SPAN: March/April, 2006

o

Laura Bush exchanged laughter, smiles and

namastes with children, women-and

puppets-as

she

accompanied President George W. Bush to India. Mrs. Bush shared a moment of joy (above right) with a tiny girl who draped her with a welcoming garland at the Jeevan Jyoti Home for Disabled Children in New Delhi. A Hyderabadi woman, Suguna, taught the First Lady how to make "guava cheese" at a demonstration of women's empowerment projects at Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University (right).

Mrs. Bush posed with child performers and their puppets at Prayas Institute (below), which provides education and care for neglected, abused or homeless children in New Delhi. She also taped a segment of the new USAID-supported Indian version of children's TV show, in Noida, Uttar Pradesh (above).

Sesame Street, a

A LETTER FROM

THE

PUBLISHER e have devoted much of this issue to President George W. Bush's successful state visit, which produced positive, potentially history-making results. The President and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reached agreements that could bring about revolutions in farm production, provision of clean energy to support India's growth, and expanded possibilities for economic and technological development.

We have reprinted the full texts of the President's speech in New Delhi, the Joint Statement issued by President Bush and Prime Minister Singh, and the Prime Minister's toast at the official luncheon We've also provided more details on the civilian nuclear cooperation agreement, the Agricultural Knowledge Initiative and new strategies for trade and business development that will help transform the partnership between the world's oldest and the world's largest democracy.

In the excitement over these numerous agreements and blueprints for expanded cooperation, the President did not forget the people-to-people initiatives that are so important for both nations as they seek to learn more about each other and work more closely together for the good of the world.

The President called for more student exchanges and H1-B visas for Indian scientists, engineers, physicists and others. In a practical step to help that happen, the President announced that the United States would open a consulate in Hyderabad, the fifth in India.

He also made another significant announcement that may have been overlooked: the intention to build a state-of-the-art American Center in New Delhi. American Centers are outreach facilities where citizens of the host countries can read books and magazines, access reference materials and the Internet, enjoy films and cultural programs, hear discussions, and interact with U.S. government representatives. The President's commitment to a new Center highlights America's interest in engaging with Indians and building greater mutual understanding and a stronger, more enduring partnership.

Publisher: Michael H. Anderson Editor-In-Chief: Corina R. Sanders Editor: Laurinda Keys Long Associate Editor: A. VenkataNarayana Urdu Editor: Anium Naim Hindi Editor: Girirai Agarwal Copy Editor: Deepanjali Kakatl Art Director: Hemant Bhatnagar Deputy Art Directors: Khurshid Anwar Abbasi; Qasim Raza Editorial Assistant: Shalini Verma Productiorl!Circulation Manager: RakeshAgrawal Printing Assistant: Alok Kaushlk Business Manager:R. Narayan ResearchServices: American Information Resource Center, Bureau offnternational Information Programs.

Front cover: President George W. Bush is given a traditional welcome fa Hyderabad by Vakapalli Jayamani of Payakaraopeta village, Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh, while Chief Minister Y.S.R. Reddy looks on Photograph by White House Photographer Eric Draper.

Published by the Public Affairs Section. American Center. 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001 (phone: 23316841). on behalt ot the American Embassy, New Delhi.

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Theopinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reltect the views or policies of 'the U.S. Govemment. No part ot this magazine may be reproduced without permission.

This magazine contains 68 pages.

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2 Working Together, Making History

4 I Come to India as a Friend 12 Benefits of U.S.-India Civilian

A Speech by President George W. Bush

15

Nuclear Cooperation

Partners in a Journey of Progress A Toast by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

• •

16 Agricultural

Knowledge Initiative

17 First Lady Visits India's Sesame Street 18

22 26

Hazy Days in U,S, Parks By Charles Petit In Defense of Open Space By Charles A. Birnbaum

36 40 43 44

The CHAI Project By Daniel B. Haber Dr. Nanotech vs. Cancer By Philip

Ball

Okefenokee National Wildlife •• Refuge In Florida. "

Willie Parker of the Pittsburgh Sfeelers during the 2006 Super Bowl game.

48 51

Super Bowl

By Steve Holgate

Steve Gorn-Musical

Confluence

52 57

A Painter's Ray of Hope

58 60

Good Samaritans

By Giriraj Agarwal

By E. Wayne

Spotlight: Bobby Jindal

By Laurlnda Keys Long

President George W Bush and First Lady Laura Bush are greeted by President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife, Gursharan Kaur, at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on March 2.

Working Together, Making History rime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W. Bush characterized the agreements and initiatives they finalized during the President's March 1-3, 2006, state visit to India as "historic." Important steps forward in cooperation on fighting terrorism, supporting other democracies, developing clean energy and encouraging robust new farming methods are significant evidence of a new era in the relationship, one that President Bush said "is going to be good for laying the foundations of peace in this world of ours."

"Many of the areas that our cooperation now covers are essential to India's national development," said Prime Minister Singh. The ambitious agenda outlined in the five-part Joint Statement issued by the two leaders on March 2 commits their governments to work together on initiatives in agriculture, science and technology, trade, investment, health, the environment and clean energy.

"When implemented, they will make a real difference to the lives of our people," the Prime Minister said during a joint press conference with President Bush at Hyderabad House in New Delhi.

President Bush's program in New Delhi on March 2 also included a ceremonial welcome at Rashtrapati Bhavan; a briefing from a group of powerful CEOs of American and Indian companies on ways to strategically improve trade and develop new types of business and industry; meetings with political leaders; a dialogu~ with religious repre-

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sentatives; laying of a wreath at Raj Ghat; a lunch hosted by the Prime Minister, and a state dinner hosted by President A.PJ Abdul Kalam.

On March 3, President Bush traveled to Hyderabad, where, he promised, the US. government will open its fifth consulate in India to make it easier for Indian students, entr~preneurs, experts and tourists to get visas and to facilitate interaction with American officials pursuing the broad range of new cooperative projects. One of the most important, the Agricultural Knowledge Initiative, involves American and Indian scientists, technicians, inventors, farmers and officials working together as they did in the 1960s to promote a second Green Revolution in India. During his relaxed visit to Andhra Pradesh, the President held lively exchanges with members of local women's self-help groups associated with farming and small businesses. Then he met with 400 students, teachers and young entrepreneurs, the CEOs of the future.

Back in New Delhi that evening, the President gave his farewell address at the Purana Qila (Old Fort). He dwelt on the natural partnership between India and America that began when the United States supported India's freedom struggle, and affirmed the shared foundation of both nations' commitment to fundamental rights, justice and democracy. Calling for even deeper partnerships to secure safety, economic opportunity, technological advances, health and education, the President said he had "come as a friend." -LKL.

equal dignity and value. We believe all societies should welcome people of every culture, ethnicity and religion.

And because of this enduring commitment, the United States and India have overcome trials in our own history.

We're proud to stand together among the world's great democracies.

The partnership between the United States and India begins with democracy, and it does not end there. Our peo- :"i OJ pIe share a devotion to family, a pas- ~ sion for learning, a love of the arts and ~ much more. The United States is the 5' proud home of more than two million less other fields.

Americans of Indian descent, a figure When I meet with the United States that has more than tripled over the last Congress, I talk to a brilliant Indian 20 years. America is honored to wel- American who represents the state of come 500,000 Indian tourists and busiLouisiana. I've returned the salute of nesspeople to our country each year. Indian Americans who defend my And we benefit from 80,000 Indian stunation in battle as members of the dents at our universities, more than we United States Armed Forces. And on a have from any other nation. Many sad morning three years ago, we Indian Americans have made learned that a brave astronaut tremendous contributions born in India had been lost to my country in technolaboard the space shuttle ogy and medicine and Columbia. I know that business and countIndia will always be

ECONOMIC PROSPERITY & TRADE Agreed to intensify efforts to develop a bilateral business climate supportive of trade and investment by: • Welcoming the report of the U.S.-India CEO Forum, agreeing to consider its recommenda. tions aimed at substantially broadening our bilateral economic relations and directing the Chairs of the U.S.-India Economic Dialogue to follow up expeditiously with the CEO Forum; • Endorsing the efforts of the U.S.-India Trade Policy Forum to reduce barriers to trade and investment with the goal of doubling bilateral trade in three years; • Agreeing to advance mutually beneficial bilateral trade and investment flows by holding a high-level public-private investment summit in 2006, continuing efforts to facilitate and promote foreign direct investment and eliminate impediments to it, and enhancing bilateral consultations on various issues including tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade in goods and services, and preventing the illicit use of the financial system Sought to expand cooperation in agriculture by: • Launching the Knowledge Initiative on Agriculture with a three-year financial commitment to link our universities, technical institutions and businesses to support agriculture education, joint research and capacity building projects including in the area of biotechnology.

• Endorsing an agreed workplan to promote bilateral trade in agriculture through agreements that: layout a path to open the U.S. market to Indian mangoes, recognize India as having the authority to certify that shipments of Indian products to the United States meet United States Department of Agriculture organic standards and provide for discussions on current regulations affecting trade in fresh fruits and vegetables, poultry, dairy and almonds.

• Reaffirmed their shared commitment to completing the WTO Doha Development Agenda (DDA) before the end of 2006, and agreed to work together to help achieve this outcome. 0

President Bush meets Indian employees of the U.S. Embassy at Roosevelt House, New Delhi, on March 2. proud of Dr. Kalpana Chawla, and so will the United States of America.

Americans are spending more time in India as well and it's easy to see why.

India is rich in history, culture and activities-from the mountains of Delhi to the holy sites of Varanasi, to the studios of Bollywood. Today I met with a fascinating group of students and farmers and entrepreneurs in Hyderabadplus it was exciting to be in the hometown of Sania Mirza. To encourage more travel and more contact between our people, the United States intends to open a new consulate in Hyderabad.

We'll also build a new state-of-the-art American Center here in Delhi. By taking these steps we'll continue to strengthen the ties between our two countries, our two democracies.

At the start of this young century, the United States of America and the Republic of India are working together to achieve two great purposes, to expand the circle of prosperity and development across the world, and to defeat our common enemies by advancing the just and noble cause of human freedom.

Our first great purpose is to spread prosperity and opportunity to people in our own land, to millions who have not known it. The freedom that sustains India's democracy is now bringing dramatic changes to India's economy. Thanks to your country's wise economic reforms and advances in tech-

nology, unprecedented opportunities are coming to India, and you are seizing those opportunities.

India's innovative people have begun to look outward and connect to the global economy as never before.

Today, India has more cell phones than landline phones. And all that separates a business in Bangalore from a business in Boston is an e-mail, a text message or video conference. Indian entrepreneurs have used these new connections to meet the demands of consumers and businesses all across the globe. As a result, your economy has more than doubled in size since you opened up your markets in 1991.

You've dramatically raised the living standards of your citizens. India's middle class now numbers 300 million people, more than the entire population of the United States.

America welcomes India's economic rise, because we understand that as other nations prosper, it creates more opportunity for us all. In a free economy, every citizen has something to contribute. That is why trade is such a powerful engine of prosperity and upward mobility. When markets are opened and the poor are given a chance to develop their talents and abilities, they can create a better life for their families, they add to the wealth of the world, and they can begin to afford goods and services from other nations.

Free and fair trade is good for India, it's good for America, and it is good for the world.

In my country, some focus only on one aspect of our trade relationship with India: outsourcing. It's true that some Americans have lost jobs when their companies moved operations overseas. It's also important to remember that when someone loses a job, it's an incredibly difficult period for the worker and their families. Some people believe the answer to this problem is to wall off our economy from the world through protectionist policies. I strongly disagree. My government is helping Americans who have lost their jobs get new skills for new careers.

And we're helping to create millions of

new jobs in both our countries by embracing the opportunities of a global economy.

We see those opportunities here in India. Americans who come to this country will see Indian consumers buying McCurry Meals from McDonald's, home appliances from Whirlpool. They will see Indian businesses buying American products like the 68 planes that Air India recently ordered from Boeing. They will also see American businesses like General Electric and Microsoft and Intel, who are in India to learn about the needs of local customers and do vital research that makes their products more competitive in world markets. The United States will not give into the protectionists and lose these opportunities. For the sake of workers in both our countries, America will

trade with confidence.

India has responsibilities, as well.

India needs to continue to lift its caps on foreign investment, to make its rules and regulations more transparent, and to continue to lower its tariffs and open its markets to American agricultural products, industrial goods and services. We also hope India will continue to work to ensure that its own people are treated fairly by enforcing laws that protect children and workers from trafficking and exploitation and abuse. By enforcing its laws and educating its people and continuing to open up its economy, India can assure that prosperity and opportunity of a growing economy reaches all segments of India's population.

The world also needs India's leadership to open up global markets. The

U.S.-India Statement 0 Globa Trade ndiaand the United States agree that trade is essential to promoting global economic growth, development, freedom and prosperity.

We fully share the goal of completing the World Trade Organization Doha Development Agenda (DDA) before the end of 2006, and agree to work in partnership to help achieve this outcome.

During our discussions, we agreed to meet the task with ambition, determination and a readiness to contribute, consistent with our roles in global trade, and to keep the development dimension in focus. The system of trading rules to which our two great democracies have contributed immensely must be strengthened. Towar.dthis global cause, we recommit ourselves and invite all key participants to demonstrate their leadership.

We agree that a successful [Doha) Round depends upon progress in all areas of the negotiations if we are to meet our goal of promoting development through trade. We are committed to a DDA result consistent with the mandates already agreed that realize a substantial outcome in all three pillars of the agriculture negotiations (domestic support, export competition and market access); significant improvements in market opportunities in manufacturing and services; and appropriate disciplines, including transparency of regulatory practices in services. We also believe we should strengthen Trade Represen tative Robert the rules that facilitate trade, where we have jointly made pro- Portman shakes hands with posals. Work in all these areas must go hand in hand.

Kamal Nath, minister We agree to pursue an ambitious agenda for the first half for commerce and industry, of 2006, consistent with the important milestones that were in New Delhi on March 1. set at the Hong Kong Ministerial [meeting) for agriculture, manufacturing, services and other issues, and continuing to press for the goal of concluding the negotiations by the end of 2006.

We will continue to work to promote reform, respond to the concerns of developing countries and create opportunities for growth for all. We are building the trading system of the future, where progressive liberalization and reform result ~ in improvement in standards of living for all, in particular for ~ the millions of poor across the developing world. ~ While working for a successful Doha Round, we also ~ reaffirm our commitment to strengthen and deepen bilateral ~ trading ties.

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Doha Round of trade talks at the World Trade Organization provides the greatest opportunity to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and boost economic growth in both our countries. The United States has been pushing for an ambitious agreement on services and manufacturing and agriculture. Prime Minister Singh and I share the goal of completing the Doha Round by the end of this year, and we'll work together to achieve this goal. By completing Doha we will help build a world that lives in liberty, and trades in freedom, and grows in prosperity, and America and

India will lead the way.

By leading together, America and India can meet other global challenges, and one of the biggest is energy. Like America, India's growing economy requires growing amounts of electricity. And the cleanest and most reliable way to meet that need is through civilian nuclear power. Last summer in Washington, America and India reached an agreement to share civilian nuclear technology and to bring India's civilian nuclear programs under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency. In our meetings this week, Prime Minister Singh and I

agreed on a plan to implement this historic initiative. Our agreement will strengthen the security and the economy of both our nations.

By applying the most advanced technology and international standards to India's civilian nuclear program, we will increase safety and reduce the risk of proliferation. And by helping India meet its energy needs, we will take the pressure off the price of fossil fuels for consumers in India and America and around the world.

We'll help India be good stewards of our environment, and we will strengthen the bonds of trust between our two great nations.

America and India are also cooperating closely in agriculture. The United States worked with India to help meet its food needs in the 1960s,when pioneering American scientists like Norman Borlaug shared agriculture technology with Indian farmers.

Thanks to your hard work, you have nearly tripled your food production over the past half-century. To build on this progress, Prime Minister Singh and I are launching a new Agricultural Knowledge Initiative. This initiative will invest $100 million to encourage exchanges between American and Indian scientists and promote joint research to improve farming technology. By working together the United States and India will develop better ways to grow crops and get them to market, and lead a second Green Revolution.

America and India are pursuing a historic agenda for cooperation in many other areas. We're working together to improve education and conservation and natural disaster response. We're cooperating closely in science and technology. And to promote the ties between American and

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President Bush met United Progressive Alliance Chairperson Sonia Gandhi (top) and Lal K. Advani, leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, (left) on March 2 at the Maurya Sheraton Hotel. The posters behind them were designed by SPAN magazine Art Director Hemant Bhatnagar.

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President Bush, flanked by Ambassador David C. Mulford and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, exchanged views with religious leaders in New Delhi on March 2. The President said that India and the United States both respect religious pluralism and the rule of law.

He praised India as a democracy "capable of having people from different religions live side-by-side in peace and harmony."

Indian scientists, we're establishing a new $30 million science and technology commission that will fund joint research in promising areas like biotechnology.

We're working to improve health by confronting the threat of avian flu, reducing the spread of malaria and tuberculosis, and eliminating polio in India. Our nations also share the global challenge of HIV /AIDS. India must confront this challenge directly, openly, and at all levels of society. And as you do, America will be your partner in turning the tide against this terrible disease.

The United States and India have ambitious goals for our partnership.

We have unprecedented opportunities in this world. We can look to the future with confidence because our relationship has never been better. America and India are global leaders and we are good friends, and when we work together, there is no limit to what we can achieve.

The second great purpose is to confront the threats of our time by fighting terror and advancing freedom across the globe. Both our nations have known the pain of terror on our home soil. On September the 11th, 200t nearly 3,000 innocent people were murdered in my country, including

more than 30 who were born in India.

Just over three months ago [sic], terrorists struck the Parliament House here in Delhi, an attack on the heart of Indian democracy.

In both our countries, people have struggled to understand the reason for terrorist assaults on free societies.

We've begun to learn some of the answers. The terrorists are followers of a violent ideology that calls for the murder

~ of Christians and Hindus and Sikhs j! and Jews, and vast numbers of ~ Muslims who do not share their radi" cal views. The terrorists' goal is to impose a hateful vision that denies all political and religious freedom. Those terrorists lack the military strength to challenge great nations directly, so they use the weapon of fear. When terrorists murder innocent office workers in New York, or kill shoppers at a market in Delhi, or blow up commuters in London, they hope these horrors will break our will. They target democracies because they think we are weak and they think we can be frightened into retreat. The terrorists have misunderstood our countries. America and India love our freedom, and we will fight to keep it.

