, where better than Montana?" says Ronald Tobias, founder and director of the Science and Natural History Filmmaking Program in the Department of Media and Theater Arts. The state, along America's border with Canada, remains one of the most rural in the country, complete with full buffalo herds and a high-profile Native American population. The sprawling old Western town of Bozeman is about 130 kilometers north of Yellowstone National Park and some five hours southeast of Glacier National Park, two of the finest repositories of wilderness and wildlife in the world. Buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, mountain goats, Bighorn sheep, Grizzly and black bear, mountain lion, wolf and coyote can be seen within park boundaries, not to mention a multitude of birds in the skies above and other critters foraging below.
But the flora and fauna don't stop there. The entire Northern Rocky Mountain Range, which effectively connects the two parks, teems with natural wonders waiting to be studied and filmed. As a result, the environment and location wasn't the worry for this first-of-its-kind film school. Instead, the concern was much more fundamental. "We had one question to ask," says Tobias, an accomplished director and producer of nature films for the Discovery Channel. "Can you really make scientists into filmmakers?"
Evolution, on Film Once the signature of the famous oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, scientific films have, traditionally, been expository in nature, featuring what Tobias calls the "God narrative." A voice tells viewers what they are seeing: "This is the way it is, so shut up and listen to God tell you the facts." Part of this tradition is that scientists have generally used film to state a thesis and then support it with visual evidence, ignoring the actual art of filmmaking. "If you gave a quiz after a traditional scientific film," Tobias suggests, "most of the audience would flunk. But they could easily state two or three ideas. The problem is that scientific film has been
based on fact, not ideas." This has raised what Tobias calls the "left brain-right brain debate," refening to conventional wisdom that says scientific thought is a product of the left side of the brain (meticulous and calculating in nature), whereas flimmakers are thought to be right-brained (creative and artistic). The difference between the two disciplines has always created an uneasy relationship. "Scientists have had blinders on and only know one way of making films," Tobias says. "They simply don't understand the complexity of film and how to use it. Vice-versa, filmmakers have ignored science and natural history since the camera was invented because they don't have scientific backgrounds and don't understand the right questions to ask. This program is finding ways to bridge the gap between the two and create a solution: Take scientists and train them to be filmmakers." The three-year program requires students to have at least a minor in science. But judging from emollment, the 60 students here have far surpassed that requirement. Of all the students, 60 percent have a bachelor's degree and 40 percent have advanced degrees in the sciences, including one medical doctor. Applicants have streamed in from
Harvard, Yale and Princeton, as well as formidable state universities such as the University of Texas and the University of Washington. The program also looks for international students to bring a diversity of backgrounds, which Tobias sees as a healthy attribute for a cross-disciplinary program. Indeed, Praveen Singh won an Emmy in the student category for Killing Fields, his film on his native India's man-eating leopards. Other students from Korea, Tanzania, England, Scotland and Australia have also brought unique experiences to the program.
CaPluring life But not all of these prospective filmmakers come from the hard sciences. The program gladly accepts applications from those holding degrees in the social sciences, which has been a boon for a lawyer like Kelly Matheson. "My background is in public interest! environmental law," Matheson says of her former professional life. "But I saw the power of the media and wanted to use film to advocate for the environment." Matheson didn't have to wait until she graduated to use film to those ends. After the first year of classroom work, she went to Costa Rica as part of the
second year production practicum to film an indigenous festival called the Play of the Little Devils. This was more than a cultural experience. It was also political. "The festival celebrates the Brugan tribe's fight against outsiders dating back to the time of the conquistadors," or Spanish conquerors, Matheson says. "It is still relevant to this day, as the fight is now against the proposed construction of a hydroelectric dam which would destroy much of their cultural lands." Though it is still too early to tell, it looks as if her film and the festival were a success in deterring the building of the dam. But success isn't a surprise for the students and graduates of the program: In recent years, students' work has appeared on CBS and CNN news broadcasts, 60 Minutes, Larry King Live, and the National Geographic and Discovery channels. For Tobias, he's found an answer as to whether his program can make scientists, of either the social or natural ilk, into filmmakers: "They make very good filmmakers." 0 About the Author: John Byorth is a professional writer living in Bozeman, Montana, and contributor to Hooked on the Outdoors, Skiing and The Drake.
