SPAN: March/April 2008

The Urgency of

C imatie Change' .

Chicago's Architectural Masterpieces . U.SAndia Fight Against Malaria An Inside Look at U.S. Election Coverage

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his winter, villagers at the National Chambal Sanctuary near Etawah in Uttar Pradesh were stumped by the large-scale deaths of gharials in the Chambal River, The World Wide Fund for Nature-India estimates that more than 100 gharials died in a period of two and a half months since December.

Was it because of climate change? An infectious disease?

Brian Stacy, a veterinary pathologist from the University of Florida, flew to India to join international and local experts to find out what killed the reptiles The Switzerland-based World Conservation Union has moved gharials (Gavialis gangeticus) from endangered to critically endangered status, Two years ago, it says, fewer than 235 adult gharials swam in the rivers, mostly in India and Nepal, snapping up small fish with a swiping motion of their long snouts, Stacy, who first came to India in 199899 as a student at the Madras Crocodile Bank in Chennai, Tamil Nadu joined the

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From right: Brian StaClj, wildlife experts Shailendra Singh, Dhruvajyoti Basu and Annirudha BelsaTe examine a dead gharial on the banks of the Chambal River near Etawah in Uttar Pradesh.

other experts on a 40-kilometer tour of the Chambal River, examining live and dead gharials, They soon found one cause of death: the toxic waters at the confluence of the Chambal and the Yamuna, "We found that the gharials had evidence of kidney failure," says Stacy "Various findings suggested a toxin is involved, Toxicological studies are on" going," But then, why were only gharials dying?

And only large ones, 1,6 to 4,1 meters long? "One theory is the fish they are eating are the source of toxins, But this needs to be investigated," says Stacy The specialists met top officials, including the chief ministers, of the Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh governments and will prepare a report with suggestions on how to save the remaining gharials, "The Yamuna did not get polluted in a day, It's a long-term problem and the solution is going to be equally long term," says Stacy "Such a catastrophe may help stimulate action," ~

for more information: The World Wide Fund for Nature-India http://www .wwfindia.

orgl

March/April 2008 Front cover: Fire, by Sujata Bajaj, mixed media, 100 x 50 cm, 2006, from LOrdre du monde, by Jean-Claude Carriere, published

by Albin Michel, Paris

SPAN Publisher: Larry Schwartz Editor-in-Chief : Lisa A. Swenarski de Herrera Editor: Laurinda Keys Long Associate Editor: Deepanjali Kakati Urdu Editor Anjum Naim Hindi Editor: Giriraj Agarwal Copy Editors Richa Varma Shah Md. Tahsin Usmani Art Director: Hemant Bhatnagar Deputy Art Directors : Khurshid Anwar Abbasi Qasim Raza Vanessa Holsomback Rakesh Agrawal Alok Kaushik Shaji T Kommery Bureauof Infemational Informafion Programs, The American Library

52

*Relevance of Rumi in the Modern World Q & A with Dr. Nevit Ergln

54

*Literature: American Writers in Search of a Book Fair By Ruma Dasgupta

*Letting Science Touch Base with Decision Making By Richa Varma 27

Nobef Lecfure by AI Gore

5

*Why Worry?

6

Every Yearof Delay Means Greater Climate Change Nobef Lecture by R. K. Pachauri

8

An Uncertain Truth By Jesse Lichtenstein

By Arundhati Das

On the Lighter Side

Travel 28

*The Architectural Masterpieces of Chicago

By Sidharth Balakrishna

*Rhythms of India in San Diego

1 0 *U.S. Agency Funds Climate Change Projects By Cheryf Pellerin 1 2 Vegans VS. Vegetarians

By Deepanjali Kakati

59

By Brendan I. Koerner

1 3 *U.S. Policy on Climate Change

I 33Human Rights: The Healing Power of Flowers By Sarah Wash 34 *Media: How the Press Serves U.S. Voters By Jim Dickenson 37 *What Do American Women Voters Want? By Kellyanne Conway 40 *Health: War Against Malaria 14 16

By Giriraj Agarwal

*Careers in Climate Change

By Lisa A. Swenarski de Herrera

44

*New TechnologyHelps Alcoa Cut GreenhouseGasesBy Edmund F. Scherr

*Education: The Impact of Fulbright in Ind ia By Jane E. Schukoske

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*International Students in American Business Schools Q&AwithRobertJoss

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*Urban Development: Designing India: Vision 2020 By Richa Varma

1 8 Mimicking Mother Nature

By Andy Isaacson

23 24

Are ManualTransmissionsBetterfor the Environment?By Brendan I. Koerner Paper, Plastic or Neither?

By Brendan I. Koerner

*Achievers: Astad Deboo

By Lea Terhune

*Music: Rumi: On a Journey from Persia to Hollywood By Satya Paul Anand

60 Lettersto the Editor * Articles with a star may be reprinted with

permission.

Contact Program Assistant Madhuri Sehgal at 011-2331-6841

or

editorspan@state.gov STATEMENT FORM IV The following is a statement of ownership and other particulars about SPAN magazine as required under Section 190(b) of the Press & Registration of Books Act, 1867, and under Rule 8 01 Ihe Regislration ot Newspaper (Cenlral) Rules, 1956.

1. Place of Publication:

2. Periodicity of Publication: 3. Printer's Name: Nationality Address 4. Publisher's Name: Nationality Address 5, Editor's Name Nationality Address 6. Name and address of individuals who own the newspaper and partners or shareholders holding more than our percent 01 the total capital

Public Affairs Section, American Embassy American Center 24, Kasturba Gandhi Marg New Delhi 110001 BI-monlhly G.PTodi Indian Aianla ollsel & Packagrng ltd.

95-B, Wazirpur Industrial Area Deihl 110052 Larry Schwartz American 24, Kaslurba Gandhi Marg New Delhi 110001 Laurinda Keys Long American 24, Kaslurba Gandhr Marg New Delhi 110001 The Government 01 the United States of America

I, Larry Schwartz, hereby declare that the particulars given above are true to the best 01 my knowledge and bellel.

Date February 27, 2008

For subscriptions

or address change:

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A LETTER FROM

THE

PUBLISHER here is no doubt that cl imate change is taking place and that human activity is a factor-so this potential global crisis requires a response, a coordinated one, from everyone. Governments cannot solve the crisis alone. We must tap into the resources available from private enterprise, in research, data, expertise, ideas, knowhow, personnel, capital and leadership.

Every individual, wherever they live, can make personal choices that help to preserve the ozone layer, green cover, clean water, and consume less fossi I fuel.

The United States is committed to doing its part to strengthen energy security and effectively address climate change. We are fully engaged in the United Nations effort to develop by next year an environmentally effective and economically sustainable post-2012 framework to address climate change. The United States is also working with our partners, including India, to reach consensus on this and to advance adoption and deployment of innovative technologies that will reduce or mitigate environmental damage.

Our cover package of articles on climate change in this issue of SPAN presents the urgency of the situation and specific appeals for global commitment and cooperation, made by former US. Vice President AI Gore, and R.K. Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, during the Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies in December 2007. We've included a review by Arundhati Das of the Academy Award-winning documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, which is available for viewing at American Libraries in India. To spur discussion, we've offered the article "An Uncertain Truth," by Jesse Lichtenstein, who points out that there is much we still don't know about the rate and extent of climate change, and underscores the need for flexibility by decision-makers.

Americans are finding that public-private partnership is the key to finding solutions to environmental challenges. Innovations in operations, machinery, waste handling and new products are already being implemented by small businesses and major corporations in the United States and elsewhere. We've highlighted some of these in "Mimicking Mother Nature," by Andy Isaacson, and "New Technology Helps Alcoa Cut Greenhouse Gases," by Edmund F. Scherr. The world needs new ideas, and that means forward-looking opportunities in the job market, as Lisa A. Swenarski de Herrera details in "Careers in Climate Change." Along with the facts and figures, we hope you will have fun with the articles on choices that we all can make for the environment: paper or plastic bags, manual or automatic car transmissions, vegans or vegetarians.

We are grateful to artist Sujata Bajaj for her generosity in allowing SPAN to use her environmentally evocative mixed media work, "Fire," for our cover. A lovely work of art, like beautiful music, can stir the soul.

Excerpts from the Nobel Lecture by Al Gore, former vice president ofthe United States, in Oslo, Norway on December 10, 2007.

e, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency, a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here.

But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst-though not all-of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly.

However, despite a growing number of honorable exceptions, too many of the world's leaders are still best described in the words Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler's threat: "They go on in strange paradox, decided onty to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent."

So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet. ... And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun.

As a result, the earth has a fever. And the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself. We asked for a second opinion. And a third. And a fourth.

And the consistent conclusion, restated with increasing alarm, is that something basic is wrong.

We are what is wrong, and we must make it right.

Last September 21 [2006], as the Northern Hemisphere tilted away from the sun, scientists reported with unprecedented distress that the North Potar ice cap is "falling off a cliff." One study estimated that it Al Gore acknowledges the audience at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida in February 2007 during a multimedia presentation about his book on climate change, An Inconvenient Truth.

exico, and 18 countries in could be completely gone ~,;' ; ' .~.

A frica.

As temperature extremes have during summer in less than 22c increased, tens of thousands have lost their years. Another new study ... warns it 'li~e;: We are recklessly burning and clearing our could happen in as little as seven years. . '," In the last few months, it has been harder and harder to misui- "forests and driving more and more species into extinction. The terpret the signs that our world is spinning out of kilter. Major cities very web of life on which we depend is being ripped and frayed. in North and South America, Asia and Australia are nearly out of ****** Unlike most other forms of pollution, CO2 is invisible, tastewater due to massive droughts and melting glaciers. Desperate farmers are losing their livelihoods. Peoples in the frozen Arctic less and odorless-which has helped keep the truth about what and on low-lying Pacific islands are planning evacuations of places it is doing to our climate out of sight and out of mind. Moreover, we they have long called home.... Climate refugees have migrated the catastrophe now threatening us is unprecedented-and into areas already inhabited by people with different cultures, reli- often confuse the unprecedented with the improbable. gions and traditions, increasing the potential for conflict. Stronger We also find it hard to imagine making the massive changes storms in the Pacific and Atlantic have threatened whole cities. that are now necessary to solve the crisis. And when large truths Millions have been displaced by massive flooding in South Asia, are genuinely inconvenient, whole societies can, at least for a ,

,,;,,~: "'/y'.

time, ignore them. Yet, as George Orwell reminds us: "Sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield." ...

Without realizing it, we have begun to wage war on the earth itself. Now, we and the earth's climate are locked in a relationship familiar to war planners: "Mutually assured destruction."

More than two decades ago, scientists calculated that nuclear war could throw so much debris and smoke into the air that it would block life-giving sunlight from our atmosphere, causing a "nuclear winter." ...

Now science is warning us that if we do not quickly reduce the global wanning pollution that is trapping so much of the heat our planet normally radiates back out of the atmosphere, we are in danger of creating a permanent "carbon summer."

As the American poet Robert Frost wrote, "Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice." Either, he notes, "would suffice."

But neither need be our fate. It is time to make peace with the planet.

We must quickly mobilize our civilization with the urgency and resolve that has previously been seen only when nations mobilized for war. These prior struggles for survival were won when leaders found words at the II th hour that released a mighty

We must ensure that entrepreneurs and inventors everywhere on the globe have the chance to change the world. surge of courage, hope and readiness to sacrifice for a protracted and mortal challenge.

Now comes the threat of climate crisis~a threat that is real, rising, imminent and universal. Once again, it is the 11th hour. The penalties for ignoring this challenge are immense and growing, and at some near point would be unsustainable and unrecoverable. For now we still have the power to choose our fate, and the remaining question is only this: Have we the will to act vigorously and in time, or will we remain imprisoned by a dangerous illusion?

Mahatma Gandhi awakened the largest democracy on earth and forged a shared resolve with what he called "Satyagraha"~ or "truth force."

In every land, the truth~once known~has the power to set us free.

Truth also has the power to unite us and bridge the distance between "me" and "we," creating the basis for common effort and shared responsibility ....

We must abandon the conceit that individual, isolated, private actions are the answer. They can and do help. But they will not take us far enough without collective action ....

That means adopting principles, values, laws and treaties that release creativity and initiative at every level of society in multifold responses originating concurrently and spontaneously ....

The innovators who will devise a new way to harness the sun's energy for pennies Pilgrims on their way to the Amarnath cave shrine in Jammu and Kashmir in July 2007.

In India, melting Himalayan glaciers cause floods, and also raise the daunting prospect of rivers drying up in the long term.

g? he term climate change is often used interchangeably with the term global warming, but according to the National Academy of Sciences, "the phrase 'climate change' is growing in preferred use to 'global warming' because it helps convey that there are [other] changes in addition to rising temperatures."

Climate change refers to any significant change in measures of climate (such as temperature, precipitation or wind) lasting for an extended period (decades or longer). Climate

T

change may result from • natural factors, such as changes in the sun's intensity or slow changes in the Earth's orbit around the sun; • natural processes within the climate system (such as changes in ocean circulation); • human activities that change the atmosphere's composition (such as burning fossil fuels) and the land surface (deforestation, reforestation, urbanization, desertification).

Global warming is an average increase in

the temperature of the atmosphere near the Earth's surface and in the troposphere, which can contribute to changes in global climate patterns. Global warming can occur from a variety of causes, both natural and human induced. In common usage, "global warming" often refers to the warming that can occur as a result of increased emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities.

Source: http://www.epa.gov/climate

change/basicinfo.html

Movie Review

Why Worry?

The Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth jolts

our conscience on what we take for granted.

These NASA satellite images show a drastic reduction in the amount of winter sea ice over the Arctic from December 21, 2004 to the same date in 2005.

or invent an engine that's carbon negative may live in Lagos or Mumbai or Montevideo. We must ensure that entrepreneurs and inventors everywhere on the globe have the chance to change the world.

We also need a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that bums coal without the capacity to safely trap and store carbon dioxide.

And most important of all, we need to put a price on carbonwith a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the people, progressively, according to the laws of each nation, in ways that shift the burden of taxation from employment to pollution ....

The world needs an alliance-especially of those nations that weigh heaviest in the scales where earth is in the balance ....

The outcome will be decisively influenced by two nations that are now failing to do enough: the United States and China. While India is also growing fast in importance, it should be absolutely clear that it is the two largest CO2 emitters-most of all, my own country-that will need to make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act. ...

These are the last few years of decision, but they can be the first years of a bright and hopeful future if we do what we must.

No one should believe a solution will be found without effort, without cost, without change. Let us acknowledge that if we wish to redeem squandered time and speak again with moral authority, then these are the hard truths. . . .The outer boundary of what we currently believe is feasible is still far short of what we actually must do. Moreover, between here and there, across the unknown, falls the shadow.

******

We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political will, but political will is a renewable resource.

So let us renew it, and say together: "We have a purpose. We are many. For this purpose we will rise, and we will act." ~ Full text of AI Gore's Nobel Lecture http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/gore-ecture

_en.html

message simply conveyed A warning sounded loud and clear, devoid of proselytizing, with conviction. An Inconvenient Truth is served without sugar coating or any intention to generate panic. The facts are startling enough, the narration pithy .

The prospect of reviewing this documentary brought no rush of eagerness, despite the buzz created by its Academy Award, and its featuring of AI Gore, the former U.S. vice president. There was no denying the niggling sense of being subjected to an afternoon of solemn warnings, the sorry tale of global warming increasingly relegated to the yawn pages of local dailies. Five minutes into the documentary, the misgivings were replaced by a sense of bewilderment and awe.

Bewilderment at the devastating and irrefutable evidence on the extent of damage done to the environment; awe at the elaborate canvas of inter-related fallouts of the wanton acts of a generation devoted to pursuing industrialization.

A

Movie Review...

The painstakingly collated information and the telling images-of erratic cl imate patterns, unexplained resurgence of dormant diseases, rise in the vectors for infectious diseases, and the increasing instances of hurricanes, floods and droughts-effectively bring home the urgency, leaving little room for cynicism. Even if one were to dismiss the claims as the bluster of a politician, there is no ignoring the shrinking glaciers, melting ice caps,

is available for viewing

at The American Library in

Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and New Delhi. disappearing rivers, humans afflicted by killer diseases, and millions of acres of green cover falling prey to marauding bugs. There is simply no ignoring the message: "When the warnings are accurate and based on sound science, then we as human beings, whatever country we live in, have to find a way to make sure that the warnings are heard and responded to."

Respond, rather than just react, is what echoes throughout. Raising a number of questions rather than merely serving up the answers, the film jolts the conscience. "Are you ready to change the way you live?"

And more pointedly: "Are we Americans capable of doing difficult things?" Tongue-in-cheek: "We have everything, save perhaps political will. But in America, political will is a renewable resource." Gore's candor is refreshing: "Ultimately, this is not a political issue so much as a moral issue," A. ---~ Arundhati Das is assistant editor of a journal in New Delhi.

Excerpts from the Nobel Lecture by R. K. Pachauri, chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Climate Change in Oslo, Norway on December 10,2007.

oming as I do from India, a land which gave birth to civilization in ancient times and where much of the earlier tradition and wisdom guides actions even in modern times, the philosophy of "vasudhaiva kutumbakam," which means the whole universe is one family, must dominate global efforts to protect the global commons.

This principle is crucial to the maintenance of peace and order today as it would be increasingly in the years ahead, and as the well-known columnist and author Thomas Friedman has highlighted in his book The World is Flat.

Neglect in protecting our heritage of natural resources could prove extremely harmful for the human race and for all species that share common space on planet Earth. Indeed, there are many lessons in human history which provide adequate warning about the chaos and destruction that could take place if we remain guilty of myopic indifference to the progressive erosion and decline of nature's resources .... In recent years, several groups have studied the link between climate and security. These have

Panel on

raised the threat of dramatic population migration, conflict, and war over water and other resources, as well as a realignment of power among nations. Some also highlight the possibility of rising tensions between rich and poor nations, health problems caused particularly by water shortages, and crop failures as well as concerns over nuclear proliferation.

One of the most significant aspects of the impacts of climate change, which has unfortunately not received adequate attention from scholars in the social sciences, relates to the equity implications of changes that are occurring and are likely to occur in the future. In general, the impacts of climate change on some of the poorest and the most vulnerable communities in the world could prove extremely unsettling. And, given the inadequacy of capacity, economic strength, and institutional capabilities characterizing some of these communities, they would remain extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and may, therefore, actually see a decline in their economic condition, with a loss of livelihoods and opportunities to maintain even subsistence levels of existence.

Members of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore, pose with him in Oslo, Norway in December 2007. The panel includes hundreds of scientists in the United States, India and other countries.

u.s.

Climate change is expected to exacerbate current stresses on water resources. On a regional scale, mountain snowpack, glaciers and small ice caps playa crucial role in fresh water availability. Widespread mass losses from glaciers and reductions in snow cover over recent decades are projected to accelerate throughout the 21st century, reducing water availability, hydropower potential, and the changing seasonality of flows in regions supplied by meltwater from major mountain ranges (e.g. Hindu-Kush, Himalaya, Andes), where more than one-sixth of the world's population currently lives. There is also high confidence that many semi-arid areas (e.g. the Mediterranean Basin, westem United States, southern Africa and northeastern Brazil) will suffer a decrease in water resources due to climate change. In Africa by 2020, between 75 and 250 million people are projected to be exposed to increased water stress due to climate change.