When your Prime Minister addressed the United States Congress, he said this: "We must fight terrorism

DEEPENING DEMOCRACY AND MEETING INTERNATIONAL CHALLENGES • Recalled their [the President's and Prime Minister's] joint launch of the UN Democracy Fund in September 2005 and offered the experience and expertise of both governments for capacity building, training and exchanges to third countries that request such assistance to strengthen democratic institutions.

• Welcomed the decision of India and the United States to designate a representative to the Government Advisory Board of the International Centre for Democratic Transition (lCDT) located in Budapest to facilitate cooperative activities with ICDT. • Agreed that the Virtual Coordination and Information Centers set up in September 2005 should be further strengthened and a bilateral meeting aimed at developing a practical program for utilization of its services be held soon.

• Expressed satisfaction at the expedited U.S Food and Drug Administration drug approval processes that strengthen the combat against HIV/AIDS at the global level and encourage greater corporate participation to meet this challenge, including the establishment of the Indo-U.S. Corporate Fund for HIV/AIDS • Agreed to expand bilateral efforts and continue cooperation in the area of medical research and strengthen technical capacity in food and drug regulation in India as well as address the concern on avian influenza, including agreement to reach out to the private sector, develop regional communications strategies, and plan an in-region containment and response exercise. The President welcomed India's offer to host the International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza meeting in 2007.

• Welcomed India's membership in the Coalition Against Wildlife Trafficking, a partnership through which we will collaborate in the fight against illegal trade in wildlife and wildlife parts; we also welcome the opportunity to strengthen longstanding work together on the conservation of wildlife through cooperation on park management and ecotourism.

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wherever it exists, because terrorism anywhere threatens democracy everywhere." He is right. And so America and India are allies in the war against terror.

After the attacks of September the 11th, the Indian Navy provided vital support to Operation Enduring Freedom by relieving American ships securing the Strait of Malacca, and we thank the Indian Navy. Today, our nations are cooperating closely on critical areas like bioterrorism and airport security and cyber security. Our military cooperation is stronger than ever before. America and India are in this war together, and we will win this war together.

In the long run, the United States and India understand that winning the war on terror requires changing the conditions that give rise to terror. History shows us the way. From the East to West, we've seen that only one force is

powerful enough to replace hatred with hope, and that is the force of human freedom. Free societies do not harbor terrorists or breed resentment.

Free societies respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors. Free societies are peaceful societies.

As your first prime minister, Prime Minister Nehru, once said: "Evil flourishes far more in the shadows than in the light of day." Together, America and India will bring the light of freedom to the darkest comers of our Earth.

Nearly 60 years have passed since India mounted a courageous fight for a free country of your own. The American people stood with you in the struggle for freedom. President Franklin Roosevelt was one of the first world leaders to support India's independence. Through the decades, India has built a strong democracy in which people from different faiths live together in freedom and peace.

India has a Hindu

GLOBAL SAFETY AND SECURITY • Noted the enhanced counter-terrorism cooperation between the two countries and stressed that terrorism is a global scourge that must be fought and rooted out in every part of the world.

• Welcomed the increased cooperation between the United States and India in the defense area, since the New Framework for the U.S.-India Defense Relationship was signed on June 28, 2005, as evidenced by successful joint exercises, expanded defense cooperation and information sharing, and greater opportunities to jointly develop technologies and address security and humanitarian issues.

• Reaffirmed their commitment to the protection of the free flow of commerce and to the safety of navigation, and agreed to the conclusion of a Maritime Cooperation Framework to enhance security in the maritime domain, to prevent piracy and other transnational crimes at sea, carry out search and rescue operations, combat marine pOllution, respond to natural disasters, address emergent threats and enhance cooperative capabilities, including through logistics support. Both sides are working to finalize a Logistics Support Agreement at the earliest.

• Welcomed India's intention to join the Container Security Initiative aimed at making global maritime trade and infrastructure more secure and reducing the risk of shipping containers being used to conceal weapons of mass destruction.

• Reiterated their commitment to international efforts to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

• Building on the July 2005 Disaster Relief Initiative, noted the important disaster management cooperation and their improved capabilities to respond to disaster situations.

• Recognized the importance of capacity building in cyber security and greater cooperation to secure their growing electronic interdependencies, including to protect electronic transactions and critical infrastruct~re from cybercrime, terrorism and other malicious threats. 0

majority, and one of the world's largest Muslim populations.

India is also home to millions of Sikhs and Christians and other religious groups.

All worship freely in temples and mosques and churches all across this great land. Indians of diverse backgrounds attend school together and work together and govern your nation together. As a multi-ethnic, multi-religious democracy, India is showing the world that the best way to ensure fairness and tolerance is to establish the rule of law. The best way to counter resentment is to allow peaceful expression. The best way to honor human dignity is to protect human rights. For every nation divided by race, religion or culture, India offers a hopeful path: If justice is the goal, then democracy is the way.

The world has benefited from the example of India's democracy, and now the world needs India's leadership in freedom's cause. As a global power, India has a historic duty to support democracy around the world. In Afghanistan, which I just visited on Wednesday, the world is beginning to see what India's leadership can accomplish. Since the Taliban was removed from power, India has pledged $565 million to help the Afghan people to get back on their feet. Your country has trained National Assembly staff, and is developing a similar program for the Assembly's elected leaders. You recently announced that you'll provide an additional $50 million to help the Afghans complete their National Assembly building. After so many years of suffering, the Afghan people are reclaiming a future of hope and freedom, and they will always remember that in their hour of need, India stood with them.

India is also showing its leadership in the cause of democracy by cofounding the Global Democracy Initiative. Prime Minister Singh and I were proud to be the first two contributors to this initiative to promote democracy and development across the world. Now India can build on this commitment by working directly with

President Bush reviews the guard of honor at the ceremonial welcome at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on March 2.

nations where democracy is just beginning to emerge. As the world's young democracies take shape, India offers a compelling example of how to preserve a country's unique culture and history while guaranteeing the universal freedoms that are the foundation of genuine democracies.

India's leadership is needed in a world that is hungry for freedom. Men and women from North Korea to Burma to Syria to Zimbabwe to Cuba yearn for their liberty. In Iran, a proud people is held hostage by a small clerical elite that denies basic liberties, sponsors terrorism and pursues nuclear weapons. Our nations must not pretend that the people of these countries prefer their own enslavement. We must stand with reformers and dissidents and civil society organizations, and hasten the day when the people of these nations can determine their own future and choose their own leaders. These people may not gain their liberty overnight, but history is on their side.

Tonight I will leave India to travel to Pakistan, another important partner and friend of the United States. There was a time when America's good relations with Pakistan would have been a source of concern here in India. That day is passed. India is better off because America has a close relationship with Pakistan, and Pakistan is better off because America has a close

relationship with India. On my trip to Islamabad, I will meet with President Musharraf to discuss Pakistan's vital cooperation in the war on terror and our efforts to foster economic and political development so we can reduce the appeal of radical Islam. I believe that a prosperous, democratic Pakistan will be a steadfast partner for America, a peaceful neighbor for India and a force for freedom and mod-

eration in the Arab world.

The advance of freedom is the great story of our time. In 1945, just two years before India achieved independence, there were fewer than two dozen democracies on Earth. Today there are more than 100, and democracies are developing and thriving from Asia to Africa, to Eastern Europe, to Latin America. The whole world can see that freedom is not an American value, or an Indian value. Freedom is a universal value, and that is because the source of freedom is a power greater than our own. Mahatma Gandhi said, "Freedom is the gift of God ...and the right of every nation." Let us remember those words as we head into the 21st century.

In a few days, I'll return to America, and I will never forget my time here in India. America is proud to call your democracy a friend. We're optimistic about your future. The great Indian poet Tagore once wrote, "There's only one history-the history of man." The United States and India go forward with faith in those words. There's only one history of manand it leads to freedom.

May God bless India.

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INNOVATION AND THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY • Emphasizing the importance of knowledge partnerships, announced the establishment of a Bi-National Science and Technology Commission which the U.S. and India will co-fund. It will generate collaborative partnerships in science and technology and promote industrial research and development.

• Agreed that the United States and India would work together to promote innovation, creativity and technological advancement by providing a vibrant intellectual property rights regime, and to cooperate in the field of intellectual property rights to include capacity building activities, human resource development and public awareness programs • Agreed to continue exploring further cooperation in civil space, including areas such as space exploration, satellite navigation and earth science. The United States and India committed to move forward with agreements that will permit the launch of U.S. satellites and satellites containing U,S. components by Indian space launch vehicles, opening up new opportunities for commercial space cooperation between the two countries.

• Welcomed the inclusion of two U.S. instruments in the Indian lunar mission Chandrayaan 1.

They [the President and Prime Minister] noted that memoranda of understanding to be signed by ISRO and NASA would be significant steps forward in this area, • Welcomed the US Department of Commerce's plan to create a license exception for items that would otherwise require an export license to end-users in India engaged solely in civilian activities, 0

Benefits of

U.S.-India Civilian Cooperation

resident George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh concluded a landmark agreement on March 2, 2006, that would place India's civilian nuclear program under international safeguards and enable full civilian nuclear cooperation with the United States. It would benefit Indians economically by enabling India to purchase nuclear fuel and technology from the United States and other countries, to help meet growing energy needs.

President Bush has promised to ask the U.S. Congress to change a U.S. law, the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, in order to implement the agreement. Such a modification requires a majority vote in the U.S. Senate and in the House of Representatives.

As part of the effort to win this approval, the White House issued this explanatory document on March 8 to dispel some misconceptions about the agreement.

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CRITICS:The U.S.-India civil nuclear cooperation deal will accelerate the nuclear arms race in South Asia.

COUNTERPOINT: This is a historic agreement that brings India into the nonproliferation mainstream and addresses its growing energy needs through increased use of nuclear energy in cooperation with the international community. The United States has no intention of aiding India's nuclear weapons program India's plan to separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities and programs will allow other nations to cooperate with India's civilian facilities to expand energy production. Those facilities will be under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards to prevent diversion of technology and materials to India's military program. Greater use of nuclear reactors to produce energy for the Indian people will not undermine regional security or stability CRITICS:Doesn't this initiative effectively recognize Indiaas a nuclearweaponsstate?

COUNTERPOINT: No, the United States has not recognized India as a nuclear weapons

state. The 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) defines a nuclear weapons state as "one which has manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device prior to January 1, 1967," (The United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and China exploded nuclear devices prior to that date.) India does not meet this definition, and the United States does not seek to amend the treaty.

Ambassador David C. Mulford; R. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs; and Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran in New Delhi at an October 21, 2005, meeting, one of many held over the past year to work out the U.S.-India civilian nuclear agreement.

CRITICS:Only 14 of India's 22 nuclear power reactors will be safeguarded under its separation plan, and India's two developmental fast breeder reactors will remain un-safeguarded. With these facilities, India can produce enoughnuclearweaponsto significantly expandits currentarsenal.

COUNTERPOINT: The understanding the United States has reached with India will significantly increase the number of Indian nuclear reactors under IAEA safeguards, as well as bring associated facilities under safeguards. At present, only four of India's nuclear power reactors are under safeguards. Under its civil-military separation plan, India has agreed to place the majority of its existing nuclear power reactors and those under construction under safeguards and to place the other associated upstream and downstream [input and output] facilities that support those reactors under safeguards, Furthermore, India has committed to place all future civilian power and fast breeder reactors under safeguards, This agreement is good for American security because it will bring India's civilian nu-

clear program into the international nonproliferation mainstream. The agreement also is good for the American economy because it will help meet India's surging energy needsand that will lessen India's growing demand for other energy supplies and help restrain energy prices for American consumers.

CRITICS:Doesn't this initiative create a double standardand won't it encourage rogue nations like North Koreaand Iran to continue to pursue nuclear weaponsprograms?

COUNTERPOINT: It is not credible to compare the rogue regimes of North Korea and Iran to India. Unlike Iran or North Korea, India has been a peaceful and vibrant democracy with a strong nuclear nonproliferation record.

Under this initiative, India-which has never been a party to the NPT-has agreed to take a series of steps that will bring it into the international nonproliferation mainstream.

Iran and North Korea are very different cases. They signed and ratified the NPT and gave lip service to adhering to their international obligations. Through their covert actions, however, they broke the very nonproliferation commitments they claimed to follow. Additionally, both regimes have isolated themselves from the international community and are state sponsors of terrorism.

India, on the other hand, has agreed to take steps that will bring it into the nonproliferation mainstream, including: • Placing its civilian nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards and monitoring; • Signing and implementing the Additional Protocol, which allows more extensive inspections by the IAEA; • Ensuring that its nuclear materials and technologies are secured and prevented from being diverted, including recent passage of a law to create a robust national export control system; • Refraining from transfers of enrichment and reprocessing technologies to states that do not already possess them and supporting efforts to limit their spread; • Working to conclude a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty; • Continuing its moratorium on nuclear testing; and • Adhering to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) guidelines. '

CRITICS:This initiative will weaken or unravel the global nonproliferation regime. Creating an exception for India will lead Pakistanand Israel, who are also outside the NPT regime, to insist on a similar deal or cause other nations to withdraw from the treaty.

COUNTERPOINT:India has stood outside the global nonproliferation regime for the last 30 years. Through this initiative, India will enter the international nonproliferation mainstream, thereby strengthening the regime that continues to playa vital role in enhancing international security and stability.

All nations that are

pursue nuclear weapons and would result in the loss of access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Pakistan and India are different countries with different needs and different histories. The United States' relationship with Pakistan, which has Major Non-NATO Ally status, follows a separate path that reflects our countries' strong commitment to maintaining close ties and cooperation, including in the war on terror. However, Pakistan does not have the same nonproliferation record as India, nor the same energy needs.

The United States does not intend to pursue a simi-

ENERGY SECURITY AND A CLEAN ENVIRONMENT • Welcomed the successful completion of discussions on India's [nuclear facilities] separation plan and looked forward to the full implementation of the commitments in the July 18, 2005, Joint Statement on nuclear cooperation. This historic accomplishment will permit our countries to move forward toward our common objective of full civil nuclear energy cooperation between India and the United States and between India and the international community as a whole.

• Welcomed the participation of India in the ITER [experimental] initiative on fusion energy as an important further step toward the common goal of full nuclear energy cooperation • Agreed on India's participation in FutureGen, an international public-private partnership to develop new, commercially viable technology for a clean coal near-zero emission power project. India will contribute funding to the project and participate in the Government Steering Committee of this initiative.

• Welcomed the creation of the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, which will enable India and the United States to work together with other countries in the region to pursue sustainable development and meet increased energy needs while addressing concerns of energy security and climate change. The Partnership will collaborate to promote the development, diffusion, deployment and transfer of cleaner, cost-effective and more efficient technologies and practices.

• Welcomed India's interest in the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, an international marine research endeavor that will contribute to long-term energy solutions such as gas hydrates • Noting the positive cooperation under the Indo-U.S. Energy Dialogue, highlighted plans to hold joint conferences on topics such as energy efficiency and natural gas, to conduct study missions on renewable energy, to establish a clearing house in India for coal-bed methane/coal-mine methane, and to exchange energy market information.

0 party to the NPT are permitted full access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes but are prohibited from pursuing or possessing nuclear weapons (except for the five recognized nuclear weapons states). The United States does not expect nations to withdraw from the NPT. Any move to withdraw from the NPT would clearly signal a nation's intent to

lar civil nuclear cooperation initiative with Pakistan.

The status of Israel is not comparable to that of India. Israel has not declared itself to be a nuclear power, nor articulated such extraordinary energy needs. As for other Middle Eastern countries, the United States expects all NPT parties to live up to their treaty obligations. 0

U.S.-India CEOForum group of 20 CEOs from the United States and India presented a report, "U.S. -India Strategic Partnership," to President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on March 2, calling for a permanent U.S.-India Forum with a mandate to develop a road map for increased business partnership between the two countries.

With two-way trade growing at more than 20 percent annually, the business leaders offered a consensus view that "the new economic partnership will present both countries with substantial opportunities to increase trade and investment activity, enhance would have a greater impact on economic cooperamarket access for goods and services and develop tion, as they impact multiple sectors," the report greater competitiveness in both countries by leverag- states. The priorities are: • Promoting of trade and industry encompassing ing their respective strengths" greater freedom to invest in the services sectors, The CEOs identified six priority areas for cooperation that need to be addressed by the two governfreer movement of people, removal or reduction ments and/or by industry partnerships. "These areas of tariffs and non-tariff barriers.

William B. Harrison, Jr. and Ratan Tata, cochairs of the U.S.-India CEO Forum.

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U.S. MEMBERS

INDIAN MEMBERS

William B. Harrison, Jr, JP Morgan Chase, Co-Chair Paul Hanrahan, AES Corporation Warren R. Staley, Cargill, Incorporated Charles O. Prince, Citigroup David M. Cote, Honeywell Inc. Harold McGraw, The McGraw-Hili Companies Thomas J O'Neill, Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc. Steven Reinemund, Pepsico Christopher Rodrigues, Visa International Anne M. Mulcahy, Xerox Inc.

Ratan Tata, TataSons Ltd, Co-Chair Dr Pratap C. Reddy, Apollo Hospitals Baba Kalyani, Bharat Forge Ltd. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Biocon Ltd. Deepak Parekh, HDFC & IDFC Ashok Ganguly, ICICI One Source Ltd. Nandan Nilekani, Infosys Technologies Ltd. Yogi Deveshwar, ITC Limited Analjit Singh, Max India Ltd. Mukesh Ambani, Reliance Industries Ltd.

Meeting Tomorrow's CEos ne of the things you can judge a country by is the vitality of the youth," President George W. Bush told 400 students, teachers and young entrepreneurs during a question-and-answer exchange at the Indian School of Business (ISB) in Hyderabad "Today I'm meeting with the CEOs of tomorrow, the people that are going to help drive this great engine of economic prosperity for India-for the good of the world, is how I view it."

Business leaders, entrepreneurs, and academics who dreamed of establishing a leading business and management education institution in Asia founded

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the school and sit on its governing board. The school is set up on the model of American business schools, offers a one-year MBA degree and is associated with the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Illinois, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the London Business School. Americans also attend as exchange students.

President Bush chatted with 16 young Indian entrepreneurs, including several who had gone to university in the United States, then returned to India to start businesses. He talked to them about the need

•

Creating an Infrastructure Development Fund for U.S investments in Indian infrastructure with minority Indian government participation.

• Promoting technology in agriculture, biotechnology and nanotechnology through exchange of scientists and setting up research and development centers.

• Partnering in skills development.

• Opening a center for industrial research and development.

• Establishing a dispute resolution mechanism.