ick Herbst, now attending Yale Law School, may yet turn out to be the current decade's archetypal film major. Now 23, he graduated in 2004 from the University of Notre Dame, where he studied filmmaking with no intention of becoming a filmmaker. Rather, he saw his major as a way to learn about power structures and how individuals influence each other. "People endowed with social power and prestige are able to use film and media images to reinforce their power. We need to look to film to grant power to those who are marginalized or currently not represented," said Herbst, who envisions a future in the public policy arena. The communal nature of film, he said, has a distinct power to affect large groups, and he expects to use his cinematic skills to do exactly that. At a time when street gangs warn informers with DVD productions about the fate of "snitches," and both terrorists and their adversaries routinely communicate in elaborately staged videos, it is not altogether surprising that film school-promoted as a shot at an entertainment industry job-is beginning to attract those who believe that cinema isn't so much a profession as' the professional language of the future. Some 600 colleges and universities in
Some film school students are no longer learning cinema arts as an entree to Hollywood, but as the foundation for other careers.
the United States offer programs in film studies or related subjects, a number that has grown steadily over the years, even while professional employment opportunities in the film business remain minuscule. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are only about 15,050 jobs for film producers or directors, which means just a few hundred openings, at best, each year. Given the gap between aspiration and opportunity, film education has often turned out to be little more than an expensive detour on the road to doing something else. Thus, Aaron Bell, who graduated as a film major from the University of Wisconsin in 1988, struggled through years of uninspiring nonunion work managing crews on commercials, television pilots and the occasional feature before landing his noncinematic job designing advertising for Modern Luxury Media LLC, a Chicago-based magazine publisher. "You sort of have this illusion coming out of film school that you'll work into this small circle of creatives, but you're actually more pigeonholed as a technician," said Bell. For some next-generation students, however, the shot at a Hollywood job is no longer the goal. They'd rather make cinematic technique-newly democratized by digital equipment that reduces
the cost of a picture to a few thousand dollars and renders the very word "film" an anachronism-the bedrock of careers as far afield as law and the military. At the University of Southern California (USe), whose School of Cinema- Television is America's oldest film school (established in 1929), fully half of the university's 16,500 undergraduate students take at least one cinema/television class. That is possible because Elizabeth Daley, the school's dean, opened its classes to the university at large in 1998, in keeping with a new philosophy that says, in effect, filmic skills are too valuable to be confined to movie world professionals. "The greatest digital divide is between those who can read and write with media, and those who can't," Daley said. "Our core knowledge needs to belong to everybody." In fact, even some who first enrolled in USe's film school to take advantage of its widely acknowledged position as a prime portal to Hollywood have begun to view their cinematic skills as a new form of literacy. One such is David Hendrie, who came to USC in 1996 after a stint in the military intending to become a filmmaker, but-even after having had producer/director Robert Zemeckis as a mentor-found himself drawn to the school's Institute for Creative Technologies (lCT), where he creates military training applications in a variety of virtual
reality, gaming and filmic formats. One film he developed was privately screened for directors John Milius and Steven Spielberg, who wanted to understand the military's vision of the future. "That was like a film student's dream," said Hendrie, who nonetheless believes he has already outgrown anything he was likely to accomplish on the studio circuit. "I found myself increasingly demoralized by my experiences trying to pitch myself as a director for films like Dude, Where s My Car?" Hendrie said. "What I'm doing here at ICT speaks to the other interests I've always had, and in the end excited my passion more." Recently, members of a Baltimore street gang circulated a DVD that warned against betrayal, packaged in a cover that appeared to show three dead bodies. That and the series of gruesome execution videos that have surfaced in the Middle East are perhaps only the most extreme face of a complex sort of post-literacy in which cinematic visuals and filmic narrative have become commonplace.
