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Mauritius president turns emotional on visiting ancestral village

Mauritius President Rajkeswur Purryag turned emotional recently, as he set foot in his ancestral village in Bihar’s Patna district, over a century and a half after his greatgrandfather emigrated from it.

“I am visiting this village, the land of my great-grandfather about 150 years after he left it for Mauritius. I am really emotional at the moment,” Purryag said a choked voice at a public function in his honour at Wajidpur village, 20 km from Patna.

Purryag’s great-grandfather, named Prayag, lived in Wajidpur village - now under Punpun block of Patna districtbefore he migrated to Mauritius, then a British colony, in the 19th century, to work as an indentured labourer.

Thousands of people, including the entire village, as well as hundreds from neighbouring areas gathered for a glimpse of the “Mitti Ke Lal (Son of the soil)” when Purryag along with his wife Aneetah Purryag and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar reached the village.

Speaking in not-so-fluent Hindi, Purryag addressed the villagers as “gaon ke bhaibahen and jawan (brothers, sisters and young of the village)” drawing a roar of applause from the waiting crowds for the “rashtrapati beta (president son)”.

“I greet you all and I also greet this land. I am very emotional and very happy to visit the village,” he said.

Purryag also said that the relationship between India and Mauritius is like that between two brothers.

“Hamara sambandh bhai-bhai ka hai, do desh ka nahin (our relationship is like brothers, not like two countries)” he said.

Purryag was welcomed by villagers in traditional style and met his distant relatives Ganesh and Mahesh Mahto. The two were invited on to the dais, and Purryag chatted with them and inquired about them.

The Mahtos gifted some soil and a bushel of freshly-harvested paddy to Purryag. Some villagers also presented him a silver memento.

Earlier, Purryag and his wife arrived at Patna airport and were received by Nitish Kumar.

“After spending an hour at Raj Bhawan, they proceeded to Wajidpur village,” said an official.

Purryag is in India to attend the recently held Pravasi Bharatiya Divas diaspora meet.

In January 2012, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the first woman prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, visited her ancestral village Bhelupur in Bihar’s Buxar district.

Her great-grandfather Ram Lakhan Mishra reportedly left Bhelupur in 1889 to work as indentured labourer in the West Indies.

Nearly five years ago, Mauritius Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam had visited his ancestral village in the state’s Bhojpur district.

A large number of people from Bihar had migrated to Mauritius, Fiji, Trinidad, Suriname, South Africa and other places in the 19th century to serve as indentured labourers on sugarcane and rubber plantations.

Ami Bera, Tulsi Gabbard create history in US Congress

Ami Bera, an Indian-American physician from California and Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu ever elected to the US House of Representatives, created history as they were sworn in as members of the 113th Congress.

Raised by a Hindu mother and a Catholic father in “a multiracial, multicultural, multifaith family,” Gabbard, 31, the first American Samoan and one of the first female combat veterans in US Congress, took her oath of office recently in Washington, on the Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu scripture.

Democrat Gabbard, who represents Hawaii in the Congress previously served on the Honolulu City Council and as a Hawaii state representative. She was the youngest woman in the United States to be elected to a state legislature. She is currently a Company Commander with the Hawaii Army National Guard, and has served on two deployments to the Middle East.

“I believe strongly in embracing diversity,” Gabbard, who was exposed as a child to both the New Testament and the Bhagavad Gita, told Stephen Prothero, a professor in Boston University’s religion department, in an interview published in USA Today.

Gabbard, who embraced a Hindu identity as a teenager and took the Gita as her guide, said Gita teaches her to try “to maintain my equilibrium in either success or failure.”

She then turned to Mahatma Gandhi: “The world’s most famous Hindu, Mahatma Gandhi ... worked tirelessly for the welfare of his country and all of humanity without any thought of personal gain, leaving his ultimate success or failure in God’s hands.”

Amerish B. “Ami” Bera, 47, also a Democrat, became the third IndianAmerican member of the US House after Amritsar-born Dalip Singh Saund, who represented a California district from 1957 to 1963 and Louisiana’s current governor Bobby Jindal who was a member from his state from 2005 to 2008.

Bera, the son of immigrants from India, took the oath in the presence of his wife, daughter, brothers, and his father.