In addition, the forum recommended a specific action plan for 15 business sectors with potential for significantly enhancing trade and investment after policy changes by the two governments. The forum also made a strong pitch for creating an "enabling environment" in 30 more areas to foster speed, efficiency, fairness and transparency in respect of all products, agricultural and manufacturing, over a specified period of time.

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for an infrastructure development plan so Indian farmers can get their goods to market, education, tax policy reform, export controls and transparency in investment regulations.

"It is in the interest of the United States ... to work for free and fair trade with India; it's in the interest of the United States that an entrepreneurial class grow in this great country. It's in the interest of India that an entrepreneurial class grow in this great country, so that people can realize dreams," said the President. One reason he wanted to come to ISB, he said, is because "it's a new school that is using innovative techniques to give people the tools necD essary to succeed."

Partners in a Journey of Progress A Toast by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Taj Palace Hotel, New Delhi, March 2,2006 resident George Bush, Madam First Lady, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to welcome you and your distinguished delegation to India. We are pleased to have you in our midst. It is our privilege to return your warm hospitality at the White House.

The people of India have great regard and affection for the American people, as they have had for centuries. Ours has been a two-way relationship. Long years ago, the father of our nation, Mahatma Gandhi, acknowledged the influence of Henry David Thoreau when he launched a movement for civil disobedience against foreign rule.

In our own generation, a great son of the United States, Martin Luther King, acknowledged the influence of Mahatma Gandhi when he launched a nonviolent struggle for civil liberties and racial equality.

Mr. President, close to half a century ago, President Eisenhower said on a visit to India, "We who are free and who prize our freedom above all other gifts of God and nature must know each other better, trust each other more, support each other." Today, Mr. President, these words have acquired a new resonance. Your people and ours have come to regard democracy and peaceful political popularization as legitimate and civilized instruments of social change. Our passionate commitment to democracy and human rights, our respect for equality of all before the law, and our regard for freedom of speech and faith place us on the same side of the street.

Today in India, we are engaged in a Himalayan adventure of pursuing development, improving the quality of life, and modernizing one of the world's oldest civilizations. We seek to provide a social and economic environment at home that will unleash the creativity and enterprise of every Indian, thus enabling our people to live a life of dignity, fulfillment and self-respect.

The United States has been a partner in our journey of progress.

I am, therefore, very happy that on this visit, you will renew an old association between our two countries in the field of agriculture. Our farmers greatly benefited from American help in the past, and they will now do so again through the knowledge ini- President Bush listens to Prime tiative that you will launch.

House on March 2.

Mr. President, in India, we admire the creativity and enterprise of the American people, your excellent institutions, the openness of your economy,and your ready embrace of diversity.These have attracted the brightest Indian minds, thereby creating a bond of understanding that transcends distance and differencesbetween us.

Tomorrow, you will meet young Indians who fuel the engines

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of our knowledge economy. Your own country has made it possible for the talent and abilities of our people to become more visible to allover the world.

Mr. President, we seek a world free of poverty, ignorance, disease and the threat of terrorism. The United States and India must work together in all possible fora to promote these ends. We must fight terrorism wherever it exists, because terrorism anywhere threatens democracy everywhere.

India seeks a neighborhood of peace and prosperity. Our subcontinent has been home to all the great religions of the world.

It is a powerhouse of human creativity, where knowledge is worshipped as the gift of our Creator. With wisdom and farsightedness, we South Asians can transform not just this region, but the whole world.

In our journey of modernization and development, social change and empowerment, we see the United States as a partner, a friend and a well-wisher. In particular, Mr. President, we see you as a true friend of our country.

I've always been touched by your warm praise for India and the Indian people. We sincerely acknowledge your deep personal commitment to a closer economic and strategic partnership between our two countries. Indeed, I recall that at our very first meeting, you paid tribute to our efforts to achieve economic and social salvation in the framework of an open society and an open economy.

I was deeply touched by your admiration for Indian democracy and our commitment to pluralism and modernism. We in India greatly appreciate the firm stand you took against the upsurge of protectionist forces in your country, and the farsighted approach you adopted on the issue of outsourcing. In taking this stand, you have not only cemented closer relations between our two countries, but also helped America retain its edge in the global marketplace.

Madam First Lady, my wife and I recall with gratitude your warm hospitality at your home. You have a deep and abiding interest in learning and education. I hope, as I said to you some moments ago, that you will return to India to spend time with our students and teachers, and discover a new India Minister Singh at Hyderabad in the midst.

I am truly sorry that the President is not taking you to Taj Mahal this time. I hope he will be more chivalrous the next time you are here.

Ladies and gentlemen, I now request you to join me in a toast to the continued good health and happiness of the President and the First Lady of the United States, to everlasting friendship between our great nations.

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Agricultural Knowledge Initiative

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he United States and India are putting money, manpower, expertise and technology to work over the next three years to bring about a second Green Revolution that would increase and diversify Indian agricultural production.

Called the United States-India Agricultural Knowledge Initiative, it's a $100 million commitment to link the two countries' universities, technical institutions and businesses in practical ways to support agricultural education, joint research and capacity building projects. The Initiative was an important part of the Joint Statement announced by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on March 2. "Our first Green Revolution (in the 1960s) benefited in substantial measures from assistance provided by the United States," said Prime Minister Singh. "We are hopeful that the Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture will be the harbinger of a second Green Revolution in our country." The initiative can also be expected to boost bi-

lateral trade in farm products.

Two-thirds of Indians earn their living from agriculture, and 22 percent of the nation's.GDP comes from farming. The Knowledge Initiative will adapt modern techniques and technologies to develop more opportunities for farmers to develop, grow and market their goods.

President Bush observed some of these ideas in action when he visited Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University in Hyderabad on March 3. A farmer named Lakshmi explained the challenges of manual cultivation as the President tried his hand at some fieldwork while M. Koteswara Rao of the Chennai Consulate observed (above left). President Bush spoke to farmers who are using innovative methods of measuring soil moisture, seed diversification, pest and weed management. At a dairy production display the President patted a buf路falo named Murra as Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS.R. Reddy looked on (above right) and cuddled 4-yearold Venkatamma, the daughter of a local women's self-help group participant (left). As an example of the cooperation that will take place under the Agricultural Knowledge Initiative, Ranga University is already working with Cornell University in New York state, with funding from USAID, to encourage farmers to try these different techniques.

-L.K.L.

Visits India's Sesame 5treet hamki, Boombah, Aanchoo, Googli and gang had a special visitor to their neighborhood on March 2. First Lady Laura Bush visited the set of Galli Galli Sim Sim, the Indian version of the hit children's educational series Sesame Street, in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. She taped a short segment about counting and numbers along with Nafisa Ali Sodhi, chairwoman of the Children's Film Society of India.

On the set, Mrs. Bush and Sodhi greeted Boombah, a giant lion puppet who loves to dance. Mrs. Bush shot a scene with a tomboyish female puppet character, Chamki. The First Lady said "namaste" and taught the Muppet-a trademarked type of puppet-to count to five. The episode is expected to reach 40 million households.

Sesame Street debuted in 1969 and is carried on the Public Broadcasting Service, a nonprofit U.S. television channel. Created

by Jim Henson and Joan Ganz Cooney, each of the Muppet

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The First Lady meets Sat yam and Shivam Khanna, 8-year-old twins who play the role of Kabir, on the set of Galli Galli Sim Sim. Below: Mrs. Bush and Nafisa Ali Sodhi meet the Muppets. characters were designed to represent a stage of early childhood.

Galli Galli Sim Sim is the product of a partnership of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); Sesame Workshop, a New York-based nonprofit educational organization; and Turner Broadcasting. Produced by Miditech, a New Delhi production company, the series will be in Hindi, with a smattering of English.

To be aired this summer on Cartoon Network and POGO, the series aims to prepare 3- to 6-year-old children for school by teaching them numbers and words; giving information on nutrition and hygiene; encouraging their imaginations; and instilling a love of learI)ing. Galli Galli Sim Sim features Muppets designed to reflect Indian cultural and educational needs. The cast includes human characters representing different regions.

The programs will also be adapted for radio and additional content will be made available through books, pamphlets, posters and educational games.

-D.K.

,!:lJ Text by DEEPANJALI KAKATl Photographs by HEMANT BHATNAGAR

he green fields and the lingering sweet smell are the sensory highs of sugarcane country. But what is equally exciting is the concept of a sugar mill using its waste products to generate electricity, a process called cogeneration. The potential in India for heat and electricity produced from sugar mill waste is about 3,500 megawatts (MWs), according to the Ministry of Nonconventional Energy Sources.'

I Though existing capacities generate

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only 600 MWs, substituting biomass materials for "dirty and expensive fossil fuels, like diesel and heavy oil, lowers greenhouse gas emissions and improves India's energy security in the long run by reducing the country's dependence on costly, imported petroleum," says Glenn Whaley, director, Office of Environment, Energy and Enterprise at the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID. Until a few ye~rs ago the concept of cogeneration may have seemed an impossible idea. But it is now a reality in sugar mills across the country, one of which is

Rana Sugars in Butter Seviyan, Amritsar district. It is one of nine mills that have received financial and technical assistance from USAID to set up cogeneration units and generate power for 270 days a year.

Most sugar mills bum coal or oil to generate power to run their machinery. But the mills that have received assistance from USAID have taken the eco-friendly route.

During the sugar-making process all the juice is squeezed out of the sugarcane and what is left over is a dry, fibrous substance called bagasse. The bagasse would norma1~yhave been disposed of as waste. But

Rana Sugars Ltd. in Butter Seviyan, Amritsar district.

these mills use it to produce electricity and steam. Sugar and cogeneration plants, in fact, depend on each other. The sugar factory provides fuel, i.e., bagasse, from milling the cane. This fuel is fed into boilers and the stearn generated is channeled into turbines to generate power. The extracted steam is then supplied to the sugar factory, where it is used for boiling juice and distillery processes. "No part of the sugarcane goes to waste. After the bagasse is burned, the ash is dumped in the fields, where it acts as manure," says Gurbax Singh, in c;harge of production at Rana Sugars.

With a monthly realization of Rs. 24 million from the sale of power to the Punjab State Electricity Board in 2004-05, Rana Sugars is a good example of how profitable eco-friendly power generation can be. In 2002-03 the total revenue of the nine mills from power export was around Rs. 1.1 billion. "We are now encouraged to set up more biomass turbines," says P.S. Bhatti, chief accounts officer at Rana Sugars.

USAID's initiative dates to the 1990s, when it conducted workshops in different parts of India to assess the interest in high efficiency cogeneration. Encouraged by the

enthusiastic response of the sugar mills, USAID formulated the Alternative Bagasse Cogeneration (ABC) component of its Greenhouse Gas Pollution Prevention Project in 1995. The project is USAID's largest climate change initiative worldwide.

The objective of the ABC component, which was met in 2003, was to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases by encouraging increased and efficient use of waste as a fuel or energy source at sugar cogeneration units. It started with a target of five private mills and was later expanded to nine, selected on a competitive basis and provided

financial aid of $7.2 million through the Industrial Development Bank of India. The U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory provided assistance for training, outreach and performance evaluation through Winrock International India, a nonprofit organization, and Science Applications International Corporation, an American research and engineering firm.

Located in Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, all these cogeneration units are running successfully. These mills had invested about Rs. 5 billion in their projects, confirming the potential of high-efficiency cogeneration. The total installed cogeneration capacity in these projects is approximately 200 MWs and they have all entered into power purchase agreements with electricity boards in their respective states. These mills are exporting an estimated 500 million kilowatts per hour (KWH) of electricity, offsetting 550,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually. According to USAlD, the amount of greenhouse gas emission offset at a particular mill can be easily verified because the amount of cane crushed, bagasse produced, electricity generated and exported to grid are all documented.

Sugar mill cogeneration units in India usually use low temperature, low-pressure boiler-turbine configurations which have low electricity generation efficiency per kilogram of bagasse burned. Since the mid-1990s, USAlD and the Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources have been promoting the use of high temperature, high-pressure configurations which would generate more power for each kilogram of bagasse burned. "Earlier sugar mills were generating 30 to 40 KWH per ton of cane. USAID's ABC component demonstrated 90 to 160 KWH per ton of cane," says P.R.K. Sobhanbabu, senior

program officer in the energy and environment division at Winrock International India.

There are multiple benefits of cogeneration. Burning bagasse to generate thermal energy is beneficial for the environment as this energy would have otherwise been produced from greenhouse gas-producing fossil fuel. "When you burn fossil fuel you are releasing carbon dioxide that was trapped millions of years ago. But when you are using biomass you are releasing carbon dioxide that was absorbed by the crop while growing through a process called photosynthesis. So we are not adding anymore carbon dioxide to the environment.lt is the ultimate in terms of recycling," says John Smith-Sreen, deputy director, Office of Environment, Energy and Enterprise at USAID. Cogeneration units can provide electricity to nearby areas, minimizing power outages and reducing transmission and distribution losses. "Being a .. .locally available fuel, bagasse can make a tremendous contribution to enhancing the country's energy security," says Ram V. Tyagarajan, chairman and managing director of Thiru Arooran Sugars Ltd., one of the grantees based in Tamil N adu. Besides, sugarcane farmers find a ready buyer for their produce, and other mills that do not have cogeneration units have a market for the bagasse they produce. Sugar mills, in fact, are India's second largest agro-processing industry, after cotton textiles, providing employment to more than 500,000 people in rural areas. There are other benefits for the local population, as well. "We are using our own resources to engage experts to help farmers increase productivity," says Bhatti. Sagar Sugars in Andhra Pradesh is supporting research on better types of sugarcane, while Thiru Arooran Sugars Ltd. is working to promote infra-

structure development, increase cane productivity and encourage farmers through training in the latest agronomical practices and arranging for crop insurance.

The process, however, has a number of constraints. Tyagarajan identifies "frequent changes in power purchase policy" as one of the problems. Also, the price of bagasse has increased substantially over the past year or two. "We have to depend on our own bagasse. The production of sugarcane in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh was less than normal this season because of climatic conditions. Also, people prefer to cultivate wheat and paddy," says Bhatti.

Rana Sugars, for example, runs its plant from November to April and therefore generates power for only six months. "If we have enough biomass the plant can run for eight to nine mol)ths," says Santokh Singh, chief engineer at Rana Sugars.

Problems notwithstanding, this sector has much potential. Besides the environmental benefits, "the increased earnings from bagasse cogeneration have enabled sugar mills to pay more remunerative prices to farmers and that, too, on time, with consequent improvement in the fortunes of sugarcane farmers and the rural economy as a whole," says Tyagarajan. 0

From top left: Sugarcane is sent for crushing; the juice is squeezed out of the cane; and goes through multiple stages of straining; the dry powdery residue of sugarcane, bagasse, is collected; it is then burned to produce steam, which is used to run turbines; the control panel for the power turbines; the electricity generated is then exported to the grid.

Indian Wild From the forests of Virginia to the waterways of Florida and the mountains of Colorado, 13 wildlife experts from across India bonded with each other and with their new American friends as they toured U.S. wildlife preserves.

Two of them, Ashwani Kumar Gulati and Gobind Sagar Bhardwaj, provided these photographs of their adventures.

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hey watched killer whales perform; observed alligators and panthers; swatted mosquitoes in a swamp and spotted deer on a Rocky Mountain hike. But for 13 Indian wildlife conservation experts who spent three weeks touring U.S. National Parks, their encounters of the human kind formed the most durable impressions.

One found himself pleasantly surprised that many Americans

stay married for life and have well-behaved children; one was intrigued by the mysteries of an automatic kitchen garbage disposal that sped the after-dinner cleanup following a homecooked meal. All felt a connection with their American counterparts in terms of professionalism and zeal to protect wildlife and preserve and enjoy the natural environment.

"Because all the officials and even our hosts for home hospi-

tality evenings were of the kind who loved their work and workplace very much, and since I love my job and place of work, I could appreciate these people very much," says Sanjeeva Pandey, director of the Great Himalayan National Park in Himachal Pradesh. Even though he couldn't get enough vegetarian food, Pandey enjoyed the home visits in Jacksonville, Florida, and Denver, Colorado, so much that when he returned

Left: The Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in Florida.

Right: In the lead on the visitors' walkway through the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge are Alka Bhargava, joint director, wildlife, Ministry of Environment and Forests; local coordinator Janice Brummond and Ashwani Kumar Gulati of the Himachal Pradesh Forest Depar-tment.

to India he volunteered to host American students "who may like to have Indian hospitality."

These personal connections, exchanges of ideas and trading of techniques were the purpose of the September 24-0ctober 14, 2005, International Visitor Leadership Program on Park Management and Conservation, sponsored by the State Department. The program was intended to expose high-level Indian officials and non-governmental organization leaders to the variety of U.S. measures to protect wildlife and other natural resources. The visit highlighted the common concerns of collecting biological data for species conservation, developing and enforcing environmental laws and involving the public in nature protection.

"We're making contacts, forging relationships, things are happening," says S. Tovan McDaniel, the program officer at the U.S. Embassy in New

u.s. Park Ranger Joseph Darling at Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida displays one of many weapons and high-tech gadgets used to enforce the law and protect the public.

Delhi who facilitated the trip.

Several participants said they might like to try the U.S. practice of involving volunteers and visitors in programs to protect the national parks and form lobbying groups for conservation. "If anything goes wrong in Okefenokee (a swampy National Wildlife Refuge in Florida that the visitors toured by boat) I think there would be thousands of voices bye-mail, etc.," says Sargam Singh Rasaily, a conservator of forests based in North Kumaon, Nainital, Uttaranchal. He would like to encourage the idea in India that, "If you come to my park, you become part of my park. If anything goes wrong, please

stand up and say what is wrong." Rasaily also liked what he heard from dozens of briefings by U.S. park officials, researchers and rangers, that "any decision taken in a park was backed with research. For any document, or management plan of any place, there was a public opinion on that."

After returning from the trip, Pandey feels, "The problems I have vis-a-vis wildlife conservation are not a little bit, but quite different than America has. They have more forest than India, but one-third the population. In India, the forest means livelihood for people; in America, people go there to relax and have a nice weekend."

Ashwani Kumar Gulati saw more similarities. "We were wanting to know what is going on in American forestry, and we were relating with other forestry people, relating to how they manage their problems," says the additional principal chief conservator of forests for wilglife in the Himachal Pradesh Forest The Indian experts (right) tour George Washington National Forest in Virginia, where a volunteer group has provided educational signs on the hiking trails (left).

Department.