"a soup kitchen approach," Herbst said. "You're offered something to eat, but there are no vitamins." Bringing film directly into politics, he expects to throw objectivity out the window and change minds-perhaps not an unrealistic aim at a time when, in a bit of what a headline in The Wall Street Journal characterized as "film noir," the Edward D. Jones & Company brokerage has entered the fray over the proposed social security system overhaul with a highly produced video. To some extent, such broadening vision is already helping to make economic sense of film education, which in the past was often a long path to nowhere. "Most find their way, and the skills they learn from us are applicable to other careers and pursuits," Dale Pollock, dean of the School of Filmmaking at the North Carolina School of the Arts, said of his students. "So we're not wasting their time or money." Daley at USC argues that to generalize such skills has become integral to the film school's mission. More than 60 academic courses at USC now require In the public policy arena, students to create term papers and meanwhile, students like Yale's Herbst projects that use video, sound and Internet components-and for Daley, it's hope to heighten political debate with productions far more pointed than the . not enough. "If I had my way, our literacy honors program most political feature film. Even a multimedia picture like Hotel Rwanda, with its would be required of every student in the unblinking look at African genocide, is university," she said. 0
AChangeol Heart Today, the prevention of heart disease seems like pure common sense, but it wasn't always so obvious. Sixty years ago, America's top cardiologists didn't have a clue about how to save the life of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. His death was one in a growing epidemic of cardiovascular disease that spurred researchers to find answers. In 1948, the Framingham Heart Study was launched, and the lives and deaths of 5,209 volunteers from Framingham, Massachusetts, taught the rest of the world just which behaviors and genetic traits put them at risk. The study continues into its sixth decade, now enrolling the grandchildren of the first volunteers. With three generations of DNA available to researchers, along with meticulous medical records, it offers a wealth of data to explore the genetic roots of heart disease and its risk factors: high blood pressure, high bad cholesterol, low good cholesterol, smoking, diabetes and obesity. Dr. Daniel Levy is a cardiologist specializing in prevention, a faculty member at Boston University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School, and director of the Framingham Heart Study. Susan Brink is a senior writer at U.S. News. Their book, A Change of Heart: How the People of Framingham, Massachusetts, Helped Unravel the Mysteries of Cardiovascular Disease, begins with an eye-opening reminder of just how far we've come.
was t April 12, 1945, and the country was heart-broken. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States, died suddenly in what had come to be known as the "Little White House," a cottage in the woods of Pine Mountain near Warm Springs, Georgia. The public was unprepared for his death, though for many months his doctors knew that he was gravely ill. In keeping with the culture of the times, his personal physicians hid the grim reality of the President's failing health from the press, from the public, from his family-even from FDR himself. A casualty of an as yet unrecognized epidemic, the leader of the free world slipped away. Roosevelt, his doctors and the media had colluded to portray him as the picture of health. Long before he was elected President, in the summer of 1921 when he was 39 years old, he had fallen victim to another epidemic. Polio rendered his legs nearly useless. His walk was seldom photographed, nor was the wheelchair on which he often depended.
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Strong and steady Rumors that Roosevelt was in poor health circulated during his first run for President. The country was in the throes of the Great Depression. America was mired in despair, and Roosevelt needed to prove that he was strong and steady. To still the gossip, he released his medical records in 1931. His blood pressure was 140/l00-the 140 systolic only marginally hypertensive but the 100 diastolic a bad omen. Even the most brilliant medical minds of the time possessed neither the knowledge to recognize the gravity of From A Change oJHeart by Daniel Levy, M.D., and Susan Brink. Published by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House Inc.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt (center) with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (left) and Russian premier Joseph Stalin at Yalta in 1945 during World War II. Roosevelt died a few months latel:
his [heart] disease nor the tools to treat it. Shortly after assuming the presidency in 1933, Roosevelt selected Navy Admiral Ross McIntire as his personal physician. McIntire was an ear, nose and throat specialist whose main concern would be the President's head colds and sinus problems. Roosevel t took the helm of the nation at a time that would have taxed the hardiest of souls. America was then home to be. tween 13 million and 15 million unem-