Climate change could further adversely affect food security and exacerbate malnutrition at low latitudes, especially in seasonally dry and tropical regions, where crop productivity is projected to decrease for even small local temperature increases (1 to 2 Qq. By 2020, in some African countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50 percent. Agricultural production, including access to food, in many African countries is projected to be severely compromised.

The health status of millions of people is projected to be affected through, for exam-

(GJ [ffi [E [E [M [p) lUJ [B) [lJ~ ~ ~[M (GJ SPAN will participate in the conference on ecological and sustainable publishing practices being organized by The Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi in April 2008.

For more information madhus@teri.res.in dhiraj@teri.res.in

pie, increases in malnutrition; increased deaths, diseases, and injury due to extreme weather events; increased burden of diarrhoeal diseases; increased frequency of cardio-respiratory diseases due to higher concentrations of ground-level ozone in urban areas related to climate change; and the altered spatial distribution of some infectious diseases.

Altering the Earth's Atmosphere

high rates of projected warming on natural systems and human communities; • Africa, because of low adaptive capacity and projected climate change impacts; • Small islands, where there is high exposure of population and infrastructure to projected climate change impacts;

As greenhouse gases build up in the atmosphere, heat is prevented from escaping.

Partially escaped, reflected heat

Solar radiation

Trapped heat raises the Earth's temperature.

Scientists are closely monitoring atmospheric gases that trap heat and warm the Earth, a process known as the greenhouse effect.

Climate change is likely to lead to some irreversible impacts on biodiversity. There is medium confidence that approximately 20 percent to 30 percent of species assessed so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global average warming exceed 1.5 to 2.5 °C, relative to 1980-99 ....

As far as security of human settlements is concerned, vulnerabilities to climate change are generally greater in certain high-risk locations, particularly coastal and riverine areas, and areas whose economies are closely linked with climate-sensitive resources.

Where extreme weather events become more intense or more frequent with climate change, the economic and social costs of those events will increase.

Some regions are likely to be especially affected by climate change.

• The Arctic, because of the impacts of

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• Asian and African megadeltas, due to large populations and high exposure to sea level rise, storm surges and river flooding.

Migration and movement of people is a particularly critical source of potential conflict. Migration, usually temporary and often from rural to urban areas, is a common response to calamities such as floods and famines. But as in the case of vulnerability to the impacts of climate change, where multiple stresses could be at work on account of a diversity of causes and conditions, so also in the case of migration, individuals may have multiple motivations and they could be displaced by multiple factors.

Another issue of extreme concern is the finding that anthropogenic factors could lead to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible, depending on the rate and

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D Deer HID ru

fter decades of timid proclamations, the new report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released in 2007, finally concluded with "very high confidence" that humans are causing global warming. And yet, the range of possible values for just how far that warming will go is roughly unchanged from the last report, made seven years ago. In fact, we're as hazy on this issue as we were almost 30 years ago. Ask the most basic questions of a climate scientist today: How hot will it get? Will we bake and flood the planet beyond recognition, or will we just have balmier Novembers? You'll get pretty much the same answers you would have gotten when Jimmy Carter was sporting cardigans in the White House.

Recently, an article in the journal Science titled "Why Is Climate Sensitivity So Unpredictable?" addressed this notable lack of progress. The authors, Gerard Roe and Marcia Baker, explore the fact that the most probable range for climate sensitivity has remained around where it is nowbetween 2.2 degrees Celsius and 4.5 degrees Celsius of warming-for decades, despite great

A

For more information: Intergovernmental

Panel on Climate Change

It :llwww.ipcc.chl Aerosols and climate change tlp:ll earthooservatory. nasa.gov/[1 orary! Aerosol s!

strides in our understanding of the climate and our ability to simulate it with computer models. They also look at why we haven't been able to rule out very high outcomes, either like 7 degrees Celsius, 10 degrees Celsius, or even 15 degrees Celsius.

According to the intergovernmental panel, these seemingly small differences could have tremendous impacts: A real temperature change of 3 to 4 degrees Celsius would likely lead to a rise in sea level, disruptions in rainfall patterns, and an increase in extreme weather; an uptick of 5 or 6 degrees, on the other hand, could change the face of the planet. So, which scenario should we expect? According to Roe and Baker, we're nowhere near a firm answer, Why does the uncertainty persist? And why does the climate-sensitivity graph retain its stubborn asymmetry with a long tail of possible outcomes on the side of catastrophic extremes? The pattern reflects two fundamental properties of the climate: First, gradual warming of the Earth sends the climate into feedback loops that in turn increase the greenhouse effect. As the planet's surface heats up, the atmosphere takes on more water vapor (a greenhouse gas much more powerful than CO2), snow cover and sea ice diminish (reducing how much sunlight reflects back into space), and more clouds form (blanketing the heat of the planet's surface). We don't fully understand these processes, but we're quite confident that, taken

together, they make the Earth a hotter place.

Second, at low levels of warming, the climate is still fairly stable and can dampen these feedbacks, But at warmer and warmer temperatures, the climate becomes inherently less stable and more sensitive to feedbacks. It's so sensitive, in fact, that we may never be able to know precisely what's going to happen-no matter how much we learn about our planet.

Some climatologists aren't as pessimistic, arguing that evidence from ice cores and the fossil record will help us to rule out the most extreme estimates for climate sensitivity-the figures of 7 degrees Celsius and up But the Roe-Baker paper invites us to consider the fact that, for some time to come, we simply may not know more precisely than we do now what kind of world we live in-one with climate sensitivity of 2 degrees of warming, or one closer to 10.

Ultimately, this warming value in degrees Celsius may just not be a useful measure for policy-makers. It is, after all, the product of a thought experiment Climate sensitivity is a term of art, referring to a theoretical scenario where we've first doubled the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and then instantly curbed all additional CO2 emissions. The calculation also assumes that the oceans have had decades to adjust to the new atmospheric makeup and new temperatures, the concentration of water vapor in

R.K. Pachauri's Lecture... the air has recalibrated, and the ice sheets have receded as far as they're going to go. Once all of these feedbacks have reached a new equilibrium, how much hotter will the planet be? It's a useful question, and it does give us some insight into warming rates-the higher climate sensitivity turns out to be, the faster temperatures will rise this century in real life. But it isn't a projection of global temperature nor of the onthe-ground impacts of climate change. True temperatures will be influenced by many other factors-like our continuing CO2 emissions, changes in the carbon cycle and vegetation distribution, rapid ice melt, and the contribution of aerosols [tiny particles suspended in the air].

But emissions goals-the numbers set by various international protocols and governing bodies-are based largely on our climate-sensitivity predictions. And that means that our politicians are going to need to get a lot more comfortable with uncertainty-as much as this might complicate traditional accords to reduce carbon emissions by a certain amount and a specific date. In a companion paper from the same issue of Science, physicists Myles Allen and David Frame make an argument that might sound more natural coming from a pair of economists: Given all the uncertainty, these emission-cap agreements are dangerous. It would take quite a bit of political effort and capital to lock the governments of the world into a goal of, say, twice the CO2 levels of preindustrial times.

But even in our perfect thought experiment, we don't know if those levels would ultimately lead to a dangerous temperature increase of 3 degrees Celsius or an apocalyptic one of 8 degrees Celsius. So, what happens if after 15 years of diplomacy, innovation and behavioral change, we're on target for our emissions cap, but climate sensitivity turns out to be much worse than we expected? The treaty-making would have to begin again ....

So, we shouldn't expect the highest temperatures, but we can't rule them out, either.

Instead, we need a policy that's flexible enough to respond to what we see happening on the ground (and in the air, and in the oceans). Allen and Frame suggest that an adaptive approach to global warming might work best, where we're constantly measuring how we're doing and updating our projections. This would require a very high tolerance for uncertainty.... ~ Jesse Lichtenstein is a freelance journalist, poet and fiction writer based in Oregon.

Please share your views on this article. Write to editorspan@state.gov

magnitude of climate change. For instance, partial loss of ice sheets on polar land could imply meters of sea level rise, major changes in coastlines, and inundation of low-lying areas, with greatest effects in river deltas and low-lying islands.

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Societies have a long record of adapting to the impacts of weather and climate. But climate change poses novel risks often outside the range of experience, such as impacts related to drought, heat waves, accelerated glacier retreat and hurricane intensity. These impacts will require adaptive responses such as investments in storm protection and water supply infrastructure, as well as community health services. Adaptation measures essential to reduce such vulnerability, are seldom undertaken in response to climate change alone but can be integrated within, for example, water resource management, coastal defense and risk-reduction strategies. The global community needs to coordinate a far more proactive effort towards implementing adaptation measures in the most vulnerable communities and systems in the world.

There is substantial potential for the mitigation of global greenhouse gas emissions over the coming decades that could offset the projected growth of global emissions or reduce emissions below current levels.

There are multiple drivers for actions that reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, and they can produce multiple benefits at the local level in terms of economic development and poverty alleviation, employment, energy security and local environmental protection.

A rational approach to management of risk would require that human society evaluates the impacts of climate change inherent in a business-as-usual scenario and the quantifiable costs as well as unquantifiable damages associated with it, against the cost of action. With such an approach, the overwhelming result would be in favor of major efforts at mitigation. The impacts of climate change even with current levels of concentration of greenhouse gases would be serious enough to justify stringent mitigation efforts. If the concentration of all

For more information: Full text of R.K. Pachauri's Nobel Lecture http://nobe Iprize. org/nobel prizes/peace/laure ates/2007 /ipcc-Iecture _ en:html

greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.1 째C per decade would be expected. Subsequent temperature projections depend on specific emission scenarios. Those systems and communities, which are vulnerable, may suffer considerably with even small changes in the climate at the margin.

Science tells us not only that the climate

Earth Day is commemorated on April 22 in the United States. Each year the Department of State produces informative materials, including a poster, about a particular environmental concern. The 2008 theme is the damage that pollution, overfishing and human carelessness have caused to the world's coral reefs. system is changing, but also that further warming and sea level rise is in store even if greenhouse gases were to be stabilized today. That is a consequence of the basic physics of the system. Social factors also contribute to our future, including the "lockin" due, for example, to today's power plants, transportation systems and buildings, and their likely continuing emissions even as cleaner future infrastructure comes on line.

So the challenge before us is not only a large one, it is also one in which every year of delay implies a commitment to greater climate change in the future.... ~

U.S. Presidential Candidates'

Views on Climate Change Barack Obama Obama says the United States is responsible for leaving the planet in better shape for future generations.

His plan would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, implement a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050, set a national standard for low-carbon fuels and increase fuel efficiency standards, reduce gasoline consumption through expanded use of renewable energy sources and invest in advanced technologies for clean energy projects. He would create a Technology Transfer program within the U.S. Department of Energy dedicated to exporting climate-friendly technologies to developing countries. He would also develop incentives to reward farmers and ranchers when they plant trees and restore grasslands.

Hillary Clinton Clinton says global climate change is a pressing moral issue of our time and supports policies to reduce carbon dioxide and other emissions that contribute to global warming. She would develop a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which is set to expire in 2012. She proposes to invest in clean energy technologies, establish a national market-based program to reduce pollution that causes global warming, increase fuel efficiency, and strengthen U.S. leadership in addressing climate change. She would also focus the mission of the U.S. Department of Energy on moving toward energy independence with a new approach to renewable energy sources.

John McCain McCain would limit carbon dioxide emissions by harnessing market forces to bring advanced technologies like nuclear energy to market faster, reduce dependence on foreign energy supplies and ensure that all nations contribute to the climate change solution. He was lead author of a US. Senate proposal to reduce carbon emissions by 65 percent by 2050 and believes climate change is a national security issue.

Mike Huckabee When asked during a 2007 Republican Party primary debate if he believed global warming existed, Huckabee said that whether humans are responsible for the bulk of climate change is going to be left to the scientists, but it is our responsibility to leave this planet in better shape for the future generations than we found it. Huckabee proposes to explore, conserve and develop all forms of alternative energy to achieve U.S. energy independence. He would set a federal research and development budget that the private sector would match to seek the best, new, alternative fuel products.

he u.s. Environmental Protection Agency is spending $2 million in nine countries to fund climate-change projects that enhance the capture and use of methane, which accounts for about one-sixth of powerful greenhouse gases.

The funds-to projects in India, China, Russia, Argentina, Brazil, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Nigeria and Ukraine-are from the Methane to Markets Partnership, which the United States and 13 other countries launched in 2004.

The European Commission joined the group in September 2007, swelling the number of partners to 21. Together with more than 600 participating public and private organizations, the partners work on nearly 100 projects and activities around the world.

Paul Gunning, branch chief in the Climate Change Division at the Environmental Protection Agency, says the European Commission membership "is a good development because it brings additional expertise into the partnership and additional commitment that will help us grow the partnership and continue to achieve reductions in greenhouse gases globally."

A little more than half of methane emissions come from people-generated sources. Methane concentrations in the atmosphere have more than doubled over 200 years, largely because of human activity. Methane is 23 times as effective as carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere.

The Methane to Markets program targets four major causes of the emissions coal mining, landfills, agriculture (animal-waste management), and oil and natural gas systems.

Of several projects being funded in India, one wi II help the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry coordinate activities for advancing Indian methane recovery and use projects in the agriculture and landfill sectors, and another will help the International Institute for Energy Conservation in India initiate a nationwide system for recovering methane from manure at animal feeding operations.

Gunning says the European Commission has expressed interest in partnership activities that deal with capturing methane from coal mines and from oil and natural gas systems. The Commission sent a delegation to the Methane to Markets Exposition in Beijing in 2007 to learn more about the partnership The Commission is the first multi-country entity to join Methane to Markets. Four member countries (Germany, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom) are already involved. In the coal sector, the Commission will be able to provide more than 50 years of European Union experience in targeting methane emissions from coal mines.

Methane is not only a greenhouse gas, it also is the main component of natural gas and a clean-burning energy source. The projects funded by the Environmental Protection Agency support a range of activities that help

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A team from the Uttarakhand-based Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology studies the movement of the Chorabari Glacier in Garhwal Himalaya.

remove technical and other barriers to methane capture and use.

With the grants, the agency is supporting a suite of activities that include training, database development on potential project sites, feasibility studies, technology transfer and project expositions.

"One of the more important areas is direct project assistance," Gunning says "So, for example, in Mexico we'll be working with the Border Environment Cooperation Commission to undertake two feasibility studies [on gas recovery and use] in two cities.

"Our expectation is that the reports that are developed and issued from those studies will serve as a catalyst for private-sector investment to undertake a full-scale project," Gunning says In Nigeria, the Center for People & the Environment received a grant for a study of electricity generation from for more information: coal mine methane at a site to be Methane to Markets Partnership determined, and the International http://www .epa. gov /methanetomarkets/ Solid Waste Association will develInternational Solid Waste Management op a Nigerian landfill inventory. http://www . iswa. org/web/guesVhome The Ecological Regional Center

A worker at the combined heat and power plant at New Belgium Brewing Co., in Fort Collins, Colorado. The plant collects methane gas generated in the brewing process and converts it into energy. in Russia will develop a landfill inventory for that nation, and the Russia Energy Efficiency Demonstration Zones Association will create a Clean Energy Technology Information Center in Moscow.

In South Korea, the Korea District Heating Corporation will conduct feasibility studies of methane recovery from the Chuncheon, Gangneung, Jinju and Mokpo landfills.

"Virtually all the projects are leveraging other resources," Gunning says.

"So in all cases, the institutions we are cooperating with will contribute funding for projects, and in some cases have partnered with others, too. So the award amounts aren't necessarily the full amount-it's a portion supported by the U.S. government." ~ Chertjl Pellerin is a USINFO staff writer.

Please share your views on this article. Write to editorspan@state.gov

What kind of diet is路 best for the environment?

As a longtime vegetarian, I've always been confident that my diet is better for the planet than that of your typical carnivore. But arvegan pal of mine says I could be doing a lot more, by rejecting all animal products-no eggs, no milk, not even the occasional bowl of macaroni and cheese. Is veganism really that much better for the environment? ince few Americans have followed actress Alicia Silverstone's abstemious lead and renounced animal products altogether, there aren't many data available on the environmental consequences of veganism. Somewhere between 2 percent and 5 percent of the nation's eaters classify themselves as vegetarians; of that number, perhaps 5 percent are strict vegans As a result, most research on meat-free diets has focused on lacto-ovo vegetarians, the milk-and-egg eaters who form the lion's share of the veggie demographic.

According to a 2005 University of Chicago study, a lacto-ovo vegetarian emits far less greenhouse gas than a counterpart adhering to the standard, meat-rich American diet-the difference is equivalent to around 1.5 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, assuming the same daily caloric intake. (The study's authors thus claim that going vegetarian has the same effect on carbon dioxide emissions as switching from a Chevrolet Suburban to a Toyota Camry.) The savings mostly come about because of the disparity between the fossil

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fuel required to produce a calorie's worth of grain versus that needed to make a calorie's worth of beef; grain is nearly a dozen times more efficient in this regard. Cattle are also a huge source of methane, a particularly noxious greenhouse gas; it's estimated that bovines are responsible for roughly triple the methane emissions of the American coal industry.

Yet, lacto-ovo vegetarians sti II derive about 14 percent of their calories from animal products. Bring that number down to zero, as strict vegans do, and you'll certainly ratchet down your carbon emissions by another several hundred [kilograms] per year. "If we put [greenhouse gas] emissions above all else, then vegan ism beats lacto-ovo vegetarianism hand i Iy," says Gidon Eshel, a co-author of the University of Chicago study "That much is clear and unequivocal."

But Eshel hastens to add that your vegan acquaintance isn't necessarily some environmental saint. That's because direct carbon dioxide emissions are only part of the story when it comes to food's eco-impact. You also have to look at the issue of land use-specifically how much and what sort of land is required to sustain an agricultural enterprise. In a region with poor-to-mediocre

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By BRENDAN 1. KOERNER

soil, for example, it may be more efficient to operate a well-managed egg farm than to try growing vegetables that can't flourish under such conditions. And animals are handy at consuming lowquality grain that isn't necessarily fit for human consumption. (Rather than going to waste, that grain can help create nutrient-rich dairy products.)

In fact, a recent Cornell University study concluded that modest carnivorousness may actually be better for the environment than outright vegetarianism, since cattle can graze on inferior land not suitable for crops Squeezing more calories out of the land means that less food needs to be imported from elsewhere, thereby reducing the burning of fossil fuels.

But there are important caveats to the Cornell study: First, its calculations assume that all meat is raised locally, rather than frozen and trucked cross-country; second, the study recommended that to optimize land use, residents of New York state (where the research was conducted) limit their meat and egg consumption to [60] cooked [grams] per day-[11 0 grams] less than the national average.

It's pretty unrealistic to expect the majority of adult Americans to forgo steak for the benefit of the planet. At the same time, agriculture is responsible for between 17 percent and 20 percent of the nation's energy consumption. So instead of hectoring people to become lr\; vegetarians ... it wouldn't hurt if peo1i . pie got wise to the fact that meat J"_/~ needn't be the focus of every . breakfast, lunch and dinner.