"To the same kind of questions, we would be giving similar replies." One difference, he says, is that the American officials were more concerned about how to get people to help them preserve the forest and wildlife, whereas Indian forest officials are more often concerned with protecting people from wildlife and protecting the forest from too many encroachers.

"At the butterfly gardens at Florida's Natural History Museum, I think every 10 steps there was a volunteer wanting to give us a sheet of information," he recalls, echoing a memory most of the visitors had: the extensive number of brochures, films, exhibits and other sources of information in visitor-friendly centers at each site, aimed at informing and educating the public.

The Indian participants were also "intrigued by the many seemingly contradictory policies in U.S. natural resource management, for example allowing grazing, logging and mining in public forests," says Janice Brummond, who accompanied the guests to 15 parks and preservation sites in Colorado, Florida, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Americans enjoy commercialized "wildlife parks, " such as the Miami Parrot Jungle Island and the Seaquarium, where killer whales are among the performers.

The dichotomy of Americans' concern for nature and their often wasteful use of resources struck several of the Indian guests. "Most of the time there was only our bus that was caITying 15 people on the road," recalls Pandey.

"Otherwise, everybody was in his or her car alone. We came to know that the government does encourage sharing of the cars, but the people do not think in these terms. I don't know how sustainable is this lifestyle given the situation that fossil fuels are not going to last forever .... The wealthy people in India also behave in the same manner."

Rasaily, from Uttaranchal, felt slightly differently. "I had the feeling the American people are not only concerned for their country but for the entire world, for example their support of rhino conservation when the U.S. has no rhinos," he says. Rasaily said he was

struck by the cleanliness he observed, "not only in the parks but in the country itself." He noted the amount of resources being used; every time he had a cup of tea there was another throwaway plastic cup and the tea came in a plastic bag. "But those resources are not lying on the streets," he says. "We may use fewer resources but they are going onto the streets, dirtying the land."

Rasaily was a bit stunned, however, by the fate of food scraps left on the plates when the group had dinner with a family in Denver, Colorado. "I volunteered to help Mrs. Biddinger, our hostess, with her dishes and was taken aback when she washed perfectly good food down the sink!" he recalls. "And with a switch of a button, the sink chewed away the food and sucked it down. To where? Even Mrs. Biddinger didn't know or seem to care," Rasaily says in a humorous and accurate description of the automatic garbage disposal machine that is commonly found in the drains of American kitchen sinks. , For Gobind Sagar Bhardwaj,

deputy conservator of forests and deputy field director at Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan, a highlight was learning how his American counterparts monitor their big cats. "When the population of the puma, the Florida panther, diminished to just 20 to 40 individuals, they brought in

The project helped foster a sense of common purpose, highlighting the similar challenges of nature conservation in India and the United States. breeding females from Texas, tagged them, and in just 10 years the population was around 80 to 100," he recalls from a presentation at the University of Florida. "This was scientifically done, an excellent example for dealing with the diminishing population of any cat. It could be used in our country," says

Bhardwaj. "We don't know what is happening to our tigers, our cubs."

He suggests Rajasthan's tigers may have the same problem as Florida's panthers, "frustrated dispersal." That is, when young males cannot find mates, they leave the protection of parks to look for new territories and female companions. "If we do radio tagging and scientific monitoring, we can come to know what is happening to our animals." He and the others enjoyed demonstrations on the use of trained dogs and satellites to track roaming cats, monitoring their movements to find ways to protect them.

Rajiv Bhartari, director of the Corbett Tiger Reserve in Uttaranchal, said it seemed that in the American conservation system, about the same amount of personnel are devoted to veterinary care as to protecting land areas and that U.S. officials had many more weapons and techniques to control animals.

"Park managers have their own language," he says.

"Talking to one of them was like talking to ourselves."

D

ig Bend National Park's superintendent, John King, calls the 324,214-hectare reserve on the West Texas border with Mexico a "destination park," meaning for most folks there's little other reason to venture into the area at all. Reaching it takes four hours on a two-lane road from Midland, the nearest major airport. In between is the flat, scraggly Permian Basin, the state's historic oil patch, dotted with dying and dead "horsehead" walking-beam oil pumps and filled with the pungent odor of black gold wafting from those still in production. But even in scorching summer heat, when temperatures average more than 32 degrees Celsius, the trip is worth it. Mesas and buttes pop up as one nears the oversize oxbow in the Rio Grande River that gives the region its name, and the terrain turns to the classic Chihuahuan Desert of purple-tinged prickly pear cactus, and other types such as spiny ocotillo, sharpbarbed lechuguilla, and yuccas spikier on top than any punk rocker.

Since the late 1980s, the remote park has been plagued by an unexpected problem: haze. "I've had people come out, take a look around, and tell me they had to get going back to Houston for some clean air," says Big Bend's air quality technician, John Forsythe. Hall Hammond, a San Antonio jewelry sales consultant who has visited the park 60 times since 1969, is an activist with the private Friends of Big Bend National Park, a group that supports

the Texas park. He remembers when he used to ask friends to float down the river with him and stare up from the canyon at what he called Big Bend blue. "The sky would just be cobalt," he recalls. But lately that hue is rarer and rarer. In 1998, Hammond hiked up Emory Peak in the Chisos Mountains, looked down from its 2,380-meter height and saw "this yellow layer sitting down on the desert to the north and east. It just completely threw me."

The air has been going bad in many parks for decades, affecting views and endangering the health of visitors, plants and wildlife. In 2004, the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), a nonpartisan watchdog group based in Washington, D.C., listed the five most polluted national parks. Relying almost entirely on data from the National Park Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the group says the parks with the worst visibility and most severe ozone and acid rain levels are the Great Smoky Mountains Park on the Tennessee-North Carolina border, followed by Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, Shenandoah in Virginia, Acadia on the Maine coast, and the jointly operated Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Views of Big Bend National Park in Texas are marred by "this yellow layer sitting down on the desert," says frequent visitor Hall Hammond. The park was the site of a wide-ranging study of haze sources.

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Many parks have been hard hit by sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide from coal-fIred power plants, which are responsible for nearly 70 percent of sulfur dioxide and 22 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions nationwide. The park service, while it disagrees with the way the NPCA assessed some of the pollution data, has little quarrel with the report's general tenor.

Eastern parks, many downwind from huge coal-fired power plants in the Ohio River Valley and elsewhere, are the worst hit, in keeping with national pollution patterns. Over the past century or so, manmade haze has cut average visibility in the eastern half of the country from 144 kilometers to between 25 and 40 kilometers. In the arid and naturally clearer western states, visibility has dropped from 225 kilometers to 55 to 145 kilometers. Parks famed for their views-Grand Canyon in Arizona, Yellowstone in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, Yosemite in California, Colorado's Rocky Mountain, and Big Bend-have long bouts of murky, polluted air each year.

Because federal rules have long mandated that national parks and other wilderness areas should have the cleanest air in

America, regulators have been authorized to take action against known polluters, typically by suing them for non-compliance.

But as pollution-control laws have become increasingly complex, companies accused of violating park air-quality standards have gone to court to delay enforcement, stalling cleanup efforts. The Bush administration has proposed overhauling air pollution regulations, replacing the current, plant-specific air quality standards with a barter system; power plants would buy or trade pollution credits, allowing them to exceed pollutant limits in some places.

Proponents say the administration's Clear Skies Initiative will ultimately improve air quality by lowering emissions. But critics say that the changes will reverse progress against dirty air-and allow egregious polluters to stay in operation.

The political debate over air pollution laws underscores the plight of the parks.

"There is still that vision that you can go out to the parks and breathe fresh moun-

tain air, and get away from the urban problems that we all see, and stand in that pristine natural world," says NPCA President Tom Kiernan, who worked from 1989 to 1992 for the Environmental Protection Agency. "Yet we see ... that we have some of the worst air in the country in the national parks."

Why? An extraordinary scientific study conducted in an isolated stretch of Texas is yielding some answers. The implications-for the regulatory debate, for the health of the parks, even for the health of parkgoers-give new meaning to the idea of far-reaching.

National Parks Conservation Association President Tom Kiernan at Big Bend National Park in April 2005. iD

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ig Bend is a historic place.

Comanche, Apache and other tribes defied 300 years of Spanish and Mexican rule in the rugged badlands. It was the last redoubt of American Indian warrior Victorio and his Mescalero Apache, finally scattered in 1880 by U.S. Army troops. The park's center is crowned by the rugged escarpments of the Chisos Mountains massif, giving it the look of a fortress.

In the 1990s, Big Bend's growing haze spurred wide suspicion that the pollution originated across the river, 225 kilometers to the southeast. By 1995, two big coalfIred Mexican power plants, Carb6n I and II, were generating 2,600 megawatts of electricity without significant emission controls.

In a joint effort, the Environmental Protection Agency, the park service, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the U.S. utility industry's Electric Power Research Institute and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration launched the Big Bend Regional Aerosol and Visibility Observational (BRAVO) Study. From July through October 1999, a small tent and trailer city sprang up in a scrubby corner of the park. Instruments sprouted at dozens of locations in or near Texas. Scientists around the state injected different perfluorocarbon chemicals into the sky, and monitors in the park recorded the tracers as they arrived. Mexican officials, apparently afraid they were being set up to take the blame for Big Bend's bad air, had backed out of the study; so

U.S. scientists, unable to put tracers directly into the Carbon plants' plumes as hoped, released them from a tower in the Texas border town of Eagle Pass, 32 kilometers from the plants.

The BRAVO researchers made their results public in September 2004. The short version? Don't blame Mexico. In fact, the park's worst haze comes from the eastern United States and East Texas. Mexico's CarbOn I and II plants remain the biggest single contributors to Big Bend's sulfate haze. But on the haziest days, they contribute just 9 percent of the total, and the rest of Mexico another 7 percent. Texas adds 11 percent, the eastern United States 22 percent and the western United States 4 percent. The rest of the haze arises from windblown soil, smoke from agricultural and forest fires, manufacturing activities and vehicle exhaust. Mark Scruggs, assistant chief in the National Park Service's air resources division, which monitors pollution in the parks, says the big surprise was how much sulfate originates in the eastern United States, borne on prevailing winds that blow across East Texas or loop down to the Gulf of Mexico and north through the Mexican mainland.

Mexican officials had been arguing since 1996 that Big Bend's problems came from north of the border-including a string of power plants along the Ohio River Valley-but the Americans were skeptical until the BRAVO data came in.

Ever since the U.S. Congress created the first national park, at Yellowstone in 1872, the parks have enjoyed special legal protections. In 1916, the National Park Service was set up to maintain areas "unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." Additional legal backing came in 1977 when amendments to the Clean Air Act gave parks the highest priority, designating them as Class I areas. The law is emphatic: "Congress hereby declares as a national goal the prevention of any future, and the remedying of any existing, impairment of visibility in mandatory class I Federal areas, which impairment results from manmade air pollution."

"It was visionary to try to protect these . areas without even knowing how difficult it would be," says air resources div~sion di-

On Big Bend's worst days, more than half of the haze is caused by sulfates. As the map shows, more of the sulfates come from the eastern United States than nearby Carbon power plants in Mexico.

plants in the four comers," she says of the region where Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah meet. Since then, while these power plants have slashed their overall sulfur emissions by 72 percent, the canyon's haze remains-evidence that the problem isn't merely local. rector Chris Shaver. The division has outWhether the Bush administration's profitted most major parks with filters to gather aerosols, or ultrafine solid and liq- posed air quality regulations will more efuid particles in the air; nephelometers to . fectively reduce pollution in the worst-hit measure how haze scatters sunlight; and parks is hotly debated. The present system transmissometers that gauge scattering and "is tied up in the courts," says Jim Connaughton of the White House Council absorption of light by pollution, dust, mist or other material in the air. Chemical samon Environmental Quality. The Clear Skies Initiative aims to replace the strict plers scrutinize the concentration of such limits governing an individual power problematic molecules as ozone, which can be harmful to humans at ground level. plant's emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides with a "cap-and-trade" system. A plant that exceeds a limit for a haver remembers standing on the rim pollutant would buy or trade credits from of the Grand Canyon with her then six-year-old daughter, Courtney, in an operator that was under the limit for the 1990. The girl looked at the barely visible same compound, keeping America's overcliffs on the other side and said, "Mom, I all pollution in check. Proponents, includdon't know how to tell you this, because I ing many Republicans and most industry lobbies, say the plan is simpler, allows know how hard you are working, but you're not doing a very good job." companies to be flexible, and lets some Courtney graduated from college in 2005, stay in business without buying expensive clean-up equipment. If a plant goes over and Shaver still sees haze in the park system. When researchers started measuring its limit and has no credits to buy its way the Grand Canyon's air quality in the clear, federal officials can levy fines with 1970s, "Congress and most people thought fewer hearings and lawsuits. we had a problem with [only] a few power Connaughton also says that the pro-

Above: Chris Shaver is the National Park Service's air resources division director.

Right: Bill Tweed is Sequoia and Kings Canyon's chief park naturalist.

posal preserves long-term national goals on clean air and will improve visibility in the national parks. The proposal aims to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, a prime cause of haze and acid rain, by 73 percent by 2018-down eight tons from the 11 million tons emitted in 2000. At the same time it would cut nitrogen oxides, a cause of ozone, by 67 percent.

But opponents see Clear Skies as a sellout to industry. They say the proposal is less aggressive than current regulations, and they complain that it would let dirty power plants operate as long as their owners buy credits elsewhere. Many environmental organizations have attacked the proposals. "Why is the administration bragging about a plan that will actually result in more pollution than if we simply enforced the existing Clean Air Act?" the Sierra Club asks. In 2002, Eric Schaeffer quit his job as the Environmental Protection Agency's regulatory enforcement head, protesting what he says is the Bush administration's soft approach to power company pollution. "If you allow them to buy their way out ?f reducing

emissions, then the parks may not get better for a long time," he says. Clear Skies opponents also say the plan would put park air at risk because the cap-and-trade credit system takes the teeth out of the parks' Class I designation. Park superintendents would no longer have clear authority to demand that the EPA or other agencies go after individual polluters.

Bartering has worked in the past. Since 1990, power plants have been allowed to use a cap-and-trade system to help reduce acid rain, produced largely by coal-fired plants spewing nitrogen and sulfur.

Consequently, sulfur emissions went from 17.3 million tons in 1980 to 10.6 million tons in 2003. ark service expert Scruggs is guardedly optimistic about the Clear Skies Initiative. "If the caps are stiff enough, sure, it will help a lot," he says. "A 70 percent cut in sulfur dioxide is going to make a difference, especially for the East Coast parks." But Scruggs says that when the current system is at its best-when agencies work together to prosecute individual polluters-results are impressive. Environmental Protection Agency pressure on industry led to improvements in scrubber technologies, which reduce smokestack emissions, with 95 to 98 percent elimination

of some pollutants now commonplace.

Scruggs says similar improvements are possible for other pollutants.

But park lovers shouldn't expect big improvements soon. The Environmental Protection Agency's deadline for returning park air to normal is 2064, a date instructive both in its temporal distance and legalistic precision. To be sure, there have been isolated gains. Sulfate haze tends to be dropping in the East, even as nitrate pollution and ozone are rising a bit in the West. In January 2005, the park service said it met its 2004 performance goal of achieving stable or improving air quality in at least 62 percent of monitored parks, with 15 getting cleaner and 16 staying the same.

Still, 18 got worse-including high-profile destinations such as Acadia, Death Valley, Grand Canyon and Yellowstone.

"We're at the end of the tailpipe," says Ken Olson, president of the Friends of Acadia. Pollutants emitted as far away as the Ohio River Valley cook in the sun as they are blown east, their ozone and acid levels rising as they move. "We get days when the visibility is just terrible [and] palpably polluted," he says.

And don't let the Smoky Mountains' name fool you. The nation's most popular park, at 9.2 million visitors a year, once offered terrific views year-round. The

"smoke," known to the Cherokee Indians long before the Industrial Revolution, is a bluish haze of moisture and natural organic particles that hangs on the hills.

Today, one of the worst pollutant concentrations in any national park has created a more unwelcome haze. Jim Embry, an architect in the tourist-happy town of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, north of the park, built a house in 1966 on Mount Harrison, facing the park. Two walls are almost all glass, with a scenic vista of majestic 2,002-meter Mount LeConte. Good views of the mountains are less and less common, he says. "I am watching them disappear before my eyes."

The air in California's Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks is essentially hostage to geography and climate.

In the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains overlooking California's broad San Joaquin Valley, the 350,433-hectare pair of parks range from rolling foothills and oak woodlands to granite peaks. Founded in 1890, Sequoia is America's second-oldest national park, after Yellowstone. Its eastern border crosses the summit of Mount Whitney, at 4,418 meters the loftiest point in the 48 conterminous states.

The parks hold 30 groves of giant sequoia, the world's largest tree. Many are thousands of years old, 10 meters or more across at chest level, and taller than a 26story building.

In winter, when the air is clearest, the vista from a snowy scenic outlook toward the San Joaquin Valley seems etched in crystal. From late spring through fall, though, dawn typically brings an ugly sight: a gray-brown murk that rises like a tide as the day warms. The miasma, says air resources specialist Annie Esperanza, even looks like a river as it flows into the park.

Natural visibility at Sequoia should be 196 to 254 kilometers, the Environmental Protection Agency says. But summer views average less than 64 kilometers, and on the worst days can drop below nine.

Though the parks are just 370 kilometers from Los Angeles, the problem is not Southern California sprawl. Instead, scientists have found that the pollution develops when fresh air off the Pacific Ocean picks up pollutants from the urban

industrial complex around San Francisco Bay. As the air spreads south into California's sun-blasted Central Valley, it picks up more fine aerosols, sulfur dioxide, soot, dust and ozone-making nitrogen compounds from fast-growing cities, intense agriculture, busy Interstate 5 and other highways crowded with cars and diesel tractor-trailer rigs. The air is walled in by the Coast Ranges to the west, the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the east and the Tehachapi Mountains to the south, creating an eddy of recirculating and concentrated pollution before it wafts into Sequoia and Kings Canyon.

Bill Tweed, Sequoia and Kings Canyon's chief park naturalist, figures that the southern San Joaquin Valley is America's most efficient smog pot. The air, Tweed says, 'just cooks and cooks and cooks in a warm, summer, cloudless climate." To make

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representative. Her three children all have severe asthma. In May 2004, thinking the air would be tolerable, she took them into the park. Her 9-year-old son, Aaron, complained of chest pains in the parking lot and plunked down on a bench, wheezing badly. Paramedics had to bring a nebulizer to clear up the boy's lungs. "It's sometimes worse up here than in the valley," Whitehouse says.