ployed workers. A couple of million of them created a whole class of homeless migrants. They left behind dust-ravaged farms and boarded-up factories to wander the country in search of work. The plight of a stricken populace surely took its toll on their leader during his first term. "I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago ... .! see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished," he said in his second inaugural address. As the strain registered in medically measurable form, McIntire hardly made note of the rise in the President's blood pressure. It was 169/98 in 1937 as
Roosevelt began his second term. From then on, it would fluctuate but remain abnormally high. His vital numbers rose to 188/105 in 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Still, as is typical, he had no outward symptoms of hypertension. Roosevelt launched a nationwide war effort, committing more than 16 million U.S. troops to the Allied cause in World War II. By the time American soldiers landed in Normandy in June 1944, his blood pressure was 226/118-a lifethreatening level. The limited medical technology of the day, electrocardiograms and chest X-rays, showed a damaged, enlarged heart. Still, no one told FDR the bad news, nor did he ask. Roosevelt was absent from the White House for nine weeks during the first five months of 1944. In those days, he would go to Wmm Springs, an impoverished farm community 130 kilometers southwest of Atlanta, for an "off the record" absence from duties. In an era when the media grant no mercy in exposing the secrets of public officials, it is difficult to fathom that back then journalists would comply with and help promote such a public deception. McIntire insisted that the President's health was good, that Roosevelt's blood pressure was normal for a man his age. In his treatment notes of April 1944, when the President's blood pressure was 210/120, McIntire wrote, "A moderate degree of arteriosclerosis, although no more than normal for a man of his age." There is hardly an American today who doesn't know enough to shudder at the President's vital numbers. Careful listeners to his radio fireside chats might have noticed, certainly by 1944, an audible short-windedness that probably reflected some degree of congestive heart failure. And his family was becoming increas-
ingly alarmed. Indeed, by early 1944, [First Lady] Eleanor Roosevelt was ready to reject McIntire's diagnosis and ask for a second opinion, and in March the President went to Bethesda Naval Hospital for a thorough examination. There, a young cardiologist, Howard Bruenn, pronounced the President desperately ill. But McIntire carefully controlled the disclosure of all medical information and believed Bruenn's view of FDR's health would disturb the President and his family.
Dueling memories Historians speculate that as Roosevelt's cardiac problems became more apparent, McIntire grew more determined to hide the reality that he had overlooked or concealed for so long. Years later, in a 1970 article called "Clinical Notes on the Illness and Death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt," Bruenn wrote about the frustration of treating FDR. His account of the examinations and treatments of the President was the first medical data made available apart from McIntire's memoirs. Bruenn's account contrasted sharply with the self-serving recollections of McIntire, and Bruenn concluded by saying, "I have often wondered what tum the subsequent course of history might have taken if the modern methods for the control of hypertension had been available." The President's original medical chart vanished immediately after his death, and the most reliable enduring record of his health during his presidency is the note-
book that Bruenn kept. Bruenn persisted in speaking his mind, calling in other experts, and eventually he prevailed over McIntire. But even with focused concem, Bruenn was virtually powerless to control FDR's severe hypertension. Roosevelt began taking digitalis, the only drug available for treatment of heart failure. At the very end of his life, he was prescribed phenobarbital, a sedative, which doctors at the time hoped would lower blood pressure. It proved ineffective. Lifestyle alterations for Roosevelt included a recommendation that he cut back on cigarettes from 20 a day to 10, but Bruenn was frustrated in his attempts to convince the President of the importance of it. Few doctors at the time considered tobacco a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, and Bruenn's concern about FDR's smoking was probably aimed at providing relief from a chronic cough and respiratory problems. For the next few months, the President rallied publicly. With his country and millions of its troops depending on his strength of command, he felt he could not quit in the middle of war, and he decided to run once again for re-election. In 1944, the year before his death, Roosevelt's blood pressure numbers read like a recipe for disaster: March 27, 186/108; April 1, 200/108; November 18, 2101112; November 27, 260/150. And yet, during those months, he traveled to Hawaii to confer with top [military] brass. He went to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He traveled to Alaska and to