That's going to be a serious challenge, however, considering that per capita meat consumption rose by 40 percent in the United States between 1961 and 2002. One hopes that the Chinese don't follow Americans' gluttonous lead, but the news so far isn't encouraging: Meat consumption in China has already doubled over

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Brendan 1. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for Slate and Gizmodo.

limate change is a serious challenge, the scale and scope of which will require a global response. The United States is committed to doing its part, working at home and abroad on a range of initiatives to strengthen energy security and effectively address climate change. We are fully engaged in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ... and we are committed to developing an environmentally effective and economically sustainable post-2012 framework ... by 2009.

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Our climate policies are part of a broader sustainable development agenda: Countries in the developing world are justifiably focused on economic growth and providing for the health, education and other needs of their citizens. The United States believes that climate policies should recognize and complement these priorities and has launched and participates in dozens of partnerships designed to alleviate poverty and spur economic growth in the developing world by modernizing energy services. The world community must produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions and must do

The Asia路Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate he governments and private sectors of the seven partner nations-the United States, India, Australia, Canada, China, Japan and the Republic of Korea-agreed in January 2006 to work together to meet goals for energy security, air pollution reduction and climate change mitigation in ways that promote sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction.

The group's second ministerial meeting was held in New Delhi on October 15, 2007.

The partnership focuses on expanding investment and trade in cleaner energy technologies, goods and services in key markets.

The partners represent about half of the world's economy, population and energy use, and produce about 65 percent of the world's coal, 48 percent of the steel, 37 percent of the aluminum and 6 percent of the cement.

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President George W Bush at the Major Economies Meeting on Energy Security and Climate Change in Washington, D.C in September 2007.

so in a way that promotes economic growth and helps nations deliver greater prosperity for their people ....

From 2000-2005, the population of the United States grew by 5 percent (14 million people) and GDP (gross domestic product) grew by 12 percent (about $1.2 trillion) while our GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions increased by only 1.6 percent. Latest estimates show that from 2005-2006, our economy grew 2.9 percent, but our energy-related carbon dioxide emissions decreased 1.3 percent. This compares favorably to many countries that have cap and trade programs. We have a diverse portfolio of policy measures including dozens of mandatory, incentive-based and voluntary programs to address our domestic emissions.

****** The United States is leading the development of advanced technology options that have the potential to reduce, avoid or sequester greenhouse gas emissions. The President has requested and Congress has provided substantial funding-$37 billion since 200l-for climate-related science, technology, observations, international assistance and incentive programs.

****** The United States is actively pursuing a range of solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve energy security and cut harmful air pollution through collaborative public-private partnerships with practical, targeted results. In addition to our 15 bilateral and regional climate change partnerships launched since 2002, the United States works in partnership in key sectors such as: low carbon power generation, including clean coal and advanced nuclear technologies; transportation, with such innovations as bio-fuels, batteries and hydrogen for vehicles; energy efficiency for both industrial and residential deployment; and land use, which encompasses illegal logging and promotes sustainable forest management.... ~

for more information: U.s. approach to climate change http://www .state.gov/g/oes/ cl imate

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oday, you can actually make money and help the planet. This is because climate change is now recognized by governments and the private sector as a problem that must be confronted, and many industries need experts to help reduce their carbon footprint and their energy costs.

American Fulbright scholar Alexis Ringwald is working on renewable energy at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in New Delhi under Rajendra

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Pachauri, head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Before coming to India, Ringwald earned an interdisciplinary master's degree in environmental management from Yale University in Connecticut.

"People ask me, 'What are you going to do with that degree!'" Ringwald says. "I tell them that anyone who gets a degree combining environmental science or technology with business will fmd many opportunities these days." Ringwald is looking for, and will most likely find, a position with a large corporate green team, a venture capital fund or a clean energy entrepreneur.

Neeraj Doshi, from Kota, Rajasthan, recently returned from the United States with a master's degree in environmental policy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University in Massachusetts. He leads the Artha Initiative in New Delhi, which

invests in sustainable projects in land and water management and renewable energy.

"There are so many careers now in the area of preventing climate change and the list gets longer day by day as we hit the reality of climate change," says Doshi.

"These range from developing energy friendly technology to conducting public awareness campaigns on individuals' impact on the climate."

Jobs are opening up across all types of sectors.

"Climate change will affect everyone and everything," says Ringwald. "Water resources will be affected, the insurance sector will be affected. So will agriculture companies, fanners and forestry. A lot of jobs will be 'risk analysts' for all types of sectors."

Here are some of those jobs, many of which didn't exist a few years ago.

Carbon credits trader: Buys and sells carbon offsets credits in the international

Left: Rajendra Pachauri interacts with Alexis Ringwald at The Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi.

Above: Neeraj Doshi with SPAN Editor-in-Chief Lisa A. Swenarski de Herrera at Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi during an exhibition of photographs from Doshi's trip across America.

market for companies that need them to meet Kyoto Protocol allocations. Tbis is a market-driven way of efficiently allocating resources, which reduces the overall impact of human activities on the climate.

Clean coal technologist: Designs and assesses technologies that span the coalpower cycle to include transport, preparation, pre-combustion and post combustion.

Also includes advanced coal conversion technologies.

Clean development mechanism analyst: Gathers and analyzes data for preparing Clean Development Mechanism projects for validation. Applies risk management techniques to appraise projects. A degree in engineering, environment or finance is required.

Clean energy development expert: Assesses the climate change impact of options to mitigate greenhouse gases through sustainable energy technologies, practices and programs. Specializes in assessing renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.

Carbon offsets specialist: Assesses the techno-economic potential and feasibility of reducing carbon emissions from energy practices, clean energy technologies and renewable energy.

Demand side management planner: With more demand than supply for energy, electrical companies need experts who can design and implement programs on when and where to distribute power so that peak loads are reduced and energy demand is shifted to off-peak periods.

Energy economist: Conducts economic assessments of the impact of macro and micro energy policies and programs that address national and regional energy sector reforms; bulk and retail pricing of energy supply; and the depletion, substitution and conservation of energy resources.

Energy efficiency expert: Uses in-depth understanding of the cause, nature and pattern of energy use in industrial, residential and commercial applications to plan and implement energy conservation projects and programs.

Engineer: Installs improved technologies and retrofits with better equipment.

Environmental impact assessment expert: Studies the impact of infrastructure and industrial projects on the environment.

Assists developers to design and execute projects to minimize their environmental

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n a collaborative effort to streamline energy building codes, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Indian Power Ministry's Bureau of Energy Efficiency are providing Energy Conservation Building Code Tip Sheets and a Technology Atlas to architects, developers, engineers, students and professionals to help them improve energy efficiency and meet India's energy conservation goals.

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impact and ensure that they comply with government regulations. Tbis job is key in the banking and insurance industries that finance or insure risky projects, such as offshore oil rigs that could be affected by tsunamis or coal projects that are subject to carbon laws. Corporations also hire these experts for their environmental strategy teams, which assess the company's carbon footprint and the risks they face-how changing monsoon patterns, for example, will affect their agriculture production or the best place to buy land.

Energy pricing expert: Designs pricing structures based on socioeconomic impact

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analysis of retail energy prices on consumer behavior and willingness to pay.

Energy auditor: Measures, maps, tracks, computes and reports energy consumption in industrial, residential and commercial sectors. The auditor is responsible for the identification, system design and application of energy saving measures.

Tools used include electrical and thermal energy measurement instruments that provide information on energy use.

Energy efficiency finance analyst: Assesses the financial viability of energy saving projects, including the design of risk mitigation options through innovative financial mechanisms such as partial credit guarantees and credit enhancement.

Energy manager: Heads the energy management function in a corporate undertaking and is responsible for the planning of energy supplies and the economic, efficient and environmentally sound use of energy.

LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) assessor: Assesses and certifies compliance of existing and new residential and commercial buildings with LEED. This green building rating system, developed and promoted by the U.S. Green Building Council, encourages and accelerates global adoption of sustainable green building and development practices through the creation and implementation of universally understood and accepted tools and performance criteria. In 2007, the Indian Green Building Council launched LEED-India, which provides building owners, architects, consultants, developers, facility and project managers the tools they need to design, construct and operate green buildings.

Power distribution engineer: Not a new job but one that can save energy and reduce power outages if done well.

Responsible for planning, design, operation and maintenance of electrical substations and electricity distribution networks. The engineer is conversant with the operation and maintenance of electrical equipment, such as transformers, meters, cables, switching gear, relays and instrumentation and control systems. The job requires a degree in electrical engineering and typically a high competence in IT applications.

Researcher: This can range from inventing new technologies that use less fuel to gathering and analyzing data for advocacy orgartizations.

Social development specialist: Works with communities that are affected by climate change, including policy advisers, relief workers dealing with natural disasters as well as economists who look at investment climates and future mitigation efforts from a financial perspective.

Venture capitalist: Invests in hot, new categories, such as hybrid cars and clean energy and clean water technologies.

Weather derivative trader: Buys futures on the international market based on weather prediction. ~ Please share your views on this article.

Write to editorspan@state.gov

lcoa, a world leader in aluminum manufacturing, is also leading private sector efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and use renewable energy resources. With operations in 44 countries, the U.S.-based company's policies and innovations have a global effect.

Alcoa was named by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as one of the top companies in sustainable use of natural resources in early 2007. Alcoa is also a founding member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a collection of businesses and environmental groups lobbying the U.S. government for legislation limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2000, the company laid out its goals

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for reducing its impact on the global environment through innovation and new technology. The goals included deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and waste product discharges. Alcoa reached its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent (from 1990 levels) in 2003, seven years ahead of schedule, even though aluminum production increased during that period.

The company believes that the aluminum industry can be "greenhouse gas neutral" by 2020.

Renewable energy is a key to Alcoa's efforts to reduce its environmental impact.

It has used hydroelectric power as a major energy source for its smelting operations around the world since 1916 and is now

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Cut Greenhouse Gases U.S. aluminum giant cut its greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent in three years. '<3oxide, processed from bauxite ore, is o '" placed in an electrolytic cell. A carbon ~ rod, called an anode, is fed into the cell ~ and charged with an electric current, con~ verting the aluminum oxide into carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and aluminum.

CL The aluminum sinks to the bottom of the tank, where it is collected for additional processing, while the greenhouse gases escape through the opening where the anode is inserted.

Alcoa is working to develop technology that would allow it to replace carbon anodes with ones that would not react with the oxygen released in the electrolytic process to create greenhouse gases. The only byproduct of the "inert anode" process would be oxygen.

An industry study, the "Inert Anode Roadmap," says worldwide use of inert Left: Alcoa staffers Steve Saunders and Jamie Muir inspect the new carbon capture plant at anodes could reduce greenhouse gas the Kwinana alumina refinery in Australia. emissions by nearly 40 million metric tons. It also could reduce the amount of Above: Alcoa's can reclamation facility in Tennessee recycles enough used beverage cans and electricity needed to smelt aluminum other recyclables to produce 14 billion new cans a year. oxide into aluminum by 25 percent. evaluating the feasibility of building the be released into the atmosphere.

Alcoa is working to reduce hazardous world's first geothermal-powered aluBy mixing carbon dioxide into the baux- waste from its operations as well. The minum production plant in Iceland. ite residue, the compound's pH level (a spent pot lining (SPL) that remains after In May 2007, Alcoa launched "carbon measure of acidity and alkalinity) is the smelting process contains significant capture" technology at its Kwinana alu- reduced to levels normally found in alka- amounts of absorbed fluorides and some mina refinery in western Australia. The line soil. This new mixture can be used as cyanide. In the past, this waste has been process for capturing carbon dioxide road foundation, building material or an deposited in landfills. mixes bauxite residue, a byproduct of the additive to improve soil. This technology, However, the new Alcoa Portland SPL aluminum-making process, with carbon which the company plans to share with the process converts SPL to aluminum fluodioxide. This locks up large amounts of entire aluminum industry, will be used in ride (an important additive in aluminum the greenhouse gas that otherwise would Alcoa's alumina refineries worldwide. production) and a harmless granulated Alumina, also known as aluminum oxide, glassy material called synthetic sand. This For more information: is the main component of bauxite, the prin- synthetic sand can be used to make roads Alcoa's climate change policy and concrete.

TItp:71www.acoa.com7g o15al7enenVironmenf! cipal ore used in aluminum production.

Alcoa is also researching innovative climate change/climate overview.as new "inert anode" technology to reduce Edmund F. Scherr is a US INFO staff writer.

United States Climate Action Partnership greenhouse gas emissions even further. In Please share your views on this article. Write ht! :7/www.us-cap.org/ to editorspan@state.gov the final stage of smelting, aluminum

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ature Using the environment not as an exploitable resource, but as a source of inspiration. ive years ago, while he was harvesting mussels on the U.S. Pacific Coast, Kaichang Li, a wood science and engineering professor at Oregon State University, marveled at how the mollusks were able to cling to shoreline rocks even when they were being pounded by ocean waves. Later, munching on a bowl of tofu, Li started to think about how the small threads the mussel uses to anchor itself contain protein that functions as a sort of adhesive. He had a revelation: Amino acids could be added to soybeans-a protein-rich, locally abundant crop (not to mention a tasty lunch)-to create a waterresistant, all-natural bonding agent.

The discovery prompted the largest manufacturer of hardwood plywood in North America, Columbia Forest Products, to replace formaldehyde, a carcinogen, with soybeans to create an

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adhesive resin. It was a textbook example of biomimicry: imitating nature's models to solve human problems.

Researchers and designers around the globe continue to create new technologies that, by honoring the tenets of life, are both highly efficient and often environmentally friendly. And while biomimicry is not a new concept (Leonardo da Vinci looked to nature to design his flying machines, for example, and pharmaceutical companies have long been miming plant organisms in synthetic drugs), there is a greater need for products and manufacturing processes that use a minimum of energy, materials and toxins. What's more, due to technological advancements and a newfound spirit of innovation among designers, there are now myriad ways to mimic Mother Nature's best assets.

"We have a perfect storm happening right now," says Jay Harman, an inventor and CEO of *,Califomia-based PAX Scientific, which designs fans, mixers and pumps to achieve ~ maximum efficiency by imitating the nat.~ural flow of fluids. "Shapes in nature are ~ extremely simple once you understand ยง them, but to understand what geometries ~ are at play, and to adapt them, is a very ffi complex process. We only just recently ~ have had the computer power and manufacturing capability to produce these types of shapes."

Harman is tinkering with a number of A full-body swimsuit, like this one worn by bioinspired products: an impeller that Australian Olympian Matt Walsh (left), reduces drag reduces the need for certain chemicals and increases speed. Its surface pattern is based on now used in municipal water reservoirs; the dermal denticles of sharkskin (above). medical devices that can pump blood

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To reduce wind drag on Japan's bullet train (below). engineers modeled the train's nose on the aerodynamic head of a kingfisher (bottom).

more rapidly without destroying blood cells; and near-silent air conditioners that are 25 percent more efficient than the average window unit. His company is also working with one of the largest manufacturers of residential ventilation products, Broan-NuTone, to devise quiet, energy-efficient kitchen and bathroom fans.

"If we could capture nature's efficiencies across the board, we could decrease dependency on fuel by at least 50 percent," Harman says. "What we're finding already with the tools and methodology we have right now is that we can reduce energy consumption by between 30 and 40 percent."

Despite these potential energy savings, Harman says, he has

long faced stubbornness among industry engineers, who believed efficiency was synonymous with the sort of cookie-cutter design and manufacturing that's been around since the industrial revolution. It's only recently that mainstream companies have begun to equate biomimicry with the bottom line.

DaimlerChrysler, for example, introduced a prototype car modeled on a coral reef fish. Despite its boxy, cube-shaped body, which defies a long-held aerodynamic standard in automotive design (the raindrop shape), the streamlined boxfish proved to be aerodynamically ideal and the unique construction of its skin-numerous hexagonal, bony plates-a perfect recipe for

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designing a car of maximum strength with minimal weight.

Companies and communities are flocking to Janine M. Benyus, author of the landmark book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (Perennial, 2002) and cofounder of the Biomimicry Guild, which seats biologists at the table with researchers and designers at companies such as Nike, Interface carpets, Novell and Procter & Gamble. Their objective is to marry industrial problems with natural solutions. The Helena, Montana-based consultancy also offers a headhunting service for companies seeking inspiration from nature or to put b'ologists on the payroll. The guild, which presents com ames with natural models in hopes of encouragin ustainable business praetices a 0 b nces tha might soon be banned and presents companies with scientific research regarding benign, natural alternatives.

Benyus, who hopes companies will ultimately transcend mere product design to embrace nature on a more holistic level, breaks biomimicry into three tiers. On a basic (albeit complicated) level, industry will mimic nature's precise and efficient shapes, structures and geometries. The microstructure of the lotus leaf, for example, causes raindrops to bead and run off immediately, while self cleaning and drying its surface-a dis-

co very that the British paint company Sto has exploited in a line of building paints ... .The branchlike structure of bronchial tubes in human lungs inspired engineers at Morgan Fuel Cells to invent an efficient solution for administering oxygen and hydrogen gas flow in fuel cells.

The next level of biomimicry involves imitating natural processes and biochemical "recipes": Engineers and scientists are now looking at the nasal glands of seabirds to solve the problem of desalination; [the ability of the abalone, a mollusk,] to self-assemble its incredibly durable shell in water, using local ingredients, has inspired an alternative to the conventional, and often toxic, "heat, beat and treat" manufacturing method. How

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Left: A magnified view of the tiny bristles that allow geckos to walk on walls inspired ~ British scientists at the University of Manchester to develop a glue-free adhesive tape. .D

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Right: The lotus stays clean despite its murky environs because the microscopic structure of its skin causes dust particles to stick to raindrops and run off.

Using this "lotus effect," a British paint company, Sto, has developed a line of paints that, when dry, create self-cleaning surfaces. other organisms deal with harmful bacteria can also be instructive: Researchers for the Australian company Biosignal, for instance, observed a seaweed that lives in an environment teeming with microbes to figure out how it kept free of the same sorts of bacterial colonies, called biofilms, that cause plaque on your teeth and clog up your bathroom drain. They determined that the seaweed uses chemicals, called furanones, that jam the cell-tocell signaling systems that allow bacteria to communicate and gather. Most antibacterial products on the market, such as soaps and coatings for contact lenses, are eventually susceptible to bacterial resistance, which is why Biosignal is now working to develop products that incorporate furanones in a wide range of applications, from medical equipment to cosmetics.

Ultimately, the most sophisticated application of biomimicry, according to Benyus, is when a company starts seeing itself as an organism in an economic ecosystem that must make thrifty use of limited resources and creates symbiotic relationships with other like organisms. A boardroom approach at this level begins with imagining any given company, or collection of industries, as a forest, prairie or coral reef, with its own "food web" (manufacturing inputs and outputs) and asking whether waste prod-

The Biomimicry Guild http:! www.biomimicryulld.com/indexguild.htmll A glue with "mussel" power http://oreonstate.edu/nome/storieslkaichang .htm 1/ Making plastics from oranges http] www.lifesciences.comell.eoulotflerSources marcnO

ucts from one manufacturing process can be used, or perhaps sold, as an ingredient for another industrial activity. For instance, Geoffrey W. Coates, a chemist at Cornell University in New York, has developed a biodegradable plastic synthesized from carbon dioxide and Iimonene (a major component in the oil extracted from citrus rind) and is working with a cement factory to trap their waste CO2 and use it as an ingredient.

Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives, a global network of scientists, entrepreneurs and educators, has initiated ecoindustrial projects that attempt to find ways to reuse all waste as raw materials for other processes. Storm Brewing in Newfoundland, Canada-in one of a growing number of projects around the world applying the network's principles-is using spent grains, a by-product of the beer-making process, to make bread and grow mushrooms.

As industries continue to adopt nature's models, entire manufacturing processes could operate locally, with local ingredients-like the factories that use liquefied beach sand to make windshields. As more scientists and engineers begin to embrace biomimicry, natural organisms will come to be regarded as mentors, their processes deemed masterful. And our culture at large will be more likely to see nature not as an exploitable resource, g_. _b_ut_a_s_a_so_u_r_c_e_o_f_i_nt_o_rm_a_ti_o_n_t_ha_t_' s_w_o_rt_h_p_r_o_te_c_ti_n_ _~ Andy Isaacson California.

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I've read that cars with manual transmissions from EPA's estimate .... It varies significantly get 8 percent better [petrol] mileage than based on where you drive, how you drive and their automatic counterparts. I'm certainly no other factors." So, unless you're prepared to gearhead, but doesn't that mean that manu- be a vigilant, skilled motorist, you're probably als are a lot better for the planet? Can I dra- not going to save much, if any, fuel by adoptmatically reduce my carbon footprint (as ing a stick shift.

If you're up for the challenge, though, you well as save some cash at the pump) by can likely beat the agency's estimates and switching to a stick shift? achieve fuel savings of up to 15 percent. erhaps, though you'll need to be Aside from paying constant attention to revfairly proficient at shifting gears olutions and trying to reach high gears in order to realize noticeable sav- quiCkly, you should also try shifting into neuings. According to the US. Environ- tral and coasting when safe. And it'll obvimental Protection Agency's fuel ously help your cause to follow the basic economy ratings, cars with manual trans- tenets of hypermiling, which also apply to missions typically beat their automatic automatics Keep your tires properly inflated, peers by [nearly half or one kilometer per avoid stop-and-start traffic, and remove liter]. This is largely because manuals give unnecessary weight from your trunk and back seat. you more control over an engine's exertions. Despite But even if you go stick and drive like a pro, how much will recent advances in slushbox design [slang for automatic it affect your overall carbon gear shifts], humans are still footprint? Let's be optimistic and assume you shave 15 better than automated syspercent off of your annual tems at recognizing precisely [petrol] consumption. The U.S. when to shift gears. And Department of Energy estimates smart shifting enables you to that the average American drivlimit an engine's revolutions er uses 1,892 Iiters of [petrol] per minute, which translates per year, so we're talking about into less fuel consumption . . But getting the most out of a reduction of 284 liters. Since manual requires stick-shift savvy that's often a liter of [petrol] emits 2.35 kilograms of lacking in American drivers raised on auto- carbon dioxide, you'd be reducing your matics. If you're lazy about shifting and allow annual CO2 output by approximately twoyour revolutions per minute to soar unno- thirds of a metric ton. For comparison's ticed, then you might actually guzzle more sake, if the average American cut out flying [petrol] than if your car were equipped with a for a year, he or she would reduce their carwell-engineered slushbox. The federal fuel- bon dioxide emissions by a Iittle, under half a economy ratings acknowledge as much, by metric ton. including an important caveat: "Your vehiThis calculation, however, doesn't include cle's fuel economy will almost certainly vary some less obvious benefits of manual trans-

P

EPA's fuel economy estimates filtp:l!www.epa.gov/fueleconom 7 Mileage Tips ttp: www.fueleconomy.gov/feQ/drive.sfi ml missions. The brake pads on stick-shift cars, for example, tend to wear out less rapidly than those on automatics. And manual transmissions are relatively cheap to fix and replace, so you can wait longer to buy a new vehicle. Manufacturing auto parts is energyintensive, so anything that can be done to curb their production has to be a plus.

But I doubt there will ever be a stickshift revival in the United States, no matter how much [petrol] prices and temperatures soar. Gearheads will always adore manuals, but they're in the minority-most Americans prefer the ease of an automatic, especially on grid locked freeways.

Fewer than 9 percent of new cars in the United States are manuals, and that figure is set to drop to 6 percent by 2012. And rare is the driving school that teaches teenage newbies how to work a clutch. ~ Brendan 1.

Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for Slate.

plastic and paper at the supermarket?

Paper, Plastic or Neither?

It seems that both paper and plastic shopping bags are pretty dreadful for the environment-the former because they require so many trees, the latter because they suffocate animals and last for centuries. But what happened to all the buzz in the late 1990s about biodegradable bags composed of vegetable matter? can find them at a few tony stores, but they're still nowhere cheap enough for [local grocery stores]. Standard polyethylene bags cost retailers around two cents [78 paise] each, while paper bags might be a penny or two more expensive.

But so-called bioplastic bags, made from natural starches or oils, cost in the neighborhood of seven or eight cents [about three rupees]. American shoppers are issued more than 100 billion polyethylene bags annually, so a nickel-per-sack premium would add up to an extra $5 billion in business costs.

But bioplastic bags are closing the gap, in part because people are coming to realize that the two reigning supennarket favorites are far from green. Polyethylene, for starters, is made from fossil fuels-it takes roughly 12 million barrels of oil a year to satisfY America's plastic-bag consumption. And since discarded plastic bags don't break down for eons, they're free to wreak havoc on wildlife and ecosystems; there are, for example, 46,000 pieces of plastic floating in every 2.5 square kilometers of ocean.

Given their arboreal origins, paper bags might seem the greener checkout-line option. But that just isn't the case. According to one Environmental Protection Agency estimate, producing a paper bag emits 70 percent more greenhouse gases than manufacturing a similarly sized OU

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Reusable bags http://www.reusablebags.com/vision.php United Nations Environment Programme http://www.unep.org/

polyethylene sack. Since paper bags are bulkier than their plastic counterparts, they require more fossil fuel to transport.

And as any lobbyist for the Film and Bag Federation (http://www.plasticbag.com) would be happy to point out, supplying the United States with paper bags requires chopping down 14 million carbon-soaking trees per year.

Bioplastic bags, by contrast, are made from resources like com that are significantly more renewable than trees. (It takes a lot less time to set up a cornfield than it does to regenerate a forest.) In one common process, com starch is fermented into lactic acid, which is then mixed with a variety of additives to give it polyethylene-like properties.

The source material needn't be com. Potatoes are also popular, and Japan's Hitachi Zosen is experimenting with cassava. There are also processes that use microbes to ferment cane sugar and vegetable oils.

Bioplastics companies contend that producing their bags typically requires anywhere from 30 percent to 70 percent less fossil fuel than their polyethylene rivals. When discarded, bioplastic bags are designed to break down completely in a matter of weeks, leaving behind water and the carbon dioxide the com or potatoes had absorbed before they were harvested. There have been complaints that this rapid decay can only take place under certain conditions, such as the intense heat of an industrial composting facility, but newer bags are designed to degrade more easily. ~ Brendan 1. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for Slate and

Gizmodo.

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to editorspan@state.gov

F. Sherwood Rowland at the New Delhi Sustainable Development Summit.

Lening Science Touch Base with ~g~~ion Making Scientists and researchers come together to discuss issues of sustainable development at an annual summit in New Delhi.

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et involved." This is the message that F. Sherwood Rowland, a Nobel laureate in chemistry, urges for governments taking on the menacing reality of climate change.

"Rather than fanciful suggestions for mitigating global warming-from carbon sucking technologies to planting sulfuric acid in the atmosphere to serve as a shield from the sun's ultraviolet rays and cool global temperatures-the issue will need a unity of purpose from all countries," Rowland told delegates at a three-day summit in New Delhi on sustainable development and climate change. While global warming may already be visible in the early melting of Alaskan ice or polar caps and is probably not seen on the sunny beaches of California, it is not going to be limited to one region or continent alone.

The summit, organized in February by The Energy and Resources Institute, has become an important landmark for those committed to finding a globally acceptable and socially inclusive solution to the problem of climate change. The goal of

sustainable deve opment is to allow Third World communities to improve their lives without destroying their own environn1ent and future.

One of the natural processes of reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is photosynthesis, a beneficial activity of plants.

However, people living near forests are tempted to chop them down and need ideas on how to earn their livelihood from them, instead.

Rowland, who is research professor of chemistry and earth system science at the University of California, Irvine, won the Nobel Prize in 1995 with Paul Crutzen and Mario Lolina for work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of the ozone layer.

Rowland says the increase in carbon dioxide and a related increase in global temperature have been well documented over the last 200 years, with the rise being most pronounced during the last three decades. According to some scientists, even if the human race were to stop carbon emissions from the next second, the damage to the planet is now irreversible. "We have understood the dynamics of climate change. Now we just need some degree of an effort to find a solution," says Rowland.

"The time to act is now."

For more information: The Rowland-Blake Group at the University of California, Irvine http://www. physsci. uci. edu/ -rowlandblake/ Ozone depletion and Arctic warming http://www. giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20060314/

"One hundred thousand dollars isn't nearly enough of a settlemenT, your honol: After all, my client deserves something, too. "

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Masterpieces 01 Chicago C

hicago, Illinois, has long been known for its architecture.

Great names in the field of design, structural engineering and architecture have created buildings in the city, from the iconic Robie House by Frank Lloyd Wright in what came to be known as the Prairie style to the imposing Sears Tower, the masterpiece of the Bangladeshi American Fazlur Rahman Khan. Modem architects have also contributed their vision of the "windy city" on the shore of Lake Michigan.

A good place to start if you're interested in innovative art and architecture is the nearly la-hectare Millennium Park, in the heart of Chicago, the biggest city in the American Midwest As I strolled into the park, I first noticed a gigantic steel arch in one comer. This is Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate, a highly polished sculpture that is said to have been inspired by a drop of mercury. Chicagoans fondly refer to it as "the bean." At over $20 million, that's one expensive bean. The 11a-ton elliptical masterpiece beautifully reflects the adjoining buildings, the passers-by in the park and the clouds in the sky. It was forged

Above: The Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium

Park in Chicago.

Far left: Chicago's CNA Plaza is lit up with a message supporting the Chicago White Sox baseball team. On the left is Sears Tower, in the right foreground is Buckingham Fountain.

Left: A child plays in the Crown Fountain at Millennium

Park.

Below: The Chicago skyline.

using a series of seamless, highly polished steel plates. A 3.6meter-high arch provides a "gate" to the concave chamber beneath the sculpture, inviting visitors to touch its mirror-like surface and view their images reflected from different angles.

Not far from "the bean" stands the Crown Fountain, built to showcase Chicago's ethnic diversity. Spanish sculptor Jaume Plensa designed the fountain with two IS-meter glass towers at either end of a shallow reflecting pool. The towers feature con-

stantly changing video images of faces from a cross-section of 1,000 city residents.

As you are drawn to these huge faces, beware! Water suddenly whooshes from their mouths! The stream continues for a few seconds; then slowly diminishes. Children have a whale of a time trying to predict and outwit the jets of water.

The inspiration for the fountain came from fountains Plensa saw on walks through Rome. "Unfortunately, they carved the figures in stone," he observes, "and for 500 years they have exactly the same position. I think today technology allows us to go a little bit farther. All of us, we have two sides, the day light side, and the freak side. And those huge faces, the gargoyles, become these grotesque parts of ourselves, but that is also the most beautiful part of art, when we are out of control. When they spout water from their mouths, they are giving us life, and that is very beautiful for me."

At night, the nearby skyscrapers glitter like stars in the

shallow pool. "A fountain," Plensa once said, "is the memory of nature, this marvelous sound of a little river in the mountains translated to the city."

A little distance from the fountain is yet another fascinating structure-the Jay Pritzker Pavilion designed by architect Frank Gehry. You may even catch a concert if you're lucky. The experience of sitting on the cool, green grass and listening to the orchestra through the $500,000 sound system is quite something.

In fact, because of the "acoustical canopy" of the pavilion, it is regarded as one of the most technologically advanced outdoor concert venues in the world.

Such a musical venue in a park close to the business district has proved to be a superb idea. I saw several Chicagoans soaking in the atmosphere with blissful looks on their faces, grateful for the break.

After ~ark" the auditorium itself is cloaked in a soothing orange glow, hig ting its design. Gehry seemed to have

taken German philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's description of architecture as "frozen music" to heart. Gehry's style has been referred to as techno-baroque, a complete break from rigidly linear forms to use contemporary technology to create the modern equivalent of the exuberance of a baroque church, where sweeping, curving forms invite the eye to an examination of the intricacies of the structure. The auditorium has a billowing headdress of stainless steel ribbons that frame the stage opening and connect to an overhead trellis of crisscrossing steel pipes. The trellis supports the sound system and spans the 4,000 fixed seats and the lawn in front, which can accommodate an additional 7,000 people.

When you are through with the park, make your way to the nearby Sears Tower. This building, which immortalized Khan, opened to tenants in 1973, though construction was completed a year later.

Built for the famous retailer Sears, Roebuck and Company, the 442meter structure has 110 floors. It remained the world's tallest

A building until 1996, when it was surpassed by the Petronas Towers (452 meters) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Khan's skyscrapers were a watershed in the development of America's huge buildings. As he once put it, they enabled "people to live and work in the sky." Chicagoans often joke that the residents of the highest floors of the tower phone the doorman to find out whether it's raining or snowing, since they literally live above the low-hanging clouds.

The specialty of the tower is the use of what is known as bundled tubes, which limits the building's sway in the windy city.

Nine square columns of different height make up the entire structure. At the 50th floor, two diagonally opposite columns end, making a kind of first step. The second step is at the 66th floor with two more diagonal units ending, and the last step back occurs at the 90th floor, with three of the towers coming to an end, leaving the highest tower of 20 more stories. As a result, photographs of the building vary considerably depending on the direction from which they are taken and many visitors don't recognize the place they have just visited.

Windy City with a Warm, Cosmopolitan Heart

By SURENDRA KUMAR

C

hicago in winter and Chicago in summer are two totally different cities. In winter it's freezing cold at -20 or -30 degrees plus wind chill, which can devastate those not used to such weather. But once you have weathered the first winter, you get used to it. We loved watching snow fall from our 19th floor penthouse on South Michigan Avenue. Grant Park and the whole Lake Michigan area became an unending, thick, white blanket of snow. The bare trees in Millennium Parkand on Magnificent Mile with their tiny Christmas lights looked fabulous. The cold seldom dampened the high spirits of aficionados of music and opera, who thronged Chicago Symphony Orchestra hall and the opera hall every evening But by June end, Millennium Park and Grant Park, in fact, the entire 180-degree scene from the planetarium on the right, the â&#x20AC;˘ Field Museum, and the Yacht Club up to Navy Pier became luscious green with colorful tulips and fragrant lilies. A sea of human beings ran, jogged, cycled or just strolled there.

Surendra Kumar (left) with actor How many times have I walked D~ Anand a; the ~ouse of Blues, from one end to the other, a lcagO res auran . savoring the beauty of nature, admiring the picture postcard skyline of Chicago, listening to jau or Gospel music, sampling different cuisine and watching people learning to dance cha-cha-cha, flamenco and samba. Thousands of people visited the Arts Council Museum while others hunted for bargains in department stores. Lake Michigan was crammed with thousands of boats in summer, and the sky was full of planes landing or taking off.

A number of symposiums and talks that I organized have left fond memories of interaction with some of the brightest brains. Chicago may be cold in winter but it has a very warm heart, matching the warmth of Chicagoans.

Surendra Kumar was India's consul general in Chicago from February 2000 to August 2003 and is now dean of the Foreign Service Institute of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.

In 1999, Alain Robert, the Frenchman known as the human spider, climbed the tower from outside, using only his bare hands and feet and without safety devices. As he approached the top, a thick fog settled in, making the glass-and-steel exterior of the top 20 floors slippery.

You are not through with the city's architectural attractions until you pay a visit to the 15-meter-high Picasso sculpture at the Daley Center Plaza. What the figure represents is not known; it could be a bird, a horse, a woman or a totally abstract shape.

Picasso designed a 42-inch model of the sculpture as a "gift to the people of Chicago." The actual sculpture, however, was manufactured by the United States Steel Corporation in the neighboring state of Indiana, where it was entirely pre-assembled, then disassembled and shipped to the For more Information: plaza to be reassembled in its Millennium Park final form. http://www.millenniumpark org/ Cap your journey of discovery The Sears Tower by visiting some of the surviving buildings of American architects http://www.tliesearstower.com7 Mies van der Rohe and Louis Sullivan. There were quite a few in the city at one time, but the demands of modernity and expansion to accommodate new offices and residents have swallowed some. Rohe's original use of a glass fa<;;adein the Lake Shore Drive Apartments was to become a hallmark of modern office and commercial centers the world over.

Chicago's many innovative buildings-as designers, engineers and architects compete with each other to get noticedprovide ample opportunities for a visitor interested in art and architecture to appreciate human ingenuity.

Sidharth Balakrishna works with a New Delhi-based consultancy firm and is a freelance travel writer.

Please share your views on this article. Write to editorspan@state.gov

The Healing

Power of Flowers The Center for Victims of Torture's therapeutic garden in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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t'sspring again, and in the shadow of downtown Minneapolis in Minnesota, tiny green tulip spikes are about to push their way up through the barren brown earth of a freshly watered garden. In the coming months, they will be replaced by coneflowers, broadleafed hostas and milkweed. The space will fill with birds, butterflies, rabbits and visitors from around the globe, who may choose to take just a few minutes to stroll through or linger for several hours. Though their origins are diverse, a majority of these guests share a common history: They have been victimized by both physical and psychological abuse.

The garden is a project of the Center for Victims of Torture, a world renowned organization founded in 1985 to aid those who have suffered political violence. The center, headquartered in a Victorian house, has affiliates in 14 countries, including India, and serves survivors throughout the United States. Its cl ients experience feelings of isolation, trauma and anxiety; many are haunted by flashbacks and nightmares. To treat this range of symptoms, commonly attributed to post-traumatic stress disorder, the center provides a three-tier treatment regimen: safety and stabilization; grief and mourning; and reconnection with family and community.

I

According to the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the disorder has been a subject of study since the end of the Vietnam War, and researchers are still compiling information. It is known that the disorder affects the way the brain retains memory, and while drugs can mitigate symptoms, a purely pharmaceutical cure seems unlikeIy. Many psychologists, among them Josef I. Ruzek, recommend that patients spend time in nature engaged in creative activities, in order to cope over the long term.

This explains a growing interest in gardening as a healing tool.

Betty Ann Addison designed the center's garden. During summer months, people wait for appointments either on the cozy garden bench or on a large, canvas-covered swing. Along with serving as a waiting and meditation space, the garden is a conversation starter for many clients who, when they see the beauty growing around them, begin to open up to staff and talk about their own gardens, especially the plants they miss from back home.