In 1967, Tweed was 18 and working as a bellboy at the lodge at Sequoia and Kings Canyon. With July 4 coming up, veteran employees let him in on a local tradition: load up backpacks with beer and other refreshments and scale Moro Rock, a bald monolithic knob near park headquarters. For generations, its lordly 2,050meter-high view across the San Joaquin Valley to the west had provided a granite throne for simultaneously looking down

Update Clean Air Interstate Rule

While the U.S. Congress considers the 2003 Clear Skies legislation, the federal government is administratively implementing the cap-and-trade approach, requiring power plants in the 28 easternmost states and the District of Columbia to upgrade facilities and reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. things worse, the valley's population is on track to double over the next four decades, to more than seven million. "We've already gone from a broth to a stew, and if we're not careful our stew will turn into a chowder," Tweed says. "The best way to enjoy a park is to just go out and walk. You must get out of your car to enjoy a park. But on a fair number of days, it is not even healthy to get outside and walk. That is a most direct assault on our mission."

Ozone, park officials say, has hurt 90 percent of the parks' Jeffrey pines. So far, the mature giant sequoia appear to be OK, but their seedlings may be suffering. In the Foothill Visitors Center at Ash Mountain, park workers post air advisories for the public and staff. On bad days, a sign tells visitors to avoid extended hikes.

"I can't even bring my kids up here unless I know we're going to have clean air," says Laura Whitehouse, NPCA's local

on fireworks spouting from Fresno, Visalia, Dinuba and other communities.

But that year not a flicker was to be seen.

"Everybody said it had been happening more and more often," Tweed recalls.

Within a few years, the Fourth of July climb was kaput, killed by haze.

As Tweed lists the man-made threats to the parks-climate change, invasive species, forests choked by overzealous fire suppression, nitrogen air pollutants that overfertilize plants, ozone-he's not optimistic that Moro Rock Independence Day viewing will return any time soon. "We are making it harder and harder to carry out the legal mandate to maintain these parks in their natural state," Tweed says. "What we don't know now is, 0 can we ever get back?"

About the Author: Charles Petit is a contributing editor for News & World Report and a freelance science write!: He lives in California.

u.s.

In Delense 01

How "focal points" and pavement are ruining America's parks. the nage of video games and attention deficit disorder, "open space" has become a dirty term. Open space in America's parks is being wiped out, revised or populated by new structures and parking lots. Municipal officials tend to see such space as a void that must be filled, "programmed" to amuse all comers. With the rise of bottom-up planning, community representatives now decide, ex cathedra, that for our parks to succeed, they must have 10 "focal points" and "10 things to do at each focal point," to quote the Web site of the Project for Public Spaces, a nonprofit in New York City.

I visited several urban parks around the country, among them Piedmont Park in Atlanta, Georgia, City and Audubon parks in New Orleans, and Seneca Park in Rochester, New York. I found them under siege from a variety of threats, including zoo expansions (proposed for both Rochester and New Orleans' Audubon), new parking lots (planned for Atlanta) and new "destination features" like sculpture gardens (in New Orleans' City Park). These parks' collective plight left me dispirited and angry. When was it decided that strolling in dappled shade under a canopy of trees or roaming a sloping lawn is not a sufficient experience in its own right? When did we stop valuing the sound of running water, the humanizing scale and tactile marvels of nature? Who still appreciates historic, moss-covered walls and paths or a landscape designer's choice of plants and ornaments?

I

This national trend-the cluttering of reposeful park grounds with activity-oriented "focal points"-is lamentable and perplexing, not least because park users themselves aren't demanding change.

According to surveys conducted over the past two decades, between 70 and 80 percent of American park users visit them specifically for passive, reflective experiences, not for entertainment.

In Seattle, Washington, misguided new plans threaten Occidental Square and Freeway Park, influential modern landscapes designed, respectively, by Grant and llze Jones and by Lawrence Halprin. The Jones & Jones firm, best known for its work at the San Diego Zoo, designed Occidental in the early 1970s to revive the city's newly designated Pioneer Square historic district. Halprin's Freeway, built over Interstate 5, was the first park of its kind in the United States; it opened a few years after Occidental, on July 4, 1976.

Occidental is an open, European-style square with a Jones & Jones-designed glass pavilion-now used mainly by transients-and cobblestone paving. The Project for Public Spaces would like to overhaul the space completely, removing its trees and the glass structure and painting the facades of surrounding historic buildings. The group has even proposed replacing the uneven cobblestones with Astroturf! Though this last idea has found little support, the city may yet replace the cobbles with concrete cut to look like bricks.

Likewise, to open up views and improve access for proposed new attractions-like an aviary, a spray pool and a cafe-the Project for Public Spaces now advocates the removal of a large chunk from Freeway's inspiring central fountain. Why? Isn't this the artistic and cultural equivalent of removing, say, a figure from Auguste Rodin's famous sculpture group The Burghers of Calais?

Seattle's growing numbers of drug users and drug sellers, as well as its homeless population, have gravitated to Freeway. In 2002 the murder there of a blind and deaf homeless woman in broad daylight spurred a citywide effort to revitalize this dangerous space. Safety is, understandably, a major public concern.

But it should not be the only consideration. Within an emotional and politically charged atmosphere, small but vocal groups of activists can effectively take control of the public debate, holding workshops and "visioning meetings" to advance their own narrow agendas. The resulting park redesigns may be formulaic or ill-conceived-and they can take on a life of their own.

[Some] public spaces are in effect being privatized. This can be seen in the partial closing of Manhattan's Bryant Park for two months a year due to special events-for example, the MercedesBenz New York Fashion Week and a car show-and in construction of new additions elsewhere, like at New Orleans' Audubon Park and at Swope Park in

sweep of trees and lawn with the songs of birds, and too often dollars and the ching-ching-ching of cash registers.

So many nationally significant landscapes have been allowed to fall into disrepair: Kennedy Park in Fall River, Massachusetts; Damrosch Park in New York's Lincoln Center; Heritage Park in Fort Worth, Texas; and many more.

Crumbling infrastructure and declining tree cover result from deferred maintenance and its consequence, lack of use.

Signature fountains remain dry, walkways become difficult to navigate and the design intent of plantings is lost.

Finally, the designer's original vision may be labeled outdated.

Let's draw a line on the cracked pavement: The past must be deemed relevant. We must no longer tolerate a lack of understanding on the part of those who oversee our public spaces.

In many urban settings today, fractured .~communities abut public landscapes ~ where old and young, rich and poor must ~ coexist. These spaces can work. Thanks .~to the efforts of Mayor Richard Daley in ~Chicago and Susan Rademacher, presi~ dent of the Olmsted Park Conservancy in <.) :<> Louisville, Kentucky, people who live ~ n~ar and play in these cities' parks have ~ become their greatest defenders. Public and private investment and strong out~ reach programs ensure that the parks will ÂŤ continue to be well used and cared for.

Those of us who value continuity are increasingly cast as "standing in the way of progress" or "out of touch." Imagine that we didn't use such labels. Imagine that we built a common foundation of knowledge to guide the planning process before new designs were given form.

The resulting parks and open spaces would not only drive neighborhoods' revitalization but would also celebrate regionalism and the power of design and nurture a new generation of informed citizens. But this will not happen until more of us demand it.

0

5

Kansas City. When such additions appear in previously open parkland, the character of the whole landscape is changed irrevocably.

We are subjecting our nation's historic parks to "plop and drop"-the plunking down of formulaic additions and alterations, complete with their own needs for long-term maintenance. In Boston, for instance, the Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum are both planning major new wings. For these they will surrender parkland belonging to Frederick Law Olmsted's famed Emerald Necklace, a chain of nine urban parks stretching from the Charles River to the Dorchester neighborhood. In its place will rise new exhibition spaces and offices, but also other destination fa-

cilities-a visitors center at the Museum of Fine Arts, a cafe at the Gardner.

The famous landscape architect and educator Hideo Sasaki (1919-2000) once decried what he called the five Bs"bricks, banners, balloons, Bradfords [pear trees] and bollards." These he saw as empty frills, window dressing for designs conceived in the absence of natural and cultural values. The goal of such designs is often touted as "restor[ing] prosperity and vitality," a stated aim of the National Trust's own Main Street program-which does not, however, favor the abandonment of history. But today "green" too seldom means a generous

About the Author: Charles A. Birnbaum, a landscape architect, is the coordinator of the

National Park Service Historic Landscape Initiative and founder of the Cultural Landscape Foundation.

Starbucks subsidiary helps Indian tea worker communities.

On a crisp sunny day in November, Gurung takes me to visit ea is like the soul, the essence, and the clay cup is like the body," explained Sanjay Gurung. The manager of one of the remoter communities known as "Parment," short for "permanent settlement," where CHAr has a successful project. the Darjeeling-based CHAI Project, Gurung recalls how Mter breakfast at a cafe facing the famous Batasia Loop of the his American audience-some 3,000 Starbucks store managers-were spellbound by his demonstration of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a World Heritage site, we undertake a jeep journey of two hours over twisting hairpin turns. We eco-friendly, one-time-use clay cup commonly used on Indian travel from Ghoom, which is the world's second highest train statrains and his analogy between a cup of tea and a human.

It may seem strange to have an Indian speaking about tea to tion, at 2,550 meters. We pass hills of emerald, jigsaw patterned tea bushes on the Takdah Tea Estates down through what look Americans, a nation of coffee drinkers, and to its largest corpolike pre-historic gorges and valleys where one might have once rate retailer of coffee, Starbucks. But the Seattle, Washington, coffee company also has a tea company subsidiary called Tazo expected to find dinosaurs roaming.

Surprisingly, nestled in the woods, we discover hidden citrus Tea, based in Portland, Oregon. In 2003, Tazo teamed up with a groves and we pass women with dokos (baskets) on their back Portland-based aid group called Mercy Corps and the Darjeeling carrying the juicy oranges destined for markets on the plainsLadenla Road-Prerna, a development organization, to form "The CHAI Project." It's an acronym for Collaboration for Hope and another source of income for the Darjeeling tea communities.

"This is what Darjeeling looked like before the Britishers conAdvancement in India. And, of course, as every Indian knows, verted it to monoculture tea plantations," explains Gurung, who chai means tea.

Tazo, a buyer of Darjeeling tea since its inception in 1994, has previously worked with the Veterinary Department.

As we near the Parment village, we meet the 65-year-old headworked with its partners, such as Starbucks and tea suppliers of man, Padam Bahadur Mangar, known as "Mondal Daju," and his the region, to provide close to $1 million for community development in the tea-growing regions of Darjeeling, improving the 23-year-old assistant, Santa Kumar Thapa, who are adjusting a lives of some 12,000 people in 24 communities. This year it is set water pipe that serves the community below. Walking down to to expand to Assam, where it will help to diversify economic op- the village of about 20 families, Thapa points out trees and shrubs-teak, sal and broom, which as its name implies is the portunities for tea-growing residents within Tazo's supply chain of partner plantations. Mercy Corps, which is administering the raw material of brooms, a source of income for the community. project, is better known in Asia for its relief work in areas hit by We also pause at several honey-producing beehives.

One of six in his family, Thapa natural disasters, but is now geared has no intention of leaving his more toward development aid. village. Until a few months ago, While the world enjoys sipping his family's income depended the finest tea, produced in Darjeeling and Assam, few people entirely on the pension of his realize that many of the plantation late father, a retired soldier in the Indian Army, and sustenance workers-those who pluck the fafarming. Thapa joined the CHAr bled "two leaves and a bud" -live impoverished lives on the margins Project in its early days and now serves as secretary of its of society.

When tea cultivation was first inYouth Club.

Later, Gurung meets with the troduced in the Darjeeling Hills by villagers in the one-room school the British in the l800s, the area house and discusses the feasibilwas sparsely populated and migrant ity of setting up a biogas unit. laborers from neighboring Nepal Several villagers feel that they were offered jobs. To this day, ethwouldn't have enough cow dung nic Nepalese form the major popu- A grocery store at Dairy Gaon, in Darjeeling district, is run by a to make it feasible, and a lively lation of the Darjeeling Hills. self-help group with assistance from the CHAI Project. discussion ensues. I use one of Although the CHAr Project was the newly constructed latrines and experience firsthand how the originally conceived for the Darjeeling tea plantation communities, field assessments indicated that there were some adjacent CHAr Project has benefited the community. villages that needed help as well. Of the 24 communities in the Before leaving Parment, we meet with Rekha Thapa who, in area involved in the CHAr Project, 10 are tea estates, eight are her early twenties, is its newest and perhaps youngest entrepreagricultural communities and six are forest communities. The neur. With a small loan of Rs. 5,000 provided by the CHAI Youth participants engage in what is termed Open Initiatives, meaning Program, she recently established a shop where she sells items that they decide for themselves what kind of development is most such as salt, soap, spices, rice, cooking oil and eggs. She runs her important for them. "It could be a road, water system or biogas," business with the help of her husband, Prakash, and earns about Rs. 200 a day, which is not bad for a small enterprise in her rural explains Gurung.

Nepal's Coflee Makes Its Way into American Mugs Darjeeling f is world famous for tea, neighboring Nepal is reaping the benefits of another plantation crop, coffee. Commercial coffee production in Nepal began in 1976 with the import of Arabica coffee from South India.

At present, coffee cultivation is scattered oller 17 districts of Nepal's hill regions.

Even though coffee production is still minuscule in proportion to the demand, with only 65 tons exported in 2005, private companies such as Highland Coffee Promotion Company Ltd., Everest, Plantec and Gulmi Cooperative are exporting processed green coffee beans to the United States, Japan and some European countries. Last year Highland Coffee shipped 23 tons of coffee to Holland Coffee in the United States, a major supplier of

I

Starbucks, the U.S retail chain.

In 2002 USAID allied with Winrock International, a nongovernmental development group based in the U.S. state of Arkansas; the Nepal Highland Coffee Promotion Company, the Nepal Coffee Producers' Association, the Specialty Coffee Association of America and other Nepalese organizations.

Their aim was to generate employment and alleviate poverty through environmentally and socially sustainable development of the coffee industry. Their strategy is to improve product quality at all levels: farmer production, rural processing and marketing.

Beneficiaries include farmers like 64-yearold Timlisina, who grows coffee along with other crops. His annual income has already

community. She feels confident that she will be able to return the loan within the one-year time frame. Before Rekha set up her shop, the villagers had to walk 90 minutes to Simbongjust to buy a box of matches. As Rekha puts it, "I am now optimistic about the future and have plans of expanding the business with the profits. Through the Youth Revolving Loan Fund, people like me can be self-reliant and benefit not only themselves, but also their families and communities."

Since large families exceed the tea plantations' employment capacity, young people are left with few options to secure a job and diversify their skills. Yet they are the future of the community.

"We discovered that unemployment among the youth in villages is very high," says Gurung. "Our aim is to impart leadership skills and to train them in a vocation which would be useful and remunerative within the community itself, so that they don't have to leave their own villages to [md a useful role in life."

Given a grant of only Rs. 5,000, youth groups have planned debates, sports and traditional events that united 2,000 of their neighbors, some from across the border in Nepal. This soon evolved into inter-village networking activities, where young participants reported an increase in their self-esteem, advocacy skills and ideas for transforming their environment.

Today, CHAI is also supporting more than 300 young people

A coffee cultivator at Kavre, one of the coffee-growing districts in Nepal.

increased by about $200. His is one of the 12,000 Nepalese household farms producing coffee and tea which have benefited from the alliance. Luke A. Colavito, agriculture program coordinator in South Asia for Winrock International, says the plan is to facilitate new production by some 6,000 smallholders within two years and set the stage for more than 100,000 households to become tea and coffee producers in about 10 years. "This will provide strong examples of commercial markets benefiting poor, small farmers, and helping a vulnerable state like Nepal in a period of cri-D.S.H. sis," says Colavito.

in pursuing vocational apprenticeships based on market demands, and establishing small businesses in animal husbandry, bee-keeping, electronics and others.

During the lO-day annual Darjeeling Carnival, I met Ajay Edwards, chief carnival organizer and owner of Glenary's, a famous Darjeeling restaurant. "When the tea industry first came to Darjeeling it was both a blessing and a curse," explains Edwards as we sip Apoorva Tips organic tea. "Although it provides employment, it has always been a hand-to-mouth existence. Our concern is that we want to make the tea garden communities economically viable. If the local people are earning a decent living they [the local youths] won't be creating any problems in town. We are very grateful for the work that the CHAr Project is doing for the community."

Darjeeling tea is famous worldwide, and even in some Hollywood movies, characters sometimes used to say, "Can I pour you some Darjeeling?"-meaning the finest tea. Americans find that same Darjeeling tea in Tazo blends, and can have pride in the fact that the tea company, rather than exploiting the tea plantation laborers, is helping them to improve their lives.

0 About the Author: Daniel B. Haber is a freelance in Kathmandu.

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based

James Heath has a better way to fight cancer: tiny silicon wires that could sniff out early signs of the disease.

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youf are among the third of the population who will someday develop cancer, your body will contain warning signs well before your doctor is able to diagnose the disease. If these subtle signals in your cells and your bloodstream could only be detected sooner, you'd have a far greater chance of surviving. The problem is that the changes that mark the early stages of cancer are remarkably complex-and often slight, even on a molecular level.

But James Heath, a physical chemist at the California Institute of Technology, believes that nanotechnology could finally provide the solution to this molecular riddle. Heath is betting that banks of ultras mall silicon wires, each made to detect a specific cancer-related protein, could pick up even the most subtle changes in our body chemistry. The nanosensors that Heath and his Caltech coworkers are developing will simultaneously look for hundreds or even thousands of different biomolecules in, say, a drop of blood. If they work, these nanosensors could be the basis for cancer tests that are not only more accurate but, because they don't involve tissue sampling and lab analysis, cheaper and more convenient than those now available.

That's not saying much, of course.

Screening for most cancers remains primitive, often involving simple physical exams to find evidence of tumor growth, or crude imaging methods such as mammography and X-rays. Blood tests exist for a few cancers, such as prostate and ovarian cancers, but their performance is woeful; not only are they slow and costly, but they're notoriously

unreliable. To diagnose prostate cancer, for example, doctors look for a protein called PSA (prostate-specific antigen) in the blood.

But only 25 to 30 percent of men who go through the immensely stressful process of having tissue biopsies because of high PSA levels in their blood actually have prostate cancer. "PSA is always in the prostate," points out Heath, "and is leaked out into the blood in small quantities all the time. When there is some sort of trauma to the prostatewhich could be cancer or something else-it leaks out in greater quantities. But it is a very poor marker for early-stage prostate cancer, since there really isn't too much trauma to the prostate at that stage."

