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Friday, January 04 2013 | Vol. 32, No. 1
Indo American erican News
www.indoamerican-news.com Published weekly from Houston, TX
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Guru Gobind Singh Ji 347th Birthday Special
Citizens, Doctors End Lawsuit
Pages 25-35
India Gang Rape Victim Cremated
P16 Hindi Welcomed in Texas School District
A three-year lawsuit between Citizens Medical Center and three cardiologists was dismissed after both sides reached a negotiated settlement. The specific terms of the settlement include the hospital and the hospital’s insurance company paying $8 million to the cardiologists. In addition, the three doctors will resign their privileges to practice medicine at the hospital, 2701 Hospital Drive, effective immediately.
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January 04, 2013
INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
COMMUNITY
January 04, 2013
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HGH Announces an Advisory Board and Activities for 2013
HOUSTON: Hindus of Greater Houston (HGH) took a major step in consolidating its status as an organization which speaks for all Hindus in the region by naming an Board of Advisors comprised of activists with solid credentials of community service and a stellar track record of leadership within their organiza tions. The announcement was made at a meeting held at the Keshav Smruti on Saturday, December 8 attended by over representatives of most of the 28 Hindu temples and organizations in the Greater Houston area (representatives of six organizations were unable to attend). The new Board of Advisors are Ramesh Bhutada of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh; Beth Kulkarni representing the American-Hindu community and the Hindu Temple of The Woodlands; Devinder Mahajan of the Arya Samaj of Greater Houston; Jugal Malani of India House; Gaurang Nanavaty of the Chinmaya Mission of Houston; P.C. Sharma of the Hindu Worship Society and Dr. Gopal Krishna of the Sri Meenakshi Temple Society. The meeting also recognized the pioneers of the communitywide Janmashtami celebration - Raj Syal, Prabhat Chandra Sharma, Padmakant Khambati, Beth Kulkarni, Hari Kewalramani, Sharad Amin, and Dilip Mehta. The celebration started in 1989 as a brainchild of Syal and has now grown into a signature event for the legacy organization, Hindus of Greater Houston was said he was very happy with the progress made by its members. ”It is time to rethink our identity as Hindu Americans. Our next generation may not be able to identify themselves with India, yet the Hindu heritage will stick with them throughout their lives,” said Ramesh Bhutada. “The more we are united, the better we will be able to inculcate our culture on our children.” He said he was pleased to see so many Hindu organiza-
Dhayana Shloka and Guru Vandana by three young children - Amogha, Vidya and Vedant - of the Arsha Vidya Satsangh. Sharad Amin, President of HGH welcomed everyone by emphasizing that the goal of HGH was to unite all Hindu organizations and to raise good Hindu Americans descendants India, the Caribbean, Bhutan, Nepal and other countries who were knowledgeable and proud of their heritage. Thara Narasimhan introduced repreFrom left: Dev Mahajan, Gaurang Nanavati, Sharad Amin(HGH President), sentatives of various Ramesh Bhutada, Beth Kulkarni and PC Sharma Hindu organizations — Ashirwad A Blessing, Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, Sri Sitaram Foundation, Arya Samaj of Greater Houston, Sri Ashtalakshmi Temple, Patanjali Yogpeeth, Chinmaya Mission, Gujarati Samaj of Houston, Hindu Temple of The Woodlands, Indo-American Cultural Heritage Foundation, BAPS Swami Narayan Temple, Isha Foundation, Sri Meenakishi Temple, Naamdwar (Global Organization HGH workers at HGH December 2012 meeting of Divinity), Sanatan ism is understood correctly. He Hindu Center, Govindaji Gaudiya tions actively engage our youths. Gaurang Nanavaty said the vari- gave the example of the recent Math, Hindu Worship Society, Hinous organizations are like flowers incident of bullying of two Hindu du Students Association, Sringeri in a garden - each one beautiful boys (because of their religion) Vidyabharati Foundation and the with its distinct color and fra- in Humble ISD and said HGH Lakshminarayan Temple, which grance and lauded the work of worked with the school district to has a congregation of Hindus from HGH. P.C. Sharma suggested that resolve the issue. the Caribbean, Nepali Hindu orgaBeth Kulkarni said she was for- nization, Swamahiman, Udipi Sri Hindus should consider a communitywide celebration of Diwali tunate to be accepted by the Hindu Krishna Temple and Bhutan Vedic along the lines of the Janmashtami community and her example often Seva Samiti. makes Hindu youth consider the event. Each representative spoke briefDev Mahajan said Hindus were merits of their heritage and show ly on one signature event that was doing well “within their cocoon” an interest in it. coming up for his/her organization. The meeting began with the This was indeed an eye opener for but needed to reach out to the mainstream to ensure that Hindu- recitation of the Bhagavad Gita many to take note of the various
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activities that the organizations were involved in. The past events of 2012 and grand 25th year celebration of Janmashtami in 2014 was covered by Partha Krishnaswamy, Vice President of HGH. Youth awards on behalf of Richa Dixit was conveyed by Thara Narasimhan who pointed out that the youth formed an integral part of our Hindu organizations and recognizing them not only encourages them to do more but also be proud of our heritage. She also recognized the younger members of HGH board Vinod Mantri, Sanjay Jajoo, Richa Dixit and Dharminder Dargan. The website update, Hindu Jewish meeting on Jan 6 and Calendar of events 2013 was discussed by Dharminder Dargan and media, publicity highlights and public relations work were showcased by Vijay Pallod who was the main coordinator of this event. HGH introduced their latest coordinator. Desh Kapoor who has taken the initiative to start a Hindu blog with Houston Chronicle. Hindus of Greater Houston partnerships and affiliated organizations presented their special events – Manoj Rathi from Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh spoke about SV150 event highlighting Swami Vivekananda’s 150th Birth Anniversary; Ruchita Naik, President of the Hindu Students Association at University of Houston talked about their activities and programs; Chaya Timmaraju elaborated on the activities associated with Swami Vivekananda and Youth Convention happening January 12, 2013; Girish Naik former HGH President spoke about the Kite festival by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad America; Kriti Dogra from Sewa International emphasized the community outreach program and Sushma Mahajan reiterated the importance of Inter Faith Dialogue and associated activities in the Greater Houston area. For more information about HGH, visit . www.hindusofhouston.org
Indo American News (ISSN 887-5936) is published weekly every Friday (for a subscription of $40 per year) by IndoAmerican News Inc., 7457 Harwin Dr., Suite 262, Houston, TX 77036, tel: 713-789-6397, fax:713-7896399, email: indoamericannews@yahoo.com. Periodical postage paid at Houston, Texas. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to Indo American News,7457 Harwin Dr., Suite 262, Houston, TX 77036
INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
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COMMUNITY
January 04, 2013
Citizens, Victoria Doctors End Lawsuit with an $8 Million Settlement VICTORIA: Federal District Judge Gregg Costa on Wednesday, December 5, 2012 signed the order to dismiss a three-year lawsuit between Citizens Medical Center and three cardiologists after both sides reached a negotiated settlement. The specific terms of the settlement include the hospital and the hospital’s insurance company paying $8 million to the cardiologists. In addition, the three doctors will resign their privileges to practice medicine at the hospital, effective immediately. On Monday, December 3, the lawyer for the three cardiologists filed a request to Drs. Harish Chandna (left), Ajay Gaalla and Dakshesh Kumar Parikh dismiss the case in federal court - a motion that was of Managers of Citizens Medical Center is claimed that there was a they were subjected unopposed by Citizens Medical Center. Donald Day, chairman of Citizens Medical willing to grant us our privileges, we will be to a steady pattern of racial slurs that created Center’s board of directors, said Wednesday ready and available to serve the patients and a hostile environment and discrimination that he signed the settlement agreement and this community at our county hospital.” to deliberately kept them out of leadership The end of the three-year lawsuit comes roles on committees and laboratory posts described it as a new chapter for the hosabout 2 1/2 weeks shy of the Jan. 7 trial date. and diminish their professional standing in pital. The plaintiffs in the case - Drs. Dakshesh The doctors sued in March 2010 after Citi- the hospital and the small town of Victoria Kumar Parikh, Harish Chandna and Ajay zens revoked their privileges to work at the where the three have practiced for over 15 Gaalla - released a statement acknowledg- hospital. The cardiologists claimed racke- years. teering, conspiracy and discrimination. Citiing the case was over. According to comments left on the Victo“As it stands, CMC has asked us to re- zens officials contended in court filings that ria Advocate website, many patients have sign and relinquish our privileges to prac- they acted in the best business interests of openly expressed their support for the doctice at the hospital immediately,” the state- the hospital. (Courtesy Victoria Advocate) tors and disgust at the actions of the CMC In the lawsuit, the cardiologists had Board and some have even asked for the ment said. “However, whenever the Board
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resignation of Citizens CEO David Brown who had used derogatory slurs, jokes, ridicule and epithets in dealing not just with these cardiologists and other Indian physicians but also other minorities, a fact that is common knowledge among the medical community in Victoria. Many comments on the website express disbelief that these cardiologists are being asked to relinquish privileges at the hospital, calling the settlement “an embarrassment”; others plainly express their confidence in the abilities of the cardiologists and their intention to continue to see them for treatment. The Houston Indo-American community had shown solidarity with the cardiologists as their lawsuit made its way to trial. Just a week before the settlement, community leaders had collected hundreds of signatures in support of the doctors and the local community media (see IAN, November 30, 2012) had highlighted the shoddy way in which the doctors had been treated by Citizens. The settlement and the ensuing galvanizing support appears to have boosted the confidence of the local community to harness their strength in numbers and logistics to fight discrimination and other cases that can impede the upward mobility and progress of its members. (Jawahar Malhotra)
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January 04, 2013
Yoga Class Draws a Religious Protest
BY WILL CARLESS (NYT) ENCINITAS, CA: By 9:30am. at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School, tiny feet were shifting from downward dog pose to chair pose to warrior pose in surprisingly swift, accurate movements. A circle of 6- and 7-year-olds contorted their frames, making monkey noises and repeating confidence-boosting mantras. Jackie Bergeron’s first-grade yoga class was in full swing. “Inhale. Exhale. Peekaboo!” Bergeron said from the front of the class. “Now, warrior pose. I am strong! I am brave!” Though the yoga class had a notably calming effect on the children, things were far from placid outside the gymnasium. A small but vocal group of parents, spurred on by the head of a local conservative advocacy group, has likened these 30-minute yoga classes to religious indoctrination. They say the classes — part of a comprehensive program offered to all public school students in this affluent suburb north of San Diego — represent a violation of the First Amendment. After the classes prompted discussion in local evangelical churches, parents said they were concerned that the exercises might nudge their children closer to ancient Hindu beliefs. Mary Eady, the parent of a first grader, said the classes were rooted in the deeply religious practice of Ashtanga yoga, in which
Jackie Bergeron teaching a first-grade yoga class at Paul Ecke Central Elementary. Photos: T. Lynne Pixley
physical actions are inextricable from the spiritual beliefs underlying them. “They’re not just teaching physical poses, they’re teaching children how to think and how to make decisions,” Eady said. “They’re teaching children how to meditate and how to look within for peace and for comfort. They’re using this as a tool for many things beyond just stretching.” Eady and a few dozen other parents say a
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public school system should not be leading students down any particular religious path. Teaching children how to engage in spiritual exercises like meditation familiarizes young minds with certain religious viewpoints and practices, they say, and a public classroom is no place for that. Underlying the controversy is the source of the program’s financing. The pilot project is supported by the Jois Foundation, a
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nonprofit organization founded in memory of Krishna Pattabhi Jois, who is considered the father of Ashtanga yoga. Dean Broyles, the president and chief counsel of the National Center for Law and Policy, a nonprofit law firm that champions religious freedom and traditional marriage, according to its Web site, has dug up quotes from Jois Foundation leaders, who talk about the inseparability of the physical act of yoga from a broader spiritual quest. Broyles argued that such quotes betrayed the group’s broader evangelistic purpose. “There is a transparent promotion of Hindu religious beliefs and practices in the public schools through this Ashtanga yoga program,” he said. “The analog would be if we substituted for this program a charismatic Christian praise and worship physical education program,” he said. The battle over yoga in schools has been raging for years across the country but has typically focused on charter schools, which receive public financing but set their own curriculums. The move by the Encinitas Union School District to mandate yoga classes for all students who do not opt out has elevated the discussion. And it has split an already divided community. The district serves the liberal beach neighborhoods of Encinitas, including Leucadia, where Paul Ecke Central Elementary is, as CONTINUED ON PAGE
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January 04, 2013
Grand Srimad Bhagavata Mahotsavam Celebrated at Namadwaar
MANVEL, TX: For eight whole days, devotees at Namadwaar in Manvel, TX were lost in a completely different world of singing and celebrating Lord Sri Krishna, totally oblivious of the rest of the world. Srimad Bhagavata Saptaha Mahotsavam 2012, held from Dec 21 to 28, was indeed a grand celebration and an experience that will be cherished deeply for years to come by all who attended the event. Organized by Global Organization for Divinity USA (G.O.D.) under the guidance of Sri Ramanujam ji, disciple of His Holiness Sri Sri Muralidhara Swamiji of Chennai, India, the event was really a “Mahotsavam” with so many activities taking place simultaneously, each of them geared towards immersing all in joyful smaranam and celebration of the Lord. Almost a 100 devotees from all across the USA visited Houston for the event, including from Atlanta, California, Chicago, Corpus Christi, Dallas, Florida, Indiana, Minneapolis, Michigan, Seattle and Virginia. Each day of the utsav began early at 5:30 am with prabodhanam (waking up the Lord with kirtans) and was followed by the singing of Tiruppavai and commencement of Srimad Bhagavata parayanam for the day (which was done every day, thus completing the reading of the entire Srimad Bhagavatam in 7 days). Unchavruthi (offering of rice by householders to a bhaagavata as sampradaya bhajans were sung) was also performed every morning. The Lord was taken in a palanquin on a procession around Namadwaar every morning as beautiful kirtans glorifying Him were sung in unison by devotees. Every afternoon, sampradaya bhajans and Ashtapathis (Sri Jayadeva’s Gita Govindam songs) were sung. Apart from the daily events during the Mahotsavam, other special events on certain
days included a Garuda Vahanam procession, 24-hour Akhanda Mahamantra sankirtan and Divya Nama Sankirtan on Vaikunta Ekadasi, Dec 23rd; 108 Hanuman Chalisa chanting, Bhagavad Gita parayanam and a grand Radha Kalyanam Utsav celebration on Dec 27. Every evening, Sri Ramanujamji discoursed in detail on Srimad Bhagavata Purana at Sri Meenakshi Temple. This series of lectures, which was a joint presentation of Sri Meenakshi Temple Society and Global Organization for Divinity, was very well attended and appreciated by numerous Houstonites. Every day, before Sri Ramanujamji’s discourse, several local artistes and students sang and danced to the kirtans of HH Sri Sri Muralidhara Swamiji. The schools and artistes who performed included students of Vidushi Rajarajeshwary Bhat’s Krishna Gana Sudha Music Academy, Divya Unni and her students from Sreepadam School of Arts, Surabi Veeraraghavan, Students of Anjali Center for Performing Arts, Manjula Palivela and her students, and children of G.O.D.’s Gopa Kuteeram Kids’ Program.