The garden is also a salve for employees who need a place to process painful stories and. horrific images. Many staff members are

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! ~ now gardeners themselves, since it helps them stay connected with a calming influence amid the constant stress of work.

Because a sense of isolation often accompanies post-traumatic stress disorder, gardening is also used to help people connect with one another and reestablish a sense of trust. Every year on June 26, the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the center holds a tree-planting ceremony. Several flowering trees are added to a growing grove at the front of the house, and, according to the center's C.C Strom, volunteers "plant messages of hope and healing in anticipation that the hopes will grow and flourish."

A few basic principles lie at the heart of every healing garden, Addison says. Ideally it should be planted in a place that has shade,

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sun and silence, so people can meditate undisturbed.

The plot should be tended year-round, no matter the weather, so those who use it have both a sense of permanence and a feeling that the environment can be trusted as a life-giving force; to that end, it should include evergreens as well as flowers.

Finally, the garden needs a focal point for meditation. At the Center for Victims of Torture, it's a small rock garden with delicate wild flowers emerging between large rocks, symbolizing both a struggle for life and triumph over adversity.

Ultimately, Addison says, gardens are all about transition-whether it be from illness to healing or from life to death. They change by the hour, week, month and year. They require us to relinquish control A deep appreciation of life emerges with each sprouting plant, even the weeds. And simply by embracing natural rhythms, people from all walks of life, no matter the nature of their past experiences, can learn to accept the inevitability of loss and find hope in the promise of new life.

A ..

---~ Sarah Wash is an editorial intern with Utne.

How the Press

Serves U.S. Voters

he last act of a long campaign day is distribution of the next day's equally long schedule, the "bible," as it's known, to all hands-press, staff, advisers--either given to us as we're getting off the plane or slipped under our hotel room doors. A typical day begins something like this:

T

6:15 a.m. Bags in the lobby.

7: 15 a. m. Candidate and press pool depart hotel for station KXYZ- TV. 7:30 a.m. Staff and press corps board bus for the Palm Restaurant for 8 a.m. breakfast with Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Club.

7:45 a.m. Five-minute candidate interview with KXYZ morning anchor Joe Smith.

7:50 a.m. Depart KXYZ for the Palm.

9:00 a.m. Depart the Palm for Avery Houston airport.

And so it goes-a lot of events and moving parts for the day. At least the Chamber/Rotary meeting means we don't have to worry about whether there's time to grab breakfast in the hotel coffee shop.

(One iron rule on the campaign: Eat at every opportunity, because the schedule can cause you to miss a meal.) And the press pool for KXYZ will give us a written "fill," or report, of what was said and done there. The pool is for events where time, space and other considerations won't accommodate the full press corps.

It generally includes a daily newspaper reporter, TV reporter, news magazine reporter, and wire service (Associated Press or Reuters) reporter, and we all are assigned our turns in the pools.

The "bible" is a meticulously detailed document compiled by the campaign staff that enables everyone to plan their day; each reporter has different priorities and projects to work on. What looks like the main event, the likely source of the news lead for the day? Is "filing time" to write and transmit stories built into the schedule, and at the right points? Most of us have different deadlines due to geography and our organization's individual production schedules. Is there an event I can skip so I can grab the candidate's staffers with whom I need to talk for a news analysis I'm working on?

An American presidential campaign is a complex, intricate dance involving many people. For everyone involved, it also is a long, grueling process, more exhausting for some than for others. A candidate who is running third or fourth or fifth in the plimaries, for instance, will try to cram more events into the day, particularly in the small but crucial states of Iowa (first caucus in the nation) and New Hampshire (first primary), where face-to-face contact with the voters is not only essential but expected.

Long before I get on the campaign plane, I have researched the members of the campaign staff. Who are the paid consultants, media experts and pollsters?

Who are the unpaid and unofficial advisers who, as respected former officeholders, activists, or policy "wonks" (specialists), are highly influential?

I also must intemalize the campaign strategy. How much effort needed to go into the traditional early plimary states, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina? How were canlpaigns planning to deal with the new February 5, 2008 "super primary" held simultaneously in so many states-including such blockbuster states as New York

A veteran political journalist shares the inside story of life on the road during a U.S. presidential campaign and discusses the reporter's role in conveying a candidate's message to the American people.

Republican presidential hopeful Senator John McCain, with his wife, Cindy, speaks at a news conference in Des Moines, Iowa, in front of his campaign bus.

and California-that it could determine a party's presidential nominee that day, nine months in advance of Election Day? In which states is the candidate strong and in which ones weak? In which areas of each state are the different candidates strong and weak? All these details are building blocks in the most important political decision the American people maketheir choice of president.

We in the press corps are a major factor in this electoral process. Because of the decline of the political parties, concurrent with the primaries' rise in importance, the media have become the early screeners of the candidates. Our function is to evaluate their policies; their personal characteristics, such as intelligence, temperament, honesty, judgment, organizational ability and persuasiveness; and their fitness for the presidency, to help the voters make informed decisions in this vital matter.

We have taken this role very seriously

ever since publication of The Making of the President 1960, Theodore White's famed, best-selling book about John F. Kennedy's victorious presidential campaign against Richard Nixon.

Cultivating staff and consultants who can be good information sources is a top priority for political reporters. This is an ongoing exercise in character evaluation, courtship and diplomacy. The key is to identify sources who truly know what's going on in the campaign and who will share it with you, a rare combination both on the campaign and in the Oval Office.

Outside professional consultants are often better for this purpose than long-time, personal loyalists because they know that they'll likely be back on a future campaign, as will I, and we need each other.

I also evaluate the unpaid advisers who have a national political interest rather than a career or personal investment in the campaign. On one Democratic presidential campaign, I befriended a genial political activist and veteran of the Kennedy presidential races. We had dinner on the road a couple of times and shared a drink at the bar other times. At a certain point,

he decided he couldn't abide the campaign's mistakes and miscalculations any longer. Believing that he could trust me to get the story right and protect his identity, he gave me a great running inside view of the campaign on "background," which meant that I could use the information but couldn't quote him by name or identify him. The result was some of the best campaign analysis I've ever written.

In 1988, I was with The Washington Post and covered then-Senator Al Gore in the so-called Super Tuesday primary election in which several southern states held their primaries on the same day in an effort to increase the region's influence on the presidential nomination. (He did well there, but didn't have the resources for the subsequent primaries in northern states.) Gore made a stop in his home state of Tennessee at a hospital that had a new, state-of-the-art children's wing. We were met there by then-Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas, and I decided to miss the hospital tour in order to interview Clinton. I had learned in previous conversations that he was an excellent and accessible political analyst, and the

Left: The press records Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton campaigning at a restaurant in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Below: Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama talks with reporters during a campaign flight.

interview was time extremely well spent.

I covered myself by agreeing with a colleague from a noncompetitive paper in the Midwest to fill him in on Clinton in return for his fill on the hospital tour.

The "bible" lays out what's planned, but it can't anticipate the thousand and one unforeseen events that invariably pop up. Always I must be ready to respond to the unexpected, which of course is the definition of the news business. New developments in Iraq. New action in Congress on immigration or health care.

A candidate dropping out of his party's primary because of fundraising problems.

And so forth.

Often these twists are welcome simply because both reporters and editors become weary of the candidate's standard "stump," or campaign, speech. It is

for more information: Role of the Press http://www.britannica.com/eb/arti

repeated at event after event to appreciative new audiences but drives us reporters to look constantly for a fresh news lead or for feature and analysis stories. In one campaign, however, I had composed and filed what I thought was a marvelous story in which the day's major campaign events wonderfully illustrated the candidate's position on his three major issues. I was very proud of the story and filed it well before deadline. At the next event, however, my candidate pointed out that his opponent had opened his current campaign tour with a questionable assertion that carbon dioxide emitted by tree leaves was the cause of haze and smog in an eastern U.S. mountain range, thus igniting a critical discussion of his environmental policies. We spent the next couple of days scrambling to report that, and my painstaking literary effort from days earlier was obliterated by what I thought was a nonsensicle- 2365 28/h istory-of-pub Iish ing cal issue.

With the newer technology of laptop computers, Blackberries, cell phones, and the like, we are increasingly able to anticipate developments even when out on the road. We can monitor the wire services and other news organizations' Web sites. We don't have to chase campaign staff and advisers for reactions to breaking events because they generally beat us to it with an e-mail. Filing stories from the road in time for deadlines could be difficult in the era prior to computers and modems, but communication with the news desk back home is now generally constant and instantaneous with cell phones, wireless Internet access, and high-speed, broadband-quality modems for transmitting and receiving stories, memos and background documents on our laptops. The new technology, including satellites, obviously also has eased the lives of television crews, for whom the logistics of getting film and tape back to their hometown headquarters in time for the evening newscast used to be a daily logistical nightmare.

New technology, however, means more work. Reporters for news organizations that have Web sites and radio stations are expected to file breaking stories for them throughout the day. And for technical reasons none of us ever understood, the first-edition deadlines at both major dailies where I worked, The Washington Star and The Washington Post, became an hour earlier, 7 p.m. rather than 8 p.m., after the newsrooms were computerized. It also means the desk can easily reach you with sometimes really dumb story ideas.

It's a great life if you don't weaken. It's a life for the young and strong who can work 16-hour days and defer dinner until 11 p.m. When I was young and macho (up to about age 50), I considered it an invigorating challenge.

One of the most frequent remarks I heard from people when they learned that I was in the news business was, "That sounds interesting. You must learn something new every day." "Yes," I would respond, thinking to myself, "you have no idea."

¢h

Jim Dickenson is a retired political reporter for The Washington Post.

Please share your views on this article. Write to editorspan@state.gov

What Do American Women Voters Want?

Women comprise more than half of the U.S. electorate and have influenced election outcomes for more than 80 years.

T

he average woman in the United States wakes up each morning to a myriad of responsibilities, curiosities and concerns, none of which are political, per se, but all of which are affected by political and governmental action. These issues might include: Is my child learning in this school? Is this neighborhood safe? If I switch jobs, will I lose my health insurance? Is Social Security income enough for my parents to keep their house and not deplete their savings?

Since 1964 American women have comprised a majority of the eligible electorate, but it was not until 1980 that the percentage of eligible women who actually voted surpassed the percentage of qualified men casting ballots. For all the angst by the statisticians that a fraction of women seek or hold elective office in the United States (and that a woman has never been elected president), women voters have influenced electoral outcomes for more than eight decades, deciding on presidents and precedents in a way that has shaped public policy directly and dramatically.

Women tend to favor incumbents, especially for president, preferring to stick with a trusted brand already on the shelf rather than trying something new and unknown. In fact, the last three presidents who won reelection increased their support among women in their second bids. Women are also reliably pro-incumbent in congressional elections, evidencing more consistency in their voting patterns than men. Ironically, this natural bias toward reelecting incumbents is one reason many women who run for office as challengers are unsuccessful.

The female nonvoter has been ignored by politicians, parties, pundits and professional consultants, who seem obsessed instead with "likely" or "swing" voters. In the 2004 presidential election, more than half (54.5 percent) of women between the ages of 18 and 24 did not vote. However, women in this age bracket voted at a higher rate than their male counterparts, only 40 percent of whom cast ballots. At the other end of the age spectrum, only 29 percent of women aged 65 to 74 did not vote, compared to 26.1

percent of men in the same category. The top reasons women offer for opting out include "illness/disability" (19.8 percent), "too busy/scheduling conflict" (17.4 percent), "not interested" (10.7 percent), and "did not like candidates or campaign issues" (9.7 percent). Excluding the final two responses, it is important to note that nearly nine in 10 women did not participate for reasons other than a lack of feeling engaged.

Traditionally, women are thought to gravitate more toward the "SHE" cluster of issues, Social Security, health care and education, while men are considered more interested in the "WE" issues, war and the economy. The last three national elections (2002, 2004 and 2006) show that these convenient boxes no longer apply.

In 2004 and again in 2006, women told pollsters that the concerns that motivated them to decide whether and for whom to vote were centered on nontraditional "women's issues." From a closed-ended question in which 10 possible choices were offered, the situation in Iraq topped the list as the motivating concern (22 percent), followed by the war on terror (15 percent).

Morality/family values and jobs/economy each received 11 percent, while the remaining six options only garnered single-digit responses.

As my coauthor, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, and I posit in What Women Really Want: How American Women Are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class, and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live (Free Press, 2005), women are not single-issue voters, either. Rather, they tend to consider a plethora of ideas, issues, individuals, impressions and ideologies before making a final decision. The media's focus on the contentious ones makes it seem as if women only care about one issue on Election Day and that it takes special attention to that issue to compel women to vote. In reality, women's voting patterns indicate quite the opposite.

Women are not monolithic in their attitudes about, or votes within, the political system. When it comes to voting, one woman might vote for all Democrats, another might vote straight-ticket Republican, while a third might take the salad-bar approach and pick and choose from who and what suits her best.

In the end, women voters ask themselves two core questions when deciding whom to support for president: "Do I like that

person?" and "Is that person like me?" The first question is the classic "living room" test: Would you like to see that candidate on the television set in your living room for the next four or eight years? The second is a more complex inquiry that probes whether women believe a candidate cares about, values, confronts, and fears the same things they do.

It is impossible to divide the life experiences and attitudes of American women into the binary Republican and Democrat categories. As women take more than their political ideology to the polls, politicians must be cognizant of the life stages, as well as the demographic categories, into which women fall. A concept we frequently use at my firm, the polling company ™ inc./WomanTrend, is the "Three Faces of Eve," which is illustrated through the three very distinct lives a 48-year-old woman in America might have. She could be a blue-collar grandmother, an unmarried and childless professional, or a married mother of two young children. Technically, they would all fall into the same age and gender demographic categories, but their life experiences vastly differ, resulting in varied perspectives on the current state of affairs. Politics is not an isolated category for women; rather, politics is an all-encompassing arena into which women export their life experiences, needs and expectations.

Some groups of women to watch in 2008 include: • Woman Entrepreneurs: Women own approximately 10.4 million firms in the United States and employ more than 12.8 million Americans. While 75 percent of all U.S. firms do not have employees, an eye-popping 81 percent of woman-owned firms are single-person or "Mom-and-Pop" operations. The rate of growth of woman-owned firms consistently increases at a rate double to that of all firms.

• Unmarried Women: American women are delaying marriage not because they are without choices, but simply because they do have choices. Currently, 49 percent of all women over the age of 15 are not married and more than half (54 percent) of these women fall in the 25 to 64 age category.

• Not-Yet-Moms: With more women entering the workforce and the ever-increasing number of women having children beyond the traditional childbearing years, fewer women in their late 20s and early 30s can identify with the "married-with-children" label.

• Junior-Seniors: Women aged 50 to 64, many with children living at home, are expecting entitlements and eternity (the quest to extend life), seeking solutions and sophistication.

• Minority Women: Minorities now comprise one-third of U.S. residents, and four states are already a majority-minority, with five others expected to follow by 2025. The Senator Hillary Clinton greets a woman after casting her vote at the Douglas Grafflin Elementary School in Chappaqua, New York. Women comprise more than half of the U.S. electorate.

Hispanic population is poised ~ vote for other women. If they !1i: did, U.S. Senators Elizabeth to have the most significant @ impact on the U.S. population, iD Dole or Carol Moseley Braun ~ would have won their parties' but the increase in Asian American voters is also a trend ~ nominations for president when z . to follow. fu they sought the nod III 2000 and :;;! 2004, respectively, based on the â&#x20AC;˘ Generation Y Women: A simple notion that women comsurvey for Lifetime Television prise a majority of the voters. by the polling company â&#x201E;˘ inc.

The 2008 race differs from past and Lake Research Partners found that a majority (54 perelections in that this is an eleccent) of Gen Y women (those tion of many fIrsts. A woman, an African American, a Mormon born since 1979) believe that the best way to make a differand a Hispanic were running campaigns for their major-party ence in American politics is to vote. Beyond politics, almost nominations. half (42 percent) of Gen Y Party loyalty trumps gender, women indicated that the best as indicated by a July 2007 way to make a difference in the Newsweek survey, which found world was to "help those less that 88 percent of men and 85 fortunate than I, with either percent of women say that if their party nominated a woman time or money." Among the six other options posed to them, candidate they would vote for only 2 percent said that taking her if she were qualifIed for the an "active role in politics" was job. Americans express less the best way to do so. Behind enthusiasm, however, about the helping those in need, included "female factor," when it comes "be a good person" (16 perto how they judge their fellow cent), "help stop violence and citizens: Only 60 percent of sexual assaults against women" men and 56 percent of women Brenda McClellan cheers as Senator Barack Obama speaks at a rally (9 percent), "help save the in Concord, New Hampshire. Obama won most of the women's vote believe that the country is ready environment" (8 percent), and in Iowa, and he won the state. However, in New Hampshire, he lost for a woman president. With "defend my country and keep it the women's vote and the state. regard to race, voters are less safe by serving in the military" hesitant to vote for a qualifIed (4 percent).

African American candidate of their party, as 92 percent of whites If a woman bristles, "I hate politics," what she is saying in and 93 percent of nonwhites say that they would endorse such a effect is that she cares not who manages the public schools and candidate. Like gender, fewer voters doubt that the country is what is taught there; how health care is accessed, delivered, and ready for an African American president: Only 59 percent of paid for in the United States; whether the nation is safe, prosper- white voters and 58 percent of nonwhite voters believe that the ous and globally competitive. Yet, clearly, she does not mean country would elect a black president. When responding to polls, that. Politics and governance are the vehicles through which voters can sometimes displace their attitudes and stereotypes onto change in these areas is accomplished but not necessarily the their friends, family and community members as a way to reafprism through which women interact with them. firm their own position while simultaneously hiding what they What can the 2008 presidential contenders expect from believe or know to be an "unacceptable" or "unpopular" position. women voters? The variable in this presidential election could be One caveat of this concept is that voters' opinions could be influa woman candidate, taking the debate from if to when. The dis- enced by the fact that in 2008 there is a prominent African cussion has shifted from a hypothesized woman president to a American and a prominent woman candidate. Any opposition to real, possible woman president; namely, Hillary Rodham an African American or a woman could well be the dislike of an Clinton. individual candidate.

Still, past practice has proved that women do not necessarily Whereas the contest for president is the most wide open in decades (it is the fIrst time in 80 years that neither a sitting presFor more information: ident nor vice president is seeking the presidency), one thing is Center for American Women and Politics certain: Women, as they have since 1980, will be a majority of the http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/Facts/Elections/PresWatch2008.htm I electorate that decides who next occupies the Oval Office.

League of Women Voters http://www.lwv.org/ AM/femplale, cfm?Seclion == About Us

Kellyanne Conway is the president and chief executive Washington-based polling company â&#x201E;˘ inc.lWomanTrend.

officer of

Text by GIRIRAJ AGARWAL Photographs

by MUKESH JHA

American and Indian scientists work to develop antimalaria vaccines and drugs. he World Health Organization estimates that more than 500 million people get malaria each year and more than a million of them die. Most of the victims are children in sub-Saharan Africa. The situation in India is not as bad, but there is cause for worry: rising cases of the dangerous Plasmodium jalciparum parasite, increasing resistance to the traditional drug chloroquine, and the failure in some places of insecticides like DDT (DichlorodiphenyltricWoroethane) to kill the mosquitoes responsible for the transmission of malarial parasites.