A more accurate cancer test would better reflect the complexity of biomolecular events. Heath's ambition is to construct devices that can not only make multiple measurements at once, from a drop of blood or a few cells taken from a particular tissue, but also detect extremely small quantities of biomolecules. "We are trying to develop a finger prick-based test," he explains. "We would like this test to eventually be something analogous to what is used for diabetics. Diabetics can now monitor their glucose levels, and because they can do that on a regular basis, they take control of the disease.

We would like to develop a similarly enabling platform for cancer."

PIECING TOGnHER THE POULE Cancer research might seem an unlikely place for Heath to have ended up. As a graduate student at Rice University in Houston

8 cules ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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as different genes switch on and off.

But over the past several years, geneticists and molecular biologists have come to realize that genes don't generally act independently. They tend to operate in groups and networks, and they can regulate each other's expression. So making sense of the molecular "fingerprints" of disease requires a systems-level understanding of how genes and proteins work together.

That's where Heath's collaborator, Leroy Hood, founder of the Institute of Systems Biology in Seattle, comes in.

Systems biologists look at the cell much as an electrical engineer looks at a complex circuit: as a highly interconnected system of components that switch each other on and off and relay signals. Heath's sensors might provide thousands of clues to a person's state of health, but Hood's systems-biology approach is needed to piece all those bits of information together into a coherent picture.

Update

u.s. Helps India Test Avian Flu

James Heath, a chemist at the California Institute of Technology, believes nanotechnology could aid cancer survival.

during the early 1980s, he began studying the properties of tiny chunks of materials.

He was part of the team that, in 1985, discovered the soccer ball-shaped carbon molecule C60; the discovery won Heath's professor, Richard Smalley, a Nobel Prize 11 years later and helped launch today's interest in nanotech. But Heath later shifted his focus to semiconductors, such as silicon, used by the microelectronics industry, looking for ways to fashion them 'into ever smaller devices. Recently, he and collaborators at the UniversitJ of

California, Santa Barbara, devised a method for making silicon wires just a few nanometers wide, about 10 times smaller than the smallest features in today's integrated circuits.

The advance was a milestone in the continued miniaturization of electronics.

And, says Heath, "We hoped that by solving such a difficult problem, other opportunities would present themselves." They did: Heath realized these nanowires could also serve as ultrasensitive biosensors.

He also realized, however, that incorporating nanowires into an effective diagnostic tool would not be easy. Changes in a person's state of health are reflected in wild swings in concentrations of biomole-

In another step toward increased bilateral cooperation on health and science, the United States on February 27, 2006, provided India vital diagnostic reagents to allow rapid and accurate detection of the H5N1 avian influenza virus infection in humans. These reagents, which were shipped from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, are sufficient to test 400 human specimens and are capable of producing results within four hours.

Hood and his team have, for example, looked at how genes are expressed to produce proteins in cells and tissues affected by prostate cancer. "Our idea," says Hood, "is that the difference between normal and diseased cells is that the protein and gene regulatory networks in diseased cells have been perturbed, and these disease perturbations are reflected in altered patterns of protein expression controlled by the networks. A fraction of these perturbed

proteins will find their way into the blood and constitute molecular fingerprints that are diagnostic not only of health and disease but of what disease and what type of a particular disease." (There are at least three different types of prostate cancer, for example.)

"We have identified 300 [cancer maker] genes that are uniquely expressed in the prostate," says Hood, "and we predict that about 62 of these may be secreted into the blood. We tested one of these by making antibodies against it and demonstrated that it was only present in the blood of patients with prostate cancer."

Hood's team is now testing five more prostate cancer-secreted proteins. It has also found a similar anay of genes that should be diagnostic for ovarian cancer.

AFluid Situation What exactly would a nanosensor to detect such proteins look like? To turn a nanowire into a transistor, the researchers bring each of its ends into contact with metal wires so that a cunent can be passed through it. They then position an electrode close to the nanowire. Charging this electrode alters the conductivity of the nanowire, turning it "on" and "off'-all familiar stuff to any electrical engineer.

The following is a statement of ownership and other particulars about SPAN magazine as required under Section 19D(b) of the Press & Registration of Books Act, 1867, and under Rule 8 of the Registration of Newspaper (Central) Rules, 1956.

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Public Affairs Section American Embassy American Center 24, Kasturba Gandhi Marg New Delhi 110001 Bi-monthly G.P Tad; Indian Aianta Offset & Packaging Lid. 95-8, Wazirpur Industrial Area Delhi 110052 Michael H. Anderson American 24. Kaslurba Gandhi Marg New Delhi 110001.

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Update Joint Science and Technolouv Research The United States and India have agreed to fund more research in fields such as nanotechnology. The aim is to help scientists and engineers develop techniques that can jump qUickly from the laboratory to commercial and medical use, benefiting the economies of both countries and the well-being of their citizens.

President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced in New Delhi on March 2, 2006, that each government will contribute to start a Bi-National Science and Technology Endowment Fund. Private sources are expected to add more.

Income from the fund would support joint research projects of mutual priority chosen through a competitive process. Topics include: biotechnology, health and infectious diseases; advanced materials and nanotechnology science; climate science; clean energy technologies; clean water technologies, hydrology and watershed management; cyber-security; natural resource and wildlife conservation management; basic space, atmospheric and earth sciences; and marine sciences,

Heath then transforms his nanowire transistors into tiny biosensors. Say, for instance, that one nanowire is to act as a sensor for a particular protein. The researchers coat the surface of the wire with antibodies that will stick to the target protein but not to other molecules. When proteins bind to the antibodies, they interact with the electrons traveling in the nanowire's surface layer, altering its conductivity. If the wire is only a few nanometers thick, there is a significantand measurable-change in its overall conductivity. "If the wire is really, really small," says Heath, "instead of putting a voltage on it, we can put molecules on it, and a chemical event is what causes the transistor to switch."

Their small size also makes the devices very sensitive. Ultimately, the number of molecules required to produce a reading will depend on how tightly they bind to the receptor groups on the sensor surface; but it might be possible to detect individual molecules. Heath says that, although his group has not yet reached that level of sensitivity, it has succeeded in detecting just a few molecules. (Charles Lieber of Harvard University, meanwhile, has demonstrated nanosensors that can detect a single viral particle).

But it's not just high sensitivity that

Heath is relying on for easy and early detection of disease. "We can make thousands of these sensors in a very small area," he says. This means the ability to screen the varied molecular contents of individual cells. Heath is collaborating with Stanford University microfluidics expert Stephen Quake to fabricate chips in which fluids pumped down microscopic channels shuttle single cells into position over a nanosensor anay, where they can be studied one at a time.

In the end, all this technology has to be integrated in a device that can be used in the clinic, which means solving yet more technical and practical problems. In 2003, the Institute for Systems Biology, Caltech, and the University of California, Los Angeles, established the NanoSystems Biology Alliance to ensure that the new tools reflect the latest advances in cancer biology and immunology. The diagnosis of cancer and other diseases, says Quake, will be "carried out automatically, in a few seconds or minutes, on just a handful of cells or their contents." And that conjecture, he predicts, "will be turned into a reality within this decade."

D About the Author: Philip Ball, a consultant editor for Nature, is the author of the book Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another.

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

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1786, n while serving as the U.S. minister in Paris, Thomas Jefferson dined with a talkative young Yankee from Connecticut who outlined a proposition he found irresistible. The young man, named John Ledyard, had an explorer's bona fides, having sailed with James Cook on the famed captain's third Pacific voyage. Now he had a plan to find a water connection between the Atlantic and the Pacific-the elusive Northwest Passage. Jefferson had believed since boyhood that such a link existed, either a single "Great River of the West" or a pair of streams separated by only a few miles of land. England, France and Spain for cen-

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turies had sought the passage. The first nation to find it, Jefferson was sure, would rule North America. So he lent Ledyard money and wished him well-but not without misgivings. "He is a person of ingenuity," Jefferson said of the Dartmouth College dropout. "Unfortunately, he has too much imagination."

What Ledyard imagined, and what Jefferson fell for, was the world's longest hike. Ledyard and his two dogs would start at St. Petersburg in Russia, walk across Siberia, float across the Bering Strait to Russian-owned Alaska, and roam down the Pacific coast to what's now Washington state or Oregon. From there,

During their 1803-06 expedition, Lewis and Clark traveled on the Columbia River, in what is now Washington state.

he would trek to Washington, D.C., looking all the way for a friendly water route from the Pacific. In reality, he had managed to trudge 4,800 kilometers into Siberia when he was arrested as a spy, and the plan collapsed.

But Jefferson didn't give up. A subsequent mission he created-the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which was completed just over 200 years ago-ranks as one of America's most significant adventures. It is remembered, while Ledyard's fiasco

The Lewis and Clark Expedition, completed just over 200 years ago,

merits barely a footnote, not because Meriwether Lewis and William Clark found the Northwest Passage. They failed at that, but they brought home news about something else of great importance: the vast, rich territory west of the Mississippi River.

In fact, a good many of the world's bestknown pathfinders never found what they were looking for, be it fortune, sudden fame or a new trade route to the Orient.

But they all daringly cast a spotlight into the unknown, and together they mapped and helped conquer the Earth. Along the way, they destroyed geographic theories that had endured for ages.

The most familiar example, of course, is Christopher Columbus. The Admiral of the Ocean Sea sailed west from Spain hoping to find Asia, and he went to his grave convinced that the Caribbean island he encountered in 1492 was actually near China or India. Many years passed before the Spanish realized Columbus had discovered a new world and not the old one. 0Pearls. After sailing twice ~ â&#x20AC;˘ cL along the coast of BrazIl, ~ Florentine geographer Amerigo ~ Vespucci in 1504 got it right: He concluded that the great land ~ mass to the west was not Asia but ~ another continent, which "it is

8

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proper to call a new world." An excited German publisher honored him by creating a map that labeled the new world "America." In 1513, Spain's Vasco Nunez de Balboa established what lay beyond. He crossed Panama and found oyster beds yielding giant pearls-news that caused almost as much of a sensation as his discovery Jefferson Peace Medals, like this one displayed at the Museum of Westward Expansion in St. Louis, Missouri, in December 2003, were distributed to high-ranking chiefs of American Indian tribes by Lewis and Clark on their journey.

anks as one of America's most significant adventures.

of the Pacific Ocean.

Still, Europeans remained convinced that the new world was a narrow strip and that Asia was not far away. They continued to probe the Americas' eastern coast, searching for a waterway to the silks and spices of the Orient. That's how Jacques Cartier discovered Canada's St. Lawrence River, which carried him more than 1,440 kilometers into what he called "New France." And how Henry Hudson discovered New York's Hudson River and claimed it for Holland.

At the other end of the Americas, Ferdinand Magellan did find a passage to Asia-but not with the result he expected.

When he rounded South America through the stormy strait that would bear his name, he thought he was a short sail from his goal, the Spice Islands, now the Moluccas of Indonesia. But as Magellan was the first to learn, the Pacific was no pond.

Only two of his five ships reached the Spice Islands, and only one, minus the slain Magellan, limped home at the end of

u.s.

Below: Filming of a government documentary on the Lewis and Clark Expedition outside Salmon, Idaho, in August 2003. Bottom: A re-enactor with the Discovery Expedition, which followed the journey of Lewis and Clark, backs down the keelboat gangplank.

the first voyage around the world.

Not every explorer was bent on reaching Asia. Ponce de Leon, seeking the fabled Fountain of Youth, discovered Florida. And a few-very few-found precisely what they craved.

"We Spaniards suffer from a disease that only gold can cure," said Hernando Cortes, who was treated to loads of it when he conquered the Aztecs of Mexico.

Francisco Pizarro secured an even greater treasure when he crushed Peru's Incas.

Hernando de Soto made a fortune with Pizarro but wanted more. For three years, until his death, he stalked from Florida to South Carolina to Arkansas, lusting for 0. gold. He found none, but he did discover the Mississippi, the great river into which ~ his body was dropped. Farther west, ~ Francisco Vasquez de Coronado wan~ dered from Arizona to Kansas in search of 0: ~ American Indian cities supposedly laden ;;; with turquoise and gold. To his dismay, all ~ he found was the Grand Canyon. Nor G could he know that his conquests would help make the American Southwest a Spanish colony for 200 years.

Jefferson, on the other hand, understood that America's Northwest might become a British stronghold. Arousing his fears was an 1801 book in which Scotsman Alexander Mackenzie told of leading an expedition from Montreal to the Pacificthe first European crossing of the continent north of Mexico. He described a wilderness rich in furs and suggested that a Canada-based company, with British backing, could dominate the North American fur trade. Word that London might draw a bead on the Pacific Northwest stirred America's new President into action.

Fifteen years after dining with Ledyard, Jefferson had found another dinner companion with promise as an explorerMeriwether Lewis, an Army officer hired as the President's sole aide. Shortly after reading Mackenzie's book, Jefferson asked for and got $2,500 from the U.S. Congress for an expedition to explore the West all the way to the Pacific. Lewis was his natural choice to lead it. "Capt. Lewis is brave, prudent, habituated to the woods, & familiar with Indian manners & character," Jefferson wrote. The captain, in turn,

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Above: Botanical specimens collected by the Lewis and Clark Expedition on display at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma in February 2004.

Far right: A deer hide warrior's shirt collected by the Lewis and Clark Expedition on display at the Peabody Museum at Harvard University in December 2003.

Right: The end section of the Letter of Credit for the Lewis and Clark Expedition in President Thomas Jefferson's hand, dated July 4,1803, at the Missouri Historical Society's Library in St. Louis.

picked William Clark, an Army friend, as an equal cocommander. From Lewis and Clark, the President wanted facts on all the subjects of nature "to be taken with great pains and accuracy." But most of all, he wanted their Corps of Discovery to find a practical water route across the continent.

Quite a hike. The most likely passage, Jefferson believed, followed the Missouri Ri ver to its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains. From there, he expected the expedition to face a short portage-a half day's walk-to another river, probably the Columbia, flowing directly to the Pacific.

Jefferson could not have been more mistaken. On August 12, 1805, roughly 16 months after the expedition started up the Missouri from St. Louis, Lewis climbed to the Continental Divide on what's oow the

Idaho-Montana border. On the far side, instead of the Columbia's watershed, he saw "irnmence ranges of high mountains still to the West of us with their tops partially covered with snow." On that summer day, all hopes of finding an easy water route to the Pacific died.

But the corps did befriend legions of American Indians, including an invaluable Shoshone woman, Sacagawea, who accompanied the 33-member expedition across the plains and mountains. And by the time Lewis and Clark reached the Pacific-"Ocian in view! a! the joy!"

Clark wrote in November 1805-they had a clear sense of the continent's geographic complexity and richness. The surest assessment of their message came from Bernard DeVoto, who in the 1950s edited The

Journals of Lewis and Clark. "It was," he wrote, "the first report on the West, on the United States over the hill and beyond the sunset, on the province of the American future ... .It satisfied desire and it created desire: the desire of the westering nation."

As for the Northwest Passage, it was finally discovered not quite a century ago.

Norway's Roald Amundsen found it almost at the top of the world, between Canada's mainland and several of its Arctic islands. Ice made the route nearly impassable. But with the U.S. government about to dig a practical water route between the Atlantic and the Pacific, the Panama Canal, it hardly mattered.

0 About the Author: Lewis Lord is a contributing editor for u.s. News & World Report

In an end-at-winter ritual, the Super Bowl at American tootball seizes the nation's attention.

veryyear toward the end of winter, when much of the country still sits in an icebox, Americans take time in the warmth of their homes to enjoy the greatest spectacle in American sports, the Super Bowl of professional football. The championship game presents a heady blend to viewers-part circus, part ritual and part gladiatorial contest. And they eat it up.

More than 100 million Americans watch the game, making it the most-watched regular television event of the year. Across the country, deserted streets, empty stores and the blue glow one might see through most living room windows while walking down a residential street testify to the pop-

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ularity of this event. For those lucky few tens of thousands who actually attend, tickets can cost more than $1,000 each.

No political, cultural or entertainment event can compete with the Super Bowl for the scale of its one-day impact.

Thousands of journalists from across the country head to the game-which was played this year in Detroit, Michigan, on February 5. The entertainment staged before the game and at its halfway mark feature some of the biggest celebrities in show business. Major television advertisers spend tens of millions of dollars to present their products in spectacular and expensively-produced commercials, each one trying to top the next in special effects

and cleverness, to the point that some people claim to watch the game mainly to see the ads.

Somewhere amidst the marching bands, dancers, jet plane fly-overs, singers, advertisements and other hoopla, a football game is played.

The Super Bowl culminates a football Above, left: The Black Eyed Peas and Earth, Wind and Fire rock bands perform at the Super Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida, in 2005.

Below, left: The Rolling Stones' halftime show at the 40th Super Bowl game played in Detroit on February 5, 2006.

Below: Seattle Seahawks fans cheer at a bar in Washington state during the 2006 game.

Left: Pittsburgh Steelers' Jerome Bettis holds up the Vince Lombardi Trophy after defeating the 8eattle Seahawks 21-10.

Above: Seattle Seahawks tight end Jerramy Stevens drops the pass as Pittsburgh Steelers safety Chris Hope makes a tackle at the Super Bowl game in Detroit on February 5,2006.

. ~ Left: The New England Patriots, .:;( champions of Super Bowl 2005, ~ parade in Boston after beating z ยง the Philadelphia Eagles 24-21. z w >

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~ Below: Former Presidents George H. W Bush and Bill Clinton greet fans prior to the Super Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida, on February 6,2005.

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season that begins in the heat of late summer, continues through the snows of winter-games are frequently played in snowstorms and with temperatures many degrees below freezing-and ends with a breath of springtime in the air. Fans follow their teams with an almost fanatical enthusiasm, planning their week around the live broadcasts of the games, usually played on Sunday afternoons. Many fans have bought televisions with special split-screen features that allow them to watch two or more games simultaneously.

The dramatic growth in football's popularity since the 1960s has adherents claiming that it, not baseball, is America's preeminent sport.

Though closely related to the British game of rugby, football remains a peculiarly American tradition. It has not achieved the international popularity of other sports born in the USA. Professional baseball thrives in Japan, Australia and throughout much of Latin America.

Basketball has reached almost every corner of the world. Yet, football remains almost strictly American. Yes, there is a professional league in Canada, but almost all of its players come from the United States, and all but a couple of the teams are located no more than a short drive from the American border.

Virtually all large American cities boast a professional team. (The peeuliar excep-

tion is Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the nation, which has none.)