Washington state. He met with Winston Churchill in Canada. He may have suffered an attack of angina as he delivered his final inaugural speech on January 20, 1945. He conveyed a message of hope, but the world was at the height of war, and the ceremony was solemn. The expense of a show of festivity would have been inappropriate, and the oath of office was taken quietly on the South Portico of the White House. The impropriety of public celebration, ironically, served Roosevelt's failing health. The address-about 500 wordswas by far his shortest inaugural speech. It was to be the last time the public would see him standing. As he departed for the Black Sea port of Yalta in early February to determine the destiny of Europe, Roosevelt looked gravely ill. While there, his blood pressure was 260/150, a level we now call malignant hypertension. Americans were ready to believe what they wanted to believe: that Roosevelt was healthy. But severe blood pressure elevation such as he was experiencing can cause chest pain, as well as congestive heart failure, kidney failure, deteriorating mental function, and stroke. It represents a medical emergency. In that condition, the President undertook an arduous 22,500-kilometer round trip and spent a week orchestrating the final strategy for victory in Europe. He returned exhausted from his pivotal meeting with Joseph Stalin and Churchill in Yalta. As
the war raged on, the commander in chief involved himself in discussions about a new weapon nearing readiness-the atomic bomb. He headed to his Georgia sanctuary at the end of March for two weeks of rest. Those who saw him during his last days were shocked at how aged he looked. He was down seven kilograms from his normal range of 83 to 85. Suffering from orthopnea, a telltale sign of congestive heart failure, he had trouble breathing when lying down, and for months had been sleeping with lO-centimeter blocks of wood propping the head of the bed. The agent at the Warm Springs railroad station, C.A. Pless, accustomed to greeting a smiling, waving man who could never resist the crowd, said later, "The President was the worst-looking man I ever saw who was still alive." On the morning of April 12, Roosevelt donned a dark-gray suit, matching vest and red tie to pose for a watercolor portrait by Elizabeth Shoumatoff. As the artist painted, he signed papers. Roosevelt lit a cigarette, raised his left hand to his temple, and then seemed to squeeze his forehead. As he reached for the back of his neck, he said, "I have a terrific headache." Then he lost consciousness. An excruciating headache is a classic symptom of a brain hemorrhage, a catastrophic form of stroke caused by a ruptured blood vessel in the brain. Bruenn was summoned and within minutes took his patient's blood pressure. The numbers, an unsustainable 300/190, went well beyond an indication of danger. They were evidence that the tragedy had already occurred. Two hours later, at 3:45 p.m., the President was dead. Although no autopsy was performed, the cause of death certainly was a massive stroke. FDR's unexpected demise undoubtedly fed the public belief that cardiovascular disease strikes quickly and without warning. During his four terms as President, he progressed from garden-variety high blood pressure to
malignant hypertension-something almost never seen anymore. He suffered from heart failure and died of a brain hemorrhage, without receiving any effective treatment for his hypertension-because none existed. Roosevelt died in his prime, at 63, within sight of the war victory he helped forge and the peace he had hoped to underwrite. When Roosevelt died, doctors had little more than folk wisdom at their disposal to control blood pressure. To look at the picture of cardiovascular ignorance just six decades ago is startling. Heart disease, the most common form of cardiovascular disease, was so ubiquitous that it was considered an inevitable consequence of aging. Life expectancy, which should have soared following the introduction of antibiotics and vaccines, was held back by heart disease and stroke. No one had a clue about the source of the destructive power of these diseases or what to do about them. Roosevelt became a symbol of the vast uncharted tenitory of cardiovascular medicine. In the postwar years, his death would serve as a wake-up call, shocking Americans and uniting scientists and politicians behind a massive research effort. Following Roosevelt's death and World War II, America's scientists persuaded President Harry S Truman to make medical research a national priority. In 1948, Congress created the National Heart Institute. That same year, the Framingham Heart Study began. Since then, deaths from heart disease have declined by 60 percent and from stroke by 70 percent, because of advances in treatment and prevention. Still, about two-thirds of people with high blood pressure either don't know it or don't have it under adequate control. The numbers are even worse for cholesterol control. About one in four American adults still smokes, and obesity is a growing problem. We have come a long way since Roosevelt's death, but we have a long way to go. D