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January 04, 2013
Vedic Day Care Center in Chicago Celebrates Christmas and Gita Jayanti
Children of Vedic Day care Center
BY NAND KAPOOR IAN CHICAGO CORRESPONDENT CHICAGO: Chicago based one of its kind Vedic Day Care Center celebrated its annual Christmas function last week. About 100 people attended the function. The occasion was celebrated with various performances by the children of the day care. The children sang devotional songs, Christmas carols, and performed a drama about the birth of Christ. The children exchanged gifts amongst themselves, which brought them joy. Also, with the Christmas program, the center celebrated Gita Jayanti. Bhagavad Gita books were distributed amongst the parents and teachers. The celebration was joined by
friends and family. The finale of the day was a Christmas lunch. It was a day to celebrate with excitement and was enjoyed by the people that attended the program. Throughout the years it has determined that the Vedic Day Care celebrates each occasion with great enthusiasm, which brings enjoyment to the children. Vedic Day Cacre Center is a well known school in Chicago. The director, Vrashbha Das thanked Dr. Modi, Kal Patel, and Dr. Mehta for their financial support and Swati restaurant and Jay Hind restaurant for providing the prashad. For further information, call Vrashbha Das at 773-761-0522.
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January 04, 2013
Indian’s Subway Killing: A Hate Crime BY CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA WASHINGTON (TOI): As he peered at the approaching metro train standing on the edge of platform on 40th and Lowery street station in Queens, Sunando Sen didn’t see or hear the footsteps of death behind his back, much less realize it was racist and hate-filled. This was New York, the most racially and ethnically diverse city on the planet, where the immigrant from Kolkota had lived comfortably for nearly two decades and was on the threshold of entrepreneurial success. Mumbling incoherently, Erika Menendez had stood up from a bench she was sitting on, walked up behind Sen, 46, and shoved him in the path of the oncoming train even as a few horrified witnesses saw the 8 pm incident, which was also captured in the
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Sunando Sen, 46 immigrated to US 20 years ago from Calcutta, India.
such racist sentiment and conflated Muslim and Hindu faith was herself Hispanic. Queens district attorney Richard Brown told the New York media that Menendez told the police she believed she had pushed a Muslim man off the platform “because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I’ve been beating them up”. “Beyond that, the hateful reThe woman, Erika Menendez, selected her victim marks allegedly made by the debecause she believed him to be a Muslim or a fendant and which precipitated Hindu, Richard A. Brown, the Queens district attorney, said. the defendant’s actions should never be tolerated by a civilized station’s videocams in grainy footage. She society,” Brown said, adding that he had no then bolted from the station , causing a city- information on the defendant’s criminal or wide hunt. mental history and it will be up to the court She pushed Sen, the 32-year old Menen- to determine if she is fit to stand trial. dez later told police when she was appreIn an earlier incident on December 3, a hended following a tip-off after a public Korean-American man died after he was sighting, because she hates Hindus and shoved on to the path of an oncoming train Muslims , who in her view brought down in Queens by a homeless person, allegedly the city’s World Trade Center twin towers after an altercation. Deaths in New York on 9/11. She was arrested and charged with subway is not unusual (there were 47 deaths second degree murder. in 2011), but they are mostly accidents and Menendez is expected to be arraigned by suicides, seldom homicides. Sunday morning . If convicted, she faces New Yorkers meanwhile mourned Sen, a maximum penalty of life in prison. By who came to city after enrolling at NYU charging her with murder as a hate crime, in the early 1990s to study graphic design. the possible minimum sentence she faced He had only recently started a small printwould be extended to 20 years from 15 ing business with financial backing from a years, according to prosecutors. college friend, and was working seven days The incident has stunned New York City, a week to make it a success. not the least because it is the second episode “I didn’t know anything about the busiin a month of someone being shoved in the ness,” his friend and business partner Sanpath of an oncoming train in a subway sys- jeeb Das said about Sen, who was single. tem that is more than 100 years old. Even in “He knew everything . We were close like the troubled days after 9/11 such hate crimes brothers,” said Das, who shared a placed were rare in NYC. with Sen from 1998 to 2005 before moving And ironically, the woman who harboured out to get married.
Announcement INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
COMMUNITY
January 04, 2013
Indo-Americans Welcome Hindi in Texas School District
BY SURI SWAMY CHICAGO: Indian Americans in Texas and across USA have expressed joy and happiness that a school in Texas has announced plans to introduce teaching of Hindi language in its curriculum and they hope that this serves as a model example for many other schools in the country to follow. Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District (HEBISD) headquartered in Bedford (Texas, USA) is introducing Hindi, official language of India, for its students. Seventh, eighth and ninth
besides learning the rich languages and culture of India, it would also make a good business sense to open-up the American children to India which is on a track to become a global power. Moreover, USA being a culturally diverse society, introducing languages of India would bring more cohesiveness and harmony in the communities. In addition, American children of India-descent would be able to keep their languages, traditions and culture alive and intact, Rajan added. Congratulatiing the HEBISD
graders will be in a position to take Hindi classes. These courses are part of the district’s International Business Initiative, which will set students on a course to success in college and in the workforce, HEBISD states. Welcoming the news, Nand Kapoor, a former president of Association of Indian Americans, said that the next step should be to offer other languages of India - languages like Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, etc.,- to the aspiring students as that would improve the understanding to multi cultural and multi-linguist Indian society to the bastion of Western world. Rajan Zed, the Chairperson of Indo-American Leadership Confederation, commended HEBISD for offering Hindi and observed
school management on its bold move, to take this step of introducing the Indian national in the school curriculum, Gurbachan Kaur Neelam, president of newly set up Hindi Lovers Club in Chicago, observed that “this could be just the beginning. Once students and parents will see the advantages of knowing Hindi In abroad and India, other schools in different States will introduce Hindi in their schools. It’s really a proud moment of all of us at Hindi Lovers Club of Illinois.” Sudakash Kapor, a front ranking member of Hindi Lovers Club, said that language is the soul of one’s cultural identity and sometimes it is sad that many in India are rushing to get their children learn English at the expense of Hini or other Indian language. “The report that a School in Texas has taken initia-
tive to teach Hindi to its students should be n eye opener for many not only in this country but also in India,” she said. “Today, China and India are powerful players in the global economy…Students in HEB ISD can get the competitive advantage by enrolling in Hindi or Mandarin Chinese classes”, district website states and lists Hindi among languages “essential to success in a global marketplace”. Hindustani is reportedly the fourth highly spoken language in the world after Chinese, Spanish and English and has more speakers than Arabic, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, German, French, Italian, Dutch, etc. HEBISD, a K-12 public school district founded in 1958, has about 21 thousand students in its 26 schools spread in seven cities. It has sister schools in China and India, its pupils reportedly speak 72 languages, and about 51% of its students are economically disadvantaged. Faye Beaulieu and Ellen Jones are President and Vice President respectively of HEBISD Board of Trustees while Dr. Gene Buinger is the Superintendent.
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Indian Scientist Missing in US: Says Mother
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HYDERABAD (TOI): A woman in Andhra Pradesh has written to the ministry of external affairs for help in tracing her scientist son in the US who has not contacted her for nine years. Orre Ramaswamy from Karimnagar district in Andhra Pradesh had gone to the US about 30 years ago. His mother Mallavya has written to the ministry of external affairs. According to Mallavya, her son has not contacted her for the last nine years. The old woman also said that unable to bear the shock, her husband Rajaiah died a couple of years ago.
Hailing from Morapalli village of Jagityal ‘mandal’ (block), Ramaswamy visited his native village only thrice in three decades. During his last visit, Ramaswamy had reportedly shown the photograph of a woman from Chennai to his mother, stating that he was in love with her and was going to marry. After doing his masters in science in 1971, Ramaswamy worked as scientist in various organisations at Chennai, Bangalore and Delhi. The scientist’s address in the US and other details were not available with the mother.