The football teams of hundreds of universities and colleges represent the heart and spirit of the schools. University alumni speak of the exploits of old-time heroes of the great school teams with the same awe and wonder as ancients spoke of Odysseus or Gilgamesh.

Most high schools have football teams, and the sport has even trickled down into grade schools, where the protective equipment required of players dwarfs the pintsize players, who practically disappear into their uniforms.

Politicians like to use football metaphors in speeches to give them a manly and assertive tone. Famous players peer from television screens, billboards and magazine pages, lending their names to the marketing of everything from ice tea to pickup trucks. Though it is a particularly masculine game, many American wives have learned to enjoy football, partly for its excitement and color and partly to avoid becoming "football widows," a term coined to describe women whose husbands submerge themselves in

the game each September, not to surface again until after the Super Bowl.

Some, mostly intellectuals, sniff at football's showy extravagance and its bonecrushing style. For most Americans, though, football's cultivation of quick thinking, determination, courage and the will to excel make it a crucible of strong character.

Though it bursts with action and its play can reflect a computer-like complexity, the essentials of the game are not difficult to understand. Essentially, a team of 11 players will try to advance the football down the length of the 100-yard [91.4-meter] field and across a goal line at the end. On each play, the offensive team's key player, the quarterback, hands off or throws the ball to a teammate who tries to advance himself and the ball as far down the field as possible. The defensive team tries to knock him to the ground as soon as possible. It's pretty much that simple.

It is a physically challenging sport, even brutal at times. Imagine soccer if, every time you got the ball, a group of 90kilogram giants tried to crash into you and throw you to the ground.

These physical challenges long ago led football officials at all levels to permit teams to play only one game per week.

This measured advance of the season adds to the unique flavor of the game, as the teams-and their fans-build up to a peak of emotional intensity, culminating on the day of the game in a catharsis and release that is one of the game's most satisfying attributes.

Though professional football has many cherished traditions and storied players, the Super Bowl is not played under the foggy lens of the past, as are some sports.

It is alive and kinetic and emotional, living right here and right now. The Super Bowl is the acme of the professional spirit of the game. And the country, freed for a couple of hours from the politeness and niceties that form the backbone of America's strong communities and civil society, watches, fascinated.

0 About the Author: Steve Holgate recently retired as a correspondent for Washington File, published by the Bureau of International Information Programs of the US. Department of State.

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; (From left) Samir Chatterjee, Steve Gorn and Barun Kumar Pal are among the musicians I perfonning at the Triveni Kala Sangam in New Delhi on February 20, 2006.

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T

he smooth ragas flowing out of the bamboo flute offer a unique experience for Indian audiences. The flutist is an American virtuoso, Steve Gorn, who performs with such expertise that music lovers can close their eyes and believe they are listening to an Indian musician.

"Steve Gorn has adapted Indian classical music on the bansuri so nicely and properly that one should feel proud of him," says Indian master flutist Hariprasad Chaurasia.

Gorn comes to India regularly to perform in concerts and festivals; this year at the Salt Lake Music Festival in Calcutta, Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal and several baithak programs in Varanasi. He wound up with stirring performances at the Triveni Kala Sangam and Sri Aurobindo Ashram in New Delhi in February.

Born in New York City, Gorn grew up with a lot of Western classical music in the house as his father was a concert pianist.

But long before he went to university, Gorn was drawn to jazz, which he played on the tenor saxophone and later the Westero flute. His early influences included John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Eric Dolphy and Charles Mingus. Elaborating on what drew him to Indian music, Gorn says, "It was the way John Coltrane and others were beginning to incorporate elements of Indian music in their approaches."

He started his career as a jazz musician studying composition at Pennsylvania State Umversity. Around that time Gorn discovered the ethereal sounds of Bisrrullah Khan's shehnai, Ravi Shankar's sitar and Ali Akbar Khan's sarod. Hooked, Gorn followed the musical trail to India and one evemng in 1969 found himself in a boat on the Ganges, with noted sarangi exponent Gopal Misra. "I suddenly saw how this music went beyond notes, beyond what we think of as music. How it is, in truth, a yoga, a form of meditation ... ," says Gom. Inspired, he started studying the shehnai with a teacher in Varanasi. "I knew nothing about India when I fIrst arrived other than having this Western notion that somehow that music was connected to jazz and so I studied the shehnai." The fIrst of many turning points in his career came when Gom went to a mela at Maihar .in Madhya Pradesh. There he heard sitar maestro Nikhil Banerjee play Raga Bhairav. "And I knew I wanted to sign up for this musical journey for life," he remembers. '

In 1970 GOll moved to Calcutta where he was invited to meet another virtuoso flutist, Gour Goswarru. Gorn had already started playing the flute in Varanasi. When they met, Goswarill asked Gorn to play something.

"When I fiillshed, Gour Goswarru said, 'You have a good sense for this music, but you have not been taught properly.' He then took out his flute and played for me. The tone was deep, warm and velvety .... The raga unfolded , and time stopped." Gom went on to tour with Goswarni, earillng the appreciation of discerillng Indian audiences and critics. On his return to the Umted States a year later Gorn introduced the American pop world to the evocative strains of his flute and recorded with Paul Simon, Richie Havens, Paul Winter, Glen Velez. His current teacher is Raghunath Seth of Mumbai who fortunately, says Gorn, "visits the States every year, where we can sit for long sessions."

Gorn's flute has found media for expression in concerts, albums, musical scores for films, videos, theater and dance productions. He performed on Paul Simon's Grammy-norrunated CD You're the One and played music in Ram Dass: Fierce Grace, a documentary by Mickey Lemle on the American spiritual teacher.

The soaring ragas of his flute also featured in the soundtrack of Born Into Brothels, a film on children of prostitutes growing up in Calcutta's red-light district, which won the Academy Award for

"Over the past few years many people in the West have found my music to be the perfect accompaniment or soundscape for yoga."

Best Documentary Feature in 2005. "I was given the liberty to improvise musical cues to the picture. That way, I could follow every visual nuance," he says.

Gom continues to bridge genres with his recordings in categories including world music, pop, folk, jazz and New Age music.

"Over the past few years many people in the West have found my music to be the perfect accompaniment or soundscape for yoga."

His signature sound, blending classical Indian tradition with contemporary world music, produces a melody that appeals to Western audiences. The future has much in store for those who enjoy thisjugalbandi. "I think when the craze for Indian classical music started in the 1960s it was a lot more superficial than it is now. Today there are people who are studying it, there are more opportunities to see concerts and there seems to be a real genuine appreciation for this magnificent music."

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the n spring of 1986, Duke University students [in North Carolina] protesting the school's investments in apartheid South Africa erected shanties in front of the university chapel, a soaring spire of volcanic stone modeled after England's Canterbury Cathedral. The nature of the protest prompted one undergraduate to complain to the student newspaper. The shacks, she wrote, violate "our lights as students to a beautiful campus."

For Duke sophomore Susan Cook, the letter was a call to action.

She had told only a couple of her classmates that she was related to the man who had designed the Duke chapel-indeed, who had designed most of the original buildings on the school's neo-Gothic west campus and many on its Georgian east campus. She had never met him, but she felt certain that if he were still alive, he would support the divestment rally as wholeheartedly as she did.

So she penned an emotional rebuttal. Duke's beauty, she wrote, was an example of "what a black man can create given the opportunity." [She believed that] her great-granduncle, Philadelphia architect Julian Abele (pronounced "able"), was "a victim of apartheid in this country" who had conceived the Duke campus but had never seen it because of the Jim Crow laws then in force in the segregated South. [Jim Crow refers to segregation and discrimination against black people, and the laws that abetted these practices.]

That an African-American had designed Duke, a whites-only institution until 1961, was news to nearly everyone. Abele's role was not a secret, as documents in the university archives make clear. But it had never been acknowledged so publicly. Cook's letter changed that.

Now, an oil portrait of the architect-the fIrst of a black person at Duke-hangs in the main lobby of the administration building. Even the university Web site devotes a page to him.

The recognition was long overdue. Abele was not the fIrst black architect in the United States, but he was probably the most accomplished of his era. Between 1906, when he joined the all-white Philadelphia firm of Horace Trumbauer, until his death in 1950, he designed or contributed to the design of some 250 buildings, including Harvard's Widener Memorial Library, the Museum of AIt and the Free Library, both in Philadelphia, and a host of Gilded Age mansions in Newport, Rhode Island, and New York City. Abele's race, coupled with his self-effacing personality, meant he would not be widely known during his lifetime outside Philadelphia's architectural community. The custom of signing sketches with the fIrm's name rather than an individual designer's also made credit impolitic to claim.

"The lines are all Mr. Trumbauer's," Abele once said of the Free Library, "but the shadows are all mine." . Born in 1881, Julian Francis Abele was the youngest of eight in . a family of achievers that had long been a fIxture of Philadelphia's African-American aristocracy. On his mother's side he could

I

claim Absalom Jones, cofounder of the Free African Society, an early (1787) mutual support group for the city's free blacks. His older brother Robert became a physician. Two other siblings were successful sign makers. "Julian's is not a rags to riches story," says Cook, now a senior art director at the advertising agency Foote, Cone & Belding in New York City.

As a boy, Abele attended the Institute for Colored Youth, a teacher-training school founded by members of the Quaker religious group. For his prowess in mathematics he was awarded a $15 prize. He was also chosen to deliver a commencement address.

His topic: the role of art in Negro life. After studying at Brown Preparatory School and the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, Abele enrolled in architecture at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). He studied architectural design at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 1902 to 1903.

Penn's program emphasized the classical methods then in vogue at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, techniques that had found expression in America in the buildings of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Abele embraced them. (His public buildings would rely heavily on Greek, Roman and Renaissance conventions while striving to harmonize with adjacent buildings and the surrounding landscape-a characteristic typical of the City Beautiful Movement that grew out of Beaux-Arts methods.) In his senior year, Willing and Able, as he was nicknamed, was elected president of the student architectural society, the highest honor his classmates could bestow, and he won student awards for his designs of a post office and a botanical museum. When he graduated from the university in 1902, he was the first black ever to do so. By then, at 21, he had already been listed as an architect in the city directory for a year.

After graduation, Abele is believed-records are spotty-to have traveled to Idaho to help his sister Elizabeth, whose husband had recently accepted a position as a small-town postmaster. When he returned to Philadelphia in 1906, Warren "Popsy" Laird, dean of the University of Pennsylvania's architecture program, brought Abele to the attention of Trumbauer, an architect whose fIrm was known for creating residential palaces for local industrialists and businessmen.

Initially, Abele was hired to assist Trumbauer's chief designer, Frank Seeburger, but sometime after Seeburger left to form his own practice in 1909, Abele succeeded him.

The nature of the relationship between Trumbauer and Abele is murky. Few of the fIrm's records survive, and neither man kept a diary or saved much personal correspondence. What is clear is that Trumbauer, who bootstrapped his way up through apprenticeship, voracious reading and fortuitous connections, and Abele, the formally educated, classically trained black patrician, complemented each other. "You certainly get the impression that there was a great

After decades of obscurity, AfricanAmerican architect Julian Abele is finally getting recognition for his contributions to some of 20th-century America's most prestigious buildings.

president of Trinity College in deal of respect," said Abele's son, Julian F. Abele Jr., a retired Durham, North Carolina, perarchitectural engineer.

"You suaded Duke to turn the school into a namesake university, the have to give Horace Trumbauer a lot of credit for the courage to Trumbauer office got the nod, hire a black and put him in such with Abele in the lead. a responsible position."

Over the next two decades, Trumbauer had opened his Abele's designs enlarged and fIrm in 1890, when he was just unifIed Duke's small, existing 21. The next year, sugar refIner east campus and helped create a William Welsh Harrison hired new west campus 2.5 kilometers him to enlarge his estate in away. Initial plans for a manGlenside, Pennsylvania. When made lake and fountain never the estate burned down in 1893, came to pass, but Abele was kept busy working on the library, Harrison engaged Trumbauer school of religion, football to build a castle-like country stadium and gymnasium, medhouse called Grey Towers 2:ical school and hospital, faculty (now Arcadia University). Byi houses and, of course, the the time Abele joined the firm, ~ chapel.

Trumbauer had produced his sig-I In addition to Duke University nature Lynnewood Hall, a 1l0- S and Widener Library, the proroom Palladian mansion built for I mass transit tycoon Peter A.B. ~ jects to which Abele made his most significant contributions Widener, and Elstowe Manor, ~ are Philadelphia's Free Library an Italian palazzo created for ~ Widener's partner, William L. and that city's Museum of Chief designer Julian Abele modeled Duke University s Art. Dedicated in 1927, the Elkins. In 1902, he built the Elms chapel after England's Canterbury Cathedral.

Philadelphia library is based on for coal baron Edward J. the twin facades of the Ministere Berwind. It was the fust of sevde la Marine and Hotel de Crillon on Place de la Concorde in eral commissions for Newport Island "cottages," including Clarendon Court, which would become notorious decades later as Paris, reflecting Abele's admiration for their designer, Angethe venue for Claus von Bulow's alleged injection of a comaJacques Gabriel, who was King Louis XV's chief architect from 1742 to 1774. The Museum of Art, which served as the backdrop inducing dose of insulin to his wife, Sunny. (He was acquitted of for the famous stair-running scene in the movie Rocky, sits like a the charge of attempted murder in 1985.) massive Greek temple atop what was once a city reservoir. The The white entrepreneur and the African-American striver shared with their wealthy clients a yearning for respect in a soci- Trumbauer fIrm collaborated uneasily on the design with another ety in which class, race and religion often mattered more than fIrm, Zantzinger, Borie and Medary. Though Trumbauer architect merit. "Trumbauer and Abele catered to these nouveau riche peo- Howell Lewis Shay ultimately came up with a compromise design ple who wanted a physical embodiment of their success," says for the building, Abele provided some of the building's most draInga Saffron, architecture critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer. matic perspective drawings. Architectural historian Fiske Kimball, who supervised the museum's construction and served as its direG"They wanted to invent a past. If you build yourself a French chateau, you give yourself a pedigree." tor from 1925 to 1955, described Abele as "one of the most sensiJames Buchanan Duke, founder of the American Tobacco tive designers anywhere in America."

Company, exemplified this peculiarly American brand of selfAbele also made major contributions to Whitemarsh Hall (cominvention. In 1909, Abele began work on a Manhattan mansion pleted in 1921), a 147-room, 1l,000-square-meter mansion in for Duke at the comer of Fifth Avenue and 78th Street. Three SpringfIeld, Pennsylvania, for Edward T. Stotesbury, a senior partyears later, when Duke, his pregnant wife and 14 servants moved ner in the Drexel & Company banking house, and to the New York into the white-marble residence, modeled on a late 17th-century Evening Post building in Manhattan (completed in 1925 and now home to luxury condominiums). In recent years, the question of Bordeaux chateau, The New York Times designated the building who did what at the Trumbauer fIrm has become a matter of some(now New York University's Institute of Fine Arts) as the "costliest home" on Fifth Avenue. Duke followed the firm's work and times contentious debate between those who say Abele designed was especially impressed with Widener Memorial Library at nearly every important building the firm produced after 1909 and those who claim that all the credit belongs to Trumbauer himself.

Harvard, dedicated in 1915 to the memory of Harry Elkins Widener, who had gone down, with the Titanic. In 1924, when the "Abele was a very talented man," says Michael C. Kathrens,

author of American Splendor: The Residential Architecture of accommodating his white associate, William Frank.

While the South was more restrictive, Philadelphia had its Horace Trumbauer. "But Trumbauer was the genius behind the own demeaning set of social rules. Until the passage of an equal firm." Dreck Wilson, who is researching a biography of Abele, rights law in Pennsylvania in the 1930s, seating in theaters and says that Trumbauer's buildings before Abele took over as chief designer "were obese, monstrously heavy. When you look at on public transportation was generally segregated. Abele reportAbele's buildings, they float, they're lighter." Both sides may be edly walked more than 10 blocks to work each day rather than right. "One man can't design a building," says Saffron. "It's a accept having to sit in the back of the city's segregated streetcars.

Not much is known about Abele's social life in the early team."

Architect 1. Max Bond Jr., who was involved in the design of years of his career. When his sister Elizabeth separated from the World Trade Center memorial, would agree. "We tend to say, her husband around 1906, he took her in, along with her three 'That's a building by so-and-so,' yet many people contribute to children, and raised them as his own. By the time he reached that building and design," says Bond. "This is particularly true his forties, the children were largely grown. Through his friend with Trumbauer and Abele. Trumbauer was not a force like and fellow architect Orpheus "Razzle" Fisher (who later marFrank Lloyd Wright. [His designs were] the work of a firm." ried the famed African-American contralto Marian Anderson), No records describe the workings of the design process at the Abele met Marguerite Bulle, a recent arrival from Paris who Trumbauer office, but in firms of the day there would typically was white and a protegee of Nadia Boulanger, the noted be three principals with complementary skills: a rainmaker to French musician and conductor. Abele, who spoke fluent French, soon arranged to take piano lessons from Marguerite, drum up business, a designer and someone who turned concepts nearly 20 years his junior. No doubt Abele's lO-room, twointo blueprints. Apparently Trumbauer acted mainly as rainmaker, Abele as chief designer, and architectural engineer William bath home on Christian Street made a good impression.

Located in a neighborhood of black professionals, the threeFrank as the nuts-and-bolts person. Clearly Trumbauer valued Abele's talent. Asked to release Abele from his contract a year story town house boasted tasteful antiques, two Jean Honore after he was hired (Abele had an offer in California), Trumbauer Fragonard paintings, a Baldwin grand piano, a sofa covered replied, "I of course would not want to loose [sic] Mr. Abele." with needlepoint Abele had done himself, and several black Mustachioed and impeccably dressed, Abele, who stood 1.73 servants. The night before the couple married in 1925, Trumbauer gave them each a meters tall, treated his race as $1,000 bill as a wedding gift. a fact, little more. Because he The Abeles had three chilwas light skinned, some peodren. The oldest, Julian F. ple were unsure of his ethnicity. Although several draftsAbele Jr., was baptized at the men at his office apparently cathedral at Reims, France, on an overseas trip in 1929. resented working under a black man, one colleague Marguerite Marie, known in claimed never to have realized the family as Pacquette Abele was black; he simply (Little Flower), died at the thought he was "other." "For age of 5 of complications all intents and purposes, from measles, and Nadia, the Julian did not consider himyoungest, took her name self black," says biographer from her mother's mentor.