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YOUR HEART onesome on Valentine's Day? Give yourself a heartening party. Literally. Make your heart happier and healthier with chocolates and a glass of red wine. Once taboo, chocolate has proved itself the Maya "food of the gods." Contrary to medical myths, scientists now know that chocolate contains polyp henols. These chemicals do double duty: They lower your bad cholesterol and raise the good stuff. What's more, chemistry professor Joe Vinson of the University of Scranton has shown that the stearic and oleic acids in chocolate "lower the risk of heart complications by 20 percent." Dark chocolate is also a tough cancer fighter. Rich in "high quality" antioxidants, it is as potent a cancer beater as broccoli (you make the choice). Bursting with vitamins C and E, magnesium and phosphorus, chocolate has become a must-for your heart, of course. So buy a box for yourself-and another to share with somebody else. And wash it down with a glass of red wine, with all its resveratrol, that other antioxidant that researchers claim protects you against blood clots and memory loss. -Nancy Yanes-Hoffman
VAlENTINE'S DAY in the United States
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elebrated as an unofficial, fun day by Americans-who share chocolates, gifts, cards, sentimental messages and heart-shaped trinkets-Valentine's Day has an odd mixture of origins from Roman legend and the early history of the Catholic Church. The commemoration of Saint Valentine was brought to America by immigrants from Europe. One story is that Valentine, a third century Christian imprisoned by the Romans because of his beliefs, cured the jailer's daughter of blindness; and the night before his execution, on February 14, sent her a farewell
letter, signed, "From your Valentine." February 14 was also a Roman holiday, held in honor of Venus, the goddess of love. The custom of choosing a sweetheart to escort to the festivities spread from Rome throughout Europe and eventually to the American colonies. Cupid, the winged baby with the bow and arrow who appears on Valentine's Day cards, was the child of Venus, the Romans believed. He fired his arrow into people's hearts and sparked romance. Greeting card companies, candy makers, flower sellers, restaurants and gift stores
help drive the celebration of Valentine's Day in the United States today. It's a time to show friends or loved ones they are special. Most couples commemorate the day with a candlelit dinner, an exchange of gifts and cards, or just by taking a moment to say, "I love you." Children enjoy tiny heart-shaped candies and make their own cards out of colored paper, with the common greeting, "From your Valentine." These are usually given to their mothers, who attach them to the refrigerator door as a yearlong reminder of love. -L.K.L.
'1jJH JjilJJtHi JjlJJJlJJJlJJ lJJJJ By BERNADINE HEALY
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heart attack in your sleep at age 99 is not a bad way to go. And that's likely to be your medical fate if you've made it into ripe old age. Such is not the case for the younger crowd. Last year we learned that cancer has become the NO.1 killer of Americans under the age of 85, an exit that most would see as decidedly less appealing. This shift in how Americans die is the result of 40 years of steadily plummeting rates of fatal heart attacks, in the face of only small declines in cancer-related deaths. There is good reason for this development. Success in combating heart disease is three-pronged: early diagnosis, targeted treatment and aggressive control of risk factors. Diagnosis comes easy: The heart cries out in pain when it's losing oxygen, pounds the chest when it skips a few beats, and then gives up its secrets to a spaghetti-size coronary catheter. Arterial blockages can be corrected in a flash with a bypass or a stent, lengthening life. And heart risk factors, spelied out 50 years ago by the Framingham Heart Study, have taken hold of the public mind with great results: Smoking rates have been cut in half, and our national blood pressure and cholesterol levels have fallen with the help of new and better drugs. What has kept cancer from galloping through our population over this same time is the growing expertise in searching out the disease before it takes hold or spreads through the body. Cervical cancer would be a big killer of American women, as it is in many parts of the world, if we did not use Pap tests to screen for the disease in its earliest form. Mammograms can pick up early breast cancers even before they are seen or felt, and with a simple blood test, PSA levels can signal prostate cancer when it is well confined within the gland's capsule. Colonoscopies let doctors snip out precancerous polyps as soon as they are spotted. Together, these four cancers (cervix, breast, prostate and colon) made up almost half of the 1.4 million new invasive cancers in 2005. They have a combined five-year survival rate of 84 percent. If these same tumors were discovered by routine screens and confined locally, average survival would move up to 95 percent. Were this the norm for all tumors, cancer deaths would be dropping like a rock. But the grim story is told by the other half of the new can-