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"My faith is in the younger generation, the modern generation, out of them will come my workers. They will work out the whole problem, like lions."..... Swami Vivekananda
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Join us in celebrating Swami Vivekananda’s 150th Birth Anniversary Saturday, January 12, 2013
14809 Lindita Drive Houston, TX 77083
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Seminar
Youth Convention
10:30 am - 12:30 pm Many Facets of Swami Vivekananda Talks delivered by eminent Houstonians
Lunch - 12:30 -1:30 pm President: Swapna Chaudhuri For event details contact Chaya Timmaraju 832 594 5554 chayaja@yahoo.com Ayati Ghosh 713 623 1704 ayati.ghosh@gmail.com
2:30 pm - 5:30 pm Facilitator Pravrajika Sitaprana, Vedanta Society of Southern California Santa Barbara Convent
Vivekananda’s Message to the West Science and Technology in the Light of Vedanta Vivekananda’s Teachings Inspiring Today’s Youth Harmony of Religions Vivekananda's Idea of Service Role of Women in Society
Register online by January 3, 2013 to participate in the Youth Convention Click on the link provided on http:///www.houstonvedanta.org/ The Youth Convention is open to registered delegates 18+ in age interested in engaging in discussions on the above-mentioned topics REGISTER NOW INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
COMMUNITY
January 04, 2013
11
School Yoga Class Draws Religious Protest CONTINUED FROM PAGE
5
well as more conservative inland communities. On the coast, bumper stickers reading “Keep Leucadia Funky� are borne proudly. Farther inland, cars are more likely to feature the Christian fish symbol, and large evangelical congregations play an important role in shaping local philosophy. Opponents of the yoga classes have started an online petition to remove the course from the district’s curriculum. They have shown up at school board meetings to denounce the Miriam Ruiz during a yoga class at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School program, and Broyles has in Encinitas, Calif. A few dozen parents are protesting that the program threatened to sue if the amounts to religious indoctrination. board does not address their concerns. The district has stood firm. Tim is such that you believe that simply there’s content in the movement.� Russell Case, a representative of Baird, the schools superintendent, by doing the gorilla pose, you’re has defended the yoga classes as invoking the Hindu gods, then by the Jois Foundation, said the parmerely another element of a broad- all means your child can be doing ents’ fears were misguided. “They’re concerned that we’re er program designed to promote something else.� putting our God before their God,� Eady is not convinced. children’s physical and mental “Yoga poses are representative Case said. “They’re worried about well-being. The notion that yoga teachers have designs on convert- of Hindu deities and Hindu stories competition. But we’re much closing tender young minds to Hindu- about the actions and interactions er to them than they think. We’re of those deities with humans,� she good Christians that just like to do ism is incorrect, he said. “That’s why we have an opt-out said. “There’s content even in the yoga because it helps us to be betclause,� Baird said. “If your faith movement, just as with baptism ter people.�
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The Extraordinary Life and Times of Mahatma Gandhi
INDIA
Gandhi Fights British Attempt to Divide Hindus
The story thus far…Early in 1932 Gandhi wanted to meet the new Viceroy, Lord Willlingdon, but the Viceroy made it clear that the days of negotiations were over. Gandhi informed the authorities that he was again starting a civil disobedience movement. The Viceroy thought it was a threat and had Gandhi arrested and lodged in Yeravada Central Jail. Several other leaders and many followers of Gandhi were also arrested and jailed. At home Gandhi found that the Government had returned to the policy of repression. Therewere widespread arrests and the Government seized the properties and bank balances of people and organizations who were hostile to their interests. Early in 1932 Gandhi wanted to meet the new Viceroy, Lord Willingdon, but the Viceroy made it clear that the days of negotiation were over. Gandhi informed the authorities that he was again starting a civil disobedience campaign. The Viceroy thought it was a threat. He had Gandhi arrested and imprisoned in Yeravda Central Jail. Several other leaders and many of Gandhi’s followers were also arrested and sent to jail. In March the struggle entered a new phase. Gandhi had always insisted that the untouchables were a part of the Hindus and must be treated as Hindus. Now, however, it was announced that the British proposed to set up separate voting for the untouchables. That meant that untouchables could vote only for members of their own caste. Gandhi regarded the Hindu religion as one and indivisible. He saw the game the British were playing. It was an attempt to weaken Hindu society. “Separate treatment of untouchables cannot be allowed,” Gandhi declared. “Here is an attempt to make untouchability last forever. Unless untouchability is destroyed we shall never have self-government.” “But what can you do about this election law now?” asked a friend. “I can die,” was his prompt reply. “I will resist this evil provision with my life.” Gandhi announced that he would soon start a fast unto death unless the plan for separate electorates was changed. The public announcement of his intention threw the country into panic. The Indian leaders were shocked at Gandhi’s decision. Even Jawaharlal Nehru thought that Gandhi was taking a drastic step on a side issue. During the time between the announcement and the day when Gandhi’s fast was to begin, streams
of visitors arrived at Yeravada jail. The authorities, anxious to avoid any tragedy, allowed everyone to have free access to Gandhi. But all efforts to dissuade him from fasting unto death were of no avail. The die was cast. Gandhi was going to fast. Rabindranath Tagore sent a telegram: “It is worth sacrificing precious life for the sake of India’s unity and her social integrity. Our sorrowing hearts will follow your sublime penance with reverence and love.” Gandhi started his fast on September 20, 1932. The first day of the fast was observed all over India as a day of prayer and fasting. Many temples were opened to untouchables and meetings were held all over India urging them removal of untouchability. Outside the jail political activity came to a boil. Leaders of upper case Hindus and untouchables met and discussed various measures to try to arrive at a compromise that would satisfy Gandhi. Proposals and counterproposals were made
The Extraordinary Life and Times of Mahatma Gandhi is brought to you courtesy Mahatma Gandhi Library. www.gandhilibrary.org and considered. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the most powerful leader of the untouchables, met Gandhi and assured him that he would try his best to find a just solution. On the third day of the fast, Gandhi’s condition caused anxiety to all his friends. He was very weak and had to be carried to bathroom on a stretcher. His voice was feeble, his blood pressure was rising. The authorities grew panicky. They sent for Kasturba and allowed all his friends and followers to be with him in jail. On the fifth day of the fast, Hindu leaders finally reached an agreement and signed a pact that would do away with the separate electorates. Gandhi, however, would not accept the pact unless it had been ratified by the British rulers. News came that the British had approved the pact; but still Gandhi
would not break his fast until he had seen the text of the approval. The official document of the British government’s approval to the pact came and Gandhi accepted it. Gandhi was released from prison in early 1933. Shortly thereafter he suspended the mass civil disobedience movement but sanctioned individual civil resistance resistance to the government’s policy of repression. For the next seven years, Gandhi worked hard for the social and spiritual awakening of the people. Many leaders, including Nehru, did not approve of many of Gandhi’s activities. “But,” said Nehru, “how can I presume to advise a magician?” Sabarmati Ashram had been seized by the government during the salt satyagraha. So Gandhi established a little retreat at Sevagram near Wardha in Maharashtra. This became his headquarters. New reforms sponsored by the government got little support from the people. However, many people, including Congress workers, wanted to try them out as a means of furthering the Swaraj movement. In 1939, the Second World War broke out. England and France declared was on Nazi Germany. Without consulting Indian leaders, Britain declared India also to be at war on the side of the allies. Though Gandhi’s sympathies lay with the British, he believed that all violence was evil and therefore he would have nothing to do with the war effort. The Indian National Congress wanted to help Britain and fight on the side of the allies, but only as a free nation. But to grant India independence seemed ridiculous to Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his government. They had no intention of letting India go by default. Britain refused to accept the cooperation offered by the Congress. As a protest, all the Congress ministries in the provinces resigned. The government took over the administration and they too all measures that would help the was effort. Acting on the goodwill and restraint taught by Gandhi, the Indian leaders showed no reaction. However, events in Europe were having repercussions in India. The Congress Working Committee found itself unable to accept in its entirety Gandhi’s attitude to the war. In particular, they would not accept his view that the defence of India should not depend on the armed forces. Congress leaders met several times in Gandhi’s room at Sevagram and talked of their desire to start some action. Finally a proposal was put forward that all provincial governments should join with the British authorities in the defence of India, but the British rejected the offer. To be continued
INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
January 04, 2013
13
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14 January 04, 2013
Name Change
COMMUNITY
Gujarati Samaj of Houston Celebrates New Year
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HOUSTON: On December 31, Gujarati Samaj of Houston (GSH) had their New Year Eve party at Brenda’s Reception Hall on Beechnut. More than 200 people attended this New Year Dhamaka celebration, which had from 1 year old to Senior citizens dancing to the live band from India named Music Masti. This year’s ticket price was only $35 that included dinner, live music including liquor and soft drinks.”We always keep the prices low, so that everyone can afford to attend and enjoy the event”, said GSH President Nisha Mirani. People started to arrive at around 8pm and were greeted at the door by GSH committee members and ushered in the hall. The appetizers, fresh chat and chicken tikka made by Standard Sweets were served. The program started with Nisha Mirani welcoming the guests. Then the performers of Music Masti took in charge of the stage and entertained the audience with foot tapping msic. Hot and delicious Dinner prepared by Standard Sweets Restaurant was served with hot Nan being made at the premises. As the midnight was approaching, everyone was on the dance floor, party favors were given to each attendees and chilled champagne was ready to welcome the year 2013. At stroke of midnight everyone on the dance floor greeted the year
2013 with the best wishes and hugs and kisses to each other. This event was a team work of GSH committee members that include Ajit Patel, Sapna Shah, Sanjay Chauhan, Niketan Pandya, Amrish Patel, Kalpesh Rana, Bharat Thakkar, Pares Patel and Rakesh Shah. The liquor was provided at no cost by Karnik Vyas of Hearts Liquor. For complements or complaints, email mirani21@yahoo.com
INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
OPINION
January 04, 2013
What’s Wrong with Indian Men?
BY KALPANA SHARMA NEW DELHI (The Hindu) Another horror; another rape. This time in a moving bus; at a time of the night when people are still on the roads in Delhi; in a populated area and not some remote jungle. Each time you read news like that of the bestial gang rape of a 23-year-old para-medical student in Delhi, your senses are numbed. What is happening to us? What is this brutality we witness all so frequently now? Can it ever stop? I doubt if we will find a satisfactory answer in the short run. But it is a question that more people need to talk about and debate and not be satisfied with the clichés, the usual solutions or even some unusual ones. I spent last weekend in my old school, a place where I had five happy years before completing my schooling. It is an all-girls residential school with a substantial proportion of day students. Our memories of our school days, when some of us met again after many decades, were those of the fun times, the carefree years, of a place where we felt safe and were not inhibited from expressing our views. Of course, the very fact of a compulsory school uniform imposed a level of conformism but even within that girls found ways to assert individual personalities — a tuck here, a stitch there. And hair always remained the ultimate expression of rebelliousness — refusing to be neat was the preferred statement of individualism. All these years later, the girls in that school still wear the same school uniform but they have changed, as has the world
around them. They exude the same confidence some of us did. I want to be a Cordon Bleu chef, one girl told me. Another said she wants to be a lawyer — but with the army. Another became really excited when I mentioned I was a journalist. Clearly, for these girls no career is out of reach. Yet, reading about the Delhi incident, I thought about these young women who are on the verge of stepping out into another world, away from the relatively safe environment of an all-girls school. With modern communication and social networking, they are not as secluded as perhaps we were in our days when even contact with the boys in the school across the boundary wall was frowned upon. Today, girls have Facebook friends and are daring enough to meet them even if all they know about them is what these young men choose to put on their “profile”. I am told that often it is girls from
the most conservative homes who take such bold chances and end up in all kinds of trouble. Yet, whether it was our generation jumping the boundary wall to meet boys or this lot setting up meetings through social networking sites, the compulsions are the same. But is the world a more dangerous place today for young women than it was in our days? If so, how does one prepare them for it? The predictable formula is to urge them always to be vigilant, to be careful, not to take unnecessary chances. Against the background of the recent spate of sexual crimes against women in Mumbai, the Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) in Mumbai, Himanshu Roy, had this to say: “The most obvious method of preventing such crimes is that women should be aware of their environment. This does not mean that they should be suspicious of all their male relatives, friends or colleagues, but it would be wrong to assume that none of these will ever harm them.” In effect, he was suggesting that the onus of preventing the crimes is really on women. Roy needs to be reminded that the job of the police and law enforcement is not to tell women what they should do, but to do their own job more effectively.
15
At the same time, many believe the problem will be tackled if the government, law enforcement and society at large figure out how to “protect” these girls from violence. The courts have suggested more policing, asking for plainclothes women police in malls, cinema halls and public places, with closed circuit cameras. But are women safer in a police state? Can we really “protect” women in a society where they can experience the worst forms of sexual violence inside their homes? Furthermore, even if there are men who genuinely try and “protect” women and intervene, they do not succeed. In the Delhi incident, the girl’s male companion was mercilessly beaten and thrown out of the bus. In Mumbai, men who tried to intervene were murdered. So who will “protect” the protectors? A male reader of these columns suggested that we should not focus exclusively on women and instead we needed to make more of an effort to understand men and what drives them to such violence. Without justifying the violence, he felt it was a combination of repression and suppression that drove Indian men to such levels of violence. He might have a point. We have not looked at Indian men, at what is happening to them, what is turning some of them into people who would be better off caged. These are troubling questions. There are no easy answers. We can begin by debating and discussing this issue much more than we do, in our schools and colleges, in the columns of our newspapers, and in our families.
INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
16 January 04, 2013
INDIA
R-word has now become staple diet of Indian media
Mass Grief Grips India as Delhi Gang Rape Victim Dies
BY RAJ KANWAR IAN INDIA CORRESPONDENT “What is a rape, Mummy?”, a 6-year old girl asks of her mother. What reply would you give if you were the mother or grandmother? I kept on pondering on this dilemma. What reply would I give if my granddaughter were to ask me such a blunt question? Unfortunately, the R-word has today become a staple diet of newspapers and news channels in India. Unhappily, the ‘balatkar’ is now one of the most discussed about and commented upon topics. On the ticker tape of a reputed Hindi news channel on Tuesday, five out of 10 top headlines related to rape. In my long and somewhat chequered 60-year plus career as a journalist, with a 30-year hiatus as businessman, I had never even once covered a rape occurrence. To tell the truth, I don’t remember if the incidents of rapes used to occur in those early days. If at all there were some, those were hardly ever covered in newspapers, and even perhaps the unfortunate victims even did not lodge a police report, possibly due to the stigma that it would bring. I won’t sit on judgement if that was a good or bad thing. The sum and substance, however, is that the R-word, if at all then known, was unmentionable like the F-word. For all of us in India, it has been soulsearching and emotionally surcharged of a fortnight following the gang rape on 16 December in New Delhi of a 23-year old woman. She was not only brutally raped but also mercilessly beaten up by half a dozen ‘hoodlums’ in a moving bus; her malecompanion too was severely assaulted when he had courageously protested against the
Indian protesters hold banners and wear black ribbons during a rally following the cremation of a gangraped victim.
criminal high-handedness of the gang. The two were then thrown out of a running bus on that cold wintry night, left to die. For the following 10 days this nameless and faceless young woman bravely wrestled against a looming death, first in the Safdarjung Hospital and later in Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth Hospital; but despite the best medical attention and treatment by some of the reputed doctors in India and Singapore, she lost the battle of life. For her hapless and helpless parents, it had been an agonizing fortnight; their trauma and suffering were very heart-wrenching. All this tragedy was too much for the mother who had, in fact, put all of her hopes and expectations in her young and brilliant daughter; the wailing mother collapsed and fell unconscious on Saturday more than once and had had to be shifted to a hospital in Delhi from where she was discharged later that evening. What adds more pathos to this tragedy is the fact that her brave daughter had almost graduated in physiotherapy from a Dehra Dun institute and had even secured a job in Delhi. She had
even planned to marry the young man who was her brave companion on the bus on that fateful night. What really surprised the few onlookers was the unexpected presence of Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh with his entourage and UPA’s chairperson Sonia Gandhi at that unearthly hour at Indira Gandhi International Airport when the chartered aircraft carrying her mortal remains from Singapore landed at 3.30 am. The whole scene looked bizarre, to say the least. The UPA top leaders were mistaken if they had thought that their mere presence at the airport would earn them some brownie points. On the contrary, their so-called gesture of support and sympathy to the bereaved family was too little too late. Her cremation in Dwarka, a Delhi neighborhood, was a hush-hush affair. The administration unnecessarily panicked and wanted to cremate the woman even before the sun rose. Her relatives protested saying that cremation should not take place before sun rise. Eventually, the pyre was lit by her father at 7.30 a.m. A large number of policemen and members of the Rapid Action Force in antiriot gear guarded the area and kept a close vigil. No outsiders and private individuals were allowed in. The entire cremation rituals were watched by the parents, relatives and some close friends of the deceased besides of course Delhi chief minister, Sheila Dixit, minister of state for home RPN Singh and surprisingly by the president of BJP’s Delhi state unit. Many touching and emotional scenes were witnessed at the New Delhi’s historic Jantar Mantar monument on Saturday. The daynight non-stop long vigil with lit candles by
thousands of young and not so young men and women on that cold December night was symbolic of their protest; they prayed for the young woman who was fighting a losing battle in the famed Singapore Hospital. The images of that vigil on news channels appeared somewhat skewed; police barricades were turned into makeshift beds. There was a hushed silence when the news of the death of the rape victim came in those early hours of Sunday. The mass of protestors turned into devout mourners; black bands covered their mouths in silence grief. Strangely, the collective silence of that mass of spontaneous gathering sounded so very deafening. The images on the news channels of those grief stricken mourners at Jantar Mantar looked really weird. The mass anger amply manifested at the Jantar Mantar and elsewhere could not have been generated by that isolated tragic gang rape on that fateful night of 16 December. Rape is a recurring crime in most parts of India and thousands of trials of their perpetrators have been going on in Indian courts at snail pace, with most of the accused either getting acquitted or getting away cheaply. All this shows that the laws against rape are not so deterrent. Then why such massive protests against this particular incident? Perhaps, this tsunami of helpless rage and anger was the cumulative effect of and outpourings against the callous and effeminate attitude of the successive governments at the Centre and in the states. This grotesque incident on the night of 16 December was perhaps like the last straw that broke the camel’s back and led to unprecedented mass rage and spontaneous protests.
INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
COMMUNITY
January 04, 2013
‘This is America Now’: Aasif Mandvi
BY JESSE MCKINLEY AnyonewhohasseenAyadAkhtar’s drama “Disgraced,” at the Claire Tow Theater at Lincoln Center knows the Big Scene: an explosive dinner party featuring a rainbow of character types — a Muslim, a white woman, a Jewish man, his African-American wife — whose verbal combat can make even starving audience members lose their appetite. At the center of the action is Aasif Mandvi as Amir, a successful Pakistani-American lawyer whose ethnic background has suddenly caused problems at work. Mandvi — the 46-year-old actor, writer and comedic correspondent on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” — has earned fine reviews for his performance, which comes 14 years after he made a splash in “Sakina’s Restaurant,” a one-man show that won him an Obie award. Like Amir, Mandvi — who was born in Mumbai and raised in England — is a Muslim, though he says that similarities between him and his character basically end there. (“I’m not a lawyer in a Jewish law firm,” he said.) Mandvi discussed the reactions his charged performance elicits, his own feelings about America’s understanding of Islam, and the compromises that sometimes come with being “a brown actor.” These are excerpts from the conversation. What’s it like to stand on stage during the dinner party scene? Do you hear people gasp? What I love about the play is its bravery. I haven’t seen a play take on these issues, with such muscularity, and what’s wonderful about it is that you start the show some nights, and it’s like a Neil Simon play. People are just waiting to laugh. But by the time the play gets to the meat of it, you kind of always end up in the same place, with this kind of uncomfortableness, because the audience is not ever allowed to settle into a comfortable place where they understand who the good people are and who the bad people are, who they agree with and who they don’t agree with. They constantly are forced to shift those alliances. Have you ever been to a dinner party like that? Thank God, I have not. Do you ever get angry reactions from audience members? What I found mostly is that people’s reactions tell them more about themselves than it does about the play. I mean, I had a Muslim friend say to me one time that the Jewish character on stage was the only one telling the truth. And I had a Jewish friend say to me that the Muslim character on stage was the only one telling the truth. And I had a friend of mine, a producer from “The Daily Show,” a Jewish guy, come to me and say, I identify with your character in the play and his tribal identity because I have that same reaction when I walk around New York at Christmastime as a Jew. Why did you decide to do the play?
know what a Muslim was. I made a joke actually in “Sakina’s Restaurant” that one of the characters confuses Muslim with muslin and thinks that a Muslim is a type of cloth. That has changed — I’m not saying that Americans are any more educated about Islam. I think they are equally as ignorant, but they are definitely more aware of the Muslim world and the belief and the geopolitics of that part of the world in relation to America. How similar are you and Amir, your character? He comes from a much more traditional fundamental conservative family than I or even Ayad Ahktar does. But I do identify with the disassociation from one’s culture. How so? It’s not that I cover up cultural identity, but it is true that I avoid conversations about Israel and Palestine, you know? And there is a Aasif Mandvi stars as Amir in sense of, like every South “Disgraced” by Ayad Akhtar, at the Asian immigrant actor can tell Claire Tow Theater. you, that on some level in the Photo: Sara Krulwich course of my career you have I got this script two years ago — compromised the integrity of your Ayad sent it to me, and he said, “Look, ethnicity in some way to get ahead. I I’ve written this play and I want you have put on the accent and nodded my to read it and tell me what you think.” head side to side and played a stupid He partly sent it to me because he cabdriver or deli owner or something. was interested in me doing the role I think that Amir — in a different life, and I think he partly sent it to me as a in a different career — has kind of fellow Muslim-American and some- played along with the game, too. body who understood the character of Do you think your success — and Amir in a way that other people might the play — will lead to other Muslimnot. When I read it, I called him back American performers and writers and said: “This is tremendous. And getting a shot in the mainstream? really brave and really scary to put this I hope so because what’s wonderful kind of character on stage.” about this play is that it is a play about It’s also rare as — to be honest — as today. It’s a play about the conversaa brown actor in America, whether tion that people are having behind you are in Hollywood or whether you closed doors in the world today. One are in New York, it’s very rare to find a of the big things the Republicans role that has this much sophistication learned from the 2012 election is that and nuance. America is not a homogenized counWasn’t there a play called “Saki- try. It is a country of Muslims, Jews, na’s Restaurant” that had a bunch gays, blacks, Latinos, immigrants, of South Asian characters in it? whatever. This play shows that idenRight, exactly. I was going to say tity and is refreshing to see. the last time I read a role this interestIt’s a similar sort of thing that maybe ing for a brown actor I had written it “Death of a Salesman” did in the ’50s, for myself (Laughs). where it’s like: This is America now. That was 1998. What’s different And I feel like this play does that in a now? way. This is America in 2012. Back then, Americans really didn’t
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EDITORIAL
January 04, 2013
Super Shadi
Houston Indian community’s social calendar began on a lavish scale on the night of December 31 with the wedding reception for Nikita Malani and Atman Shukla. More than 1,100 of Houston’s India glitterati were there to see and be seen for the reception hosted by the bride’s parents Jugal and Raj Malani, the co-owners of Unique Industrial Product Company in Sugar Land. The guests enjoyed the great hospitality, delightful banquet food and zestful music to usher in the new year. The platinum nuptial was a shot in the arm for the local wedding industry from the hotel to the planners, caterers, florists, DJs, photographers and videographers. The Malanis are great patrons of the community and eagerly support a vast range of charitable causes, religious festivities and creative arts programs. Notable among them is India House community center. Many are endowed with wealth, but few have the generosity to share their good fortune with their community.
Women in Our Lives As we mourn the demise of the young Delhi gang rape victim, we can acknowledge the growing presence of women in all aspects of modern life from political to social and commercial. One of the last preserves of males is sports journalism. I note with pride two special journalists: Tania Ganguly is one of the sportswriters covering the Houston Texans NFL football team for The Houston Chronicle and Sharda Ugra, senior editor for ESPNCricinfo. Ugra has written a masterful analysis of the Indian cricket team during 2012 (see page 19). It is all but impossible to explain the horrific actions of the Delhi rapists. But one wonders if there is one minor factor in the social segregation of young boys and girls in the lower classes. Some misfits grow up seeing women purely as objects of desire. If the boys and girls grow up getting to know each other as real human beings, discussing school topics, sports, etc., it may make a slight difference. Another factor is group psyche. An individual will not dare embark on a anti-social or criminal course of action that he would readily join as part of a rowdy group. There is no easy solution for gang terror and the actions of deranged individuals. The Delhi gang rape has been a catalyst for community action. A case in point: GUWAHATI: A prominent Congress leader of lower Assam, who is the chief coordinator of the party in Bodoland Territorial Council area, has been accused by a woman of attempt to rape in her house at Salbari in Chirang district on Wednesday. The accused politician Bikrmasingh Brahma was the Congress candidate from Sapaguri assembly constituency in Baksa district in the 2011 assembly election which he lost. The villagers of Salbari beat up the politician before handing him over to police. Though he has not yet been arrested, but he is in police custody.
BY INDRAJIT HAZRA The horror that one human can unleash on another is sometimes impossible to gauge. The usual tools of measurement—descriptions, statistics, comparisons, reactions—fail. All one is left with is an anti-exaggeration of not only how much a human can suffer at a very individual level, but also how much a human is capable of causing incredible suffering. ‘Rape’, or ‘gang rape’ with its description of a venal ‘pack’ mindset, doesn’t come anywhere close to describing the hell that descended on the 23-year-old woman on the evening of December 16 in Delhi. The hell that descended on the victim’s male friend, who was also attacked by the six maniacs and was made to witness the brutal assault on the woman, is of a different order. But if the victim’s pain is incomprehensible to us, her friend’s emotion is somewhat more palpable. It is of helpless, rageful impotence. Since the media started covering the news, we have followed all possible narratives that have sprung out of this single source of horror - from the blame-game between the Delhi Police and the Delhi government, the death of a police constable in the clashes with the ‘anti-rape’ mob, to the victim being flown to Singapore to save her life and the ensuing debate about whether only medical reasons led to the decision. One narrative is glaring in its absence: the statutory announcement of a ‘zero tolerance’ policy on sexual crimes. The police take sexual violence as seriously as drivers across India take zebra crossings. FIRs are routinely discouraged, evidence is destroyed crippling most cases even before they go to trial, and victims are given the short-shrift at police stations - that is, if they aren’t shooed away. A 17year-old rape victim in Patiala who killed herself last week after running from pillar to post to seek justice since November, faced policemen who not only tried to dismiss her case, but also humiliated her by calling her at the police station at nights and asking her pointlessly suggestive questions. And if a victim is from below a certain socio-economic class, the police are sure to, at best, treat her complaint as a waste of time, or, at worst, humiliate
What Next?
Jaya Bachchan wipes her tears during a candle light rally to pay tribute to the Delhi gangr rape victim.
We live in a country where a ‘Vande Mataram’ mother-devotion fetish covers up a cult of misogyny. The belief that ‘the woman asked for it’ is hardwired not only in men but also in women. Mothers refuse to hear their daughters complain about any family member abusing them. Instead, the girls are taught to ‘adjust’ by shutting up as if nothing happened. her further. We live in a country where a ‘Vande Mataram’ mother-devotion fetish covers up a cult of misogyny. The belief that ‘the woman asked for it’ is hardwired not only in men but also in women. Mothers refuse to hear their daughters complain about any family member abusing them. Instead, the girls are taught to ‘adjust’ by shutting up as if nothing happened. If a woman was drinking and was out ‘late’, that becomes an ‘invitation’ for sex. If she’s wearing ‘revealing clothes’, that’s as good as consent. The truth is, far too many men and women think that ‘women ask for it’ by simply being women. So, women, not brutish torturers, ‘cause’ rape.