Wilson. "He was almost aA cross-cultural, interracial racial. He buried himself in union would likely have been Julian Abele (circled) was elected president of the University being an artist." difficult for any couple, but of Pennsylvania's student architectural society in J 902. the Abeles also had personaliIn fact, Cook's assumption that her great-grandty differences.

Marguerite uncle never saw the Duke campus because of Jim Crow lawsenjoyed card parties, movies and bingo, while Abele liked nothan assumption repeated in countless newspaper accounts-may ing better than to retreat to his third-floor den after work to read very well be false. In the early 1960s, John H. Wheeler, a and listen to opera and "Amos 'n' Andy" on the radio. What prominent black banker in Durham, told George Esser, then finally broke the Abeles apart, however, was a messy affair.

While working as an accompanist at a Philadelphia radio station, executive director of the North Carolina Fund, that he recalled Marguerite met a young baritone named Jozep Kowalewski, who Abele coming to visit the campus during construction. What's soon became a regular at the Christian Street house under the more, in a 1989 interview, Henry Magaziner, son of Abele's pretense of taking music lessons. By all accounts, the two fell .friend and University of Pennsylvania classmate Louis Magaziner, recalled Abele telling him that a Durham hotel had hopelessly in love. refused to give him a room during a trip to the university, while When Marguerite asked Abele for a divorce in 1933, he refused.

Two firms collaborated on the design of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, for which Abele created dramatic perspective drawings.

i ~ fO >-

~

~ >-

---------~ She told Abele she was "dead" to him as a wife and moved into a separate bedroom. In 1936, after learning she was pregnant by Kowalewski, Marguerite grew desperate. Her solution was to wed Kowalewski in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City in October 1936. Perhaps she reasoned that her "marriage" to Kowalewski (a fellow Catholic) would be sanctified by the church, if not by the state. A month later, she fmally left Abele, who insisted on keeping the children. Jozep and Marguerite's fIrst child, Jeanne, was born in January 1937. (They eventually had two more children.) From then on, Abele had contact with his wife only at family functions, although he did allow Julian Jr. and Nadia to visit her.

At home, wearing a coat and tie, Abele continued to preside over formal Sunday dinners. In summer, he set up his children and a nanny in a rented cottage in the segregated beach community of Wildwood, New Jersey, arriving by train every Friday night and returning on Sunday evening. Even in hot weather, the debonair Abele could be seen striding the boardwalk in a suit and straw hat.

Thanks to ongoing projects such as the Duke campus, the Trumbauer fIrm was less affected than most by the crash of 1929-at fIrst. But when mansions requiring dozens of servants became a thing of the past, so, in many ways, did Trumbauer. By the mid-1930s, the once-thriving practice was reduced to a critical trio: Trumbauer, Abele and Frank. The lean years took a toll on the hard-drinking Trumbauer. In 1938, at the age of 69, he died of cirrhosis of the liver. Wary of changing the fIrm's identity at such an uncertain moment, Abele and Frank took over what their letterhead termed The Office of Horace Trumbauer, with their names underneath. Freed from anonymity at last, Abele began signing drawings with his own name and, in 1942, became a member of the American Institute of Architects.

The continuing construction of the Duke campus fIlled most of Abele's fInal decade. He signed drawings for Cameron Indoor Stadium (fInished in 1940), where the Duke Blue Devils now play basketball; later, he worked on a library addition and a physics building. Abele died of a heart attack at age 68 in 1950, before the fInn completed the Allen Building, the Duke administration offices where his portrait would hang 40 years later. Marguerite attended his funeral at the Christian Street house, as did one of the Wideners. A three-paragl'aph obituary in The Philadelphia

Inquirer noted Abele's long association with Trumbauer, but failed to mention any of the buildings he had designed.

Abele, who had focused more on art than finance, died without a will. Because he and Marguerite had never obtained a divorce, by law she and all of the children born during the marriageincluding the three she had with Kowalewski-were heirs to his estate. Marguerite reportedly forfeited her individual claim, but a court guardian was appointed to represent the interests of the Kowalewski offspring, who were minors. In 1956, a trust was set up for the three Kowalewski children, to be distributed when each turned 25. Abele's surviving children, Julian Jr. and Nadia, split the remainder of the estate.

The Trumbauer fIrm produced two more buildings for Duke University before fInally folding in 1968. In 1982, the Philadelphia Museum of Art honored Abele for his role in the museum's design; in 2002, the Free Library held a weekend of events to celebrate the architect on the library's 75th anniversary. "I'm sure he would have been honored," his son Julian said. "But he would not have liked making speeches; he would not have gloried in it."

Buildings, not speeches, are Abele's legacy. His life serves as an inspiration for the growing number of licensed African-American architects in the United States-an estimated 1,500 out of a total of 101,000 architects are black. Abele also passed his love for his profession on to his son and to his nephew, Julian Abele Cook Sr., Susan Cook's grandfather, who became an architectural engineer.

Susan Cook's brother, Peter, a graduate of Columbia's architecture program, became a principal at KGP Design Studio, a Washington, D.C.-based architecture and urban design fIrm. He well remembers his fIrst glimpse of a building designed by his great-granduncle. It was on a visit with his family to Duke in the late 1970s. Driving around the campus, he turned up the long drive to the chapel.

"Suddenly out of this deep green forest appeared this iconic image of Duke," he said. "It's one thing to have a building move you, but to have my great-granduncle build it! As a practitioner now, it's an unbelievable legacy to live up to."

D About the Authors: Susan E. Tifft teaches journalism and public policy at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Smithsonian's Associate Editor Lucinda Moore contributed additional reporting for this story.

A

Painter's

Ray of Hope

By GIRIRAJ AGARWAL

he universal image of the artist as a gifted creator struggling to conserve his art despite straitened circumstances is personified by painter Mohan Malviya. After all, he has not forgotten the days when he did not even have a roof over his head, nor could he afford to buy proper paint and paper. Still he continued working in different forms-from ceramics to watercolor-and kept his artistic ambitions alive. Then, in 2004, recognition came in the form of an $11,000 grant from the New York-based Pollock-Krasner Foundation, enabling Malviya to hold 10 exhibitions across India over a period of two years. "There was a time when I did not have even Rs. 10 to buy paper; but thanks to the grant I was able to buy expensive paper and paint. It made a huge difference to my art."

When Malviya was starting out as an artist in Bhopal in 1996 he would paint through the night at the Bharat Bhavan complex and spend his days soaking in the works of such painters as Jagdish Swaminathan, Akhilesh Verma (his mentor) and Sayed Haider Raza, imbibing their techniques. During this period he was also deeply influenced by the works of major American artists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. At that time he never imagined that a grant from an institution named after his favorite artist would help him take his creativity to a higher level.

Malviya was born in Ratanpur village in the Khargaon district of Madhya Pradesh.

His initial artistic forays were undoubtedly inspired by folk art and the environment. He

was as much attracted to the idols created ~ during festivals like Naag Panchami and <3 路 h .,. d b th Naad series, brass and silver, 30 x 30 cm.

G ovar dh an P uJa as e was lascmate y e rock-lined banks of the Narmada River at Vimleshwar Ghat. These initial steps led Malviya to the portals of the Deolalikar Art College in Indore for formal art studies. An encounter with painter M.P. Husain left lasting impressions on his young mind.

By the time the 27-year-old Malviya arrived at Bharat Bhavan he had extended his oeuvre to ceramics but still struggled to make headway in the art world. "I was not interested in farming, my paintings did not sell and I was jobless," he recalls. In a frenetic burst earlier in Indore, Malviya had completed 150 paintings. So he exhibited about 100 of these at Bhopal and managed to sell Naad series, acrylic on canvas, 70 x 70 cm. four to Priya Paul, chairperson of Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels, for Rs. grant. "I was in Delhi but my friends 18,000. Malviya describes this as celebrated my achievement in Indore!" the "turning point" in his career. he recalls.

In 2002 he contributed a gigantic What does the future hold? "I enjoy being 31-meter by 1.5-meter canvas an independent painter and like working on for the Silk Route Festival cu- handmade paper with acrylic colors." rated by Rajeev Sethi. He also Malviya describes the Pollock-Krasner began working on paper and Foundation grant as a "ray of hope" for stone. "For five months I worked artists who find it difficult to get support in furiously in a farmhouse," recalls India. Referring to the ups and downs of his artistic career, Malviya says: "WhenMalviya. The effort was financially rewarding. ever I fail I realize that I must have gone "On the encouragement of my friends I wrong somewhere, then work hard to prepared a four-line proposal for the overcome the shortcoming."

Pollock-Krasner Foundation stating that I The Pollock-Krasner Foundation was wanted to work in metal. I mentioned my established in 1985 and has helped artists plan to create a 2.4-meter by 1.2-meter from 65 countries, including India, with painting and to cast some of my art work grants totaling $37 million. In 2004, in gold and bronze." He sent 10 slides to Malviya was among four Indian artists chosen for the grant. The other three were the foundation with a recommendation from Sethi and painters Radhakrishnan and Sukumaran Pradip from Trivandrum, Akhilesh Verma. He soon received a letter Aseem Purkayasth from New Delhi and stating that he had been selected for the Tanmaya Samanta from West Bengal.

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couldt have been a nightmare for any visitor to a foreign country. Sitting in your hotel room late at night, you hear a cry for help. In this unfamiliar territory, is it safe to go to someone's aid? What will you face if you open the door? Fortunately, for a victim of domestic violence in Santa Fe, in the Southwestern U.S. state of New Mexico, the people who heard her screams were quite experienced in the art of rescue.

Rishi Kant and Jata Shanker-two Indian anti-trafficking activists in America as part of the International Visitor Leadership Program of the Department of State-turned a moment of fear and uncertainty into an act of heroism. On December 7, 2005, they rescued a young woman who was being assaulted and were awarded certificates of appreciation in the Santa Fe City Council chambers.

But the story began far before that fateful night in New Mexico. For Kant, it be-

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amarilaos

gan in the early 1990s, when he was a college student working to promote AIDS education in a New Delhi brothel. Inside, a girl who had been locked up and sold into prostitution asked him to rescue her.

However, while he was looking for help, the brothel owner found out about the escape plan and moved her to another location. He never saw her again. "I see her in my eyes," he says. "That folded-hand request. .. .It changed me. Until I die, I know I will work against trafficking." Soon after that he helped start Shakti Vahini, which has rescued thousands of women and children since 1994.

Shanker works for another nongovernmental organization, MSS Seva, in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, near the border with Nepal. The entire border region of the state is a hotbed for trafficking, especially of children, from Nepal to India.

Shanker's dedication to his work is obvious. "I'm not into prevention," he says. "I

am into annihilation. I want to annihilate trafficking on the border."

Both Kant and Shanker were nominated for the Visitor Leadership Program that involved spending three weeks in the United States, learning about American activist groups, law enforcement and anti-trafficking efforts. According to the Department of State, more than 200 current and former heads of state are past participants in the Visitor Leadership Program.

After meeting government officials in Washington, D.C., grassroots volunteers in Little Rock, Arkansas, and mY/AIDS organizations in Seattle, Washington, the two men arrived at their last stop in Santa Fe. Kant and Shanker were sharing a hotel room and neither could sleep. So they were listening to Hindi music on a laptop and Kishore Kumar's "Chalte Chalte" started playing at about 2 a.m. Then they heard a scream from the parking lot, "Don't beat me. Please help me!"

Jata Shanker (left) and Rishi Kant, participants in the U.S. International Visitor Leadership Program, rescued a victim of domestic violence in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Below: Raye Byford, deputy chief of the Santa Fe Police Department, Kant and Shanker.

Both jumped up and rushed to the window. Through the haze of the snowfall outside, they saw a naked woman lying in the parking lot and a man beating her thighs and stomach. Kant shouted at the man and ran outside. He chased and caught him, while Shanker went to help the young woman lying in the snow. "Blood was everywhere. She was crying so much and she just clung to me," he says.

He carried her to the hotel reception desk and sat her in a chair. Shanker tried to comfort her as the terrified night clerk called the police for help. But Shanker didn't get to stay long-the assailant had

two of them with certificates of appreciation." The attacker turned out to be the victim's boyfriend, and a case of domestic violence investigation began.

Brave men like Kant and Shanker are on the front lines of the battle against human trafficking in India-a battle that has been escalating every year. The rise of female feticide has led to a skewed sex ratio across the country, causing more girls to be sold into prostitution or forced marriages.

Meanwhile, demand for child labor continues in manufacturing of products as diverse as firecrackers, diamonds, carpets and saris. While there are no definite figures, there are likely millions of women and children enduring forced labor in India, not to

broken free of Kant's grip and was on the run again.

Both men ran after the fleeing man and kicked at his legs until he stumbled.

Shanker caught him, but this time, he pulled out a knife. They also saw a pistol stuck in the waist of his pants. He kept yelling, "Don't touch me, I will kill you!"

The threat of the gun, however, did not deter these two. "I've fought traffickers," says Shanker. "I don't think about the fear.

If you are able to, you just do it." But the situation was about to get far worse.

While Shanker was struggling to keep hold of the man, Kant stopped a passing car for help. Unfortunately, he picked the wrong car. He asked the driver to help them because a woman was being assaulted. Far from offering help, the man started screaming at him and threatening to shoot him as well.

Kant says, "Once he opened the car window, I saw a pistol sitting on the seat. I turned back to Jata and said, 'Run!' Jata was not running, he was still trying to catch the other man, so I went to help him so we could get away from the car. Fortunately, because of the receptionist, the police arrived just then." Kant pauses for a moment, then concedes, "It is lucky that we are alive today ... .I am so impressed with the speed of the police response and their sensitivity toward the victim."

Raye Byford, deputy chief of the Santa Fe Police Department, told the end of the chaotic tale. "Unfortunately, the male escaped, but they were able to protect the female from further injury. I do know one of the [Indian] gentlemen was barefoot as they began the chase of the suspect male. The police department presented the

"It is lucky that we are alive today .... 1am so impressed with the speed of the police response and their sensitivity toward the victim."

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mention those trafficked abroad.

However, conviction rates remain very low. According to a U.S. government monitoring report, courts in Mumbai prosecuted just 53 people for trafficking-related offenses in 2004, and convicted 11. The report states, "While this is an increase over 2003, the level of prosecution remains inadequate relative to Mumbai's role as the largest center for sex trafficking in India."

To help train law enforcement officials and improve their ability to investigate and prosecute, the U.S. government recently added $2 million to support a joint anti-trafficking project with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Government of India. It is set to be the largest U.S. government-funded UNODC anti-trafficking project in the world. The new funding is part of nearly $8 million committed by the United States to fight trafficking in India.

D About the Author: E. Wayne is a freelance writer based in New Delhi.

Exciting Changes in the Bilatel~al Relatio11s11ip nott'sjust the increased number of vehicles, building and construction sites that U.S. Representative Bobby Jindal noticed as he visited, for the fIrst time in 14 years, the country of his parents' birth. There have been changes in people's attitudes and goals.

"When you talk to Indian professionals and young Indians, you're hearing more and more stories about them staying here to pursue their dreams. You're hearing more about Indians returning from America and other nations, software engineers, business people, investors and others, staying here and coming back here," Jindal told SPAN during ills January visit to New Delhi and Rajasthan, with other members of a U.S. Congressional delegation.

He said that change since his 1992 visit is apparent "when people talk about their aspirations, and what they're hoping to do. There's an energy in the nation that's certainly exciting."

There are also exciting changes in the relationships between Indians and Americans, Jindal feels. President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice describe the U.S.-Indian relationship in new terms. "They talk about it as a relationship based on values, where we share a commitment to democracy, pluralism," said Jindal.

"It's not about personalities," he said. "It's not about who happens to be in the White House or who happens to be Prime Minister. .. whether it's a Democrat or Republican in the White House, whether it's Congress or the BJP here in India.

You want the kind of relationsillp that transcends that."

Noting the changes since 30 years ago, when Iran and Venezuela were two of America's closest allies and most dependable suppliers of energy, and Eastern European countries were opponents within the Soviet bloc, Jindal said the United States has been nimble enough to shift its alliances for strategic and practical reasons. His view of the U.S.-India relationship, however, is that it is not based on temporary expediency but on a solid foundation of commitment to democracy and human rights. "When you look at the alliances that America has formed that have lasted throughout the generations, they've been the alliances like the U.S.-British friendship, because it was based on shared values," Jindal said. "So I was excited to hear the President and Prime Minister use those terms ... .In both nations you're seeing recognition of how much they share in common and they're no longer viewing

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each other through the prism of the Cold War, through the prism of other nations."

Because these connections are being made, not only by diplomats and government leaders, but by business leaders and others, Jindal predicted, "Over the next two years, you're going to have, I think, greater cooperation in not only the field of energy, but dramatic increases in trade and also greater cooperation in international affairs."

Also, he said, "It's a relationship where we can disagree on particular issues and still maintain the alliance." America has many close allies that, like India, have disagreed with Washington's policy toward Iraq, he said, but that hasn't undone those relationships. "In the short term, there may have been some damage, but in the long term I think everybody expects those relationships are going to survive and indeed, thrive."

Jindal represents a district in the state of Louisiana, where the shrimp industry successfully argued for an anti-dumping duty on shrimp imports from India, Vietnam, Thailand and other countries.

The U.S.-based International Trade Commission upheld the duty last November, ruling that shrimp imported from these countries were being sold below market value and harming American shrimpers. Indian producers say their shrimp is legitimately cheaper because of lower production costs, and they feel the duty is protectionist.

"I trunk it's important for shrimpers and industries in both nations that there be mechanisms, where both nations can feel there's a fair, impartial process where they can go, an arbitration process, so it doesn't erupt into a larger trade war," Jindal said. He sees it as "a sign of a growing maturity of the relationship between the two nations, that you can have this dispute ... and it didn't threaten, it's not overshadowing the larger relationsillp. It's something that routinely happens with India, but, you know what? It also happens with Japan and the imported beef. It happens with France in the labeling of champagne. So these are the types of challenges you'd expect in any normal relationship."

Americans and Indians are "seeing each other as partners in the struggle to promote democracy, to promote freedom, respect for human rights, to promote open, market-based economies," Jindal said. "I think that's a relationsillp that's almost inevitable, based on those shared values."

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eflecting the importance of the growing defense supply relationship with India, the U.S. Department of Defense participated for the first time in India's Defense Expo, in New Delhi in January. Among the exhibits were an Armored Humvee, or High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, unmanned aerial vehicles and antitank missile simulators. Dan Harshman, an equipment specialist from the U.S. Army's Natick Soldier Center, describes equipment for the Future Force Warrior Program to U.S. Ambassador David C. Mulford and Colonel Steven B. Sboto, the U.S. defense attache.

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