cers, most of which are vastly more difficult to pick up early, such as cancers of the pancreas, esophagus, liver and lung. These four have five-year survival rates of 15 percent or less. This disparity speaks to the fact that cancer is both sneaky and inexplicably virulent in many of its forms. With its nasty designs lying deep within the nucleus of the cell, it silently and gradually rewrites a patient's own genetic code. And decoding cancer's many DNA mistakes demands the kind of genomics technology that simply was not available even a few years ago. Without this technology, treatments fly blind, with a trial-anderror approach that focuses on a cancer's chief attribute of relentless growth. This often works and has saved many lives, but not reliably so, and it invariably takes a toll on healthy cells, too. The good news is that we are beginning to translate the vast and dizzying array of malfunctioning DNA tumor profiles into new and targeted therapies. That brings us to the wisdom of Framingham. Except for tobacco use, can healthy people figure out and reduce their risk of cancer? The answer is: That's not so easy In February 2005, the government's National Toxicology Program updated its congressionally mandated list of human carcinogens, a list now at 246 that is by no means inclusive. It cites female hormones but not testosterone; many life-saving med7 ications, which are not exactly optional; sunlight; alcoholic beverages in almost any flavor or dose; and a slew of chemicals at home or work. New additions last year include medical and dental X-rays, chemicals formed during high-temperature cooking of meats and eggs, and the widely circulating pathogens hepatitis Band C and 11 forms of the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus. Though the list is a composite of everyday dangers, it's hard for any individual to know how to modify them-short of getting to a sackcloth-and-ashes nunnery. (Oops, forget that; ashes are on the list too.) There is much to do before cancer relinquishes its new title of disease-in-chief-but we know it can be done. 0
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INDIA'S
KILLER DISEASES ~ Figures don't tell the whole stOry
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he 2002 data below from the World Health Organization, based on figures from the Government of India, would seem to indicate that heart disease is the most common killer of Indians, just as it was for Americans in the 1950s and '60s. Indeed, deaths from heart disease among urban Indians are on the rise, as better access to clean water, more healthy food and faster treatment allows city-dwellers to avoid contracting, or to live through, diseases that once would have killed them, The figures don't tell the whole story, however, because they are necessarily based primarily on deaths in hospitals or under a doctor's care, That is not the scenario for most Indians, 73 percent of them rural. They don't die in hospitals, where the cause of death can be properly checked and recorded, Heart disease is actually rare among rural Indians, though cancer is common, caused from smoking, breathing others' smoke or breathing smoke from coal fires in confined places. The latest Ministry of Health estimates are that 30 percent of Indians die of non-infectious diseases, such as cardiovascular problems, diabetes or accidents. However, the full toll from some diseases-AIDS, for example-simply cannot be accurately ascertained in a nation of 1.3 billion population. India has about 9.5 million deaths a year, or about one-sixth of deaths worldwide, according to a research article in the February 2006 edition of Public Library of Science Medicine. It says more than three-quarters of deaths in India occur in the home and more than half of these do not have a certified cause. Indians die at a younger age than Americans on average, a statistic driven by the high number of deaths in infancy and childhood. Two-thirds of Indians who die of infectious diseases are children. Lower respiratory infections take another 11 percent of Indians, twothirds of them children. And seven percent of Indians die at birth. -L.K.L.
Most Common Causes 01
Death in India 2002
(in %)
Cardiovascular diseases Infectious and parasitic diseases Including: Tuberculosis HIV/AIDS Diarrheal Meningitis Childhood cluster diseases
27 20
Respiratory infections Unintentional injuries Perinatal Conditions Cancer Respiratory diseases Digestive diseases Intentional injuries
11 8 7 7 6 3 3
4 3 4 1 5
iJJ lJJ lJ1JJJJ Raymond N. Bickson
Bringing a Global I View to the Hotel Industry 1 a:
By LAURINDA KEYS LONG
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aymond N. Bickson didn't know much about India as a child growing up in Hawaii, but is now having "the adventure of a lifetime" as well as the biggest challenge of his career as managing director of Taj Hotels, Resorts and Palaces. He joined the Taj board in 2003, after IS years as general manager of The Mark hotel in New York City. "I knew about Taj as a hotel company with excellent, historic, five-star properties," he says. But he was unaware, before taking up his position, of the legend behind the Taj group: that industrialist J.N. Tata is said to have built the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay in 1903 as a luxury establishment where Indians could stay, after Tata had been denied entry to a Europeans-only hotel in the city. "I fully grasp the history of what this means to the pride of the Indian people," says Bickson, whose own background has added to that understanding. Referring to his home state, the last one to join the American union, Bickson notes, "The Hawaiians were a people who certainly know what it is like to be under the thumb of more powerful invaders and who know about discrimination based on color. So when I discovered the Taj history, I was filled with pride to be playing a small role in helping this company spread its style of hotel around the world." Bickson believes he brings not just an American but a global perspective to his work. "I