Last week, in another state with a woman chief minister, a theatre personality insisted that the February rape case in Kolkata shouldn’t be seen in the same light as the Delhi rape. “The girl in the Park Street case got into a car on her own accord at midnight. In Delhi, the incident took place in a public vehicle (sic) at 9.30,” she said. When did consent to travel with anyone at a late hour become a good enough reason to be raped? This is a country where the Ramayan story of Sita’s agni pariksha (fire purification test) to prove that she wasn’t ‘tainted’ teaches us to see even the perceived victim as the source of the problem. Ravan, even if he had ‘touched’ Sita, would have just been one more example of ‘boys being boys’. Sita would have ended up being a fallen woman. Sexual violence is unleashed on faceless women by faceless men regularly. We won’t ever know how most recorded cases rank in the hierarchy of horrors. The rape of a Dalit woman, or of a girl in a city slum, or of a child inside a home is, alas, a standard event in a standard clichè. But the Delhi rape (its victim could have been you or your loved one) has the power of using its visibility and the way its brutality has scared, enraged and shamed us, to force the law to take the complaint of every victim seriously. Changing the mindset of misogynistic India will take eons. And the angry mob will soon move on to something else that will disgust it. Which is why Sheila Dikshit must order a ‘zero tolerance’ policy and make an example of this case that’s sickened even this fatalistic nation. (Delhi also needs functioning street lighting, stretches of the city being covered in darkness, a preferred prop like dark screens on car windows for potential perpetrators. It also needs more public transport vehicles like autos willing to ferry stranded commuters at night.) But above all, we need law enforcers who must be charged with criminal neglect if they fail to take effective action against rapists. For, it’s only by making the scum run scared that one can clean the scum off the streets. HT
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INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
SPORTS
January 04, 2013
All Tunnel, No Light
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In 2012, India sank to nadirs long unvisited, and the future doesn’t look much better than bleak either BY SHARDA UGRA dulkar announced his “There’s something retirement from ODIs happening here. What it and gave the selectors a is ain’t exactly clear. I chance to get the team think it’s time we stop, ready for the 2015 World hey, what’s that sound ... Cup in Australia. Central Everybody look what’s to that team’s chances will going down” be the growth of Virat -- “For What It’s Kohli, whose batting proWorth”, Buffalo Springduced sustained, consisfield, 1967 tent impact for India in This is about Indian 2012. Kohli scored 1026 cricket in 2012, right? So runs from 17 ODIs in who the blizzards is Bufthe year. Of these he was falo? How many Tests central to six successful did he play? Between run-chases in 11 matches the entire band, zero. when India batted second, Their 45-year-old song, hitting three of a total of though, does talk about five 2012 centuries when the environment around batting second, at a strike the Indian team in 2012. rate above 98. The Test team’s results Given that T20 is held went dramatically southresponsible for much of wards in 2011, and defeat India’s other failings, Into England at home in dia’s current standing in 2012 was the denoueT20 internationals can, at ment no one was waiting Symptomatic of the Indian team’s performance during 2012, MS Dhoni’s unbeaten 113 best, be called weak. for. This was India’s first in sapping conditions in Chennai proved insufficient for India, as Pakistan registered a After winning the 2007 defeat in a home series in six-wicket win on Dec. 30. World Twenty20, they eight years, the first time have not qualified for the at home is “not even close” to being dia’s Test middle order is now withto England at home in 28. knocked out of the 2007 World Cup. out two of the most experienced and semi-finals in the next three editions. In the shorter game, though, India The young players coming through successful players in its history. Its Pakistan, whose players are steadat least won more than they lost. In into the Indian dressing room today most prolific and most experienced fastly held off from competing in the ODIs, the record before the series deserve both extra attention and some run scorer, Sachin Tendulkar, is in the cash-dizzy IPL, have made all four against Pakistan was nine wins, six sympathy. middle of a deep form funk. When semi-finals and two finals since 2007. defeats in 16 matches. Fourteen T20 From December 2009 to Septem- up against batsmen of calibre, India’s Sri Lanka have fought their way into internationals yielded eight wins and ber 2011, India loved being World spin-twins, Pragyan Ojha and R Ash- the last three semi-finals and played six defeats. No. 1 in Tests. They must now ac- win, who took 73 wickets in their first in two finals. In Tests, all numbers and hopes cept the ICC’s current assessment five Tests together, struggled even at Overall these are skewed T20 restood upended. Three wins, five that they are the No. 5 Test team in home against England. Zaheer Khan sults for India, regardless of weather, losses, one draw from nine Tests. the world. was sent back to first-class cricket, the fates and other international conIndia’s year began with three straight This ranking implies that India’s but his replacements are dogged by spiracies that Prop-Comm may want defeats in Australia, was followed Test cricket can safely get them past injuries. dished out as reasons. In 2012, India many months later with a 2-0 soft- West Indies and New Zealand in As an ODI team, India’s mettle out- tied three two-match T20 series, in focus victory over New Zealand, Tests at home. Send them away to side its comfort zone was tested once Australia, and against England and and ended with a 1-2 bucket of cold Sri Lanka and who knows. They in 2012, when the world champions Pakistan at home. water over the head against England haven’t won a series there since 1993. played the CB Series in Australia at In 2012, India became somewhat at home. There are only nine points between the start of the year. Winners in 2008, precious in their cricket. They asked Through half of 2011 and most Nos. 5 and 6. Were the World Test they ended up with a 3-4 result from for too much - perfect wickets, perof 2012, the Test team suffered a championships already in place with eight matches and missed out on the fect umpiring, ideal weather, dream cringe-inducing year-long denial the criteria that only the world’s top final. In the subcontinent they scored combinations, pliant opposition - and disorder. The side’s virtues were rap- four nations can contest, India as they a 4-1 series win over Sri Lanka and gave of themselves far too little. idly depleted due to a condition that stand today would not make the cut. failed in their defence of the Asia When faced with adversity, the has many euphemisms - transition, The openers’ run of partnerships Cup, winning two of three matches team’s approach had the strength and generational change, consolidation. this year is: 0, 18, 4, 24, 26, 14 (in Aus- in Bangladesh but not making the resolve of candyfloss. When the list The margins of defeat served as tralia), 49, 5, 77 (against New Zealand final. The next test of the depth and of conditions needed to win a match reminders of blunter truths - innings at home), 134, 4, 30, 47, 86 and 1 strength of the Indian ODI team will began to exceed the Indian team’s and 68, innings and 37, 298 runs, ten (against England at home.) With the come only in the 2013 Champions individual skills and its collective wickets, seven wickets. Still, captain retirements of Rahul Dravid and VVS Trophy, in England. spirit, excuse replaced reason. A review of India’s 2012 in Test Dhoni believes a Test series defeat Laxman (thank you, gentlemen), InTwo days before Christmas, Ten-
cricket sounds much like the 2011 version. Same old same old. Except, in the year ahead, there won’t be much of the old to lean back on - either for runs or wickets and/or target practice. High point A head-scratcher. When any team suffers an ear-splittingly loud bad time, it can result only in a desperate hunt for “positives”. In this case, for India it is the return of Cheteshwar Pujara: to international cricket, the playing XI, with quality and general composure on many burning decks. Three centuries in the year, two versus England, including a 24-carat 135 in Mumbai. Swann and Panesar were handled with a clear head and swift feet, and Pujara wasn’t easily sucked into a short-ball-pull-shot dismissal. Low point The 1-2 to England, and particularly the defeat in Mumbai. It was preceded by a moaning about the Ahmedabad wicket not deserving another look. A first-day jumping turner was duly produced and the toss won. But from then on, India were found flat-footed. By the England spin twins, Swann and Panesar, who picked up 17 of the 20 Indian wickets, and the deliberate tread of the England captain, Alastair Cook. Mumbai was distinctly starlit by Kevin Pietersen, who takes to the big stage like children do to Pokemon. It was the match that knocked the fight out of India. Said fight didn’t turn up until one day in dreary Nagpur. What 2013 holds The dream of a turnaround against Australia at home, if the selectors are able to give the team the shake-up it needs. The series could act as the mixing bowl needed before the right contenders are picked to head out to South Africa at the end of the year. This could be a year of momentous departures too: the ultimate winding down of Tendulkar’s international career; and another hinted at by MS Dhoni, who said he might quit “one format at the end of 2013” to take the team to the 2015 World Cup. Well, well, well. Sharda Ugra is senior editor at ESPNcricinfo.
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Where an Attaché Comes With the Room BY JESSE MCKINLEY NEW DELHI (NYT) As a certified butler from the Taj Hotels training program in New Delhi, Anupam Guha says he has waited on all manner of esteemed personages, including the former British prime minister Tony Blair (“a dignified man, ” he said, “with a very soft human heart”) and Aga Khan IV (a fan of sweets, to whom Guha served sugarcoated strawberries). Of late, however, Guha has brought his remarkably servile skill set to the United States, as part of a new “royal attaché service” at the Pierre hotel on Fifth Avenue. The service, started in July, promises guests at the hotel’s 11 Grand Suites, which can run anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 a night, almost unlimited access to Guha and two other immaculately trained Indian associates, all of whom sport white gloves, perfect posture and clipped colonial accents. “The main thing in our job is not to simply deliver something but how attractively we can deliver it,” Guha said. “It’s all about royalty.” The regal treatment includes alleviating minor annoyances and prepping little perks — unpacking bags, fixing a shoelace, delivering a smoothie — as well as providing more refined pleasures like a royal bath: precisely heated, expertly drawn, and filled with things like Pink Pepperpod bath gel and Celestial Maracuja Sugar Polish. (Note: the attachés prepare the bath but do not provide the scrubbing.) As the eldest of the three-man team, Guha. 29, said, he is fluent in 22 subjects related to five-star doting, which include in-room dining, knowledge of international customs and, of course, complaint handling. His skills also extend to fixing the remote, getting spots off the carpet and something called “power dressing.” Guha says that his primary role, however, is to act as a super-efficient liaison between the guest and the hotel staff — part fixer, part personal assistant, and all yes-man. “I would never consider a request to be bizarre; we always say it’s challenging,” Guha said. “I have always been taught that guest is god, and god cannot have a bizarre request.” It’s a job that also includes being a “friend away from friends” for travelers, Guha said, albeit a friend who keeps an intricate in-house dossier on
Butlers are now part of the Pierre’s luxury suites. From left, Anupam Guha, Sujoy Choudhury and Rishabh Jain. Photo: Librado Romero
everything from what kind of mattress you like to how you take your coffee. Indeed, part of the advertised appeal of the attachés is that “even unspoken wishes are intuited,” something Guha said is accomplished by keen observation of the guests’ likes and dislikes. “The royal attaché is not the person who is doing the thing but is maintaining the profile of the guest,” he said. “We are multiskilled persons: detectives, doctors, engineers, you can call us anything. And we can be anything.” And sure enough, it seems being a good butler can resemble being a really nice college roommate, right down to making late-night pizza runs — “Absolutely I would,” Guha said — as well as listening, discreetly, to worldly woes. “If someone wants to share anything with you, his or her experiences with you, you should be a wall which doesn’t allow other people to hear it,” Guha said. “Once the royal attaché steps outside the suite, he is like a clean blackboard.” And if there are tears, he said, he is ready with a hankie. “And if the handkerchief is too small,” he joked, “I can even open up my jacket. That’s why I have multiple uniforms.” Such elegant obsequiousness is a staple of butler training in India, where the Pierre’s parent company —
Taj Hotels, Resorts and Palaces — is based, and where Guha, who hails from the eastern city of Jamshedpur, trained. Last year, he and his two fellow attachés, Rishabh Jain, 22, and Sujoy Choudhury, 24, were selected to come to the United States from a pool of thousands of other candidates, and spent six months training for their New York debut. Since arriving, they’ve been much in demand at the hotel, but have found some time for outside activities. Jain, for example, has gone sky diving and is learning keyboard and Spanish. Choudhury, his roommate, has taken up playing pool on a downtown team.And Guha visited Niagara Falls, though he admits to missing his wife of four years, who is still living in India. But appropriately enough, he seems to keep a stiff upper lip. Asked what he would request if he were to stay in a Grand Suite, Guha seemed bemused. “I am the person who delivers,” Guha said with a laugh. “I am not the person who wishes. I have never thought on that: Who would be asking me on my wish?” Well, just what if? “My personal preferences are very minimal,” he said. “You can give me hard mattress or soft mattress at the end of the day. I am tired, and I should be sleeping.”