This has forced Indian scientists to

T

look at the problem afresh and reconsider their strategies. The United States is partnering India in several ways to fight malaria. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, is involved in many research projects with India's National Institute of Malaria Research. The collaboration has resulted in an experimental vaccine for which human trials are expected to begin soon.

How many people really come down with malaria in India every year? Nobody has the exact answer but scientists agree that there is huge under-reporting. "Nonreporting of malaria cases by private doctors and self-medication is a big bottle-

neck in arriving at the right malaria data," says Praveen Bharti, a researcher with the路 Jabalpur field station of the National Institute of Malaria Research. Malaria cases in India have remained around two million each year in the last 10 years and have taken the lives of about 1,000 people, according to statistics of the National Vector Borne Disease Control Program.

"The number of malaria cases in India is 10 to 40 times of what is reported," says Dr. Altaf Lal, health attache at the U.S. Embassy and a malaria expert.

There have been malaria outbreaks in pockets of many states of India but the disease is more severe in Orissa, Madhya

Above: The Supa Tal in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh. Mosquitoes breed in such water bodies and nearby residents are easy victims.

Above right: Nurse Kalpana Baghel (right) at the Government Homeopathic Medical College in Bhopal takes a blood sample from Munni, a patient, to see if she has malaria.

Right: Senior Research Fellow Vidhan Jain (left) and laboratory in-charge Kiran Awasthi (center) explain their procedures to a malaria expert from the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Eric Tongren (jar right), at the Jabalpur field station of the National Institute of Malaria Research. Praveen Bharti, a researcher, stands at the back.

Below right: Neeru Singh, chief of the Jabalpur field station, puts blood samples in a Beta Counter machine which analyzes the T-cells in the blood count. T-cells are a type of white blood cell which indicate a person's immunity level.

Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and the northeastern states. Areas of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh populated largely by tribespeople are badly affected. "The tribals are only 19 percent of the population but account for 50 percent of the malaria cases," says Neeru Singh, chief of the Jabalpur field station. Seventy percent of the malaria cases among the tribespeople of this region, she says, are caused by the Plasmodium falciparum parasite, which is responsible for more than 90 percent of malarial deaths in the world. India had historically more Plasmodium vivax cases than P.falciparum. Plasmodium vivax does not lead to death, says M.M. Shukla,

deputy director at Jabalpur.

The field station was established in 1986, specifically to study the malaria sensitivity of the tribal regions of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. "Tribals live in forests and wear scanty clothes, which make them susceptible to malaria," says Singh. "In the rainy season, water pools make the situation worse," she_ says. Several research projects are being carried out in associ ation with the Centers for Disease Control, which was. established in 1946 to eradicate malaria in the United States. The National Institutes:' of Health in Bethesda, Mary land, and the U.S. Agency for International Development have funded research on cerebral malaria and the burden of malaria in pregnant women in the region, Singh says. In 2007, Dr. Eric Tongren, a visiting professor at the Centers for Disease Control, visited the Jabalpur station to study the progress of various projects.

"Our major aim is try to reduce the number of cases and deaths due to malaria.

We are also trying to understand the reasons behind the susceptibility of the region toward the disease," says Tongren.

The center has helped the station with its expertise. "Researchers, technicians and epidemiologists have been provided training. Joint workshops have been organized," says La!. An expert on malaria from the Centers for Disease Control, Venkatachalam Udhayakumar, has been coordinating the projects with Singh.

What is the outcome of the joint research? "An interesting biological mechanism has been observed in the patients who had cerebral malaria," says Tongren.

"Blood analysis of these patients showed some prognostic markers. Some markers were more pronounced in these patients.

This can aid in the treatment of cerebral malaria patients and we can know who are more at risk," he says. Tongren adds that in Mrica only 30 percent of the children with cerebral malaria survive.

The study of malaria during pregnancy is another important joint research project at Jabalpur. The impact of the disease on the health of mother and baby is being studied. About 600 pregnant women were

"The suffering caused by malaria is needless, and every death caused by malaria is unacceptable."

-President

George W. Bush February 18, 2008

Ratan Lal with his grandson in Aithakheda, near Jabalpur. The number on the door of the house is a code painted by the Jabalpur field station to identify houses that could be involved in vaccine trials. observed when they came to the health centers for a checkup. The field station is linked to hospitals in Katni and Maihar, and small laboratories have been established at both places to make blood smears for testing the placenta for malaria. Bharti, the researcher, says, "Women who had placental malaria had babies with low birth weight. Chances of a pre-term baby or still birth are also more. These women were also found to be more anemic." The women and children will be observed until the child is three years old. "This will help in understanding the impact of placental malaria on the development of the child," he says.

Malaria affects all age groups in India, whereas in Africa it affects mostly children. "In Africa, children are exposed to Health authorities in Madhya Pradesh use loudspeakerequipped vehicles such as this one to spread awareness about malaria in Katni district.

malaria so many times that they develop immunity to the parasite, whereas in India malaria is more severe in some pockets," says Lal. Malaria was successfully eradicated in the United States by using the effective antimalarial drug and insecticide of that time: chloroquine and DDT. What can India learn from this experience?

"India has the tools and knowledge to eradicate malaria," says La!' "It has its own successful models. Dr. Neeru Singh and her team successfully controlled malaria in Betul, Madhya Pradesh."

The number of malaria cases had increased 25-fold between 1990 and 2000 in Betul, reaching a high of 11.37 per 1,000 people. Singh says, "The state government asked for our help. We said DDT was not working. Synthetic pyrethroid was used for indoor spraying. Gambusia and guppy fishes [that eat larvae] were introduced in water bodies to check the spread of mosquitoes. A rapid diagnostic test was used to know within 10 minutes (whether the parasite was present). Only vivax malaria was treated with chloroquine.

FaLciparum malaria cases were treated with sulphadoxine pyremetharnine."

The project began in January 2001.

"Within five years, malaria in Betul was reduced by more than 90 percent," says Singh. At several places resistance to chloroquine was dealt with by using artemisinin-based combination therapy, with insecticide-treated mosquito nets as a preventive measure.

The war against malaria is also being fought on another front-the development of a malaria vaccine. The Indian center of the Trieste, Italy-based International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology has succeeded in making experimental vaccines for both vivax and faLciparum parasites. The Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, a U.S.based nonprofit organization, has given funds through its Malaria Vaccine Initiative to the institute for developing a vaccine.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has also

contributed. along with the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

The India director of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Virander Chauhan, says: "We have successfully made vaccines at the laboratory and commercial level, using chosen antigens in collaboration with the Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company Shanta Biotech. Toxicity in animals is being tested and our experience so far tells us that these are not toxic. After that we will seek the Indian Government clearance for phase one human trials, which we are planning somewhere near Mumbai."

He says that both the vaccines are combinations of more than one antigen.

If all goes well, these vaccines will be further tested at a vaccine field site near Jabalpur or at Sundergarh in Orissa, Chauhan says. At Jabalpur, the data of 35,000 people from 52 villages are being collected and their malaria profIles are being prepared. Their blood samples have been analyzed and they are being monitored, says Bharti, who regularly visits these villages, 18 to 75 kilometers from

for more information:

Above: Nurse Seema Singh checks a newborn baby at Katni Hospital to see how the mother's malaria has affected the child.

Above right: Technicians analyzing blood samples in a laboratory at the ]abalpur field station of the National Institute of Malaria Research.

Right: The ]abalpur field station of the National Institute of Malaria Research.

Jabalpur. The Centers for Disease Control is extending its expertise in developing this field site, not only for testing of future vaccines but also for testing of malaria drugs.

Tongren says that the pharmaceutical company Glaxo Smithkline and the Walter Reed Institute have also jointly developed the malaria vaccine RTS,S/ AS02 and second stage human trials are being done in Mozambique.

So how soon can we expect a malaria vaccine? Nobody wants to set a date because of earlier failed promises. Until now, malaria parasites have proved to be much smarter than the scientists.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention http://www. cdc. gov/malarial National Institute of Malaria Research http://www.mrcindia.org/jabalpur.htm/ International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology http]/www.icge5.org/RESEARC7ND7Malaria.htm

But scientists are hopeful of success this time. Chauhan says, "Our vaccine is not such a type which is administered to everyone. It will be administered to children below age two who are at risk in malaria endemic regions." The International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology is also working on developing new antimalarials using leaves and marine products to meet the challenges faced by existing antimalarial drugs.

Lal says that if the center succeeds in making a vaccine that can be used as a public health tool, it will be an example of a major achievement through Indo-U.S. _c_oo_p_e_r_at_io_n_.

~

Please share your views on this article. Write to editorspan@state.gov

Cultural Ambassadors:

The Impact of Fulbright or more than half a century, an American exchange program has helped thousands of students, teachers, academics and professionals to dream and to achieve goals for greater knowledge and understanding. In a quiet way, it has touched the lives of those who studied, taught or did research in the United States or India, and equipped them to share their experience with others.

Some 14,500 "cultural ambassadors" who benefited from the Fulbright program are today a large, collegial network promoting collaborations between the two countries.

Paul Amstutz, a Fulbright math teacher, said in a blog entry about his experience in India: "Everyone involved, from the students and teachers to the gardening staff and daily rickshaw driver, to neighbors and shopkeepers we've befriended, and each member of my own family has been touched in so many positive ways."

For many, the application for a grant is their fIrst opportunity to try their hands at planning a proposal for a project abroad and imagining life there. It is an open, merit-based competition and emphasizes academic freedom. The United States Educational Foundation in India (USEFI) administers the exchanges between the two nations. Its selection committees of Indian and American experts often provide advice to unsuccessful candidates on ways to strengthen their proposals. Because the grants are competitive, many more people benefit from the process itself. All have had the chance to imagine themselves as cultural ambassadors abroad.

American scholars visiting India sometimes gain a deeper understanding of their own society and generate lasting impressions, friendships and professional growth. In recent years, U.S. scholars have taught forest economics in Mizoram, anthropology and counseling in Chhattisgarh, and communications in Haryana, learned about home-based neonatal care in Maharashtra and discussed human resource issues in the infor-

F

in India

mation technology sector with students in Jammu and Kashmir.

• John Tharakan, professor of chemical engineering at Howard University in Washington, D.C., conducted research at New College in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, on using biological methods to make hazardous waste less environmentally harmful and organized a seminar on the subject.

• Fran Oneal, a lecturer in international relations from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, taught at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi during her grant period. She also spoke at a conference there on the influence of Indian Americans on U.S. foreign policy, politics and media, the changes that occurred in the United States following 9/11, and the intense American academic interest in India as an emerging power.

• Michael 1. Kalinski from Kent State University in Ohio taught the physiology and biochemistry of exercise and sport at Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports in Patiala, Punjab.

Members of the participants' families become cultural ambassadors, too.

• American biology professor Ragupathy Kannan lived with his wife and son at G.B. Pant University in Uttarakhand in 2007.

While in Pantnagar, Kannan started a nature club and taught birdwatching classes to promote awareness of the biodiversity of the Terai and Kumaon Himalaya. His lO-year-old son, Amit, became an avid birder and helped as a resource person on field trips.

Indian scholars who went to the United States offered their perspectives on contemporary issues, apart from sharing their Jane Schukoske (far right), USEFI's executive director, interacts with International Leadership in Education Program Fellows at a predeparture orientation in November 2007 in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

The fellows (from left) are Boby PR., Anitha K. Nair, USEFI staffers Sarina Paranjape, Amrita Ghosh and Rama Krishnamurthy, with U.S. Fulbright exchange teacher Sarah Shmitt.

Left: Ragupathy Kannan points out a rare bird during afield lesson on bird identification at the Sanjay Van near Pantnagar in Uttarakhand. The students are part of the Pantnagar Nature Club established by Kannan at G.B. Pant University.

Far left: Michael I. Kalinski receives a trophy from G.L. Khanna, dean of the department of therapies and health sciences at the Faridabad Institute of Technology in Haryana in December 2007.

Below left: N. Shankar, a staffer at Tamil Nadu-based drug manufacturer Lactochem Limited, interacts with Frederick J. Kaplan (center), Public Affairs Officer of the U.S. Consul General in Chennai and Howard University professor John Tharakan at a 2007 symposium on Biological Methods of Waste Treatment and Management in Chennai.

country's rich culture.

• Rita Kothari of St. Xavier's College in Ahmedabad lectured on the media coverage of the 2002 Gujarat riots at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

• Smita Mustansir Dalvi ofMES Pillai's College of Architecture in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, spoke on Islamic art and architecture at the University of South Dakota's College of Fine Arts.

• M.Y. Krishnayya, professor emeritus of philosophy at Andhra University in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, lectured on the shared values of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas K. Gandhi in promoting a culture of nonviolence, at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

• Sarbani Mukherjee, a researcher at the Institute for Social and Economic Change in Bangalore, Kamataka, presented a paper on the economics of groundwater management in South Asia at an International Food Policy Research Institute conference in Washington, D.C., in March 2007.

• Mehboob Singh, who works in the area of drug abuse for the Malwa Medical Relief Society in Bhatinda, Punjab, developed a poster titled "Risky Sexual Behaviors among Crack Cocaine Users in Baltimore," with Alamgir Golam Mahmood, a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow from Bangladesh, at a National Institute of

For more information: United States Educational Foundation in India www.fulbright-india.org

Drug Abuse conference in June 2007.

The exchanges have led to enduring collaborations. The alumni stay connected, advise applicants and current scholars, and often lead change within a field.

In 2006, U ni versity of Cincinnati engineering professor Daniel Oerther taught environmental biotechnology at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, and at Manipal University in Kamataka. He collaborated with Indian colleagues and secured funds from the U.S. National Science Foundation for research on water quality. In 2006, Abdul Jamil Urfi of the School of Environment Studies, University of Delhi, won the Kushlan Research Award in Ciconiiform Biology and Conservation for a collaborati ve grant with U.S. scientist Robert E. Blei weiss of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, on measuring the impact of pollution on pond herons in northern India.

Those in academia have developed courses in new areas. In 2006, Meenakshi Gopinath, principal of Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi, and Manjrika Sewak, senior program officer with the New Delhi-based Women in Security Conflict Management and Peace, began a diploma program in conflict transformation at the college. Another alumna, Kaushikee, lecturer at the Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, teaches in the master's program in conflict analysis. The center opened in 2004 and hosted an American professor, Marie Isabelle Chevrier, that year.

Fulbright...

The experience also inspires teachers to connect Indian and U.S. students. Film professor Annette Danto of City University of New York in Brooklyn came to India in 2002 to make short documentary films on health and social issues in Tamil Nadu.

Three years later, Danto started a program in which her students come to India during their January break to make documentary films with Indian students.

Other teachers have held class-to-class video conferences and designed projects for Indian and American students to conduct jointly.

Fulbright inspires the participants to band together and share their expertise. In

Fran Oneal outside a mountain home during a family trek in the Himalayas.

India, 55 experts in communications and information technology have formed a strong network that conducts training.

Indian and U.S. specialists in law support an association to advance clinical legal education methodology. Indian scholars in American Studies provide leadership to the association on multiethnic literature of the United States. Sixteen alumni chapters in India host talks by U.S. scholars and mentor aspiring applicants, and the Association of Indian Humphrey Fellows has convened a regional conference. U.S. alumni support Friends of Fulbright to India (http://www.fulbrightindiaal umni. org/), which welcomes Indian scholars and raises funds to help students travel.

The participants say the exchanges are life-changing because of the optimism and enthusiasm they generate. ~

Professor Jane E. Schukoske has been executive director of the U.S. Educational Foundation in India since May 2000. Her term ends in April 2008.

Robert Joss,

dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business in California, discusses the application process for graduate programs in business administration and U.S. business schools' strategies for keeping competitive internationally, during a USINFO Web chat.

Question: Are there any possibilities to aid for foreign students? If yes, how can we match up the cost for an MBA degree accordapply for it? ing to the economic status of the country a Our school does offer financial aid, and student comes from, or according to the eco- about three-fourths of all our students receive nomic status of the student? some amount of financial aid. Many American Is it possible for an MBA graduate to be business schools have some type of financial recruited in the United States? What are the aid, and you should investigate that when limits and expectations? applying to any school. But first you have to Robert Joss: Graduate education is expen- gain admission to the school, then you can sive. It is costly to deliver. Fortunately, many investigate the availability of financial aid.

How can I participate in this program? students are eligible for financial assistance, so I would encourage interested students to inves- Where do I have to submit the necessary doctigate the availability of such aid as a way to umentation? Are the MBA courses provided with scholarships? ameliorate the cost of studying in this country Yes, it is possible to be recruited in the United You need to apply to each university sepaStates-but this will also require the graduate to rately Decide first which university program obtain the necessary work visa in order to remain might best meet your needs. Each university that in the country. It is best to investigate the feasi- has a business school (and there are hundreds bility of such a visa with a prospective employer of them in America) maintains a Web site where during the interview process you can learn all about that program There are In the developing world, not all MBAs find also some general Web sites, such as the one jobs. Would you subscribe to the view that a maintained by the Graduate Management degree in IT holds better prospects for landing Admission Council (www.gmac.com/gmac). a job? which provide summarized information about My view is that the world has many, many many, many schools. Once you have selected a more management jobs than it has IT jobs-so few schools of possible interest to you, then you I believe the MBA, as a degree which covers a can investigate whether they have scholarship basic and broad body of knowledge relevant to funds available. general management-is probably better at generating job prospects over for more information: the long run. Perhaps the difficulty you Stanford Graduate School of Business have seen is due more to employer http://www.gsb .stanford .edu/ unfamiliarity with what the applicant Stanford GSB and India exchange program actually can do for that employer. http://www .gsb. stanford. edu/news/head lines/SAIL. him I Does your school offer any financial

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application of knowledge to problem solving, and the ability to influence others.

It seems to me that the skills you need to get a job and the skills you need to do a good job five years later are sometimes not compatible. How do you address that at Stanford?

We address this at Stanford by focusing on learning how to think for yourself and learning how to continue learning (especially learning from on-thejob experience) throughout your professional life.

We do this by emphasizing the foundations and functions of business, so that our students take away solid theories, frameworks, and analytical techffi niques of life-lasting value. Then to help with that ~ first job, we offer workshops and coaching in preparing for interviews, which focus on those skills that are important to that first job within an organization.

How would you contrast the MBA degree with other graduate business programs? Students can often find more research assistantships available in other business programs such as Master of Arts or Master of Science.