grew up in the hotel business, working for The Rafael Group, the European luxury brand, and I also worked for Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group. What I know is global excellence, how to deliver five-star service in a language that is universal, without regard to geographic boundaries. "Americans who have lived abroad, speak multiple languages and have grown up with ethnic diversity, have a broader perspective and perhaps an enhanced ability to integrate more successfully," Bickson feels. The Taj expansion in the United States last year, taking over management of The Pierre hotel in New York City, brings his experience into play, as does his work in China, as the Taj hotels group investigates possibilities there. "I knew I was being offered the adventure of a lifetimethe opportunity to join a c6mpany that was beginning to
make its mark globally and also the opportunity to be in a country that also was beginning to make its mark globally," says Bickson. "In the 21st century the big forces of innovative change will be India and, of course, China. How could a person not want to be in the thick of that excitement?" Recent changes that have increased the availability of airline flights and seats have made access to India easier from all parts of the world, but major destinations run short of hotel rooms every winter. Now, Bickson suggests, everyone connected with tourism to India-hotels, travel agents, tour operators, airlines and the government-should cooperatively market India as a year-round destination and promote different aspects of the country and culture outside the major tourist spots. New hotel development is also needed, he says, from budget, to mid-level and luxury sites. India is a country with some of the world's best hotels and hotel staff, says Bickson. "I come to work with my eyes and ears open because. I know that in every moment I will have the chance to learn lessons, not just about hotel operation but about life," he says. His career includes luxury hotels throughout Europe, North America, Australia and Asia, including the Hotel Plaza Athenee in Paris, and the Montreux Palace in Switzerland. He studied at the Goethe Institute in Berlin, the Alliance Francaise and the Universite de Sorbonne in Paris, Harvard University in Boston and Cornell University in New York. His education encompasses languages, French culture, hotel services, financial management and cooking. In fact, Bickson began his career as a kitchen trainee at the Berlin Hilton. He found the hotel business more appealing than renting cars, though his father, Irwin "Bick" Bickson, had cofounded Budget, one of the most successful car rental companies in the United States, which helped drive the 1970s tourism boom. As many American children do, Bickson first heard about India in school at the age of 12. "To me, it seemed a huge place, teeming with people, with exotic animals (tigers), and with mystery and romance and the possibility of experiencing something different," says Bickson. "I still see India that way. This is a country where, in the moment you think you understand it, it changes. And so do you." D
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he New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian Collective lit up the evening of November 19, 2005, with their performance at the American Center in New Delhi. The songs and dances were a gesture of thanks to India for its assistance to the people of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The Indian government donated $5 million to the American Red Cross, besides more than 25 tons of relief material. Indian percussionist Pandit Fateh Singh Gangani also entertained at the "thank you" concert.
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September n 2005 Ambassador David C. Mulford had an interactive session at the Anjuman-e-Himayath-e-Islam School in Chennai with 60 students who are part of the ACCESS program. ACCESS, a two-year State Department-funded course in English, which provides free, quality English instruction to high school students, was launched in September 2004 in New Delhi, Calcutta and Chennai. The students asked questions enthusiastically and the Ambassador later used a map of the United States to give them a quick geography lesson.
ineteen young people who have made outstanding contributions in the fields of journalism, social service, the arts, IT, finance and law were honored with the IndoAmerican Society Young Achiever award at a ceremony in Mumbai on December 3, 2005. Enjoying a lively discussion at the event are (left to right) awardees Ankit Fadia, computer security and digital intelligence consultant; Ramesh Venkataraman, partner, McKinsey & Co.; and Hilal Meswani, director, Reliance Industries, Ltd., who was on the panel of judges.
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ndia's first hydrogen-fueled threewheeler went on display in September 2005 at the annual convention of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers in New Delhi. This vehicle of the future is a product of a U.S.-India business alliance forged by USAID's U.S.-Asia Environmental Partnership. Energy Conversion Devices of Troy, Michigan, and Pune-based Bajaj Auto Ltd. worked together on the three-wheeler. Next steps in the project include exploring fuel availability, safety codes and standards.
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