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PUZZLES/RECIPES
January 04, 2013
Mama’s Punjabi Recipes
KARELA KI SABZI (BITTERMELON DISHES) Here is a vegetable that originated in India and was carried into China in the 14th century. Karela (bittermelon or also bitter gourd) is found and cooked everywhere in India and there are many recipes for it. It is known to have many medicinal uses like treating stomach complaints to preventing malaria and fighting cancer due to the antioxidants in the vegetable. One of the chief benefits to eating karela is that it can help to lower blood sugar and therefore help in fighting diabetes. It can also help those who want to lose weight. Karela can be cooked many ways in the Punjab, each depending on the amount of time you want to spend and also the amount of bitterness that is to your taste. The recipes I usually make are for bharre karela (stuffed karela); karela chips; karela ki bhurji (scrambled karela) and rasbeena karela. BHARRE KARELA (STUFFED KARELA) with or without salt Ingredients: • Fresh karela. Choose the green ones, not too yellow; not too fat either • In a cup mix the following to taste: • namak (salt), mirch (red pepper), haldi (turmeric), amchoor (mango powder) and sukha dhania powder (dried coriander seed powder) • Two table spoons of vegetable or olive oil • Half cup of plain dahi (yogurt) • Two table spoons of water • Several small peeled onions
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onion, peeled and sliced instead of the small onions. For those on salt restricted diets, the amchoor and dahi can substitute for the salt flavor. Directions: • Wash the karela well then dry lightly. • Peel the karela and keep the peels aside as we will use them for the karela ki bhurji recipe (see next week). • Rinse the peeled karela and then make a deep slit lengthwise down the middle, but do not cut all the way through. • Pry the karela open and with a small teaspoon, stuff the masala mixture in the slit. A folk recipe is to tie the karelas with a short string to keep the masala in. Another variation is to brown the karelas first without the masala, then slit then and fill them with the masala. • Slit the onions crosswise and also stuff with the masala mixture. • Heat the oil in a karahi (wok) and place the stuffed karelas in. Brown one side then the other, careful not to spill the masala. Now remove the string if you had used it. • Pour in the yogurt and the water, stir and cover the wok for ten minutes.
• When the water has dried but there is still some yogurt left, add the onions, stir and cover again for 5 minutes. A variation is to brown the onions first then place the karelas on top of the onions and then cover the wok until everything is tender. • For best results, the karelas should be a little crispy on the outside, but be careful not to burn them. Enjoy with roti and some plain yogurt. Next week: the three remaining karela dishes!
Send us the correct answer before January 2 to claim the offer above at Roots Bistro & Juice (for first four correct entries). Email us at indoamericannews@yahoo.com or mail to 7457 Harwin Drive, Suite 262, Houston, TX 77036. Solution Next Week
Shakuntla Malhotra is a skilled cook of Punjabi dishes made in the old-fashioned style that she learnt as a young woman in her ancestral home in Lyallpur, India before it became part of Pakistan after the Partition. People have often admired her cooking for its simplicity and taste that comes with each mouthful. Even in her mid-eighties, she continues to cook daily and agreed to share some of her delectable recipes.
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The Northen Railway train on a trial run, approaches Banihal station from Qazigund
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SRINAGAR (Outlook India): Northern Railways today made history as the first train chugged through India’s longest railway tunnel through the Pir Panjal mountain range, connecting Kashmir Valley to Banihal town on Srinagar-Jammu National highway. The train on a trial run, arrived at Banihal station from Qazigund in Anantnag district of Kashmir, was witnessed by hundreds of local residents of this highway town. The train chugged in at the station amidst thunderous applause from the people, who had assembled here to witness the historic achievement of Indian railways. The trial run was scheduled to be conducted yesterday but had to be postponed following protests by residents of villages falling along Qazigund-Banihal railway link, who were demanding a one-minute halt station for the train at Hillad village. The protesters, backed by a local politician, tried to block the track today again but were persuaded by the civil administration officials to allow the train to pass. AP Mishra, member of the Railway Board, said the train services between Banihal and Kashmir Valley will start
in February or March next year while the entire railway project connecting the Valley with the rest of the country will be completed by 2017. While the Baramulla-SrinagarQazigund link is functional for the past four years, this was the first time that a train has crossed the mighty Pir Panjal Mountain range. The highlight of the QazigundBanihal link is the 11.21 km tunnel – the longest railway tunnel in India, which has reduced the distance between the two towns by 50 per cent. The tunnel, which was constructed by Hindustan Construction Corporation, will reduce the travel distance between Qazigund and Banihal from
35 km (by road) to just 17.5 km. The Pir Panjal tunnel, which is the second longest in Asia, is a vital link in the Railway dream project of connecting Kashmir to Udhampur in Jammu region. The tunnel is 8.40 metres wide with a height of 7.39 metres. There is a provision of a three metre wide road along the length of the tunnel for the purpose of maintenance and emergency relief. The rail link will provide an alternative link between Kashmir and rest of the country as Srinagar-Jammu National Highway gets blocked regularly due to heavy snowfall during winter months.
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An Idea Promised the Sky, but India is Still Waiting BY PAMPOSH RAINA, IAN AUSTEN & HEATHER TIMMONS NEW DELHI (NYT): The idea was, and still is, captivating: in 2011, the Indian government and two Indian-born tech entrepreneurs unveiled a $50 tablet computer, to be built in India with Google’s free Android software. The government would buy the computers by the millions and give them to its schoolchildren. Enthusiasts saw the plan as a way to bring modern touch-screen computing to some of the world’s poorest people while seeding a technology manufacturing industry in India. Legions of customers placed advance orders for a commercial version of the tablet, thrilled at the prospect of owning tangible proof that India was a leader in “frugal innovation.” Even the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, lavished praise on the audacious project, called Aakash, the Hindi word for sky. “India is a superpower on the information superhighway,” Mr. Ban said at a ceremony in November at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Stoking expectations was Suneet Singh Tuli, the charismatic C.E.O. of the small London-based company that won the bid. “I am creating a product at a lower price than anyone else in the world with the hope that it impacts people’s lives and I make money out of it,” he said in a recent interview. But over the last few months, it has become increasingly evident that Mr. Tuli, 44, and his older brother, Raja Singh Tuli, 46, are unable to deliver on most of their ambitious promises. The Tulis acknowledge that their company, DataWind, will not even come close to shipping the 100,000 tablets it has promised to India’s colleges and universities before its yearend deadline. Most of the 10,000 or so tablets delivered through early De-
A prototype tablet is assembled at a DataWind site in Montreal. The company’s plan to invigorate India’s electronics manufacturing by producing low-cost tablets for students has gone awry. Photo: Christinne Muschi
cember were made in China, despite the company’s early pledge to manufacture in India. Financial statements filed with British regulators show that the company is deeply in the red. And the project’s entire premise — that India can make a cheap tablet computer that will somehow make up for failures of the country’s crippled education system — is fundamentally flawed, according to some experts in education and manufacturing. Leigh L. Linden, an assistant professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin who has studied the use of technology in schools in India and other developing countries, said that, at best, computers merely match the performance gains from far less costly projects that involve hiring additional teachers or teaching assistants. “Based on the available research,” he said, “this would not be the most effective strategy for education in developing countries.” The notion that India’s weak manufacturing sector can catch up to China in advanced computer hardware also strikes some experts as far-fetched. “China became the manufacturing center of the world, and India missed that boat,” said Surjit S. Bhalla, an
economist and managing director of Oxus Investments. So far, the Indian government is standing firmly behind the project. “All pathbreaking ideas do look too ambitious when conceived,” the Ministry of Human Resource Development, which oversees the Aakash project, said in an e-mailed statement. Aakash is “an all-encompassing project,” not just the creation of a tablet computer, the ministry said. With it, the government plans to create “an entire manufacturing ecosystem” in India. Interviews with DataWind executives, government officials, Chinese manufacturers, business partners and former and current employees paint a picture of a small family company that was overwhelmed by a complex project that even China’s cutthroat technology manufacturers would find challenging to execute at the price expected by the government. Leading a tour last month of the company’s small touch-screen factory in downtown Montreal, Raja Tuli, DataWind’s co-chairman and chief technology officer, said he had initially opposed his brother’s desire to bid on the Aakash contract, and he expressed lingering regrets.
“We got stuck in it,” he said. “We’re doing our best.” DataWind’s real goal, Mr. Tuli said, is to sell low-cost wireless Internet access for tablets in developing countries like India. He said DataWind’s proprietary data compression technology, which made its debut in Britain years ago with a device called the PocketSurfer, efficiently delivers Web pages over older, slower cellphone networks. “Our biggest contribution is our software,” Mr. Tuli said. “The fact that we’re making the actual hardware is a sideline that we got into in the process. We never meant to do it, but here we are.” For India’s government, theAakash project was supposed to usher in a computer revolution. Although India pioneered the information technology outsourcing business, and still does much of the computing work for many big companies, only a small portion of the population has access to computers or the Internet. Others had tried to bring cheap computing to developing countries like India — most notably the One Laptop Per Child project. Founded by Nicholas Negroponte of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and backed by a host of Western technology companies, that effort aimed to bring $100 laptops to children around the world but faltered amid a host of technical, manufacturing and competitive challenges. “This is our answer to M.I.T.’s $100 computer,” said Kapil Sibal, the minister of communications and information technology, when he announced the Aakash project in 2010. Suneet Tuli, whose family emigrated from India to Canada when he was a boy, certainly bought into that vision. Just as the huge drop in the price of mobile calling prompted a communications revolution in India, a cheap tablet could transform India’s
classrooms and eventually all of the country’s poor, he said in an interview in October 2011. In India, “there are one billion people left out,” he said, “and the way to include them is lower the price.” But DataWind was in over its head from the start. The government’s specifications were challenging, and none of India’s information technology giants, like HCL or Wipro, competed for the contract. DataWind made the lowest bid, promising to supply the tablets for 2,276 rupees, including delivery — about $50 at exchange rates at the time, and about $40 now. In a recent interview, Suneet Tuli said DataWind figured that it could cut costs by improving on standard industry designs and by making touch screens itself, in Canada, at a lower price than it could buy them in China. In a fateful decision, Tuli also promised to build the tablet in India, even though the country’s manufacturers had no real experience in building such hardware. While not required by the government, the pledge added to the patriotic fervor surrounding the project and generated publicity for DataWind’s plan to sell more expensive commercial tablets and $2-a-month wireless Internet service to the public. During the November interview in Montreal, however, Raja Tuli described the difficulties of manufacturing in India, citing issues like prolonged border delays and poor infrastructure. “Listen, it’s obviously easier in China just because the whole infrastructure is set up, capital is so much cheaper,” he said. “In India, it can be done but the process is longer.” “We’re not going to give up because of these little issues,” he said. “We’re committed to it. Always in life, it’s tougher than you think it was going to be.”
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January 04, 2013
Reinvent and be Aggressive, Ratan Tata Tells Group
In a letter on his 75th birthday, Ratan Tata had some words of warning and advice to his successor and employees AVEEK DATTA MUMBAI (Mint): Ratan Naval Tata bid farewell on Friday to the Tata group with some words of warning, advice and encouragement to his successor Cyrus P. Mistry and the 456,000 employees of the conglomerate he helmed for 21 years. “There will be great pressure on Tata Group companies to reinvent themselves in terms of business processes and to dramatically reduce costs, to be more aggressive in the market place and to widen our product range to better address consumer needs,” Tata wrote in a farewell letter to employees on his 75th birthday. In the letter, a copy of which was reviewed by Mint, he warned that the current difficult economic environment was likely to stretch into the new year, and constraints in consumer demand, over-capacity and increased competition from imports would continue to test the group companies. But Tata ended the letter on an upbeat note. “This seemingly gloomy picture however will be a passing phase,” he wrote. “I feel confident that the robust growth that India has shown over the past several years will be re-established and the strong fundamentals in the country will result in
An emotional Ratan Tata recounted the “amazing spirit” and “dedication” of the people who, under his leadership, helped the Tata group achieve revenue in excess of $100 billion (the first Indian conglomerate to do so; around `5.5 trillion today), an increase of 20 times in as many years. Photo: Mint
India once again taking its place as one of the economic success stories of the region.” “The Tata Group will undoubtedly play an important role in the continued development of our country, providing leadership in various industrial segments in which they operate and living by the value systems and ethical standards on which our Group was founded,” he wrote. An emotional Tata recounted the “amazing spirit” and “dedication” of the people who, under his leadership, helped the Tata group achieve reve-
nue in excess of $100 billion (the first Indian conglomerate to do so; around Rs.5.5 trillion today), an increase of 20 times in as many years. Tata thanked employees for “the enormous support and faith reposed” in him, even as the group faced crises such as “adverse market conditions, natural calamities like earthquakes and tsunamis and gruesome acts of terrorism”. The last was a reference to the November 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai by gunmen who targeted the Taj hotel run by the group, among
other city landmarks. While terrorists opened gunfire at guests and bombed sections of the hotel, some of its employees helped guests escape at the cost of their own lives and those of their family members. “The memories of personal sacrifices, loyalty and individual acts of heroism will always remain in my memory, to reinforce the great sense of pride I have in having been a member of this team,” Tata said. Tata’s letter spoke of the present challenges facing the Tata group, some of which may not have been completely addressed during his time at Bombay House, the group’s headquarters. “We will also need to contain our borrowings and work hard to retain our margins,” Tata said. While the group has grown over the years through the acquisition route, snapping up large companies outside of India, its debt pile has also grown. It has debt of $26 billion (around Rs.1.4 trillion today). On the other hand, the 20 listed group companies have a combined net worth of Rs.1.43 trillion, and cash and cash equivalents of Rs.36,289.38 crore. Tata requested employees to extend to his successor, the 44-year-old Mistry, the same support, commitment and understanding he received from
them during his tenure. He signed off the letter: “Yours sincerely, Ratan N Tata, Chairman, Tata Sons.” Tata stayed away from the limelight on Friday, his last day in office, even though there was a large media presence outside Bombay House on expectations that he may arrive there. For Tata, it’s a ritual to be in Pune every year on his birthday and spend the year-end there. Through a Twitter post late evening on Friday, Tata let the world know that he was spending the day with his shop floor colleagues at Tata Motors Ltd’s manufacturing facilities in Pune “to say farewell” to them. Tata Motors is a company very close to Tata’s heart. One of the largest innovations that Tata was involved with during his stint at the group was the Nano, the world’s cheapest car, developed for the mass market. One of the group’s more successful acquisitions in recent times has been the British car maker Jaguar Land Rover, which is a part of Tata Motors. “We have been together in good times and bad and have gained a closeness based on mutual trust,” Tata said about Tata Motors’ employees on Twitter. “Going through the plants and receiving greetings from so many colleagues is a great emotional experience.”