I think any graduate study in business and management is very helpful to future career satisfacexperience, but are still interested in pursuing an tion. The important thing is to acquire familiarity MBA program. What other experiences could be with the body of knowledge that informs one about considered relevant that are outside the scope of the critical areas-about economies, markets, practical work experience? organizations, individuals within organizations, and At Stanford we are open to admit students right the critical issues involved in the effective performout of an undergraduate program. But we do look ance of organizations. This could be an MBA profor experience, because experience helps us to gram like ours, but it could also be attainable withevaluate what the applicant is capable of doing by in an M.A. or M.S. program. My advice would be seeing what he or she has actually done-and to investigate just what is covered and whether a not just what the applicant knows or says he or student will obtain the necessary breadth and she can do. Experience can be gained and depth of knowledge to prepare for managerial life. demonstrated in many settings-not just in a What is your philosophy on the MBA rankings? work environment. Within school, there are many There is too much focus on rankings. The key opportunities for leadership and organizational is to find the school that is best for you, the appliexperience. In extracurricular activities, student cant; not what some publication thinks. ~ government, housing associations, summer jobs, part-time work-there are many opportunities to Please share your views on this article. Write demonstrate the acceptance of responsibility, the to editorspan@state.gov

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What undergraduate degree do you feel is most helpful for an MBA? We admit people to Stanford with a tremendous diversity of undergraduate degrees. I would find it difficult to specify anyone as "most helpful." Our most common undergraduate degree holders come from engineering and economics-which tells you what the applicants think is useful. But business people everywhere tell me liberal arts, humanities, philosophy, psychology are just as important as economics and engineering or basic sciences or mathematics.

The most helpful thing is for an undergraduate to develop sound analytical thinking and good communication skills, and to learn how to apply them in everyday work and study.

As an overseas educational adviser, we see a great many students that do not yet have work

Indian students develop imaginative ideas for future cities. obotic research centers, aeronautical museums, multi-level organic farming, Braille signposts and ramps everywhere for the disabled-a spirited group of Indian youngsters has planned these for their city of the future.

Fourteen teams of 11th graders from schools in and around New Delhi participated in the Future Cities India 2020 competition in January. The challenge was to come up with a plan for the redevelopment of the 2010 Commonwealth Games international zone and design infrastructure solutions keeping in mind that all temporary structures-media centers, practice grounds, entertainment facilities and transportation system-would be dismantled after the games. The competition encourages students to use their skills to design infrastructure for 2020, when it is estimated that more than half of India's population will live in its largest cities.

Now in its second year, Future Cities India 2020 is sponsored by the Government of India's Department of Science and Technology in association with Bentley Systems Inc., a leading American software provider for infrastructure management.

Like the U.S. version of the contest, the Indian competition aims to encourage students' interest in math, science and engineering.

The students worked for five months on

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environmentally sustainable plans and tabletop models to showcase their ideas.

They then presented the designs before judges at the American Center in New Delhi.

"Future Cities India 2020 gave us an opportunity to serve our country in a special way, and it was an opportunity we did not take lightly. But envisioning what India would look like 12 years from now wasn't easy," says Ajaypat Jain from Apeejay School in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, whose team went on to win the top award of Rs. 100,000.

The task of using real-world data to

devise solutions to future woes was hard to resist. "Along the way, we realized that if we wanted help, there was only one way to get it: ask," says Gargi Maheshwari, a member of the sole all-girls team in the competition, representing New Delhi's Mount Carmel School. Her colleague Rishba Yadav says that visits to the site also helped cement their ideas.

"We went to a lot of government offices, spoke to dozens of officers till we got our answers. We also involved more and more people and welcomed suggestions to improve our project."

Besides teaching skills such as time

management, problem solving and teamwork, the competition gave students an introduction to civil, electrical, chemical and mechanical engineering.

Scott T. Lofgren, global director of Bentley Empowered Careers Network, which is part of Bentley Systems Inc., says: "Future Cities India 2020 is a tribute to all those who have developed innovative design solutions to help address India's real-world infrastructure needs."

Though he is not sure if the students' ideas will be used by the administration, the competition has "definitely stirred an interest in infrastructure engineering."

Ayush Srivastav of DAV Public School in Gurgaon, Haryana, says he learned soldering and making electrical connections, things he had only read about. "There were times we burnt our hands handling the hot charcoal to make the miniature roads in our model. The experience will remain with me as it gave me a confidence of attempting the unknown," Srivastav says of the efforts of his team, which came second.

"We were trained in using state-of-theart modeling software like MXROAD and MicroStation V8XM by Bentley. We learnt about 3D analysis and new innovations in architecture," says Apeejay's Ajaypat Jain, who is 16 years old. "We

even devised a new technology like ...the robot mechanized navigation system for a very futuristic building system called the Simulation Center."

Says 16-year-old Akansha Sharma from Apeejay School in Faridabad, Haryana, "The long hours of research and work that has gone into this project have sparked a desire in me to carry this on. In fact, we often discuss that we should form an architecture firm when we grow up."

Sharma's teacher, Mamta Arora, says the students sometimes put in II-hour sessions designing and redesigning their presentations. Each team was guided by a teacher, often a specialist in computers or science, and an engineer who volunteered.

Despite the disparity of design, one idea cut across all groups: making the project environment friendly. From solar-powered vehicles, solar panels on rooftops and rainwater harvesting to using bricks made from fly ash, and no-vehicle zones, the students wanted their future cities to be pollution-free.

"Global warming is the issue of the day and I'm sure by 2020, we will be in the middle of a severe climate crisis. We :G don't want to leave a large carbon footprint for our kids. And anyway, planning â&#x201A;Ź l2 ahead never hurt anyone. It's better to 'l' think now than repent later," says

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Left: The team from Apeejay School in Naida explains its design concept to an audience member. From left are team mentor and biology teacher Pinky Mathur, students Ajaypat Jain, E.R. Subramanian, Gagan Anand and Anshul Singh.

Below: Students Zoya Khan, Pourav Banerjee and Abhinav Mittal of New Delhi's Apeejay School interact with Scott T. Lofgren (center), global director of Bentley Empowered Careers Network and Jugal Makwana of Bentley Systems in India.

Too Many People, Too Linle Space rom 13 percent in 1900, the global proportion of urban dwellers increased to 49 percent in 2005. According to projections by the United Nations Populations Division, 60 percent of the world's population, or about 4.9 billion people, are expected to live in cities by 2030.

By 2015, Mumbai will be the world's second most populous city, with an estimated population of 20,9 million. New Delhi and Kolkata will remain among the most populous cities, and it is also anticipated that Mumbai and New Delhi will grow faster than any other city in the world.

Population scientist Joel E. Cohen, author of How Many People Can the Earth Support?, said at a panel discussion organized by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences: "From now to 2030, the world will need to build the equivalent of a city of one million in developing countries every five days," reported a New York Times blog The question is, how long can the earth sustain and support this everincreasing population, which is projected to increase from 6 billion in 1999 to 9 billion by 2042.

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Spending what was the busiest winter vacation of their lives, the students agreed they had had an incomparable experience.

"The project was challenging and we did get stuck at times but our teachers and our team spirit always rescued us," says Ajaypat Jain. "More than the prize, it is the experience that will remain with us." ~ Please share your views on this article.

Write to editorspan@state.gov

On_LJJ After centuries of enthralling the Muslim world, Jalaluddin Rumi has arrived in the United States.

What is it about the Sufi poet that charms Americans?

A portrait of Rumi by Iranian American artist Haydar Hatemi.

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hristopher Columbus was discovering America about the time that Jalaluddin Rumi's Sufi poetry was captivating Persia and the whole Muslim world. It had taken just over 200 years for his words to spread through the Middle East.

The question for me is: Why did it take so many more centuries for Rumi to reach America?

Better late than never. The news is that now, in the 21st century, Rurni has finally arrived in the United States to a great welcome. The obvious reason for such a reception is that he has influenced Hollywood, which is the gateway to American popularity for a poet, artist, actor, dancer or singer.

When the India-born pop guru Dr. Deepak Chopra, now based in Southern California, rendered some of Rumi's poetry into American English a few years ago, he ushered in an aesthetic and spiritual revolution of sorts. Chopra, who preaches a pop version of yoga and spiritual enlightenment, prepared a CD of a selection of Rumi's translated works with help from some of the best musical talents in Hollywood.

That top-notch music attracted several producers, actors, actresses, models and executives to Rumi's work. Chopra had already been popular among these people.

The CD is aptly titled Gift of Love and the message is close to the heart of Chopra, a physician of Punjabi extraction.

Among those who have cooperated with Chopra on the CD are composer Philip Glass, the singer Madonna, and actors Martin Sheen, Goldie Hawn and Demi Moore.

Now, after so many centuries, what makes Rumi still so vibrant? Like Shams Tabrez, his mentor, Rumi was a poet and considered a Sufi saint. So, what truck does he have with Hollywood's millionaire actors and directors? The fact is that when American author F. Scott Fitzgerald translated the Rubaiyat of Persian poet Omar Khayyam, he inadvertently laid the foundations of a misconception that endures today. That misconception was: the entire poetic tradition of Arabia and Persia was about wine, women, feminine charm and male infatuation. Before that, when the tales of Alf Laila (Arabian Nights) and an Urdu epic, Amir Hamza, were translated into English, the impression created was that the Middle East offered nothing but decadent opulence, and its literature was largely focused on sensual gratification as exemplified in the dictum of Babur, the founder of the Mughal dynasty in what is today's India, Pakistan and Bangladesh: "0 Babur, enjoy the pleasures of life as there will be no afterlife."

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Dr. Deepak Chopra called on his contacts in Hollywood and the music industry to produce a CD of some of Rumi's translated works.

In 1995, Coleman Barks, a professor at the University of Georgia, translated the quartets and ghazals of Rumi into English and published them as The Essential Rumi. However, Barks was not the first American scholar to dabble with Rumi.

He has written about the day when the American poet Robert Bly visited him. Bly was carrying a moth-eaten book, a 19thcentury translation of Rumi's ghazals and quartets. Bly grabbed Barks by his shoulders and made him sit in a chair, saying: "As long as I keep reading from this book, don't get up from here."

"How could I get up from the chair? As long as Bly kept reading from the book, I sat listening to him, hypnotized," Barks wrote, describing the event years later. And then Bly virtually commanded him: "These words are fluttering inside a cage. Set them free."

The Essential Rumi was born in 1995. After selling thousands of copies, the book has spawned dozens of Web sites where Rumi aficionados can order a copy online. One learns new facts about Rumi every day from magazines, newspapers and newsletters. Nigel Watts' book The Way of Love is another step toward introducing Rumi to a larger audience.

So, what is it about Rurni that charms North Americans?

Nowadays, I live in Cambridge, a suburb of the Canadian city, Toronto. That is why when I came to learn from an advertisement in a newspaper that a musical show on Rumi was to be presented

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an Mateo, California-based, Turkish American surgeon and translator of Jalaluddin Rumi's narrative poetry, Dr. Nevit Ergin visited India in connection with the 800th anniversary of the birth of the Persian poet. Though Ergin is a surgeon by profession, he has dedicated himself to the study of Rumi and his works for the past 50 years. He has also translated and published Rumi's complete poetic works into English in 22 volumes under the title Bayaz-e-Kabeer (A Comprehensive Anthology). In New Delhi, he spoke with Urdu SPAN Editor Anjum Naim.

What is the relevance and significance of Rumi in our era?

Rumi has always been a symbol of the unifying force in a civilization and its social and economic system. His poetry gives solace to heavy hearts and worried brains. Don't forget, the more the world becomes horrible, the more human lives become valueless, the more relevant and significant Rumi's poetry will be. Don't you observe the human potential and his self-framed religious behaviors are becoming entirely negatively surcharged? In this situation, will he be able to survive without a spiritual oasis in the desert of negative paradigms?

Anyway, he is in sheer need of a life code, as an alternative to his particular faith, which may prevent him becoming alien to his own society, to his own community. And Rumi provides a better guidance than any other in this regard. He was certainly much larger than life. But at the same time, he was very close to mankind, without any religious or racial boundary. [Rumi] is like an infinitely large umbrella covering all we have and beyond.

He introduces himself, saying: "I am neither Christian nor Jew, Neither Persian nor Muslim.

I am neither the East nor West, Neither from land nor from water" He refutes the allegation that he can be confined to any particular faith or shackles of time and space.

"I am concealed, secret, sometimes, Sometimes I appear, and become obvious.

Sometimes I am Muslim, Sometimes I am in the faith of Moses, Sometimes I am Christian.

In order to be a model to everyone, I manifest differently in every time. " How has Rumi become such a popular poet in the United States?

How well a person said: "Rumi's popularity in the United States is a matter of our enormous spiritual hunger."

It is a well known fact that Americans, usually and relatively, read more. Apart from that, more books are published [there]. Common people hardly get opportunities to go through books and deliberate where political or social conditions are not normal or where the life is burdensome. Since Americans ponder over different issues and try to find solutions, that is why Rumi attracted their attention and his thoughts impressed them so much. Moreover, Rumi opens a new gate in a multidimensional society that faces a dilemma between faith and reason.

[American] society is full of the luxuries of life; but a well-to-do and prosperous person may not necessarily have a happy life, too. Here, [Rumi] bestows that sought-after happiness-happiness of body and soul, happiness of brain and heart. This is what makes him popular.

The entire credit of Rumi's popularity in the U.S. goes to professor Coleman Barks, who not only introduced Rumi to literary circles in the United States, but also translated [his] anthology beautifully. The earlier English versions were like giving solitary confinement to the skylark of the poet's imagination Barks opened the cage, and the bird, once again, started singing the melodious songs with their totality and substance.

How difficult was it to translate Rumi's poetry?

The translation of a literary work is a difficult and challenging task.

It becomes somewhat more difficult when one has to translate metaphysical poetry like Rumi's.

There is an inherent danger in Rumi's poems. They dazzle the eyes with their poetic beauty, so one cannot see their prophetic meaning.

You cannot perceive and understand Rumi unless and until you peep into [his] window to find the real perspective. I am a doctor by profession, but when I felt interested in Rumi's poetry, I dedicated myself completely to understand his themes and thoughts for 15 years. Rumi demands, if you are desirous to enter his world of thoughts, that you will have to abandon all your earlier assumptions and ideologies. It is rather a precondition to enter the arena of his musings. If you want to go through his works along with your preoccupations, then understanding Rumi will be an extremely uphill task. I have tqken a lot of care in this regard.

What role does the Sufism religious view of Rumi's poetry play in a multi-dimensional society?

Sufism liberates you from the clutches of compulsions of selfadorned faith. It leads man to be in touch with God, directly. Different self-imposed faiths in a multi-dimensional society create problems for man to turn to God. Sufism relieves man from such shackles. That is why it plays an important role in such a society in comparison to unidimensional societies. India has always been a land of people wandering in search of God. Sufism is, therefore, deep-rooted here. I think these similarities will play an extremely important role in bringing both India and America closer to each other.

I I' I ,I at the Roy Thomson Hall, I bought a $25 ticket. The show Coleman Barks www.colemanbarks.com was strangely called "Monsters of Grace." The title seemed to be Robert Sly a contradiction in terms, an oxy- wwwJobertbly.com moron. Monsters and grace Rumi seemed to belong to two different http://wwwJumi.net! worlds. Composer Philip Glass Rumi's poetry and Robert Wilson graced the occasion. Being a columnist of an http://www.rumi .org.uk!

English weekly and an Urdu poet Dr. Deepak Chopra made it easier for me to access www.chopra.com/ and chat with them. I was told that the ghazals and quartets being performed were taken from The Essential Rumi.

The first rendition was called "Where Everything is Music," which was set against a three-dimensional image of an endless Arabian desert. It was sung in the lyrical style of Urdu poetry in a collage of the Persian and English languages. At the end of the show, I asked some people, "Do you know Sufism?" Their flat answer was, "No." I asked, "Then what brought you here?" Their answer was, "Poetry and music. Gosh, how great people lived in the 13th century!"

Now all that has been compiled into an album. Many of the songs are sung to the accompaniment of a singlestringed instrument called the ektara in the Indian subcontinent. This also happens to be the quintessential Middle Eastern musical instrument. You feel as if old, primeval memories of the boundless desert's nomadic life buried in our collective subconscious have come to life. If I say that I was transported to another world sitting in the theater, I would not be exaggerating. The opening lines of

My heart is burning with love.

All can see its flames.

sung in a haunting voice, can send one into a trance.

It begins like a whispered chant, rises to a crescendo, and tapers off through the voices of Madonna, Hawn and Sheen, dissolving finally into silence. In turn, singers present it solo and in duet, sustaining the magic for nearly an hour. I had seen Indian instruments like the sitar, ektara, bansuri and harmonium behind the stage. During the show, I could discern their notes.

Later, Chopra said in an interview that he had not made a literal translation of Rumi in his presentation but used corresponding moods for the original text.

Newsweek magazine's review called it "Love Machine." Love signifying the whole range, from a sublime devotion to God to carnal desire and its fulfillment, the review's title (and the review itself) was a comprehensive comment on it. ~ Satya Paul Anand is an Urdu poet based near Toronto, Canada.

Please share your views on this article.

Write to editorspan@state.gov

tcould have been the winter of our discontent in West Bengal. On our wanted list was the 33rd Kolkata Book Fair, with the United States as the focus country. However, the Calcutta High Court ruled that this year's chosen site, the greens of Park Circus, were too close to numerous educational institutions and, above all, to a hospital. On the eve of the inaugural day, the fair stood cancelled. Civic rights activists who moved court had every reason to do so. A book fair that is the third largest in the world would

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have thrown traffic out of gear and added to the existing noise pollution. The lawns of Park Circus were already damaged by the stalls and the playground was out of bounds for children. Still, the sudden depression in the Bay of Bengal was just as unexpected as winter in this part of the country without the traditional book fair celebrating the literary heritage of Bengal and the world.

The American Center in Kolkata decided to console book lovers with what American writer Paul Theroux called "a guerrilla book fair." It wasn't underground, however. It was wide open to the public, with book readings, lectures, seminars, a spelling bee and an inter-collegiate debate on the question "Does American Culture Have a Positive Influence on Indian Youth?" There was even a sale on books, in a way The American Library offered a 50 percent discount on annual membership.

The Government of West Bengal and publishing houses also organized a revived version of the Book Fair from March 1 to 10. Events planned at the American pavilion included a launch of The Fiction of Alice Walker by Seema Murugan; sessions on visa information and Fulbright fellowship counseling; book and play readings; American music by the Calcutta School of Music quartet; American folk and country songs by Pulak Das; and a presentation on U.S presidential elections by the American Center.

In 1816, Mark Twain was asked in Calcutta if he had ever met a Bengali.

"Not yet in flesh," he replied, "But in literature, can I ever forget him?"

The bonding with books in Bengal goes back a long way. It's this emotional connect that carried Kolkata through January 30 to February 7. Even without the book fair, we interacted with Theroux,

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ore than 30,000 visitors to the American Center booth at the World Book Fair in New Delhi, held February 2 to 10, got a glimpse of the United States through the variety of American Library products and issues of SPAN magazine. They were also given information about reprint titles from the IndoAmerican Cooperative Publishing Program. A PowerPoint presentation on "Glimpses of the United States" touched on American life and culture and U.S. elections. Visitors also participated in daily quizzes and were offered special deals for American Library membership and SPAN subscriptions.

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American playwright Brian Russo and Bengali dramatist Malavika Bhattacharya read a play, The Guys, by Anne Nelson at the Starmark bookstore in Kolkata.

poets Joy Harjo and Christopher Merrill and others in intimate environs to explore what lies between'the lines in contemporary American writing. It was a huge disappointment for publishers and marketers, with thousands of books from around the world on their way to India and 10,000 copies of The Mingling of Waters-an anthology of the works of poets of Bengal and the United States-landing up in a non-existent book fair.

But for those who made it to the Lincoln Room at the American Center, to Bangia Academy, Yapan Chitra Gallery, Presidency College, Town Hall or to Oxford Bookstore, it was a rewarding experience.