Raised in La Palma, California, Bera defeated three-term Republican incumbent Dan Lungren by a narrow margin. He has a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences from the University of California at Irvine, earning his MD there in 1991.

The newly sworn-in 113th Congress is the most diverse group of representatives in history. 98 women, 43 AfricanAmericans, 31 Latinos, 12 Asian-American and Pacific Islanders, and seven gay and bisexual members are now new members of the House and Senate.

Diaspora can play key role to boost science in India

Even as the Indian Science Congress was recently held in Kolkata, a leading IndianAmerican scientist raised several questions about the direction of Indian scientific research, saying the diaspora can play an important role in promotion of science and technology in the country.

“When we talk about pure sciences, quality and rigour of the methods used in research are more important than quantity,” said Thomas Abraham, president of the US based technology and market research firm Innovative Research and Products.

Abraham, a materials scientist and nanotechnologist by profession, who is also founder president of the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO), also chaired a seminar session on Pure Sciences at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Kochi recently.

The seminar with the theme of ‘More from Less for More’ looked at various challenges involved in developing pure sciences and its commercialisation for enhancing India’s competitiveness globally.

Towards this end, besides understanding critical success factors in research, the session explored possibilities of global scientific leadership for India.

The keynote speaker was IIT-Delhi Director Prof. R.K. Shevgaonkar. The panellists include Lord Bhikhu Parekh of British House of Lords; P.C. Chacko MP; Dr. S. Ayyappan, Director General of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Dr. Shekhar Gupta of Fermi Laboratory in the US.

In a knowledge base economy, pure sciences contribute to the applied sciences and engineering to develop next generation technologies and products for the benefit of a country and the society at large.

The session focused on the present status of pure sciences research in India and explore how overseas Indians can be involved to promote pure sciences in India.

“I have heard from many Indian American academics who visit India and attend many science conferences and poster sessions, that in broad terms, Indian post graduate students and faculties often do not concentrate on quality,” said Abraham.

“Although there are people doing quality research in pure sciences in some of the Indian institutions, their numbers are painfully insignificant compared to other countries including many Asian countries like China, Korea and Singapore,” he said.

“Indian diaspora can play an important role for promotion of science and technology in India,” said Abraham noting, “Although there have been some past efforts, we are yet to see a concentrated effort in this direction.”

Pravasi Bharatiya Divas is a great platform where Indian diaspora can share their ideas with their Indian counterparts, he said, suggesting this could be made more meaningful especially for India to leapfrog to the next generation technologies utilising resources of the Indian diaspora.

A laser documentary to repay a debt

Indian American Manick Sorcar, who has devised a laser show to pay tribute to two eminent Indians, Swami Vivekananda and magician P.C. Sorcar, says he is only repaying his debt to them.

Manick is the son of the famous magician and combines his day job as a lighting engineer in Denver, Colorado, with a passion for art and laser shows.

The year 2013 is the 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda and the birth centenary of Sorcar’s father, which he considers a happy coincidence.

“Swami Vivekananda has been an inspiration all my life, particularly in teaching me to arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached. My father, for whom I did all the lighting and artwork backstage for his magic shows, has been the main source of inspiration in mixing art with science. Both men have played an important role in shaping my life of which what I am today,” Sorcar said recently in an interview.

He said he had a great interest in doing a laser documentary on Swami Vivekananda. “My research started in 2005 when I visited the Art Institute in Chicago where Swamiji gave his inspiring speech (at the parliament of the world’s religions in September 1893). I was subconsciously looking for his footprint.

“After searching the drawings, I could trace the exact spot where he had exactly stood to give the speech, and I found this discovery thrilling. In 2012, when I received an invitation from the Ramakrishna Mission to do a laser documentary on Swami Vivekananda, my dreams came true,” Sorcar added.

The two-hour laser programme is divided into two parts. “The first hour is dedicated to Swami Vivekananda. This is preceded by a “laser live” prayerdance based on a work of Swami Vivekananda. The second half is a laser show celebrating the centenary of my father, with laser applied to his magic,” Sorcar said.

He will also display his multi-media artworks on his father. They range from kaleidoscopic watercolours from his school days, acrylic paint, spice and seedart, to laser art.

“Swamiji” premiered last October 10 at the Grand Theatre of Science City in Kolkata. Sorcar said while he was deeply grateful for the critical acclaim, what touched him was the appreciation from the monks of Ramakrishna Mission.

“Vivekananda taught me no great work can be accomplished with gimmicks or publicity stunts. From my father, I learned stage art. To all that I have mixed my fine art and practical experience and educational background in electrical engineering and lighting. Laser is state-of-the-art in lighting, which I have mixed with live action on stage and tamed the dangerous light-beam to act as a harmless paintbrush,” Sorcar said.

Sorcar, who has won several awards in the US for his laser art, brought the technology and helped to build a laser animation laboratory for “Laser Lighting for Art and Animation” at Jadavpur University, where it assists students studying towards a degree in electrical and illumination engineering. IANS

Women take to self-defence following Delhi gang-rape

In the wake of the gang-rape in Delhi that brought thousands of women out on the streets of the capital in unprecedented protests, many women are making a beeline for self-defence classes and getting trained in street-fighting techniques to take on attackers.

“After the brutal gang-rape, many women, particularly working women, approached us for self-defence classes,” Shiv Makkar, martial arts trainer at the 5 Element School of Arts in Rohini, said recently.

He said the school had already started two batches since the Dec 16 gang-rape and death of a 23-year-old woman.

“Many want to get trained in mixed martial arts, particularly street fighting,” he added.

Street fighting is a self-defence technique an individual is taught to tackle at least five to six people with and without weapons.

Makkar said the most-taught self-defence technique was Aikido that teaches women when, how and where to attack.

“Aikido is an effective self-defence technique that focusses on dislocation of joints and nerve points,” he added.

Captain (retd) Jaipreet Joshi of Fitcomb, who conducts self-protection classes in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR), said he has been flooded with calls from working women and anxious parents ever since the Dec 16 gang-rape.

“There has been a sudden surge for selfdefence and personal protective training. This happens whenever the city sees a major crime against a woman,” Joshi said.

It is not just working women who are enrolling for such classes.

“We are getting queries from women of all age groups, right from 15 to 50 years,” Joshi added.

A recent survey by industry group

Assocham showed a 40 percent fall in productivity of women employees at call centres and IT companies because many were afraid to venture out at night and had thus reduced their hours or had quit.

Roshini Singh, who works in a multinational company in Gurgaon, said she faced tremendous pressure from her parents to leave her well-paying job.

“It was so hard to convince my parents. I drive my own car. But there are days when I get late. As I have to travel for an hour to reach home, my parents insisted that I quit,” said Singh who lives in Prashant Vihar in north Delhi.

“I didn’t want to do it; so I thought it is better to take self-defence classes. Now I am learning kick-boxing. My parents are fine now,” Singh added.

Like her parents, Tanuja Sharma, 50, was scared about her college-going daughter. As she was not able to convince the 20-yearold, she thought it was best for both of them to train together.

“Now she is showing some enthusiasm about these classes,” said Sharma, who lives in Malviya Nagar and is a home-maker.

She said the Dec 16 incident was a “real shocker”.

She said in the self-defence training, both of them have so far learned moves like how to get away from the grip of an attacker or how to disable an attacker with a punch on the nose or a kick in the groin.

The 23-year-old physiotherapist trainee was gang-raped by six people in a moving bus. She was robbed, stripped and then thrown off along with her friend in the cold December night. She died Dec 29 and was quietly cremated Dec 30.

The attack, which made news around the world, led to an outpouring of grief and outrage, with protesters demanding death for the rapists and stricter anti-rape laws.

According to martial art experts, mixed martial art training is also most sought after and is a combination of Judo, Aikido, Muay Thai and Karate, among others.

The experts said apart from these known techniques, women are also keen to take up kick-boxing which teaches one how and where to punch.

The trainers say their fee ranges from Rs.2,000 to Rs.2,500 per month and classes are flexible according to an individual’s schedule.

To instill the feeling of security among young girls, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) also recently launched a self-defence programme. This is, however, only for South Delhi-based corporation schools.

“Teachers can also enroll for the classes,” said SDMC mayor Savita Gupta.

“We have taken this initiative for the first time. In the self defence programme, teachers and students from 548 schools in our area will be trained to tackle real-life situations and protect themselves from anti-social elements.

“We will also extend it to the east and north corporations’ schools later. We are planning to allot a special budget for it,” Gupta added.

Joshi lamented that women start attending classes after such incidents but soon lose interest.

“They should continue their training. If they stop it mid-way there is no use,” he said.

Royal kitchens revealing secret recipes

Erstwhile royal families have closely guarded culinary secrets of their kitchens like treasures down the ages. But the struggle to keep the estates sustainable is forcing the descendants to open up.

Nearly six decades after independence, the hosts of the royal palace resorts are opening their recipe books to contribute to the experimental culinary wave sweeping through the kitchens of urban India.

“Cooking a family recipe is like singing a ‘ghazal’. It sounds different each time, but you know the flavour. One of our favourites was ‘Shahi Sabzi Pulao’,” said Randhir Singh, scion of the family of the erstwhile Maharaja of Patiala.

It was a dry pulao that could be improvised with meat arranged in layers, he said.

The pulao, originally cooked by royal chefs, has now been tweaked to suit the low-oil palate.

The pulao can be paired with “Murgh Musallam Laung Elaichi”, a sweet and sour dry chicken dish with hints of clove, cardamom, lime juice and honey.

Like Patiala, till about a decade ago, Tripura was a culinary wilderness unknown to mainland India. The repast table of the Deb Barma family was a locked wonderland.

“General awareness about northeastern food is poor. Most of us are ethnically, linguistically and culturally of TibetoBurmese origin.

Our food is basic, represents plenty of eats with pork, bamboo shoots and red chillies. It is similar to Burmese cuisine with a bit of Cambodian spice blend,” said Pradyot Manikya Debbarma, scion of the erstwhile Tripura royal family.

He lives for his “bhaat” -- a sticky rice variety -- like other northeasterners.

“It is a level world in our land because we are looked upon as custodians of the land, not rulers. We don’t have a caste system and it tells on our royal cuisine as well,” he said.

Debbarma loves to cook “Wahan Mos Deng” -- a pork dish, pork marinated in salt water, boiled and cooked lightly with ginger, onions and mixed with mustard oil.

Fish is another staple, the former princeturned-journalist-cum-cook from Tripura said.

“Sheena Kebab”, “Tunde Ka Kebab” and “Kakori Kebab” - the signature of Awadh Dastarkhwan created by the Mughals -- long moved out of the palace to the neighbourhood eatery.

While Tunde Ka Kebab, named after an one-armed chef, uses 160 spices, Kakori has a divine legacy.

It was created at the ‘dargah’ of Hazrat Shah Abi Ahder Sahib in Lucknow with a mince of the “raan” of mutton and spices that still continue to vex the common cook.

“Dining With the Maharajas”, a rent book published by Roli, says: “Every day, any given meal for Nawab Shuja-ud-Daula of Awadh and his wife was cooked in six different kitchens at a monthly cost of Rs.60,000. The amount did not include salaries of the cooks”.

Legend has it that Mughal Emperor Jahangir had a weakness for chicken that was kept on a diet of saffron for a year. It took at least 100 chickens to cook the dish with a special blend of spices, the book says.

Food and cuisine have been integral to Indian culture, says Neha Prasada, who authored the book with Ashima Narain.

“Traditional Indian cuisine is backed by years of experimentation. The fun is that the Indian royal cuisine has evolved with different influences.

“Somewhere, the original recipes have been deleted. What finds place on the table are improvised or diluted versions of the original fare -- with reduced oil or ghee. We have tried to preserve some of the original recipes from their kitchens,” said Prasada.

Shehzadi Naghat Abidi from the former royal family of Lucknow says the cuisine is no longer confined to palace kitchens.

“From rich to poor, everyone loves “Tar Gosht”, a traditional dish of Rampur served during feast after a man’s wedding,” said Abidi.

“It is a gravy dish of either baby lamb or buffalo meat stir fried in a light spice base of ginger and chilly served with red tamarind dip and good wine,” she said.

India’s steel demand to increase by 7 percent in 2013-14

The demand for steel in India is expected to rise 7 percent in the next financial year beginning April 1 as compared to the sluggish 5.5 percent projected growth in 2012-13, according to a senior official of Tata Steel.

Managing Director H.M. Nerurkar said the overall outlook for the steel sector is positive and the demand was likely to pick up in the next financial year on the back of revival in economic growth and the government’s measures to ease infrastructure investment rules.

“In fiscal 2012-13, growth in domestic steel demand is expected to be around 5.5 percent. Total demand is expected to be around 75 million tonnes, up from 71 million tonnes in 2011-12. In 2013-14, demand is expected to be higher at around seven percent,” Nerurkar said in New Delhi recently.

Weak demands have affected performance of major steel firms in India. Tata Steel, which is a part of the $100 billion Tata Group, posted a Rs.363.93 crore loss in the second quarter of the current financial year as against a profit of Rs.212.43 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year.

Tata Steel reported slowest sales growth in the second quarter of the current financial year since 2009.

Nerurkar hoped that the government’s recent measures to ease infrastructure investment rules and push forward economic reform measures would boost steel demands in India.

“Formation of the cabinet committee on infrastructure for single window clearance for mega projects will generate activity in the power and roadways sectors, among others. The expected lowering of interest rates by RBI in January will provide impetus to the manufacturing and consumer durables sectors, among others. The full impact of all these will be felt in 2013-14,” Nerurkar said.

He said India was expected to emerge as the second largest producer of crude steel in the next two years.

“With the ongoing greenfield and brownfield expansions India is expected to become the world’s second largest producer of crude steel in the next two years,” he said.

India is currently the world’s fourth largest producer of crude steel after China, Japan and the US.

Major public as well as private sector firms including Tata Steel, SAIL and JSW Steel are expanding production capacity.

According to the government data, steel production is expected to reach 200 million tonnes by 2020 as compared to 71 million tonnes recorded in 2012.

In steel production, India is expected to leave behind USA and Japan in a couple of years. However, it will substantially lag behind China that produces almost 700 million tonnes of steel per year.

Nerurkar said steel demand in Europe is expected to rise in 2013 after registering a decline in 2012.

“In Europe, we expect a modest 2.5 percent growth against the backdrop of a negative growth year,” he said.

Tata Steel’s European unit, formerly called Corus, is the largest in Europe. The Tata Group, led by the then chairman Ratan Tata, had acquired the AngloDutch Corus in 2007 for $12 billion. The company is now called Tata Steel Europe.

SMS system to help poll panel monitor 2014 elections

In another technological leap forward from the 2009 general elections when it had launched the COMET online monitoring system, the Election Commission of India now hopes to supervise the 2014 national elections - the largest democratic exercise in the world - with a coded SMS-based alert system.

“We hope to use it in the next general elections,” Deputy Election Commissioner Alok Shukla said recently in New Delhi.

According to Shukla, the Communication Plan for Election (COMET), which aimed at creating a database of mobile phone numbers of around 1.1 million government officials deployed for the 2009 general elections so that the poll panel could reach them quickly, has transformed into a hightech SMS-based alert system.

The system uses coded messages to collect data about officials on duty. It also helps in monitoring events down to a particular polling booth at the click of a mouse.

The new system was first used in the assembly polls in Goa, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Manipur in early 2012 and in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat towards the year-end.

Shukla said the new system works by and large successfully and the officials concerned had to be called only in 10 percent of the cases for resolving the complaints reported.

“COMET consisted of a control room used to collect mobile phone numbers of around 1.1 million government officials on poll duty and helped us coordinate with them. The sms-based monitoring system has reduced the workload tremendously,” Shukla said.

According to the official, the new system uses coded text messages through mobile phones to collect data about officials, information about scheduled events like staff reaching the polling station, mock poll conducted, start of polling, voting percentages every two hours, number of voters in queue after voting time was over, and whether the poll party reached safely at the high security Electronic Voting Machine (EVMs) deposit centre.

“Officials on the ground just need to punch in a few letters to send various coded SMSes. The information is instantly available online and can be used by the commission and poll officials in the state capital and districts,” Shukla said.

In case of an unforeseen event such as malfunctioning of EVMs, problems in the voter list or a law and order problem, the system alerts the superintendent of police and the police inspector of the area concerned through an sms.

“When a law and order problem is reported, quick response of the police and the commission matters a lot,” said Shukla. Information related to the scheduled and unforeseen events is relayed to all the poll officials deployed in a particular area, he said. However, in remote areas, where the mobile phones don’t work, oll officials have to reach the nearest telephone to inform the call centre located in the state capital. IANS