State Bank Launches Pre-paid Mobile Wallet MUMBAI (The Hindu) State Bank of India (SBI) has launched State Bank MobiCash Easy, a mobile wallet which offers facilities such as fund transfer, bill payment, balance inquiry, mini statement, mobile top-ups and DTH recharge to name a few. It is a pre-paid account accessible over mobile phones, enabling consumers to send remittances to any bank account, transfer funds to other wallets issued by SBI. At present, money withdrawal is not allowed, and the customer is not required to fulfil the KYC (know your customer) norm. The service, initially launched in Mumbai and Delhi, is available over Wallet Application and plain
R. K. Saraf, Deputy Managing Director (CS&NB), State Bank of India, at a press conference in Mumbai. Photo: Shashi Ashiwal
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text SMS. SBI has tied up with a private service provider Oxigen for round-the-clock money transfer and other services. Targeted at migrant labourers who send money back home from SBI branches, the youth and those seeking to pay bills, SBI’s mobile wallet is easy to use and SBI’s customers and non-customers can use this facility. The user needs to top up the wallet by depositing cash at any Oxigen
retail outlet and this facility is completely risk-free, SBI officials said. To start with Oxygen CSPs and retail outlets will be the cash in points and the location of this point can be obtained by sending an SMS <Find*Pincode> to 9870888888. The registration process is simple, and can be done over mobile phone. “State Bank MobiCash Easy will contribute significantly in increasing mobile payments which are at pres-
ent in a nascent stage. This service will also address the requirement of financial inclusion as it enables us to extend financial services to unbanked masses through the ubiquitous mobile phones,” said RK Saraf, Deputy Managing Director, Corporate Strategy & New Businesses, SBI. SBI customers have an additional option of topping up the wallet using SBI’s mobile banking service. Till March, the charge of topping up is waived and for remittances the customer need to pay a minimum of Rs.5 to a maximum of Rs.20. Up to Rs.5,000 remittance is allowed at a time. But customers with KYC have higher limits.
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Guru Gobind Singh Ji Special
January 04, 2013
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Happy Gurpurab January 04, 2013
Celebrations of Aagman Purab of Sahib Sri Guru Gobind Singh Jee at Sikh Center of Gulf Coast Area Guru Gobind Singh Sahib was born on January 5, 1666, in Patna, Bihar, India. He was the tenth and last of the ten human form Gurus of Sikhism. He became Guru on November 24, 1675 at the age of nine, following in the footsteps of his father Guru Teg Bahadur Sahib. Before Guru Sahib left his mortal body for his heavenly abode, he nominated Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji (SGGS) as the next perpetual Guru of the Sikhs. Guru Gobind Singh Sahib molded the Sikh religion into its present shape, with the formation of the Khalsa fraternity and completion of the Guru Granth Sahib as we find it today, which some will say was his greatest act. “If we consider the work which (Guru)Gobind(Singh)accomplished, both in reforming his religion and instituting a new code of law for his followers, his personal bravery under all circumstances; his persevering endurance amidst difficulties, which would have disheartened others and overwhelmed them in inextricable
distress, and lastly his final victory over his powerful enemies by the very men who had previously forsaken him, we need not be surprised that the Sikhs venerate his memory. He was undoubtedly a great man.” (W, L. McGregor) It may not be out of context to say here that throughout the chronicles of human history, there was no other individual who could be more inspiring than Guru Gobind Singh. Guru Gobind Singh Ji infused the spirit of both sainthood and soldier in the minds and hearts of his followers to fight oppression in order to restore justice, peace, righteousness (Dharma) and to uplift the downtrodden people in this world. It is said that after the martyrdom of his father, Guru Tegh Bahadur, the tenth Master declared that he would create such a Panth (community/ society) which would challenge the tyrant rulers in every walk of life to restore justice, equality and peace for all of mankind.As a prophet, the Guru is unique.
His teachings are very scientific and most suitable for all times. He called all people the sons of God sharing His Kingdom equally. For himself he used the word ‘slave’ or servant of God. Extracts from Guru Gobind Singh’s writings; “God has no marks, no colour, no caste, and no ancestors, No form, no complexion, no outline, no costume and is indescribable. He is fearless, luminous and measureless in might. He is the king of kings, the Lord of the prophets. He is the sovereign of the universe, gods, men and demons. The woods and dales sing the indescribable. O Lord, none can tell Thy names. The wise count your blessings to coin your names.” (Jaap Sahib) (Source: http://www.sikhiwiki.org) This pious Day is being celebrated with great fervor, enthusiasm and devotion at the Sikh Center of Gulf Coast Area on Saturday January 5, 2013 the actual Gurpurab day and then on Sunday January 6, 2013.
To grace this auspicious occasion an eminent and learned Ex Hazoori Ragi Jatha of Sachkhand Sri Harmandir Sahib,Amritsar, Bhai Gurmel Singh Ji is reaching Sikh Center on Friday January 4, 2013. The Jatha will perform Keertan from Friday Jan.4, 2013 evening onwards till Sunday Jan. 6, 2013. Program details are given below: Friday January 4, 2013: • Start Sri Akhand Paath Sahib 10am (Seva by : S Jarnail Singh and family) • Paath Rehras Sahib 6:45-7pm. • Keertan Ragi Jatha Bhai Manjit Singh Ji 7-7:30pm • Keertan Ragi Jatha Bh. Gurmel Singh Ji 7:30- 8.:30pm • Samapti,Ardas,Hukamnama& Sukhasan 8.30pm onwards Saturday January 5, 2013: • Asa Ki Vaar Keertan Bhai Gurmel Singh Ji 7-9am • Paath Rehras Sahib
6:45 – 7pm • Keertan Ragi Jatha Bh. Manjit Singh Ji 7-7:45pm • Keertan Ragi Jatha Bh. Gurmel Singh Ji 7:45--8:45pm • Samapti, Ardas, Sukhasan & Langar 8:45pm onwards Sunday January 6, 2013: • Bhog Sri Akhand Paath Sahib 10am • Tea-Break 10-10:30am • Keertan Sangat Members 10:30-11:15am • Keertan Hazoori Ragi Jatha Bh. Manjit Singh Ji 11:15-12:15pm • Keertan Ragi Jatha Bh. Gurmel Singh Ji 12:15- 1:15pm • Words of thanks 1:15 - 1:30pm • Samapti-Ardas-Hukamnama 1:30 - 1:45pm • Guru Ka Langar 1:45pm onwards Note: Program Timings are subject to slight change if need be For more information, call 713466-6538.
Best Wished to the Sikh Nation on Guru Gobind Singh Ji's 347th birthday
celebrations January 5th 2013
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Happy New Years 2013 From Galhotra Family Harjit, Seema, Ravi, Rupi, Balraj and Kulpreet
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January 04, 2013
own automotive business, Galson’s in 1993. It started as a repair and maintenance shop but in 1995 he ventured into the body work business. In 2000, son Ravi Inder graduated and evinced a keen interest in joining his father’s business. Since then, the father and son duo have carved out an enviable reputation for Galson’s. Harjit’s other son, Balraj, is with New York Life and his wife Seema to whom he has been married for 36 years is also a partner in the business. For the past few years Harjit has been involved in building the Sikh National Rupi holding Ravina, Seema. Back row: Ravi Center, of which he is also the Secretary (left), Balraj and Harjit Galhotra and Treasurer. However, he sounds Harjit Singh Galhotra, one of the well positively animated when he speaks of his 30 known members of the Sikh community origi- year old hobby where he has developed many nally hails from Ludhiana, Punjab. He is an articles like clocks, trophies or stained glass engineer by profession but as job opportunities lights inspired by the Sikh symbol – Khanda. in India were not very promising, he decided The stained glass lights will be used in the new to move to America to, as he says “fulfill the Sikh National Center. American Dream” in 1977. He joined Dresser Does he have any fond memories of India? Industries as an engineer and worked his way He misses his friends and the culture but after up to senior tool design engineer. However a his recent trip back home, he has found that India better future beckoned and Harjit started his has become very crowded and chaotic! Bhai Bhupinder Singhji Paras is the head priest at the Gurudwara in Sugarland, Houston. In 1984, he left Pagwada in Punjab and came to the Sikh Center, Houston and has since been singing kirtans for the community here. However, he not only sings kirtans but also teaches them to children and reads and explains the Guru Granth Sahib. He has learnt classical singing from great stalwarts like Ustad Bhai Pal Singh, Giani Darbara Singhji, Giani Gulzar Singhji and Ghulam Ali and has also been invited to several Sikh Religions forums and performed kirtans at the Golden Temple, Amritsar. Patiala Library also houses a book written on him titled “ Panth De Anmol Ratan” He has also released albums of Shabad Kirtan. He and his wife Gurdev Kaur have two sons and four daughters.
HAPPY GURPURAB
Bobby and Jasmeeta Singh. They make a striking couple – he’s suave and extremely articulate, she’s super talented and pretty as a picture. Bobby came to the US in high school. He went on to do his Business Administration from UT and shortly thereafter started his software consulting firm. A series of coincidences and relatives helped the couple tie the knot in 1989. Their three children – Japreena, Japraj and Navreena complete their circle of love. Besides being a Medical technologist, Jasmeeta is also extremely talented. Her first love is singing. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and would love to get back to painting someday. She also finds time to teach kids Shabad or hymns at the Gurudwara. Bobby is an avid
Bobby and Jasmeeta Singh’s daughter, Japreena Kaur came up with a novel idea of decorating a Christmas tree by hanging pictures of the ten Gurus to celebrate Guru Gobind Singhji birthday. She did this by putting their pictures in tiny frames and articles/symbols which represent Sikhism like Khanda at the top and Ek Onkar( right in the middle) which means God is One and several more symbols all over the tree.
sports fan and has even run a marathon! A common interest that they both share is a deep and abiding involvement in community activities and service. Despite living in the US for so many years, Jasmeeta still misses the food, the warmth and informality that people in India emanate.
The simplicity and beauty of Sikhism left a lasting impact on Nobel laureate and Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, who was later inspired to write three beautiful poems titled ‘Gobind Guru’, ‘Veer Guru’ and ‘The Last Lesson’. In fact, Tagore also translated Guru Nanak’s ‘aarti’ ‘Gagan Mein Thal’ to Bengali.