On the opening day at the substitute fair, Theroux, Harjo and Merrill captivated the audience at the American Center when they spoke on "Re-mapping Cultural Narratives in American Literature. " Douglas Kelly, director of the American Center, has admired all that Theroux has written for over 40 years and it was because of his initiative that the writer was once again in Kolkata. Theroux's first visit to the subcontinent was in the mid-1970s, much of which is chronicled in the book that shot him to fame-The Great Railway Bazaar. Theroux believes that a return journey to any place should be made by retracing steps as far as possible through surface travel, revisiting places and seeing the seen in a new light.

"For instance," Theroux elaborated, "I went to the Kali temple in this city .. in Kalighal. .. yesterday

and their present, their body language and their idiosyncrasies that perhaps took him a second time to Kalighat temple, teeming with devotees, hawkers and shoppers, with a crematorium next to it and with one of the city's red light areas encircling it, pimps and priests and householders sharing space with the dusky goddess Kali.

Inspired and encouraged by Nobel laureate VS. Naipaul, with whom he shared a deep friendship for many decades, Theroux has written more than 50 travel articles, numerous essays, short stories and engaging novels that have captured the formative cultural changes of our times.,路.:' "I will never write the great American novel," he says, "What I'd write would reflect where I'd been and what I'd seen, what I know."

If Theroux believes in writing about the world as he sees it, Harjo writes narrative poetry from the wealth of shared tribal memory of her people. The past gets entwined with the present as she travels in and then again today. It was different today from time as opposed to Theroux's grounded journeys. what it was yesterday. The crowd was different, the Harjo's shiny black hair frames her face, etched light was different and even my mood was differ- with lines that tell as many stories as her narrative ent." It was also his way of negotiating a question poems, She delves into the myths and lore of her from the press that caught him unawares and chal- Muskoke tribe, fighting to preserve its identity. lenged him to explain his first impression of Kolkata "I come from one of the 500 tribes and culrecorded in The Great Railway Bazaar, which was a tures in the United States who are omitted on the series of negative perceptions by an outsider. official map," Harjo told us, and for a fleeting Just listening to his tales of travel across con- second her eyes were on fire. tinents was a wonderful reassurance that the Harjo was born in May 1951 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, world has not fully shrunk into a global village in and hails from a family of painters. At the University our postmodern age of package tours and virtual of New Mexico, she switched her major from art to 9lobetrotti nq. poetry, which probably explains her fusion of art "Have you seen any of those ice houses that and poetry, and music and poetry. During her preused to be here?" he said, referring to the British sentations, she sings her lyrics and punctuates storehouses for ice brought from a lake in Canada them with the strains of a saxophone.

"In my tribe, we don't separate poetry from stoto chill the wines and cool the air in this capital of the British Empire in India.

American writers (from right) Paul Theroux, Neither temples nor forts nor museums engage Joy Harjo and Christopher Merrill interact Theroux as much as the human architecture of a with the audience after a book reading hosted place It's that interest in human beings in relation by American Center Director Douglas Kelly to their culture and their environment, their past (far left),

rytelling, music or dance. Most poetry is outside the covers of books. In our families, there is one who is designated to collect stories and songs.

We listen to stories when we are pregnant. The stories go into our babies and are stored as memories," Harjo told the audience before she read from In Mad Love and War and The Woman Who Fell from the Sky. In India, reeling under jet lag and getting used to the chaos, Harjo took time opening up Once she found her bearings she was eager to meet an astrologer and a palmist, not as a typical tourist from the West, but from a deeper interest in the grassroots of Indian society and its practices that create its indigenous identity, Before she left for Santiniketan, she had already established bonds with those of us who knew the moment we saw her that she was like one of our own, Quiet and understated, Merrill was a treasure trove Kolkata discovered. Author of The Grass of Another Country: A Journey Through the World of Soccer, The Old Bridge: The Third Balkan War and the Age of the Refugee, Merrill urged us to critique the wisdom of those who control the world from positions of power.

Merrill has been a reporter who recorded his experiences in war zones, especially in Yugoslavia. He talked of his concern to get the story right without taking sides, revealing a mind that is constantly in search of the truth. In his most recent non-fiction work, Things of the Hidden God, he came to terms with various kinds of love, from the spiritual to the vocationaLThe book is an account of his journey to Mount Athos in Greece, which has 20 monasteries and 2,000 monks.

A journalist, literary critic and teacher, he has published four collections of poetry as well. He is also the director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.

"The experience of reading and writing poetry is not unlike the experience of prayer," Merrill says.

Many of his poems are a search for the divine, 芦 Merrill is a layered personality who listens to ~o medieval chants and folk music. He loves the ~ works of unknown icon painters in the churches of ~ Mount Athos, as well as Wassily Kandinsky and Marc Chagall. At the American Center, he recited his poem on a soccer player juggling a ball on the last day of summer on an empty field, which sounded like rap and captured the rhythm of a game that Kolkatans thrive on. ~

Ruma Dasgupta is a Kolkata-based freelance writer and a correspondent Harmony magazine,

with

Please share your views on this article, Write to editorspan@state.gov SPAN MARCHIAPRIL2008

55

Rhythms of ndia In San Diego

By DEEPANJALI

he San Diego Museum of Art in California has organized the first exhibition outside Asia of the expansive repertoire of Nandalal Bose, often considered the father of modern art in India.

Open from February 23 to May 18, "Rhythms of India: The Art of Nandalal

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Bose (1882-1966)" features nearly 100 of the artist's finest paintings.

From the natural beauty of "Village Huts," the swirling strokes of "Dhaki (or Drummer)" and "Shanaiwala (or Flute and Drum Players)" to the rural scenery in" ew Clouds" and the stark lines of "Dandi March (Bapuji)," the exhibition Ji

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provides a glimpse of Bose's different styles and media.

"Nandalal Bose was a seminal figure in Indian art history, and his paintings, drawings and murals will engage visitors with their refinement and pure aesthetic power. Furthermore, 'Rhythms of India' celebrates SDMA's emergence as a primary source of Indian art scholarship in the United States," says Derrick R. Cartwright, executive director of the museum.

About 15 works on display in a special gallery depict how Bose contributed to India's struggle for independence from colonial rule through his close association with Mohandas K. Gandhi.

The exhibit gains added significance in this 60th year since India's independence and Gandhi's assassination.

"The extensive repertoire of NandaIaI Bose manifests the resilience and continuity of India's civilizationaI heritage, our indomitable spirit during colonial rule, and our emergence as a democratic and Top: Shanaiwala

(or Flute and Drum Players), tempera on paper, 62.9 x 56 em, 1937.

Left: Buffalo Rider, ink on paper, 34 x 17.3 em, 1944.

56

SPAN MARCH/APRIL 2008

A public-private partnership has brought Nandalal Bose's versatile art to America for the first time.

pluralist nation state after a unique freedom struggle," Indian Ambassador to the United States Ronen Sen wrote in a message published in the exhibition catalogue.

With examples from its Edwin Binney 3rd Collection, India's National Gallery of Modem Art, and public and private collections, the San Diego Museum of Art has provided a comprehensive view of Bose's contribution to the development of a new Indian art form.

Organized in collaboration with the government of India and the National Gallery

Formore information:

of Modem Art in New Delhi, the exhibit is an example of public-private partnership for promotion of cultural exchange and mutual understanding between India and the United States. The U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and the Department of State encouraged the initiative and advised the museum representatives during their multiple visits to India.

U.S. Ambassador to India David C. Mulford and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher contacted the museum's Indian partners to endorse and facilitate the loan of the art objects.

Born in Bihar in 1882, Bose spent most of his life in Bengal. At the beginning of his career, he was one of many artists who wanted to revive the spirituality and cultur-

New Clouds, tempera on paper, 42.2 x 69.9 em, 1937. al authenticity of Indian art after centuries of British influence.

Over the next few decades, Bose experimented with a variety of Indian, Japanese and Chinese techniques and made a niche for himself as an artist. His works comprised scenes of nature and tribal and village life, as well as devotional subjects. It was his portrayal of rural India, shorn of Western influences, which captured Gandhi's attention. Although Bose's art was not overtly political, Gandhi saw in the images of a traditional India a reflection of his nonviolent movement.

SPAN MARCHIAPRIL2008

57

Dandi March (Bapuji), linocut on paper, 34.9 x 22.5 em, 1930.

Caitanya and Haridas, watercolor on paper, 24.8 x 17.1 em, circa 1942.

Collection of Supratik Bose.

Village Huts, watercolor on paper, 20.6 x 39.6 em, 1928.

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58 SPAN MARCHI APRIL 2008

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"The work of Nandalal Bose was very important in the evolution of modem Indian art and in helping to give it definition in the years before and immediately after India's transition to independence," Ambassador Mulford wrote in his message printed' in the exhibition catalogue.

"This exhibit of works by Nandalal Bose, and others like it," he added, "reflects our growing people-to-people relationship and the desire of Americans and Indians to understand more about one another's rich cultures and to find ways to build stronger partnerships in the future." ~

Blending the

Modern Traditional

with the

By LEA TERHUNE

Astad Deboo brings his unique dance style to the United States. he creative arts are prized avenues of cultural interaction at many American universities, including Maryland's Towson University. Its newly renovated Creative Arts Building hums with music, rehearsals, set and costume creation, and the cadences of dancers' feet. Last fall, the center showcased India with an exhibition of paintings by modern Indian artists in the Asian Arts Gallery and by hosting guest faculty member Astad Deboo, India's premier modern dancer.

Seated in the art gallery, surrounded by works of India's most famous contemporary paintersJamini Roy, M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza, Shobha Broota, G.R. Santosh, Manjit Bawa and others-Deboo spoke of his long relationship with the United States. It began when he saw the Murray Louis DanceCompany, on a U.S. State Department-sponsoredIndia tour, in 1967. "I was amazed. It was the first time I really saw an American modern dance company perform," he said.

Deboo was trained in two Indian classical dance styles: Kathakali, a dance-drama from South India,and Kathak, a storytelling form patronized by the royal courts in North India. Both are demanding styles, but Kathakali requires tremendous strength to dance in its heavy costumes.

When Deboo saw American dancer and choreographer Murray Louis, he was looking for "a new vocabulary," he says. "I had noticed in India among Indian artists-visual art, music, literature-that there was some contemporary move-

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Formore inlormation: Murray Louis htlpJ/www.nikolaislouis.org/Foundation.html Towson University wwwtowson.edu/ AstadDeboo www.gallaudet.edu/

ment happening, whereas in dance it was all very really taken something away from his lectures," Indian classical work." Uday Shankar had explored Herzog says.

That Deboo is a gifted teacher is evident in his modern dance in the early 20th century, but the emphasis in India remained on classical inter- success and commitment to working with the pretations. deaf, something he began in India about 15 years Deboo came to the United States in 1974, ago. He spent several summers working with Tim where he spent several years studying modern McCarthy at the Gallaudet University for the deaf dance techniques with American masters. He performing arts program in Washington. The result of that collaboration was the well-received worked particularly with Alison Chase, longtime guiding light of the Pilobolus Dance Company. "Road Signs"'tour in India by a troupe drawn from Gallaudet and Deboo's Indian students in 1995.

Deboo returned to India, incorporated elements Over the years, Deboo has seen change. learned, and introduced his own style of contemporary dance in India. His repertoire evolved as he "People are more accepting now of seeing Indian worked with artists in Japan, Indonesia and else- contemporary dance," he says.

Globalization of culture has transformed the where.

"I love to introduce people, and I love to intro- performing arts. In Asia, he says, "people have duce Astad as the father of modern dance in India. become more aware of their own culture and style I think that's a fabulous, fabulous title to have," and they want to use that as a base to develop says Jay Herzog, Theater Arts Department chair- new work ... bringing in other elements, but keepman at Towson University and Deboo admirer. He ing our roots."

"Coming from old tradition and presenting facilitated Deboo's invitation to teach for a week at under a contemporary umbrella ... tradition also the university through a Rosenberg Distinguished Artist Endowment grant to artists whose work moves on. There is a lot of reverence; there are a bridges theater and dance. Deboo's presence also lot of things that are not dispensed of. [Tradition] is still there," he says. reflected Towson's goal of integrating multicultural issues into the academic curriculum. "It is Today ideas may be exchanged in various imperative on the college level that we bring art to ways, including by videos. "Exchanges are always the United States for the students to see," he says. good because it gets you to talk with each other, it gets you to see each other's work and it's very Deboo's lively classes-in which he demonstrates the facial expressions and gestures so crit- important that artists see what the others are doing," Deboo says. ical in Indian classical dance-piqued students' interest.

"There is this conversation which has been hap"What I teach is a mixture of Indian as well as pening ... and continues to happen" among artists contemporary body vocabulary, which they can all over the world, Deboo says. "The world is getrelate to because of their own training in ballet or ting smaller," he adds. "There are no boundaries other modern dance techniques," Deboo says. for us ... there is the room which allows us to be The response was "broad smiles and embra- individual, and have the right to express." ~ ces .... At the end of every class you can look into the eyes of the students and know that they have Lea Terhune is a USINFO staff writer.

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Abdul Sami Porvorim, Goa inati d It was gratifying to come across Chester Bowles' illumina ~~gan , "ng article "What Americans Can Learn from Gandhi.

InS~:~htly the author has emphasized that the message of Mahatm~ Gandhi of 'noncooperation and nonviolence has Insp;red ~Inl~~: ~n Black Americans to achieve their cherished goal 0 CIVI rig America, h' It is worthy to note that the Gand Ian way of peaceful persuasion stirred the conscience of the majority of ASian and What Americans Can Learn from African countries to break the shackles GANDHI of slavery and attain their freedom,

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V.S.S. Kannan Karaikudi, Tamil Nadu Chester Bowles' article on Gandhi is a good presentation and comparative study on the realization of Gandhism~'The illustrative pictures are informative and impressive,

\:e once mO~ and helped one appreciate the grealnessotMartl~ a K' -, J who can be described as a true discble 0 Luther lng, r" ,I d "What Indians Mahatma Gandhi. This article can also be tit e as", f Gandhi" for to many Indians at present GandhlJI IS ~apne~:~~nw~oo~e birthd~y is 'a holiday, People do just lip service to the Gandhian principles and seldom practice them,

Edward Haeems Ahmedabad, Gujaraf The article "Preserving Winter's Miracles of Beauty" by Dr, Kay Redfield Jamison was breathtakingly beautiful, but I wish you had indicated the snow crystal numbers in each of the 11 very beautiful photographs of snowflakes that were reproduced, Unfortunately, the article does not reveal the answer to the promised, "How an American farmer invented snowflake photography," as stated on the cover, Full details of the process were expected,

Pre eNlng Winter's Miracles of ~,~ยง~ty

Harish Khosla New Delhi It is faSCinating to read about the beauty of snowflakes and its varied formations, Wilson Bentley had a vision and the patience to preserve beauty that is so very fragile, Apart from enjoying the mysteries of nature, it teaches us how much is around to see that we do not see or care to see,

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Manisha Gupta New Delhi Angus McDonald's "America Supports Cultural Preservation," was really interesting as well as enlightening Moreover, it is heartening to learn about the Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation to protect the world's cultural treasures with the priority being benefit Surabhi Chaturvedi to the relevant Commtlnities, which is New Oelhi indeed a need of the hour.

I read the article on Traditional knowledge is dying out snowllakes and, I because of lack of a proper system of ralled by It. th was en documentation, And communities I am an ardent Ian practicing these traditions are in most cases unable to sustain themselves, and their younger generations see no livelihood options in these, so they rather become laborers, Just like the mentioned "Baul music" and "art of lost wax metal casting" of Bangladesh, there is a huge array of such cultural expressions all over the region which need to be preserved for the benefit of not only the communities involved but also the entire "nation society" We need a well thought-out strategy to protect them even under an Intellectual Property Rights system, and for that the first basic step is systematic and proper documentation of such cultural knowledge Maybe the Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation could address such needs, too.

nd passionate lover ~I nature, but unllk~ Bentley and others I hav t lound ways to preno assion So serve my P arve out through them, I c , , g the love alive ways 01keeptn

Uttar Pradesh t Anil K. Goel Botanic GardenheL~~~~~iendar which has be~,n brought ou I was turning the pages o~~ theme "Wonders of Amenca. by you excellently under e in photograph ' sl , that the mal Congratulation " I would like to mention , t of the American In this con~:~i~en month of September 20~~I~Inaomalraid to tell you published un. the small photo IS correc u Lotus, In the Inset, ra h is of a Water Lily that the main Phot~ga ~ellow American (Nymphaea), not 0 Lotus (NeJumbo Jutea) , , h nk Anil K, Goel lor SPAN replies: We t a nd are pleased to pointing out thiS edrror,: photograph of an share with our rea ers actual American Lotus,

S. Raghunatha Prabhu Alappuzha, Kerala G dhi" made Gandhi h article "What Americans Can Learn from an I ,

S.M. Joyal Ajmer, Rajasthan The President of the United States of America is the most powerful person in today's world politics, It is as such qutte obvious that this year's election has not only a local interest but also a global one The process takes ::::: E-=-:: quite a long lime, which I think , I s 50 is necessary, for It InVOve t transparently democratic one states and IS perhaps the ~hoSsame platform, facing the audiThey come face to face .ed t elearn a lot from such practices, ence Other countries nee 0

xford Books celebrated the life's work of Susanne and Lloyd I. Rudolph, emeritus professors of the University of Chicago in Illinois, with publication on January 24 of a three-volume series covering their scholarship on Indian politics, gained from years spent living and working in India. Explaining Indian Democracy: A FiftyYearPerspective, 1956-2006 consists of essays useful to students and researchers of politics, history and sociology. The couple divides their time between Jaipur, California and New York.

Lakshminarayana, commissioner of collegiate education for Andhra Pradesh, was selected on February 20 for the Global Advocacy Award â&#x20AC;˘ given by an international educators association, Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. He was recognized for a two-year project that extended a U.S State Department-sponsored English lecturers retraining program to polytechnic and junior colleges and the state's educational TV channel.

The photo shows the commissioner during a teaching workshop in January at the Government Degree College for Women in Hyderabad.

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partnershiP between the National Rail Museum in New Delhi and the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. has generated exchange visits, friendships, professional collaboration and a proposal for a traveling digital exhibition on the history of the Indian Railways that could be used by both American and Indian museums. Planning the proposal in the Rail Museum office are (left to right) Mayank Tewari, the museum director; Rajesh Agarwal, executive director of Heritage Indian Railways; William Withuhn of the Smithsonian; and Amanpreet Datta of the National Museum.

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hotographs of the American landscape by Ajit Gokhale of Sunnyvale, California were displayed at the American Center in New Delhi in February.

"I believe film provides more image information than digital," says Gokhale.

He also uses manual focus cameras and lenses and color slide film. His images are printed digitally.

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Your idea lor

2009?

SPAN Calendar

Theme Contest

SPAN seeks readers' suggestions of a theme for our 2009 calendar. If your idea is chosen, you'll be featured in the calendar and the magazine, and receive SPAN-related prizes

The last date for entries is May 12, 2008.

Please e-mail your suggestions to

editorspan@state.gov