Best Wishes To All On The Occasion Of
GURPURAB Bobby & Jasmeeta Singh INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
HAPPY GURPURAB
January 04, 2013
Bhai Daya Singh: An Inspiring Life Journey
BY BHUPINDER SINGH Bhai Daya Singh was the first to offer his head when Guru Gobind Singh Ji asked for a head on the momentous occasion of the creation of Khalsa during the Baisakhi of 1699. While others were scared, shocked and surprised, he had the fortitude to offer his head. Since that time he has been with Guru Ji for the rest of his life. He was with Guru Ji during the siege of Anandpur fort which started on 3th May, 1704. He evacuated Anandpur fort with Guru Ji on the fateful chilly wintry night of 20 December, 1704. In fact he was with Guru Ji for the most trying period after the evacuation from Anandpur fort, till the time Guru Ji left for his heavenly abode in Nanded. He was the leader of Punj Pyaras who issued an edict to Guru Ji to leave Chamkaur garhi on the fateful night of 22 December, 1704. He was also designated by the Sikhs to accompany Guru Ji during the evacuation of Anandpur fort. During the barefoot escape from Chamkaur in the pitch darkness of a cold winter night, Guru Ji was separated from Bhai Daya Singh, Bhai Dharam Singh and Bhai Man Singh but they were reunited on 25 December, 1704 in Machiwara. From there, the whole group moved to Dina. At Dina, when a devoted Sikh, Rama, presented Guru Gobind Singh Ji with an excellent horse for his personal use, Guru Ji gave his former horse to Bhai Daya Singh for his use. It was from Dina that Guru Ji dispatched Bhai Daya Singh to deliver the Zafarnama - the epistle of victory to Emperor Aurangzeb in Deccan, South India. Because of the sudden demise of Aurangzeb, the Zafarnama could not be personally delivered to him and Bhai Daya Singh decided to return to Punjab. On his return journey, he met Guru Ji at Narainpur in Rajasthan. As Guru Ji was proceeding towards
Deccan, Bhai Daya Singh rejoined Guru Ji’s team heading south again. In July 1708, Guru Ji came to Nanded, which is on the banks of river Godavari and decided to camp there. One day, Guru Ji picked up a rock, tossed it in his hands from left to right and suddenly hurled it into the majestically flowing river Godavari where it sank. Then, Guru Ji turned to Bhai Daya Singh and asked him as to why the rock sank? His reply was that it sank because it left your hand, your care and protection. This is an interesting response to a question where a rational mind would have justified it with the principle of gravity. What Bhai Daya Singh has said really reflects the essence of Guru Ji’s teachings. Guru Nanak Dev Ji has said the following words in form of a prayer: “dieAw krhu ikCu imhr aupwvhu fubdy pQr qwry ]” “Dayaa karahu kichh mehar oupaavahu dubadhae pathhar taarae.” (SGGS, Pg. No. 156) Meaning: Please, shower me with Your Mercy, and take pity upon me. I am a sinking stone - please carry me across. Bhai Daya Singh understood the principle very clearly - how a life which is rocklike can be saved from sinking in water. His name was Daya and he understood the significance of daya or mercy to cross the ocean of life. It is precisely for this reason alone that he was the first to offer his head to Guru Ji during the historic Baisakhi of 1699 of the creation of Khalsa. He wanted to be under the grace of Guru Ji. Similar sentiments of prayer were also expressed by Namdev Ji when he asked the Lord to save him. “mo kau qwir ly rwmw qwir ly ] mY Ajwnu jnu qirby n jwnau bwp bITulw bwh dy ]” “Mo ko taar lae raama taar lae. Mai ajaan jan tarbae na jaano baap beethla baah dae.”
(SGGS, Pg. No. 873) Meaning: Carry me across, O Lord, carry me across. I am ignorant, and I do not know how to swim. O my Beloved Father, please give me Your arm. Guru Arjan Dev Ji also prays in a similar vein in the following lines: “kir ikrpw fubdw pQru lIjY ]” “Kar kirpaa dubadhaa pathhar leejai.” (SGGS, Pg. No. 103) Meaning: Please bless me with Your Mercy, and save this sinking stone. Now let us understand how Guru can help carry us (the stones) across. Guru Ji has provided the answer in these words: “ik®pw ik®pw kir gurU imlwey hm pwhn sbid gur qwry ]” “Kirpaa kirpaa kar guru milaaeae ham paahan shabad gur taarae.” (SGGS, Pg. No. 981) Meaning: The Merciful Lord, in His Mercy, has led me to meet the Guru; through the Word of the Guru’s Shabad, this stone is carried across. When there is grace from God, only then does one meet the Guru and with the holy Word or teachings, a sinking stone like human life can be saved. Let us now go back to the answer provided by Bhai Daya Singh and we can see that if the rock had been in the hand of Guru Ji, it would not sink. This reply by Bhai Daya Singh educates us of the following: Llife is a journey and its purpose is to cross the worldly ocean. Guru is the guide who can ferry us across so that we don’t sink. We need to understand the game purpose behind life and have faith in the Guru and follow the Guru’s teachings so that we can be successful.
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Bhai Daya Singh not just understood this fact alone but put it into practice in his life and in the process he become closest to Guru Gobind Singh Ji. He was one of the five beloved and yet he was first among equals in every respect. From the time he offered his head in Anandpur, he was with Guru ji till Guru Ji left for his heavenly abode on 7 October 1708 in Nanded. After Guru ji’s demise, Bhai Daya Singh stayed back in Nanded and was the chosen leader of the Sikhs, providing strength and a rallying point. When his time to leave this world came, he left his body very close to the site of Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s angeetha. Today, an angeetha memorial in his loving memory exists next to Takht Shri Hazoor Sahib. His life was spent in the company of Guru Ji and even in death his companionship of Guru Ji is eternal. This memorial which is next to Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s memorial is a reminder of the faith of the Sikh in his Guru and how that can ferry a Sikh across the ocean of life. This shrine is not just a pinnacle of full-fledged faith but also an inspiration for coming generations. Every time one visits Takht Shri Hazoor Sahib, a visit to this site inside the complex inspires us and reminds us of the quality of faith that needs to be cultivated. For those of us who have not visited this site, the remembrance is in our daily prayer, where we all remember the five beloved after remembering the Gurus. Bhai Daya Singh is thus a true role model and an ideal Sikh worthy of our emulation. Let us take the first step and ask Guru Sahib for the grace so that we can be ferried across.
Beat the Heat!
Turn your Hot Summer Into a Cool Experience! Best Wishes on the occasion of Gurpurab to the Community from all of us at United Air Conditioning Supply Contact: Mr. K.M. Khetpal 9920 Westpark, Houston, TX 77063
T: 713-952-5191 F: 713-952-5193 Website: www.unitedacsupply.com E-mail: kmintl@wt.net INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
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HAPPY GURPURAB
January 04, 2013
Col. Raj Bhalla (Fourth from right) with wife Kanwal, sons Gurpreet and Narinder, daughters in law Jyotish and Tracy, grandchildren Ravi, Sonya and Ashton
Col. Raj Bhalla: It’s safe to say that Col. Raj Bhalla is one of the most familiar and recognizable faces in Houston’s Indian scene. And there’s a good reason for that. He’s passionately active and involved in community activities serving as President of the India Culture Center and presently as Director of various foundations and organizations. Col. Bhalla traces his roots to Ferozepur in Punjab. After a distinguished career in the Indian Army as a Veterinarian, he opted for early retirement with the rank of Colonel. He was soon recruited by Charles River Labs and moved to New York in 1976 to work in one of the Company’s subsidiaries. It wasn’t long before he was made
President and helped the Company achieve record revenues. When the Company’s subsidiary moved to Houston, Col. Bhalla also moved and this time the move was a permanent one. He retired in 2006 at the age of 76 after 30 years of service. His elegant wife, Kanwal and he have been married for 55 years and are proud parents of their two physician sons, their wives and three beautiful grandchildren. He and his wife love playing tourists and claim that there isn’t much of the world that they haven’t seen! What about India? Col. Bhalla does acknowledge that he misses his family, friends and the army life.
Happy Gurpurab to the entire Community ! Church’s Chicken of Houston
Sukhwinder Singh Shah & family INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
And thou yourself the disciple
HAPPY GURPURAB
Thou're the great, Thou're the great, Thou're the master Thou're the master January 04, 2013 And thou yourself the disciple The Tenth Master Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708) And thou yourself the disciple
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Best wishes to the Sikh Nation on Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s Best wishes to the Sikh Nation on th Nation on Best wishes to the Sikh 347 birthday celebrations Guru Singh vwhu vwhu goGobind ibMd isMG Awpy guru cyJi’s l w Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s th th 347 birthday celebrations January 5 2012 Thou're the great, th 347th birthday celebrations
The Tenth Master Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708)
The Tenth Master Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708)
January 5 2012 Thou're the master January 5th 2012 And thou yourself the disciple
The Tenth Master Guru Gobind Singh (1666-1708)
Best wishes to the Sikh Nation on Guru Gobind Singh Ji’s 347th birthday celebrations January 5th 2012
Sikh National Center. (Gurdwara Building). Under construction now Design Architect: Mandeep Singh Kohli (India). Architects of Record: P.G.A.L (Houston, TX).Sikh National Center. (Gurdwara Building). Under construction now Area: 38,000 Sq. Feet Design Architect: Mandeep Kohli (India).(Gurdwara Building). Under construction now Sikh Singh National Center. Location:7500 N Sam Houston Pkwy W. Architects of Record: P.G.A.L (Houston, TX). 281-894-8484 Area: 38,000 Sq. Feet Design Architect: Mandeep Singh Kohli (India). www.sikhnationalcenter.org Architects of Record: P.G.A.L (Houston, TX).
Location:7500 N Sam Houston Pkwy W. 281-894-8484 Area: 38,000 Sq. Feet www.sikhnationalcenter.org Location:7500 N Sam Houston Pkwy W.
281-894-8484 www.sikhnationalcenter.org
Sikh National Center. (Gurdwara Building). Under construction now Design Architect: Mandeep Singh Kohli (India). Architects of Record: P.G.A.L (Houston, TX). Area: 38,000 Sq. Feet Location:7500 N Sam Houston Pkwy W. 281-894-8484 www.sikhnationalcenter.org
Congratulations to the Sikh Community on this auspicious day
FOR TIRE DEALERS Please e-mail to tires@jeetires.com INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
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HAPPY GURPURAB
January 04, 2013
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Happy Gurpurab ! Congratulations to the Punjabi Society of Houston on another great celebration! Aman Singh Sidhu & family
and our gas stations across the Houston area INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
HAPPY GURPURAB
January 04, 2013
Best Wishes To All On The Occasion Of Gurpurab From
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Best Wishes To All On The Occasion Of
Gurpurab from
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INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
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HAPPY GURPURAB
January 04, 2013
Karah Parshada Recipe
May the teaching of the Guru reflect goodness and compassion in you And bring into your life, the glow of happiness & prosperity.
Best Wishes from Lubeena & Witty Bindra
Ingredients: 5 Cups Rava or Coarsely Ground Wheat Flour or Mixture of Both 5 Cups Ghee 5 Cups Sugar Method: Heat ghee and add the rava or the flour. Fry, stirring constantly, till each grain is brown. Add sugar little by little and continue cooking till ghee separates and the sugar is blended well. No flavoring must be added. Serve hot. All recipes: Shemrock.com
Happy Gurpurab ! Gurminder Singh Padda & family Kamaljit Singh Rai & family Houston, Texas INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
HAPPY GURPURAB Langhar Ki Dal
Ingredients: 2 Cups Whole Black Gram (Urad) Soaked In Water For 6 Hours 2 Tsps. Cumin Seeds 2 Tsps. Turmeric Powder 2 Tsps. Garam Masala 4 Onions, Chopped Fine 2 Tbsps. Ginger-Garlic Paste 1 Cup Ghee Salt To Taste Method: Put all the ingredients (with 5 cups water) except ghee in a pressure cooker and cook till soft and blended. Pour hot ghee and serve with hot Tandoori Rotis or chapattis.
Aalu Gobi Ki Sabzi
January 04, 2013
May Guru Gobind Singh Ji inspire you to achieve all your goals And may his blessings be with you in whatever you do.
Best Wishes from Col. Raj Bhalla and Kanwal Bhalla
Heartiest Gurpurab Greetings on the 346th Birth Anniversary of Sri Guru Gobind Singh ji
Ingredients: 500 Gms. Cauliflower, Cut Into Large Pieces 6 Potatoes, Peeled And Quartered 1 Tbsp. Grated Ginger 1 Tbsp. Minced Garlic 3 Onions, Chopped Fine 3 Tomatoes, Chopped 1 Tbsp. Garam Masala Powder 1 Tsp. Turmeric Powder ½ Tsp. Cumin Seeds 2 Tbsps. Coriander Leaves, Chopped Fine ¾ Cup Oil Salt To Taste Method: Heat oil and fry cumin seeds and onion till golden. Add ginger, garlic, tomatoes and cook till blended. Add cauliflower, peas and a little water. Add turmeric, Garam Masala, salt and cook covered on a slow fire till vegetables are done. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve.
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From The Arora Family ( Harvinder, Ranjit, Tanya and Anisha).
INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
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January 04, 2013
HAPPY GURPURAB
INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
January 04, 2013
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Gurpurab Greetings with Best Compliments From
Indo-American News INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM
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INDO AMERICAN NEWS • FRIDAY, JANUARY 04, 2013 • ONLINE EDITION: WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM