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TheSouthAsianTimes.info TheSouthAsianTimes.info TheSouthAsianTimes.info

Why Al Qaeda is Deadlock Deadlock over over unlikely toTelangana, execute separate separate Telangana, another 9/11 protests protests hothot upup

‘That Girl In Parsi Parsi community community Yellow Boots’ created created modern modern is gamechanger India: India: Amitav Amitav Ghosh Ghosh

9/11 Anniversary, India India Newswire, Newswire, Page 1912 12 Page Page

Bollywood, Features, Features, Page 27 Page Page 26 26

Pakistan Pakistan turns Delhi court blast exposes PM’s Dhakaturns visit: 2G 2Gscam scam claims claims another another ‘new ‘newdidn’t front front line’ line’ Teesta happen, security, Maran intel holes minister: minister: Maran quits quits but a lot else did of of war war on on terror terror

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America has disallowed any big terror attack on its soil since 9/11, but India has not been up to the challenge after 26/11.

New Delhi: Investigators probing the Delhi High Court blast were still grappling for clues to identify the perpetrators, a day after a powerful explosion outside the complex killed 13 people even as Hijbul Mujahideen and Pak-based HuJI, have claimed responsibility for the latest terror attack in India.

Top security experts, however, opine that this blast has “exposed the loopholes in our security system� which “has an inadequate and incapable intelligence gathering system and a weak counter-terrorism mechanism�. Ved Marwah, forA blast victim being taken to the hospital in New Delhi. mer governor of Manipur who was Union Union Textiles Textiles Minister Minister Dayanidhi Dayanidhi Maran Maran is second is second DMK DMK minister minister to exit to exit also chief of the Delhi Police, said own systems.

More in than success istry, Manmohan Manmohan government government the in the the spectrum spectrum scam. scam.told reporters, “Investigation 53 53 percent percent of terror of terror plots plots worldwide worldwide since since 2004 2004 involved involved jihadists, jihadists, “The blast points towards the loop- of the terrorists, it is the weakness of teams of the NIA (National InvesPrimelike Minister Manmohanand Singh with his Bangladesh like Tehrik-e-Taliban Tehrik-e-Taliban and LeT LeT cadres, cadres, trained trained in Pakistan. incounterpart, Pakistan. holes in the security system itself�. systems cause terrorist in-thetigation Agency) are While thewhich the government government andand the showed showed complicity complicity in the invigorously the scam. scam.

New New Delhi/Chennai: Delhi/Chennai: Union UnionourWhile Sheikh Hasina, at Dhaka airport on September 7, 2011. His two-day “While we look out for the terrorcidents one after another. pursuing various leads the covisit helped resolve a festering boundary row and saw both countries Congress party party diddid notnot comment comment on on Thursday’s Thursday’sturnturnofwith ofevents events is is Textiles Textiles Minister Minister Dayanidhi Dayanidhi MaMa- Congress #&$% # $( * !# $ % ! "& % #&$% # $( * !# $ % ! "& % ! % & # ! % & # # ( % ) &% ' ( % # # $ # ( % ) &% ' ( % # # $ responsible for the following blast, we �Meanwhile, U.K. development, Bansal, secretary resistance to to thedidn’t the country’s country’s governgovern-ists inking pacts on various issues butresistance Teesta accord happen. of Delhi Police.�

Toronto: Toronto: Pakistan Pakistan is is now now thethe thethe bigbig political political development, an anoperation likely likely to to impact impact both both thethe shape shape of of ranran resigned resigned Thursday Thursday following # + # % ' % % ' % $% # ! & ( % $%& %$ $% # ! & ( % $%& %$ See page for# + # story. have of a look inside, into security) in the home min- impending ment, thethe draconian draconian imposition imposition of ofshould Delhi Blast Continued onand page 4 new new front front in the in the warwar on on terror terror as it as21itment, emboldened emboldened opposition opposition described described impending cabinet cabinet shufe shufe and delideliallegations allegations of involvement involvement in our in thethe(internal Sharia lawlaw andand thethe waging waging of of warwar2G2G hashas become become a new a new safesafe haven haven forfor al- al-Sharia it “too as “too little little tootoo lateâ€? lateâ€? andand sought sought cately cately poised poised relations relations between between thethe spectrum spectrum scam, scam, becoming becoming thethe it as against NATO NATO forces forces in Afghanistan. in Afghanistan.second Qaeda, Qaeda, says says thethe Canadian Canadian media media a aagainst Advani dares govt resignation of of Home Home Minister Minister P. P. Congress Congress andand thethe DMK. secondDMK DMK minister minister after afterA. A. resignation When so many lives changed –DMK. forever Because Because of of these these militant militant outďŹ ts outďŹ tsRaja dayday after after thethe country country blacklisted blacklisted thethe Chidambaram, Chidambaram, who who they they alleged alleged 2G2G scam scam continued continued on on page page 4 4 Raja to to exit to exit thethe cabinet. cabinet. jail him Pakistanhashasbecome become“the “themain main Pakistani Pakistani Taliban Taliban andand started started withwith-Pakistan Ten years on, South Asian survivors recall the horrible tragedy New Delhi: BJP leader L.K. Advani stagingarea areaforforterrorist terroristplots plots drawal drawal from from Afghanistan Afghanistan Tuesday.

Tuesday. staging Thursday dared the government to put around thethe world world andand - despite - despite thethe Washington, DC: It began as a “The “The warwar on on terror terror hashas shifted, shifted,around him behind bars for approving the disUnited States’ States’ assassination assassination of Osaof Osa“clear, beautiful morning� and ended andand Pakistan Pakistan is its is its new new front front line,� line,�United play of cash by party MPs inside the mama binbin Laden Laden in Abbotabad in Abbotabad - a -new a new up as the longest day of her life. Rashi said said thethe daily daily National National Post.

Post.

Lok Sabha to expose the bribery scansafe-haven forfor al-Qaeda.� al-Qaeda.�

Shyam still shudders as she recalls “These “These twotwo events events (blacklisting (blacklistingsafe-haven dal during the July 2008 trust vote. He Quoting Quoting a study a study by by the the New New the horror of 9/11. She is not the only of of thethe Pakistani Pakistani Taliban Taliban andand thethe also announced that he would embark AmericaFoundation, Foundation,thethepaper paper South Asian survivor to do so. start start of withdrawal of withdrawal from from AfghaniAfghani-America on a ‘rath yatra’ to expose corruption. percentof ofterror terrorplots plots New Rashi was with her stan) stan) encapsulate encapsulate a shift, a shift, notnot only onlysaidsaid53 53percent billion), billion), believes believes former former chief chief secsec-boss at LehNew Delhi: Delhi: The Thearrest of his Displaying outrage at the worldwidesince since2004 2004involved involvedvaluables man Brothers at the World Financial forfor Canada, Canada, butbut forfor all all other other na-na-worldwide retary retary of Kerala of Kerala CP CP Nair.

Nair. found found in in with the party valuables colleagues in connection jihadists trained trained in Pakistan, in Pakistan, comcom-thethe Centre, attached tothe the tions tions on on thethe front front lines lines of of thethe warwarjihadists As As per per a report, a report, Thursday, Thursday, theWorld Trade secret secret cellars cellars of of July 2008 parliamentary trust vote bribpared to six to six percent percent in Yemen in Yemen andandKerala’s Centreclaims twin towers in the New York, that on on terror. terror.

ForFor a number a number of of years, years,pared former former bureaucrat bureaucrat claims that that the Kerala’s famous famous Sree Sree ery scandal, now infamously referred three percent percent in Iraq. in Iraq.

Pakistani Pakistani ji- ji-Padmanabhaswamy September 11, 10 years ago “when those thoselines lineshave havebeen beenshifting shiftingthree estimated estimated market market value value of the of the treatreaPadmanabhaswamy to as the cash-for-votes scam, Advani More pix on page 2 hadi groups groups have have directed directed 44 44 per-per-Temple our entire building shookâ€?. southeast, southeast,from fromAfghanistan Afghanistanto tohadi sures sures unearthed unearthed from from thethe temple temple in in ThiruThirusaid asTemple the then leader of the BJP parďŹ veďŹ ve of of the sixsix secret secret cellars cellars of Padmanabof Padmanabcent cent of Representative of thethe terror terror plots plots then, then,v a vn aa nn at hn at hp aupr ua m 9/11 Continued onOnly page 4 the Pakistan,â€?

Pakistan,� thethe paper paper said. said. makes makes it the it the richest richest temple temple in in thethe Only r a m Amb. Hardeep Singh Puri, India’s Permanent to since thesince UN, liamentary party, he had approved of the haswamy haswamy Temple Temple have have been been opened, opened, yielding yielding according to the to the paper. paper. #&$% # $( * !# $ % ! "& % # & # &#% * # ! $! #&$% # & # &#% * # ! $! #&$% It #&$% # $( * !# $ % ! "& % It said said thethe Tehrik-e-Taliban Tehrik-e-Taliban isaccording world. could beMPs be worth worth Rsone Rs world. presiding over the Security Council,iswith Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Gold Gold idols, idols, ornaments ornaments and and other other valuables. valuables. twocould former - and incumbent & % % ' % & % % ' % SATimes section, pages 14-19.

War on on terror terror continued continued on on page page 4 45 ' # $ ' $% # * * $ % ! %&# $ % ! %&# very very dangerous dangerous its as ' $% # “stated its “stated goal� goal� is # is # Kerala Kerala treasure treasure continued continued on on page page 4Special 4 on UN’s core as mission: peacekeeping, onWar Aug 26.

Photo: Jay Mandal. lakh 5 ' # $ lakh crore crore ($100 ($100 - displaying cash inside the Lok Sabha.

Kerala Keralatemple temple treasure treasurecould couldbe be worth worth$100 $100billion billion

- The South Asian Times

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India at UN

September 10-16, 2011

TheSouthAsianTimes.info

A moment in time, as destiny unfurled its wings matter-of-factly On August 26, Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, presided over the Security Council on UN's core mission: peacekeeping. The landmark meeting took place during India's presidency of the UNSC. Photos: Jay Mandal

By Ravi Batra New York: August 26, 2011 was a special day. The United Nations Security Council was revisiting its core mission: peacekeeping; and India was presiding with her Permanent Representative, Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri.

What was remarkable, was made more so as the business of the day was done effortlessly at the highest level of diplomatic protocol. While sitting there, I could hear how the Speaker of the US House of Representatives acknowledges a member of Congress to take the floor: "The Gentle Lady from the great state of..." It is good that world governance is transparent.

The day was not uneventful.

The Security Council approved the unfreeze of $1.5 billion of Libyan money, and what would make every one of our fellow citizens of the world proud, was that the SC reaffirmed its essential "neutrality" and "impartiality" if its peacekeeping function, UN's core value to the world, is to achieve its stated goals. Those twin principles of integrity, neutrality and impartiality, is what every American counts on in every court across our great land (after all, we are a nation of laws).

Imagine my delight as a lawyer to know that the birthplace or maternity ward of global laws, the Security Council, serves with the same ideals.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in the hallowed Declaration of Independence in 1776 that the goal was a "more perfect union."

On August 26, 2011, Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri was calmly, comfortably, and, perhaps, best of all, matter-of-factly, having the Security Council, ennobled by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's address and participation, reaffirm its predicate neutrality and impartiality so that we may live in a "...more perfect world."

The rotational presidency of the Security Council was honored, to the great delight of Thomas Jefferson, by essential substance and without fanfare; the best way to make history is to ignore its making while it is being made.

Ambassador Hardeep Singh Puri, thank you for your service to humanity.

The author is an eminent attorney and chair of National Advisory Council on South Asian Affairs in Washington DC.

The entire Security Council observing a moment of silence on August 26, called for by President Hardeep Singh Puri, in the presence of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, to honor the UN workers killed that morning in Africa.

Tilottama Puri, A/SG Lakshmi Puri, Ranju Batra, Justice Golia, Sen. Hassell-Thompson, Ravi Batra

President Hardeep Puri welcoming District Attorney Dan Donovan to the SC chamber, with Ranju Batra, Justice Golia, and Ravi Batra present.

Amb. Hardeep Singh Puri and Ravi Batra cherishing the historic moment.

Vikas Dhall, Justice Golia, Atul Kumria, Kamlesh Mehta, DA Donovan, Ravi Batra, Sen. Hassell-Thompson, Ranju Batra

Donna Drayton, Tilottama Puri, Harsaheb Dhall, Vikas Dhall, Grace Riskin, Sen. Ruth Hassell-Thompson, President of SC, Amb. Hardeep Singh Puri, A/SG of UN Women Lakshmi Puri, Ranju Batra, Ravi Batra, Justice Joseph Golia, Ephraim Rabin, Neal Batra, Jay Sharma, Martin Riskin, Tarun Munjal, and Angela Batra-Munjal.

President of Security Council, Amb. Hardeep Singh Puri speaking with PRs, including, Australia, Amb. Gary Quinlan, and Ravi Batra.

President Hardeep Singh Puri, A/SG Lakshmi Puri, Ranju Batra, Ravi Batra

Tristate Community TheSouthAsianTimes.info

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September 10-16, 2011

Obama challenges Congress to pass Manmohan set to come to New York for UN meet $447bn jobs plan Washington: Barack Obama used a televised address to the nation to unveil a $447bn package aimed at bringing down the country's high jobless total, the issue that could determine whether he wins re-election next year.

In a joint session of Congress on Thursday, the president challenged the Republicans to end the "political circus" in Washington by approving legislation he will send them next week, the American Jobs Act. The American Jobs Act includes $140bn for building roads, bridges and other major infrastructure projects that would put hundreds of thousands into work; $70bn in tax breaks for small businesses; tax credits for companies taking on military veterans; tax and training for the long-term jobless, and aid to states so that they do not have to lay off 280,000 teachers, as well as other workers. Infrastructure projects include repairing and modernizing 35,000 schools.

The biggest expenditure, $175bn, is to put more money into the pockets of workers and their families through a 50% cut in payroll tax.

Obama said he will announce later what cuts will need to be made to pay for this. He hinted this would include tax cuts for millionaires, moves that Republicans will reject outright. The president said Congress had to choose between millionaires and teachers: he knew what Americans wanted.

"This isn't political grandstanding. This isn't class warfare. This is simple math," he said.

Republicans, committed to deep cuts in federal spending, are almost certain to vote down proposals that will cost $447bn.

In his speech, Obama called on them to work for a

President Obama giving a televised address to Congress. compromise rather than paralyze Washington as they did over debt before the summer.

"The question is whether, in the face of an ongoing national crisis, we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy," he said.

He added: "Ultimately, our recovery will be driven not by Washington, but by our businesses and our workers. But we can help. We can make a difference. There are steps we can take right now to improve people's lives."

Obama's approval ratings, according to a Gallup poll this week, stand at a career low of only 42%, mainly because of his handling of the economy, and if he cannot reverse the unemployment figures he faces a tough reelection battle.

If Republicans in Congress block his plans, Obama has a Plan B, proposing to go out on the campaign trail blaming them for obstructionism.

Ex-Guv turns DriveTime Radio Host New York: Former Gov. David Paterson on Tuesday made a radio host debut for WOR-AM (710).

“I am more excited right now, sitting here, than I was even the day I was sworn in as governor of the State of New York on March 17, 2008,” Mr. Paterson told listeners.

“And the reason is, this time I had time to think about it.”

Since leaving office at the end of 2010, Paterson has been a frequent radio guest and guest host, and has made no secret of his desire to get his own show. His first guest? None other than his predecessor as governor, Eliot Spitzer, whose resignation led to Governor Paterson’s swearing-in. Mr. Paterson had been Spitzer’s lieutenant governor.

“You’re going to be Jerry Seinfeld and Dan Rather, all put together in one,” Spitzer said, encouragingly.

Paterson’s debut show was certainly more substantive than typical AM radio fare. In addition to.

Spitzer on the markets, it featured a

New Delhi: Against the backdrop of Security Council reforms gathering momentum and the world looking at India's leadership role in resolving complex global issues, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is set to go to New York later this month to participate in the UN General Assembly (UNGA) session.

Manmohan Singh will participate in the UNGA after a gap of two years.

He last went to New York in September 2008, a visit overshadowed by his meeting with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and his last meeting with then US president George Bush in Washington in the final stages of negotiations on the India-US nuclear deal. A final decision on the prime minister's visit will be taken early next week. Manmohan Singh's visit, expected in the last week of September, will come nearly three weeks after India held the rotating chair of the UNSC for the month of August.

With a host of multilateral summits like the G20 and the East Asia summit coming up in the next few months, Manmohan Singh is expected to meet many world leaders on the sidelines of the UNGA. India returned to the UNSC Jan 1,

loose debate between the two candidates to replace Anthony D. Weiner in the Ninth Congressional District and an interview with William J. Bratton, a former New York police commissioner, on recent crime problems in the city and in London.

Among the politicians who called in to wish Mr. Paterson well were Representative Charles B. Rangel, State Senator Malcolm A. Smith and Assemblyman Francisco P. Moya, all Democrats and longtime acquaintances.

2011 as a rotating non-permanent member after being elected by an overwhelming majority of the 193member General Assembly last year.

During its presidency of the Security Council in August, India played a key role in preventing external military intervention in Syria, a plan pushed by the US, Britain and France, by adroitly mobilizing IBSA members of the council, including Brazil and South Africa. Finally, the UNSC came out with a statement condemning human rights violations in the West Asian country, but avoided extreme positions.

Sonia back in Delhi after surgery in NYC New Delhi: Sonia Gandhi, India’s most powerful politician, returned to New Delhi Thursday about a month after undergoing surgery in New York for suspected cancer, amid waning support for the ruling Congress party she heads.

During Gandhi’s absence, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government faced anger over its strident response to a 13-day hunger strike by anti-corruption campaigner Anna Hazare that garnered nationwide

Former New York State Governor David Paterson in new role

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

backing. The popularity of the Congress in India’s cities may have fallen by a third following the standoff, according to an opinion poll by research company Nielsen Holdings NV and Star News television channel.

Before leaving India, Sonia, 64, temporarily named a four-member team to run party affairs that included her son Rahul Gandhi, who has been taking on a more prominent political role in recent months.

Bank of India completes 105 years New York: Bank of India, the 5th largest in India, is celebrating completion of 105 years of its existence. Headquarterd in Mumbai, with 3,400 branches in India and 29 offices abroad in 12 countries—including in New York and San Fransisco, it is a state-owned commercial bank.

It has flourished because as its logo says, it builds Relationship Beyond Banking. .

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4

National Community

Community

August 13-19, 2011

TheSouthAsianTimes.info

TheSouthAsianTimes.info

September 10-16, 2011

Nearly 100K told to flee new Northeast flooding

Wilkes-Barre, PA: Nearly 100,000 people from New York to Maryland were ordered to flee the rising Susquehanna River on Thursday as the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee dumped more rain across the Northeast, closing major highways and socking areas still recovering from Hurricane Irene.

At Binghamton, N.Y., the wide river broke a flood record and flowed over retaining walls downtown as more than 8 inches of rain fell in some areas. Road closures effec

tively sealed the city off to outside traffic as emergency responders scrambled to evacuate holdouts who didn’t heed warnings to leave neighborhoods. “It’s going to get worse,” said Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who urged residents to heed evacuate orders rather than wait until the flood danger is obvious.

Most of the people ordered to evacuate their homes were about 80 miles downstream in Wilkes-Barre, where the river was projected to crest later Thursday at 41 feet — the same

height as the levee system, officials said. Res idents were ordered to leave by 4 p.m.

In Port Deposit, Md., rising water levels at the Conowingo Dam forced officials to open the floodgates and order the evacuation of most of the Susquehanna River town’s 1,000 residents. There was also flooding upstream from Binghamton in Oneonta, N.Y., where dozens of evacuees sought help at a church center.

Roads and highways closed around the region, including sections of New York’s Interstate 88, which follows the Susquehanna’s path. In Philadelphia, flooding and a rock slide closed the eastbound lanes of the Schuylkill Expressway, a major artery into the city, and it could take hours for the road to reopen. New York’s Thruway Authority expected to close a 105-mile stretch of its busiest east-west highway, Interstate 90, because the nearby Mohawk River had overflowed its banks in some areas.

Wet weather followed by Hurricane Irene and its remnants have saturated the soil across the Northeast, leaving water no place to go but into already swollen creeks and rivers.

Delhi Blast Continued from page 1 He said forensic experts summoned from Gujarat and Hyderabad to assist in the investigation again scanned the scene of the crime Thursday.

“They have found some more material which may have relevance to the investigation,” Bansal said, indicating that there was no concrete evidence related to the explosives used in the bomb.

He, however, said traces of a mixture of nitrate and PETN (pentaerythritol trinitrate), have been found but that was not conclusive.

The NIA has also detained some suspects related to the bombing, while six have been taken into custody in Jammu and Kashmir.

Those arrested include two owners of a cyber cafe in Kishtwar district of the state who were questioned about the person who had sent an email claiming responsibility for the blast. The other three were one of their employees and two other residents of the town.

9/11 Continued from page 1 “We looked outside and saw people running. We had no idea what happened.We thought a small plane had hit the building.

They told us not to leave,” Rashi said. Then started the deluge of telephone calls.

“My mom called me, my husband, my best friends, and they all told me to get out of the building,” said Rashi, who had wed only three weeks earlier.

“I changed my shoes into my sneakers, grabbed my co-worker’s hand, and ran downstairs. It was a war zone outside, with debris and fallen people.

“We waited for the ferry. The ferry worker was actually asking for tickets!

“A man came on the ferry with blood covering his head, and a towel on top.I can never forget his face.

“As we were on the ferry, the twin towers collapsed. Everyone was screaming.

“I cannot even begin to explain the panic

and fear in my heart,” said Rashi, who now has two daughters and has started a small business “to keep me busy”.

“Ten years later, I still remember every minute of that day, and every feeling I had.

When I watch the TV footage, that awful eerie feeling just rises to the surface again.

I still can’t believe I was there, and that all those people lost their lives that day.”

Playwright Rehana Lew Mirza, who has written a play about a South Asian family’s loss after 9/11 and the backlash they endured, remembers going to work from her home on New York’s West 4th and 6th Avenues that had a clear view of the twin towers.

“If I had just looked up I would have known not to leave for work that day. But instead I got on the subway, which kept stopping and stalling,” recalled the daughter of a Pakistani father and a Filipina mother.

Once she realized what had happened, Mirza left the office. “But the subways

A woman being evacuated in Conewago Township, PA., Sept. 7.

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Pakistanis abroad may get avoting rights: Minister Oslo: Visiting Pakistani Information and Broadcasting Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan said Thursday her government is considering legislation to grant voting rights to Pakistanis living abroad.

She said that millions of Pakistanis living and working abroad were contributing to Pakistan’s economy and that their role needs to be acknowledged. She made the remarks during an award ceremony in Oslo organized by the Pakistani community in Norway, Pakistan’s official APP news agency reported.

The Pakistani community had announced it would honor Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani with the Bridge Building Award. Firdous received the award on behalf of the prime minister.

The award had been announced in recognition of Gilani’s services for strengthening democracy, human rights and normalization of India-Pakistan relations. were no longer running. So I ended up walking home.

“I remember stopping in Times Square to see on the huge screens the news. Just standing with so many other people, dumbstruck. And then I started running. On the way home, a woman screamed something to the effect of ‘Foreigners did this!’ and spat at me.

“I didn’t even care. I was so worried and distressed.”

Ten years later, Mirza says: “It’s interesting to look back and see how politicized that day has gotten. The narrative that is written around that day is that this was the day that Muslims became known as evil.

“But in reality, New York is so incredibly diverse with all races and religions.

To me, this was the day everyone came together - all religions, races, immigrants and second generations, during a horrible tragedy.”

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Tristate Community TheSouthAsianTimes.info

September 10-16, 2011

Tagore’s paintings on display at Asia Society Museum Marks 150th anniversary of Tagore’s birth and first US museum exhibition devoted to his artistic legacy New York: Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) is lauded around the world as a poet and writer, yet few outside India know that he was also a highly regarded visual artist.

Marking the 150th anniversary of the year of Tagore’s birth, an exhibition comprising more than 60 works on paper, drawn from three collections in India will be held at Asia Society Museum from Sept 9 through Dec 31. Many of the works have never been shown in the United States.

The exhibition is curated by Professor R. Sivakumar of Visva Bharati University and is co-organized by the National Gallery of Modern Art, Ministry of Culture, government of India and Asia

One of the exhibits: Nobel Laureaute Rabindranath Tagore’s Untitled (Striding bird), 1928.

Society Museum, New York. It is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog, edited by Professor Sivakumar and features essays by leading scholars on Tagore’s writing, philosophy and artistic practice.

The exhibition is divided into four thematic sections. A section titled

Freedom Rally near WTC site New York: Thousands of New Yorkers are expected to take part in the 9/11 Freedom Rally organized by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) led by Pamela Geller, and Stop Islamization of America (ISOA) led by Robert Spencer, on September 11, one block from World Trade Center site at

West Broadway and Park Place in the afternoon. Clergy will speak first along with other dignitaries. Prof.

M.G. Prasad, who is well versed in Hindu scriptures, and Bhupinder Singh Bhurji, Chairman of Namdhari Sikh Foundation will respectively represent Hindu and Sikh community at the

The Beginning looks at the origins and development of his drawing and painting. Beyond the Pages explores Tagore’s landscape paintings.

Tagore’s landscapes were less a depiction of actual scenery and more a focus on rhythm and the universal spirit of life that he felt permeated all of nature. Many of his works depict acrobatic figures that sometimes morph into various forms found in nature.

Discovery of Rhythm considers how his creative work in other fields, particularly music and dance, enabled Tagore to project movement and gestures into pattern, forms and fields of color in his drawings and paintings. rally. “Terrorism is the greatest threat to human civilization. Hindus have suffered the most at the hands of Islamic Jihad in the last 1,400 years. It is incumbent on us to raise our voice against the menace of terrorism and enlighten and educate Americans about it,” said Narain Kataria, President, Indian American Intellectuals Forum, which is participating in the rally.

Hindi weekly ‘Hum Hindustani’ launched in New York New York: A Hindi weekly named ‘Hum Hindustani’ was formally released by Ambassador Prabhu Dayal, ConsulGeneral of India in New York on Wednesday, August 31, 2011.

“With the launch of ‘Hum Hindustani’ a long standing cultural need of the Indian American community has been fulfilled,” Amb. Prabhu Dayal, Consul General of India, formally launched the new Hindi weekly Hum Hindustani at a function in Manhattan August said Dayal.

31. To his right is Jay Jasbir Singh, CEO of Media Resources, the The paper is published by a New York paper's publisher and to his left are Prof. Indrajit S Saluja, Chief Editor, Attorney Ravi Batra and INOC President Dr. Surinder S Malhotra. based company named ‘Media newspaper. Motivating the audience with a Resources.’ “‘Hum Hindustani’ is born out of wave of national fervor Ambassador Dayal our love for our mother tongue and the nation- urged them to sing some of the songs usually al language of India, Hindi,” said Professor sung to display unity and patriotism among Indrajit Singh Saluja, chief editor of the new the people.

Journal looks at 9-11 impact on race, religion

New York: The journal ‘Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts’ has released a special issue examining how the events of 9-11 have framed the way in which Americans address race, religion and national origin in policy and public realms. Entitled Field Notes from the September 11 Moment: Transformations in Community and Country, the issue is guest edited by Deepa Iyer, Executive Director of South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT). It

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includes academic thought pieces, as well as a collection of first-person narratives from Muslims, Arabs, Sikhs and South Asians. Says Iyer, "The post-September 11 world has brought about significant shifts in how we think about race and identity in the US. This issue presents perspectives about a range of concerns that our country has been grappling with over the past decade, and serves as a departure point for further analysis and dialogue."

Religion-based protection for workers in New York New York: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has signed into law a bill initiated by the Sikh Coalition to significantly enhance religion-based protections for employees working in the metropolis.

"Today's law is a major step forward in ensuring Sikhs and other religious minorities are not unfairly excluded from jobs for which they are otherwise qualified," said Amardeep Singh, program director and co-founder of the community advocacy group.

Called the " Workplace Religious Freedom Act", the new law would change the legal standard by which courts review claims of religious workplace discrimination by public and private city employees.

Under previous city law, employers are required to make "reasonable accommodations" for the religious practices of their employees.

However, employers can bypass this requirement by showing that such accommodations would impose a minimal difficulty or expense on the

employer's business.

The new law will still allow employers to deny religious accommodations, but only by proving that such accommodations would constitute a "significant difficulty or expense," the Sikh Coalition said.

The current law does not allow Sikhs to work for the New York City Police Department unless they remove their turbans, the Coalition said.

Similarly, Sikh and Muslim workers who currently work for the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) are forced to brand their religious headwear with an MTA logo.

While the new law does not force either the MTA or NYPD to accept Sikhs with their full articles of faith, it creates a legal framework within city law that makes it very difficult to continue to exclude them from city jobs, the coalition said.

Citing a research report issued by it in 2008, the group alleged one in ten Sikhs in New York City reported suffering discrimination in employment.

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September 10-16, 2011

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Indian and South Asian Art at Sotheby’s on Sept 15 New York: On September 15, 2011 Sotheby’s New York will present Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art including Indian Miniature Paintings as part of the week of Asian art auctions. The sale offers approximately 90 works dating from 18th century miniatures to paintings and sculpture from some of the leading names in Indian Modern art. Among the many highlights of the sale is The Cobweb Cloud by Jehangir Sabavala, one of the most important paintings by the artist ever to appear at auction (est. $220/280,000) and Eglise, a 1962 abstract work by SH Raza (est. $300/500,000). The sale also includes a strong group of paintings by the other leading Modern Indian painters such as MF Husain, Jagdish Swaminathan, Ravi Varma, and Jamini Roy. Overall the auction is expected to fetch $2.5/3.6 million with the presale exhibition opening on 9 September.

The Cobweb Cloud by Jehangir Sabavala (est. $220/280,000) Jehangir Sabavala’s Cobweb Cloud is one of the artist’s most important works. It was chosen by Sabavala and his curator for inclusion in the major retrospective at NGMA Delhi and also appeared in the critically acclaimed 2005/6 exhibition of the artist’s work in Mumbai.

This ‘Gossamer Landscape’ captures the evening light over a plain and is characteristic of the artist’s subdued palate.

It marks an important turning point between his early cubist works and the textured composition of more recent paintings.

Eglise by SH Raza exudes the dynamic energy typical of the artists abstract period (est. $300/500,000). The work was painted in 1962, the same year Raza traveled to the US, a trip in which he encountered Abstract Expressionism via the New York

School of painters. This was also the year the artist moved from oil to acrylic, and Eglise is one of the last works produced in oil before this transition.

In Musician MF Husain continues to explore the sitar player – a theme that fascinated him throughout his career (est. $80/120,000).

In this painting the cool subtle palate of greens, blues and taupe contrasts to the vibrant read and yellow tones of earlier sitar paintings.

The work has previously been in the collection of the actor and musician Alan Arkin who, according to the former owners, saw himself as the central sitar playing figure. Untitled by Jagdish Swaminathan comes from the Bird, Tree and Mountain series in which the artist combines the simple compositions and forms of the indigenous aesthetic with a bold use of color. The current work includes naked trees, floating spheres, multiple suns and the signature delicate

bird that combine to resonate order and calm (est. $180/220,000).

Ravi Varma is considered one of the founders of Indian Modern art.

Through observing visiting foreign court painters he gained renown as one of the country’s first portrait artists working in the European tradition. The artist is also known for founding India’s first oleography press which made his paintings accessible to the public. This press was sold to his German printing technician Fritz Schlesicher, through whose family collection this magnificent Untitled (Himalayan Beauty) portrait has descended (est. $00/150,000).

The sale includes a fine group of Punjab Hills miniature paintings led by an illustration from the Sirmur school depicting Krishna and the Cow from circa 1810, originally from the G. K. Kanodia Collection and first published by W. G. Archer in his seminal book Indian Paintings from the Punjab Hills (1973) (est.$30/50,000).

Two charged in $10 million credit card fraud in New Jersey New Jersey: Razia Bibi, 32, of Dayton, NJ and Tahir Lodhi, 52, of Hicksville, NY, were arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

Two persons of South Asian origin have been charged for fraud for allegedly obtaining thousands of credit cards in the names of hundreds of fake identities.

Razia Bibi of Dayton, NJ and Tahir Lodhi of Hicksville, NY were arrested Aug. 31 and charged with participating in a credit card "bust-out" conspiracy, according to Paul J. Fishman, the United States attorney for New Jersey.

The defendants appeared the same day before United States Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox Arleo in Newark federal court.

The count with which the defendants are charged carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million. "The defendants' fraud was expansive, long-running, and sophisticated, tallying up millions of dollars in losses," Fishman is quoted saying in a press release.

Michael B. Ward, special agent in charge of the FBI's Newark Division, stated, "Unfortunately credit card bust-out schemes, like the one carried out by the subjects arrested today, are becoming increasingly prevalent and the impact on consumer pricing is significant.

To combat this problem, law enforcement has created dedicated cyber crime units whose

knowledge and sophistication are equal to the task and today's arrests are just another example of that dedicated effort to combat cyber crime." According to the criminal complaint, between in or about November 2006 through the present, Bibi, Lodhi, and others: (1) fraudulently applied for credit card accounts in the names of third parties, many of whom were fictitious individuals created by the conspirators; (2) directed credit cards obtained by this fraud to addresses that they controlled; (3) raised the credit limit on these credit cards by paying off small purchases; and (4) "busted out" the credit cards by charging large amounts on the credit cards and failing to pay off the balances.

In total, the conspirators fraudulently obtained over 3,900 credit cards in the names of over 600 different people, causing losses of over $10 million, investigators said in the release.

The investigation has previously resulted in the arrest of two other individuals and the seizure of more than $2 million in gold from a jewelry store located in Jersey City, NJ. In addition, law enforcement officials said they had determined that the defendants control several luxury automobiles, including late-model Toyota Land Cruisers and Lexus brand sedans and have purchased thousands of dollars in electronics and spa treatments, as well as luxury brand clothing, handbags and accessories, with proceeds from the fraud.

On August 20, 2011, Senator Michael Doherty – representing New Jersey Governor Chris Christie – Senator Christopher Bateman, Stephanie Alonso –representing United States Senator Bob Menendez – as well as Deputy Mayor Rajiv Prasad of the Franklin Township, joined over 2,500 people at the Garden State Exhibit Center in Somerset, to honor Brahmrishi Shree Kumar Swami, a spiritual leader of India. (From L to R) Varinder Bhalla, Riti Sunshine Bhalla, Senator Michael Doherty, Guru Ma, Senator Christopher Bateman, Brahmrishi Shree Kumar Swami Ji, Franklin Deputy Mayor Rajiv Prasad, Franklin Councilman James Major, Stephanie Alonso, Franklin Councilwoman Rozalyn Sherman. (Inset) Dr. Aruna Sapra welcoming the guests and dignitaries.

Prosecutors ridicule Dharun Ravi's apology New York: The text-message apology that Dharun Ravi sent to his Rutgers roommate Tyler Clementi on the night of Clementi's suicide last fall was a cynical attempt to avoid punishment from the school, prosecutors allege in newly filed court papers.

Ravi, 19, composed the text – which he happened to send 14 minutes after Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22 – after he learned he would be disciplined by Rutgers for using a webcam to film Clementi's romantic encounter with a male friend, prosecutors in Middlesex County, N.J., said. "This was just one of many attempts by [the] defendant to dilute, cover up and explain, in other words to tamper with the facts and to fabricate evidence that could be looked on as favorable to him," Middlesex County first assistant prosecutor Julia McClure wrote in response to a motion filed by Ravi's attorney to dismiss the charges against him.

Ravi is charged with 15 offenses, including bias and

intimidation. In opposing the motion, the prosecution cited instant-message chats, other text messages and emails sent by both Clementi and Ravi as more than enough reason to proceed with the case.

In one email to his resident assistant, Clementi allegedly wrote: "I feel my privacy has been violated and I am extremely uncomfortable sharing a room with someone who would act in this wildly inappropriate manner."

In one chat, Ravi allegedly wrote: "What if I catch him with a dude in my room. I'll have Jarvis [a talking computer software program he had installed on his laptop] warn me if he tries to rape me at night."

Ravi is not charged with causing Clementi's death, and prosecutors say his suicide is actually not relevant to the case. But Ravi's attorney wants documents about the suicide to be considered as possible evidence that Clementi may have been depressed prior to his death.

National Community TheSouthAsianTimes.info

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September 10-16, 2011

Bobby Jindal files for re-election Washington, DC: Louisiana Governor "Piyush" Bobby Jindal, the first Indian-American to be elected as chief executive of a US state, has filed to run again with his re-election virtually assured. "I am pleased and honored the people have entrusted me to be their governor these past three and a half years," Jindal said in an email Tuesday to supporters. "I'm officially asking them today to elect me to a second term."

The election, set for Oct 22, has drawn no serious challengers for Jindal, the Times-Picayune report-

ed.

The announcement comes as the 2012 presidential election begins to gear up -- a race many people once thought might include the young Louisiana governor.

When elected in 2007, he was not only the first Indian-American governor, but at age 36, he was the youngest US governor.

He gained wide praise for his leadership during Hurricane Gustav in 2008, as he ordered a mandatory evacuation and called more than 3,000 National Guard troops into the state.

"Our state's been through a lot," Jindal said in the e-mail, citing Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, as well as floods, the recent drought and last week's Tropical Storm Lee. "What that shows us is that Louisianans are a resilient people.

We've been through all those challenges and yet we continue to build a better state for our children and grandchildren," Jindal said.

"Our work is not done yet."

Jindal begins the race with a roughly $9 million war chest, and he told reporters he plans to get

Yashesh Desai beats father to death Held on $2 million bail, 21-year-old to undergo psychological exam Chicago: Yashesh Desai, 21 from Woodridge has been charged with beating his father, Sanjiv Desai, 47 to death with a weed trimmer in their home early Sunday.

According to Chicago Tribune, he blurted out odd responses during his bail hearing Monday, and prosecutors said he gave nonsensical answers to police after his arrest Sunday.

DuPage County Judge John Demling approved a request from Assistant State's Attorney Helen Kappas that Desai undergo a psychological examination.

Prosecutors said Desai had been seeing a psychiatrist and taking drugs usually prescribed for a major depressive disorder.

Woodridge police arrested Desai after being called to the home just after 3 a.m.

Sunday by his younger brother, who told dispatchers, "My brother just killed my father," State's Attorney Robert Berlin said Monday.

Officers found the brothers and their mother outside when they arrived and Desai had blood on his hands and clothing, authorities said.

Inside, they found the victim dead in a computer room, where he had been sleeping on a futon, authorities said. An autopsy showed the father died of a massive head trauma, Berlin said. Police found a battered weed trimmer in the living room, Berlin said.

Desai told police that his father owed him money and that he struck him in the temple, Berlin said. But in his police interview, according to Berlin, he also talked about

Lousiana’s Governor Bobby Jindal involved in several races by offering his endorsement.

When asked if he would serve

out the full four-year term if reelected, the normally loquacious Jindal answered simply, "Yes.”

Indians applying for US visas less qualified Washington, DC: Much before the TriValley University scam that affected many Indians was exposed in the US, the American consulate in Mumbai had expressed concern over the steep jump in less qualified student visa applications, a leaked US diplomatic cable has said.

The cable, dated December 29, 2009, says over the past year, Mumbai noted a marked rise in the number of less qualified student visa applicants, many of whom tended to apply to the same universities.

A study of students visa found that 40% of transfers were to a lower level degree program. “In a second random sample of appli-

cants issued only for study at universities identified by adjudicators as attracting a higher number of unqualified applicants, the completion rate was lower, rate of terminations higher and the number of transfers down was greater,“ it said.Of the 18,682 F1 applications received in calendar year 2007, Mumbai's adjusted refusal rate for individuals was 21%, the cable said. An extraordinary number of repeat refusals inflates the refusal rate per application to 33%.

“Unqualified F1 visa applicants appear for third, fourth and sometimes seventh interviews hoping for a different decision,“ it said.

Indian priest to pay $ 750,000 to settle sexual assault case Yashesh Desai Godzilla, the Turks, X and Y chromosomes, "as well as the need for 23 million soldiers."

Prosecutors said Desai had been living at home since he was dismissed from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in September after he had waved a knife at a student and was arrested for aggravated assault.

Desai majored in chemical and biomolecular engineering and left the school in summer 2010, according to the school, which would not provide additional details about his departure.

If convicted, Yashesh Desai could be sentenced to 60 years in jail, the DuPage County State's Attorney said in a release.

Chicago: A Roman Catholic Diocese in the US where an Indian priest is alleged to have sexually assaulted an American girl several times when she was a teenager has agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a lawsuit against him. Father Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, who now serves as Secretary of Education Commission in the Diocese of Ootacamund (Tamil Nadu) had been charged with sexually assaulting two girls while he was posted at the Crookston Diocese in Northern Minnesota in 2004.The victim, Megan Peterson, 20, said

Jeyapaul sexually abused her when she went to speak to him about becoming a nun.

Jeyapaul ministered three parishes in Crookston where he was accused of misappropriating church funds and sexual abuse. Charges were filed by the girl after the Church refused to answer her calls.

Jeyapaul returned to India before the charges came to light. "Right now Jeyapaul is a fugitive from justice in the United States. The Vatican and Bishop of Ootacamund in India are admitting him to remain in the ministry in India and are putting their reputation

over the well being and safety of children of whom we are concerned right now," the woman's attorney Jeff Anderson said. The plaintiff, Megan Peterson, and the Diocese of Crookston agreed to terms of settlement on July 13, 2011, prior to a trial. A payment of USD 750,000 was agreed upon, an amount covered by Diocese's insurance.

Peterson says she was 14 and aspiring to become a nun when she was raped several times by Jeyapaul. Jeyapaul has said he is innocent and denied ever knowing the two girls. The other girl was of 16 then.

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September 10-16, 2011

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Mahendra Rao to head stem cell center of excellence Washington, DC: National Institutes of Health Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., has announced the appointment of Mahendra S. Rao, M.D., Ph.D. as the director for the new NIH Intramural Center for Regenerative Medicine (NIHCRM).

The NIH-CRM is an initiative to create a world-class center of excellence in stem cell technology on the NIH campus, including induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC), which can have applications in many systems and organs of the body. “Dr. Rao’s varied experience makes him perfectly qualified to bring large groups together in order to move stem cell technologies through clinical trials and beyond to the clinic,” Collins said.

A major goal for the center is to build upon existing NIH investments in stem cell research to advance translational studies and ultimately cell-based therapies in the NIH Clinical Center.

In addition to his NIH-CRM Director position, Dr. Rao will hold a joint research appointment in NIAMS and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).

NIAMS Scientific Director Dr. John O’Shea noted, “Dr. Rao is an ideal choice to lead the NIH-CRM at this pivotal time for stem cell research. His unique background will serve him and the center well as we move forward to fulfill the great promise of stem cell technology.”

“I am delighted that Dr. Rao has been

selected to lead NIH-CRM,” said Story C. Landis, Ph.D., NINDS director and chair of the NIH Stem Cell Task force. “He brings extensive experience with human stem cells to the position as well as considerable energy and focus on moving to clinical applications.”

Dr. Rao is internationally renowned for his research involving human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and other somatic stem cells. He has worked in the stem cell field for more than 20 years, with stints in academia, government and regulatory affairs and industry. He received his M.D. from Bombay University in India and his Ph.D. in developmental neurobiology from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

Mahendra Rao

Google doodles on Freddie City-wide Mahatma Gandhi Week celebration in Houston Mercury's 65th birthday London: Flamboyant Parsi-British musician Farrokh Bulsara, better known by fans as Freddie Mercury and the lead singer of popular rock band Queen, was remembered on his 65th birth anniversary by Google with an animated doodle on its home page.

The 100-second collage, said to be among the longest posted by Google, has been kicked off with a blog by Brian May, who was a song-writer for Queens with numbers like ?We Will Rock You? that made Mercury one of the most popular artists ever.

"From time to time, we invite guests to post about items of interest and are thrilled to have Brian May join us to talk about friend and bandmate Freddie Mercury," said Google, introducing the blog on Mercury, equally versatile on piano, keyboard and guitar.

"Freddie was fully focused, never allowing anything or anyone to get in the way of his vision for the future.

He was truly a free spirit. There are not many of these in the world," said May, remembering his friend, who would have been 65 Monday.

"Some people imagine Freddie as a fiery, difficult diva who required everyone around him to compromise. No! In our world, as four artists attempting to paint on the same canvas, Freddie was always the one who could find the compromise -- the way to pull it through."

Born to Bomi and Jer Bulsara in the British protectorate of Zanzibar, now in Tanzania, Bulsara soon moved to Panchgani near Mumbai and spent his childhood there. He started taking piano lessons since seven and five years later formed a rock band of his

Google doodle in honor of Freddie Mercury own.

His family then moved to Feltham in Middlesex, England, and after his graduation and some odd jobs, he joined a band called Ibex in 1969. A year later, along with May and drummer Roger Taylor, he formed Queen -- and also changed his surname to Mercury.

Counted among the greatest entertainers, Mercury himself wrote several songs, notably "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Killer Queen", "We Are the Champions", "Seven Seas of Rhye", "Play the Game", "Somebody to Love" and "Don't Stop Me Now".

He was openly gay but hid his HIV status - believed to have been diagnosed sometime in 1987 -- from the public for at least two years. He died Nov 24, 1991 at his home in Kensington, when he was barely 45, a few months after he said bye to Queen.

Among the other notable tributes, luxury car-maker Lotus has produced a one-off Evora S coupe in his honor in pearl white with red and gold accents that was the entertainer's signature costume in the mid 1980s.

The car is to be auctioned off for an HIVAIDS charity formed by his Queen-mates.

Houston: Mahatma Gandhi demonstrated to the world that Non-Violent methods and Satyagraha (Holding to the Truth) can be used to bring about profound social change and lasting peace. In recognition of this wisdom and effectiveness of Gandhian principles, the Mahatma Gandhi Library, together with more than 50 organizations, celebrates Mahatma Gandhi Week each year. As part of Mahatma Gandhi Week 2011, a month long celebration, a city wide speech, essay and poster contests have been organized. The winners of the contest will be awarded their prizes by at 1000 Lights For Peace on Sunday, October 2, 2011.

Participants can pick up their certificates of participation in the essay contest at the event.

For entry forms and more information visit www.gandhilibray.org.

Below is the list of events which will be held at various places throughout September to October 2011. iTribute Multimedia Contest - Entry Deadline, September 25: Age 11 and above, Topic – Non-violent freedom movement in today's world; Age 10 and under, Topic – Gandhiji on Simplicity Debate Contest: Age 11 and

The grand finale to Mahatma Gandhi Week will feature a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic dance and music show by children and conclude with a candle lighting for peace. above, Topic – Is there a Gandhian solution for fighting corruption in the world?

Essay Contest: High School – Non-violent freedom movement in today's world Middle School – Gandhiji on Simplicity Speech Contest: Age 11 and above – "My Life is my Message." What message do I give by the way I live my life?; Age 10 and under – How can I make the world a better place?

Poster Contest: Age 11 and above – See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil; Age 10 and under – See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil Heroes For Peace @ The Childrens Museum: The Children's Museum opens its doors for Mahatma Gandhi Library on Sunday, September

25, 2011, between 12:00 pm and 6:00 pm. Various artists bring a variety of performances for the viewing pleasure of children young and old, all celebrating Peace. Theatre, Storytelling, and Dances highlight the day - all to commemorate heroes that stood for peace.

A photographic exhibition of Mahatma Gandhi will also be on view for the day. The final Poster Contest will also be held in conjunction with the Heroes for Peace day.

Walk for Peace - Sunday, October 2 : The Mahatma Gandhi Library Peace Walk begins at the Gandhi Statue in the Rose Garden at Hermann Park and culminates with a walk across the stage at the 1000 Lights for Peace event at Miller Outdoor Theater.

National Community TheSouthAsianTimes.info

September 10-16, 2011

24 Indian companies coming to Atlanta Atlanta, GA: A delegation of 24 companies from southeastern India will descend on Atlanta Sept. 6-9 in search of trade partnerships in a wide range of industries.

The group from the Andhra Chamber of Commerce in the city of Chennai includes chili exporters, professors and consultants. Also in the group are representatives of companies manufacturing car parts, garments, pharmaceuticals, hair products, chemicals and more.

The chamber's president, Kailashmull Dugar, is leading the delegation. The schedule includes meetings with university officials, exporters and companies including TransAtlantic Sales LLC, an incubator in Duluth that helps mid-sized foreign firms establish

a foothold in the U.S. The U.S. Commercial Service is hosting the group for a seminar on doing business in South India on the morning of Sept. 8.

That evening, the Global Mall, an Indian retail complex in Duluth, will be the venue for a networking reception hosted by the Georgia Indo-American Chamber of Commerce and attended by representatives from the Metro Atlanta Chamber and the Georgia Department of Economic Development.

The Georgia Indo-American chamber is also hosting a breakfast for the group at the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce's 1818 Club on Sept. 6.

D.V. Venkatagiri, a former chamber of commerce official in Chennai, is organizing the delegation.

Hari Nath elected to UNC board system Raleigh, NC: Hari H Nath (a.k.a Harish Mathur) was recently elected by the NC House of Representatives to the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina System (Board). Nath was sworn in to the position on August 11,2011 Nath, a current member of the Board of Advisors to NC- INPAC, is the inaugural Indian-American elected to one of the most prestigious Boards in NC. The Board sets policies, programs, budgets and priorities for the 16 public universities and School of Science and Math in North Carolina.

"For the next four years, I hope to contribute to the UNC Board of Governors to the best of my ability and advance our goal of promoting excellence in higher education," said Nath on his election.

Nath was founder and CEO of an IT Management consulting firm, TPMC, for 14 years (1987-2001).

Since acquisition of TPMC by a large firm in 2001, Nath has devoted his energies to community service and political activism in NC. Nath received his B.E. in Mining Engineering from the University of Jodhpur, India and received his M.S.

Hari H Nath in Industrial Engineering from the University of Missouri, Columbia in 1971. He is married for 38 years to Kalpana Nath and has a daughter Juhi Kachalia and son Neilesh Nath.

US regrets inconvenience to Indian diplomats at airports Washington, DC: The US has regretted the inconvenience caused to high level Indian diplomats due to screenings at its airports but said it is committed to meet security standards. "But, you know, we do have specific security requirements and we're committed to ensuring that those are met but obviously recognizing these individuals' importance and rank and significant," State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, told reporters.

We shared our regret over some of these incidents involving high-level Indian diplomats here within the United States, he said in response to a question about some news

9

reports appearing in this regard in the Indian media.

"I'm not aware of the reports that you're talking about. I'll have to look into them," he said. Last year, Indian Ambassador Meera Shankar was pulled out of an airport security line and patted down by an American security agent in Mississippi despite being told of her diplomatic status, prompting Indian mission here to strongly protest against the incident. India's UN envoy Hardeep Puri was also detained last year for more than 30 minutes in a holding room at Houston Airport, Texas, after refusing to remove his turban.

Researcher training robots modeled on infants Washington, DC: The way infants upside down in a dishwasher, so spend their initial months trying to the robot must be trained to make figure their way around could serve those decisions, according to a as a model for training robots, an Cornell statement.

Indian American researcher says.

‘We just show the robot some A team led by Ashutosh Saxena at examples and it learns to generalCornell University Personal ize the placing strategies and Robotics Lab, is training robots to applies them to objects that were handle objects as infants do to find not seen before,’ Saxena, assistant their way around in their new enviprofessor of computer science, ronments. explained.

A computer can be ‘trained’ to Ashutosh Saxena ‘It learns about stability and look up cups of all shapes and other criteria for good placing for sizes and find what is common to all of them. plates and cups, and when it sees a new object A similar process can teach a robot to find a — a bowl — it applies them,’ said Saxena. cup’s handle and grasp it correctly.

After training, their robot placed most objects Saxena, an Indian Institute of Technology- correctly 98 percent of the times when it had Kanpur alumnus, has found that placing seen the objects and environments previously, objects is harder than picking them up. and 95 percent of the times when working A cup is placed upright on a table, but with new objects in a new environment.

Obama applauds Hindu American Group for community service Washington, DC: President Barack Obama has applauded a Hindu American group for advancing public service, interfaith collaboration and pluralism, as the organization made its White House debut by holding a community briefing there.

"Guided by a commitment to lifting up the lives of others, organizations like Hindu American Seva Charities demonstrate the compassion of the American people and reflect our capacity to unite and address the challenges facing our world," Obama said in a message to the 2nd annual conference of the HASC. Titled “Impacting Change in America and Abroad,” the threeday event, which began July 29, was co-sponsored by the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

The first day of the event was held inside the White House.

Nearly 200 Hindu Americans, youth and community leaders of many faiths, gathered at the White House briefing, which was closed to the media.

"I send greetings to all those attending 'Dharmic Seva': Catalyst to Strengthening and Building Pluralistic Communities. Our Nation has always been a land of opportunity and optimism," Obama said.

Anju Bhargava, HASC founder, said, "America belongs to all of us and it is our duty and right to serve and strengthen this great country by offering the best of our traditions and wisdom to solve today's problems.”

Together, participants identified how the Hindu American community can contribute to the wellbeing of the nation through health, nutrition and education she said.

Bhargava said HASC has announced that it would launch a number of initiatives at the White House. These include "Bhumi Seva" to promote greening of temples, security and safety in 'Dharmic' places of worship and a program to meet the growing needs of military families.

The HASC also decided to launch a YogaPala Challenge with the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition.

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India Newswire

September 10-16, 2011

TheSouthAsianTimes.info

12 die, 91 hurt as terror revisits Delhi New Delhi: At least 12 people were killed and 91 injured when a powerful bomb concealed in a briefcase exploded at a crowded gate of Delhi High Court.

A home ministry statement said that of the 91 injured, 17 were discharged after first aid at the Delhi High Court dispensary.

The explosion occurred around 10.15 a.m. when about 300 visitors were crowding Gate 5 for passes to enter the complex.

Several people died instantly while others collapsed, screaming in pain.

As parliament adjourned after paying homage to the dead and security was scaled up across major cities, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh denounced it as a "cowardly attack" and vowed to stamp out terror. "This is a long war in which all political parties, all people of India have to stand united so that the scourge of ter-

A blast victim being taken to the hospital in New Delhi. rorism is crushed," he said in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka.

The prime minister, who returned in the evening, drove straight to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital from the airport and met the injured.

The terror attack took place less

than four months after a low intensity explosion at the parking lot of the court. No one was injured then but officials now believe that may have been a dry run. The high court is located in the heart of Delhi, a short distance from the India Gate war memori-

No CCTVs even after May blast New Delhi: There are no CCTVs in the Delhi High Court complex although Delhi Police had been reprimanded by the same court for security lapses after the May 25 blast.

"After May 25, Delhi Police should have learnt a lesson and installed CCTVs at all the nine gates of the court. "This security lapse was highlighted in May when a bomb exploded in a parking lot near Gate 7 of the court," said Delhi bar association chairman Rakesh Tiku.

"The high court has even written to Delhi Police for installation of CCTV cameras at all gates," he said. Wednesday's blast took place at Gate 5 where passes are issued to visitors. The bomb was placed in a briefcase. "Had there been been cameras, the culprit could have been identified and arrested," said Anurag Pandey, an advocate.

"Despite the number of police personnel deployed after the May blast, the tragedy could not be averted," Pandey said.

al. The court adjoins the National Gallery of Modern Art. The government quickly handed over the probe to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) which formed a core team of 20 and a support team of 17 officers.

NIA Director General S.C. Sinha said the agency was seriously looking at the role of banned terror outfit Harkat-ulJihad Islami (HuJI) which claimed responsibility for the blast.

An email sent to two television channels by the Pakistan-based outfit demanded that the hanging of 2001 parliament attack convict Afzal Guru be immediately "repealed".

Within hours, Delhi Police released sketches of two suspects -- one in his mid-20s and another 50 years old. The prime minister and Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit together announced Rs.5 lakh each to families of the dead.

Citing information provided by Delhi police, Home Minister P. Chidambaram said 74 persons had been admitted to various hospitals in the city, including 55 in Ram Manohar Lohia hospital. He said four of the injured were critical.

Among the dead was 21-yearold Amanpreet Singh Kohli, who was training to become a lawyer.

So powerful was the explosion that it left a crater two-three feet wide and one foot deep. Almost everyone who was killed seemed to have been in a small area around the concealed bomb.

Most of the dead and injured were rushed to the nearby Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, where families of the victims were bitter as they were kept away from their kin when politicians came calling.

Some raised slogans against Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi when he visited the hospital.

Delhi blast email traced to Kishtwar

Come in open and fight: Anna Hazare Ahmednagar (Maharashtra): Social activist Anna Hazare challenged terror elements and groups to "come out in the open and fight" rather than target innocents in terror strikes.

Speaking to media-persons in his home village Ralegan-Siddhi village Wednesday evening, Hazare said that terror groups should not hide and fight by targeting innocents.

"Come out in the open and fight. Don't target innocents in this manner," Hazare declared, expressing his sympathies for the victims of the terror attack in New Delhi.He said that in his opinion, the victims who lost their lives have died for society.

"After all, they were innocents

The sketches of two suspects.

Anna Hazare who had done nothing wrong to anybody. They have given their

lives for the society," Hazare said.

Jammu: Police had got vital clues about the person who had sent an email claiming responsibility for the Delhi High Court blast after raids on a cyber cafe in Kishtwar in the state, officials said.

On questioning owners of the Global Internet Cafe in Kishtwar, about 230 km from here, investigators garnered some information about how the man looked.

"We have got some details about the physical features of the person. Police parties have been deputed to trace him," a senior police officer working on the investigations said.

No formal arrest had been made so far, he said. The owners, Khajwa Mehmood Aziz and his brother Khalid Aziz, were being questioned and police were scanning the records of the cyber cafe and the people who visited it.

Jammu and Kashmir Police had conducted raids after it became known that the email, purportedly

by Harkat-ul Jehadi Islami, had been sent from a cyber cafe in Kishtwar.

The National Investigation Agency zeroed in on Global Internet Cafe at Malik Market in Kishtwar as the place from where the email was sent.

The Pakistan-based HuJI had sent the email to two television channels demanding that the hanging of 2001 parliament attack convict Afzal Guru be immediately repealed.

The records of mails and details of all those who sent it are being scanned, they added. Twelve people were killed and 91 injured when a powerful bomb concealed in a briefcase exploded at a gate of the high court in New Delhi.

India Newswire TheSouthAsianTimes.info

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September 10-16, 2011

Delhi blast exposes intelligence loopholes New Delhi: Top security experts say that the blast outside the Delhi High Court has "exposed the loopholes in our security system" which "has an inadequate and incapable intelligence gathering system and a weak counter-terrorism mechanism".

Ved Marwah, former governor of Manipur who was also chief of the Delhi Police, was quoted as saying: "The blast points towards the loopholes in the security system itself."

"While we look out for the terrorists responsible for the blast, we should have a look inside, into our own systems. More than the success of the terrorists, it is the weakness of our systems which cause terrorist incidents one after

Security personnel outside the Delhi High Court. another."

Ajai Sahni, director of the New Delhi-based Institute of Conflict Management, warned that more terror strikes are likely. "Because our intelligence gathering capabilities are highly inadequate," Sahni

was quoted as saying.

Sahni said the country's "counter-terrorism mechanism is still very weak". In a country of 1.2 billion people, there are only 5,000 central intelligence officials, he pointed out.

"Even these officials have to handle multiple tasks. They have to gather political intelligence, track separatist movements and keep a watch on social tensions," he said.

P.H. Hormis Tharakan, former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), said that setbacks are natural in the "long-drawn fight against terrorism".

"Terrorism is a continuing phenomenon which the security forces are able to control many times. But there will be ups and downs in the fight against terror. It is not a battle but a long-drawn war," Tharakan said.

Sahni said the country should have a "re-energized, dedicated and capable intelligence gathering

system to counter terror". "It should not be a set-up where people go to sleep after the news about a blast dies down."

However, all the three experts were certain that jidhadist organizations were behind Wednesday's blast, which killed at least 11 people and injured more than 75. But it was too early to say which organisation or a combination of the outfits conducted the blast, they added.

Marwah said though it was too premature to verify the claim of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) owning responsibility for the blast, it certainly "looked the handiwork of the jihadists, maybe with the help from extremists outside the country".

UNSC condemns US denounces Delhi bomb blast Delhi terror attack United Nations: The UN Security Council has "condemned in the strongest terms" the terrorist attack that occurred in India which caused numerous deaths and injuries, Xinhua reported.

"The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest terms the terrorist attack that occurred in Delhi, India, on Sep 7, causing numerous deaths and injuries," said a press statement read out by Nawaf Salam, the Lebanese Ambassador to the UN and monthly president of the 15-member Council.

The Security Council "reaffirmed that terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitutes one of the most serious

threats to international peace and security, and that any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed," said the statement.

"The members of the Security Council reiterated their determination to combat all forms of terrorism, in accordance with its responsibilities under the Charter of the United Nations," said the statement.

Earlier, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also voiced strong condemnation of the bomb attack in the Indian capital and expressed "solidarity with the government and people of India."

Washington: The US denounced the bomb blast in the Indian capital as a "cowardly attack" and said it stood with India in confronting the global challenge of terrorism.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the US "condemns in the strongest terms" the deadly bombing and extends its deepest condolences to those affected by the "cowardly attacks".

"Terrorism is a scourge that affects us all and the United States stands with India in confronting this global challenge," she said in a statement.

"The US government continues to monitor the situation, including the safety and security of our citizens, and stands ready to offer any and all assistance to Indian authorities," she added.

Earlier, US Charge d'Affaires

State Department spokeswoman Victoria.

Peter Burleigh condemned the attack in a statement saying: "On behalf of all Americans, I extend deep condolences to the government of India and the families of those harmed in this (Wednesday) morning's attacks on the New Delhi High

Court."

"The US remains shoulder to shoulder with India in the fight against terror, and will provide whatever assistance possible to help bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice," he added.

NIA teams to probe Delhi blast Delhi blast a heinous attack: Sarkozy

New Delhi: Home Minister P. Chidambaram said that detailed forensic examination reports on the Delhi High Court blast were likely to be available Thursday and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) looking into the case had formed a core team of 20 and a support team of 17 officers to assist the investigation.

In a statement, Chidambaram said Delhi Police was working with the NIA in carrying out key tasks assigned to them.

He said experts in bomb blasts, who have been called from the FSL (Forensic Science Laboratory) Gujarat, were closely examining the scene of the blast and would come up with critical evidence regarding the nature of the blast soon.

He said according to information received from Delhi Police, 11 people had been killed in the blast while 74 had been injured.

He said four of the injured were critical. He added that that two of

P. Chidambaram at the blast site. critically injured were being treat- pitals include AIIMS (2), Hospital (3), ed at AIIMS and two others at Moolchand Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.

Safdarjung Hospital (4), LNJP "Doctors are making every Hospital (1), Apollo Hospital (3), effort to save their lives," he said.

Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (5), RR The minister said 55 people Hospital (Army) (1). were being treated at Ram He said 17 people had been disManohar Lohia Hospital. The charged after first aid from Delhi injured being treated at other hos- High Court dispensary.

New Delhi: Terming the blast in Delhi a "heinous terrorist attack", French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France is on India's side in fighting the "barbaric scourge" of terror.

"At a time when New Delhi has once again been struck by a heinous terrorist attack claiming tens of innocent victims, I would like to express my complete solidarity and heartfelt condolences on behalf of France and myself," Sarkozy said in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"France is at India's side during this distressing ordeal and I am more determined than ever to fight this barbaric scourge together. The combat against terrorism unites us and we shall always pursue our efforts relentlessly," he said in a statement that was issued here.

"Please accept, Prime Minister,

French President Nicolas Sarkozy. the assurances of my highest consideration and friendship," Sarkozy said.

A powerful explosion ripped through the workday bustle at the Delhi High Court Wednesday, killing 11 people and injuring 76 in India's third worst bombing since the November 2008 Mumbai attack.

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India Newswire

September 10-16, 2011

TheSouthAsianTimes.info

Maya calls Wikileaks founder mad Lucknow: Calling WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange "mad", Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati rubbished US embassy cables leaked by the online whistleblower that said she had sent a special jet to Mumbai to bring her sandals.

"These reports are baselesss," Mayawati told reporters here.

"The owner of Wikileaks should be sent to a mental asylum for what the kind of baseless allegations his organization had been making against me," Mayawati told reporters in a no holds barred press conference.

The cables that portray her as a dictator, she said, were a ploy by vested interests to malign her

Wikileaks revealed that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister dispatched a plane to fetch her favorite sandals from Mumbai.

BSP leader wants to sue WikiLeaks New Delhi: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) general secretary Satish Chandra Misra denied a US diplomatic cable on whistleblower website WikiLeaks that he had called Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati corrupt.

The Rajya Sabha MP said he would sue the newspaper that had published the cable and serve a "legal notice to Wikileaks for making this baseless allegation against me when fact remains that I did not meet any foreign delegate between May 2007 and December 2007".

"Well, Mayawatiji took oath as

the chief minister on May 13, 2007, and the WikiLeaks cable is purported to have been sent barely two weeks after that... can you imagine anyone in my position making that kind of a statement within days of the formation of the government?" Misra asked.

"The whole story is concocted with the intent of tarnishing my image and forging a rift between me and the chief minister. But I can assure you that such a conspiracy will not work as Mayawatiji knows me well enough," Misra said.

image and that of her party. "They are playing into the hands of opposition parties," she said.

Confidential US embassy cables leaked by WikiLeaks project Mayawati as a dictator who had food tasters to sample her meals and "a security entourage to rival a head of state".

A cable in October 2008 entitled "Mayawati: Portrait of a Lady" describes how she once dispatched a plane to fetch her favorite sandals from Mumbai.

"When she needed new sandals, her private jet flew empty to Mumbai to retrieve her preferred brand," the cable said.

Mayawati retorted in response: "As far as I am concerned, I do

not know of any such thing. But if WikiLeaks and BJP leaders are making such a wild claim, then I would like to ask them, if they also flew down in that plane to get me those special sandals?"

She also hit out at WikiLeaks and opposition leaders for propagating that she had hired a whole team of cooks and food-tasters. "It appears that some of these people are washing utensils in my kitchen, otherwise how else could they be cooking up such stories?"

Mayawati asked with a smirk.

According to the US cables, state Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh and close aide Satish Chandra Misra also spoke against Mayawati.

Assange hits back at Maya New Delhi: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has rejected UP chief minister Mayawati's allegations and asked her to admit her errors and apologize.

He said: "Mayawati has betrayed rational thought. The question is, has she also betrayed the Dalit?

There is no question that the documents are official papers from the US embassy. These papers have been proven the world over, including by the aggressive persecution of our people by Washington."

"The allegations within them are made by US diplomats in their private communications back to Hillary Clinton. If chief minister Mayawati has a problem with the

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. contents of these communications she need to take it up with Hillary. I

ask that Mayawatti to admit her error and apologize."

Modi eying bigger role: WikiLeaks ‘NSA Menon capitulated New Delhi: Gujarat Chief Minister before Chidambaram’ Narendra Modi is eying a bigger national leadership role and is positioning himself for a power struggle in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), say US diplomatic cables made public by online whistleblower Wikileaks.

"Modi is using his strong base in Gujarat to position himself for the BJP power struggle and to crow about Gujarat's investment-friendly (but certainly not minority-friendly) record,? says one of the cables which were uploaded earlier this week by Wikileaks.

The cables sent by US diplomats in New Delhi focus on Modi's rising stature in the BJP and claim that "Modi has his eyes on bigger things".

In an assessment going back to 2005, the cables suggest Modi could be the most popular BJP leader and a potential PM candidate.

"Anecdotal evidence suggests Modi could be the most popular leader in the BJP and there is increasing momentum to make him the party figurehead and next choice of PM,? says a cable sent after Modi was denied a US visa in 2005. The cable

“At present, Narendra Modi appears stronger than at any time,” a cable says. also claims that the BJP's move to done a fine job of economic govermake Modi the prime ministerial nance, notwithstanding the black candidate would unite the secular stain the (2002) riots left," a cable parties. says. "At present, Modi appears "In a BJP beset by internal strug- stronger than at any time," a cable gle, Modi's revival sets him up nice- says. Modi was a star campaigner ly to influence the kingmaking when for the BJP in the 2009 elections the time comes. Having recovered which the Congress and its allies from the crisis invoked by our visa won. revocation and his tyrannical manAlluding to the cancellation of the agement style, Modi is positioning visa application, the cables say himself as a national leader by Modi bears permanent resentment reminding people that Gujarat has against the US for the "humiliation".

New Delhi: National Security Adviser (NSA) Shivshankar Menon had capitulated to Home Minister P. Chidambaram on intelligence issues soon after taking over his post, a diplomatic cable leaked by whistleblower site WikiLeaks says In the cable dated Feb 1, 2010, then US envoy Timothy J. Roemer observed: "While Menon is battling to preserve much of the territory and power of the NSA, he may well have capitulated to Chidambaram on some intelligence issues."

Menon had taken over as the NSA on Jan 23, 2010 and Roemer had met him just five days later. The cable confirms reports that Chidambaram had prevailed in the power tussle between the office of the NSA and home ministry on the issue of intelligence.

Roemer, in the cable, said he broached the reports that indicated a reformed and more narrow NSA structure was accurate. Menon, the then ambassador said, was blunt in asserting that his portfolio as NSA would remain "the same" as that of his predecessor M.K. Narayanan.

National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon.

Narayanan had been shunted out as NSA to West Bengal as governor only a few days earlier in the same month that year after major differences of opinion between him and Chidambaram.

Roemer, in his comments on Menon's blunt remarks, said his message and demeanor contrasted with that of two weeks ago when he told the ambassador "change is going to happen" and that he would focus more on strategic issues.

Menon appeared to be in the midst of an effort to consolidate his position and maximize his value to the prime minister, Roemer added in the cable.

Diaspora TheSouthAsianTimes.info

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September 10-16, 2011

Indian-origin entrepreneur builds Wine Chateau in Argentina Mendoza (Argentina): Life's a voyage for this promising entrepreneur. Meet Aziz Abdul who has come a long way from his humble background in Asia to build a sprawling wine chateau in this beautiful Andean nation that is home to star footballers like Digeo Maradona and Lionel Messi.

Born to a Tamil father and a halfVietnamese mother, Aziz can speak fluent Spanish and Vietnamese. "I am a foreigner in any country", he beams with a smile when asked to which country he belonged.

Aziz has named his chateau Hana, said R. Viswanathan, Indian ambas-

money to pursue his dream to own a vineyard and make his own wine.

While studying in Paris, he was a frequent visitor to the cellar of the home of one of his friends. He then studied viticulture and enology. The taste for wine led him to explore vineyards in France and beyond. As soon as he had the minimum savings he started looking to buy a vineyard.

Aziz came to Argentina, the fifth

Abdul Aziz's farmhouse El Paraiso (paradise) in Mendoza, Argentina

A bottle of Chateau Hana wine

sador to Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay who spent two days last month visiting his vineyard and listening to his stories over glasses of Hana wine.

He produces high-end wine which sells for 90 pesos ($22) in wine shops in Argentina. His wine is also served in upscale hotels, restaurants and wine shops in Buenos Aires, Bariloche, Mendoza, Mar del Plata, Cordoba and Rosario.

He was born in South Vietnam where he lived for the first 15 years.

His father, a Tamil from

Pondicherry, returned to India on losing their possessions when Saigon fell in 1975.

Aziz went to a French school in Pondicherry and later moved to Paris where he studied mathematics and thereafter computer science at the University of Orsay.

He worked for 20 years in the IT department of the French multinational group Lagardere. But he did not want to end up life staring at the computer screens.

He longed to have a quiet life in the countryside and was saving

largest wine producer in the world.

He bought a 15-hectare vineyard on the outskirts of San Rafael city in Mendoza province in 2008 where he grows malbec, cabernet sauvignon and bonarda varietals. He is into his fourth crop this year.

He put up a new boutique winery, with a capacity of 85,000 liters. He manages the farm with the help of a local husband-wife pair and an enologist.

25 percent of British babies born to foreign mothers London: One out of four babies born in Britain in 2010 were born to migrant women, including those from India and Pakistan, official statistics show.

Figures released by the Office for National Statistics reveal that migrant mothers gave birth to 181,514 babies -25.1 percent of 723,165 newborns in 2010, the Daily Express said.

In 2009, a total of 174,443 babies were born to migrant

mothers - 24.7 percent of the total number. In 2000, it was 15.5 percent, and 11.6 per cent in 1990.

Newham in east London had the highest levels - with a staggering 75 percent of all babies born to migrants. Most were from India, Pakistan and Poland.

Britain is struggling to cope with soaring immigration.

The number of midwives has also not kept pace with the migrant baby boom.

14 10th Anniversary of 9-11 September 10-16, 2011

TheSouthAsianTimes.info

It is not ‘Ground Zero’ any longer: Mayor Bloomberg

SATimes Special New York: Ten years after the terrorist attacks, and less than a week from the ribbon-cutting at the new World Trade Center, the New York City mayor says it's time to retire Ground Zero.

In a speech delivered on Wall Street, Michael Bloomberg said the new construction and memorial on the site has made the name no longer fitting, news site DNAinfo.com reports.

"We will never forget the devastation of the area that came to be known as 'Ground Zero' -- never," Bloomberg told the Association for a Better New York at a breakfast appearance, adding that the "the time has come for us to call those 16 acres what they are: The World Trade Center and the National September 11th Memorial and Museum."

His call for the name change isn't the first: For years Downtown residents have

Mayor Bloomberg visited the WTC site Tuesday along with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

The largest tower at the new World Trade asked officials to stop calling the two rising skyscrapers and eight-acre memorial Center will reach 1,776 feet, becoming the "Ground Zero," according to the article, tallest building in the country when comsaying that moniker recognizes only the pleted, while towers two, three, and four past destruction rather than the promise of will each be successively shorter. recovery.

Despite the years of construction delays

George Bush remembers 9/11 in new documentary Washington, DC: With the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaching, former US president George Bush has granted his only interview recalling the day's events to the National Geographic channel. Here, Peter Schnall, the programme's director, describes how it went . ..

I had already made some films about Air Force One and spent time with President Bush aboard the plane. He talked to me about what it was like to be on Air Force Once on September 11, 2001, not knowing what was going to happen next.

I flew into Dallas in early May. As I was collecting my luggage, I heard Osama bin Laden had been killed. I was concerned the interview might be cancelled. Thankfully, this didn't happen. Bush said he'd been in a restaurant when he heard the news; the secret service came up to him and said there was a call from the White House.

I asked him what his reaction was; closure, he said. Not relief or jubilation, just that he knew this day would come. In total, I interviewed him for four to five hours across two consecutive days. As is his habit, he arrived

and cost overruns, Bloomberg says the half-finished office complex on the site of the former twin towers is the center of a growing and vibrant neighborhood, which boasts its highest population since the 1920s.

Bloomberg pointed out that Lower Manhattan gained 4,000 new school seats, 19 new hotels, $260 million in new parks, and more new residents in the past decade than Atlanta, Dallas, and Philadelphia combined, DNAinfo.com reports.

"New York has come roaring back faster than anyone thought possible," Bloomberg told his audience of community leaders.

In addition to the skyscrapers, the site's eight-acre memorial consists of two sunken foundations at the exact spots where the towers used to stand. Inside the foundations are reflecting pools, and bronze protective walls atop the pools are etched with victims' names. The memorial and the museum are set to open Sunday, on the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

"I believe the rebirth and revitalization of Lower Manhattan will be remembered as one of the greatest comeback stories in American history," Bloomberg told the group. "And I believe it will stand as our greatest monument to those we lost on 9/11."

Events in New York City to mark 10th Anniversary of 9/11 * The 9/11 Memorial will officially open on Sept. 11 with a ceremony for victims' families at Ground Zero. The Memorial will then open to the public on the next day for visitors who reserved passes in advance. On Sept.

10, Community Board 1 will hold Hands Across Lower Manhattan, an event on the West Side Waterfront.

Chief of Staff Andrew Card, bent over to whisper in the president's ear to inform him about the planes hitting the WTC 20 minutes early and said: 'OK, let's get going.'

The stand-out moments for me were when he talked about how he was personally affected

by September 11. He said it felt like he was suddenly in the fog of war. There were rumors that his ranch in Texas and the White House were under attack and he genuinely didn't know what was going on for a period of time.

He spoke about what it was like to have to decide there and then whether to give the command to shoot down a commercial plane. The day before, he said, his presidency was largely

concentrated on domestic issues. Now, suddenly, he was a war president, which he had never imagined would be the case. On that day, he was just a human, too, like everyone else.

At the end, we shook hands and I asked him if he could recommend a restaurant in Dallas.

"Do you like barbecue?" he asked, then gave me a name. I wish I could remember its name now, but I can't.

George W. Bush: The 9/11 Interview will premiere in the UK on Tuesday 6 September at 9pm on the National Geographic Channel as part of 9/11 week.

* Hand in Hand Remembrance On Saturday, Sept. 10, thousands of people will join hands to form a human chain along the waterfront in lower Manhattan. The event begins at 8:46 a.m., the time the first plane hit the World Trade Center on 9/11. Afterward, participants may post a message on the Wall of Remembrance at Battery Park.

Participation in the hand-holding ceremony is free but pre-registration is required. Sign up on the event's website. Organizers will contact you with information on your starting location. * Remembrance at Trinity Church On Sunday, Sept. 11, the historic Trinity Church, at Broadway and Wall Streets near the ground zero site, will ring the Bell of Hope at 8:46 a.m. In the afternoon, at 1:30 p.m., the church will ring the tower bells for an hour of remembrance. At 2:30 p.m., a special service will be held in remembrance of the 9/11 volunteers, first responders,

and recovery workers. At 7:14 p.m., an interfaith ringing of the Bell of Hope will again honor the memory of those killed. Admission is free. * World Trade Center Memorial Floating Lantern Ceremony On the evening of Sept. 11, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., the Interfaith Center of New York will host a floating lantern ceremony on the south side of Pier 40 on the Hudson River. Participants will write loved one's names and messages of peace on paper lanterns and release them into the river. The ceremony includes interfaith prayer, meditation, and musical performances. Admission is free. * Opening of the National 9/11 Memorial The 9/11 Memorial, on the ground zero site, contains two giant waterfalls and two reflecting pools in the footprints of the twin towers, surrounded by the names of the people who died inscribed in bronze panels.

The Memorial will be open to the public starting on Monday, Sept. 12.

Admission is free, but advance reservations are required.

You can reserve a pass on the 9/11 Memorial's website. Enter at the intersection of Albany and Greenwich streets.

10th Anniversary of 9-11 TheSouthAsianTimes.info

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September 10-16, 2011

Honoring 9/11 victims SATimes Special The National 9/11 Memorial at the site of Ground Zero will officially open on Sunday New York: The National September 11 Memorial is a tribute of remembrance and honor to the nearly 3,000 people killed in the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center site, near Shanksville, Pa., and at the Pentagon, as well as the six people killed in the World Trade Center bombing in February 1993.

The Memorial’s twin reflecting pools are each nearly an acre in size and feature the largest manmade waterfalls in the North America. The pools sit within the footprints where the Twin Towers once stood. Architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker created the Memorial design selected from a global design competition that included more than 5,200 entries from 63 nations.

The names of every person who died in the 2001 and 1993 attacks are inscribed into bronze panels edging the Memorial pools, a powerful reminder of the largest loss of life resulting from a foreign attack on American soil and the greatest single loss of rescue personnel in American history.

The 9/11 Memorial is located at the site of the former World Trade Center complex, and occupies approximately half of the 16-acre site. The 9/11 Memorial features two enormous waterfalls and reflecting pools, each about an acre in size, set within the footprints of the original twin towers. The Memorial Plaza is one of the most ecofriendly plazas ever constructed. More than 400 trees are planned for the plaza, surrounding the Memorial's two massive reflecting pools. Its design conveys a spirit of hope and renewal, and creates a contemplative space separate from the usual sights and sounds of a bustling metropolis.

Swamp white oak trees create a rustling

South Memorial pool vista canopy of leaves over the plaza. This grove of trees bring green rebirth in the spring, provide cooling shade in the summer and show seasonal color in fall. A small clearing in the grove, known as the Memorial Glade, designates a space for gatherings and special ceremonies.

The Memorial plaza has been created as one of the most sustainable, green plazas

Ariel view of the Memorial

ever constructed. Its irrigation, storm water and pest management systems will conserve energy, water and other resources.

Rainwater will be collected in storage tanks below the plaza surface. A majority of the daily and monthly irrigation requirements will be met by the harvested water.

The project is pursuing the Gold certification in the U.S. Green Building Council’s

Museum pavilion interiors

LEED for New Construction program.

LEED is a third party certification program for green building, design and construction.

The plaza is also built to meet requirements of New York State Executive Order 11 and the WTC Sustainable Design Guidelines, which both promote environment-friendly practices.

This urban forest will flourish near adjacent green spaces, including Battery Park City, City Hall Park, Liberty Plaza, the churchyards at Liberty Church and St. Paul’s Chapel as well as the planned Liberty Park just south of the Memorial.

With its grove of trees, the Memorial’s plaza is an actual green roof for the structure housing the 9/11 Memorial Museum, a train station and other facilities 70 feet below street level. Landscape architecture firm Peter Walker and Partners designed the plaza and a “suspended paving system” to support the swamp white oak trees growing on the plaza. The paving of the plaza sits on a series of concrete tables that suspend the plaza over troughs of nutrient-rich soil for the planted trees. The system’s design allows for stable pavement on which people can walk, while providing a space for uncompacted, or loose soil, for healthy tree growth.

Inscriptions of names of the victims

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10th Anniversary of 9-11 TheSouthAsianTimes.info

September 10-16, 2011

SATimes Special

Resilience, counter - terror tactics see America through Notwithstanding some sporadic lone-wolf attacks and a few which were pre-empted, the nation can take solace in the fact that therehave been no serious terror strikes on American soil in the last ten years. 9-11has rightly proved to be a wake-up call that “it can happen here�. Acting with alacrity, the security agencies tightened internal security and did everything possible to break the back of enemy terror organizations, cutting off their support base, targeting and even killing terrorist kingpins.

Meanwhile, Americans’ resilience saw the country quickly get over the collective trauma of the darkest day in US history. The mood shifted more in the wake of the NATO forces quickly defeating Taliban, Al Qaeda ally, in Afghanistan, and ousting Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

The significance for the US of remembering the cataclysmic events of ten years ago is to steel the resolve today to counter terrorism with full force and disallow history from repeating itself, something that India has failed at and keeps getting hit again and again.

By Parveen Chopra United Airlines Flight 175 collides into the south tower of the World Trade Center as smoke billows from the north tower. It was the most audacious and spectacular attack in human history.

The original World Trade Center was a complex of seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in New York.

Manhattanites running away from the ball of fire and smoke caused by the collapse of the towers.

After the attacks, President Bush visited the World Trade Center site, seen here with a fireman (the New York City Fire Department - FDNY lost over 340 firefighters). Bush also declared War Against Terror.

Brave first responders, firemen and policemen risked their own lives to save people. Exposure to toxic gases and hazardous material during the clean up harmed their health long term. In the background is the skeleton of the twin towers left after their collapse.

A third plane hit the Pentagon building in Arlington, VA. More was to come.

When passengers tried to take control of the fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, it crashed into a field near Shanksville,PA, preventing it from reaching its intended target inWashington, D.C.

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September 10-16, 2011

The Tribute in Light is an art installation of 88 searchlights placed next to the WTC site to create two vertical columns of light in remembrance of the September 11 attacks. It is producedannually by the Municipal Art Society of New York.

New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (flanked here by then New York State Governor George Pataki, and Senator Hillary Clinton) gained wide acclaim for his leadership during and after 9-11.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-confessed principal architect of the 9/11 attacks, was arrested in March 2003 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan by Pakistani security officials working with the CIA.

In 2004, Osama Bin Laden claimed responsibility for 9-11. He was killed by American commandos in May 2011 in a raid on his hideout in Pakistan.

The WTC site in lower Manhattan was referred to as Ground Zero before construction began on the new complex. The 9-11 attacks caused the collapse of the twin towers and 7 World Trade Center, but the other 4 buildings in the complex also had to be demolished because they were damaged beyond repair.

In the planned rebuilding of WTC (visualized in this picture), One World Trade Center (Freedom Tower) is nearing completion, with three more skyscrapers to follow. The National Sept-11 Memorial & Museum will be inaugurated on September 11, 2011.

A man looking for the picture of his father (who was on American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane that hit the towers) at the Tribute WTC Visitor Center, run by the 9-11Families Association as a museum and memorial to the victims and history of the WTC and 9/11/2001 attacks.

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10th Anniversary of 9-11

September 10-16, 2011

TheSouthAsianTimes.info A collection of photographs of 9-11 victims.

Almost 3,000 people perished on that darkest day in US history.

SATimes Special

South Asians formed a major group among victims

New York: The abominable terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 resulted in some 3,000 deaths. Approximately 2,600 perished in New York City in the towers and on the ground, and included citizens of over 90 countries. Official figures cite 41 nationals from India and six from Bangladesh among the casualties. However, the number of victims of South Asian origin was much higher.

During then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s visit to New York on September 11, 2002 to meet families of the victims, then Indian Consul General Pramathesh Rath gave the details. "Of the victims, 117 were of Indian origin, and 70 were Indians."

Among the 21 Indians sharing their grief with Vajpayee that evening was Shafali Agarwal, who lost her husband Alok, and her son Ankush. There was

Col. Shamrao Thatte, who lost his son Harshad, Sampath Pakkala, who lost his wife Deepa. There was Deepa Gopu, whose brother Kiran was listed as "missing." There was Eva Narula from Long Island, who lost her sister Monika.

Navnit Bharde lost her brother Nitin Parandkar; Vasantha Velumuri lost her husband Shankar Shastri.

For some, the tragedy proved too much to bear. At least one woman committed suicide after her husband’s demise in the attacks.

Incidentally, quite a few South Asian victims worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, an investment bank on the 101–105th floors of the North Tower, which lost over 650 employees, and Marsh & McLennan, insurance brokerage firm with offices on floors 93-100 which lost some 350 people.

Sikh Coalition starts a video wall to show post-9/11 bias New York: The Sikh Coalition, a community advocacy group, has launched a video wall inviting website visitors to upload videos and written accounts of backlash discrimination and violence in the post-9/11 environment.

Called Unheard Voices of 9/11 (http://www.unheardvoicesof911.org), the initiative commemorates the tenth anniversary of the Sep 11, 2001 terror attacks.

One year after the 9/11 attacks, the FBI recorded a 1600 percent increase in the number of reported hate crimes based on bias toward Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim, the Coalition said.

Sikhs were targeted because Sikh males usually wear turbans, which are stereotypically associated with Muslims. There were reports of verbal abuse, attacks on mosques and other religious buildings (including the firebombing of a Hindu temple), and assaults on people, including one murder: Balbir

NYC introduces 9/11 curriculum for schools

The landmark Twin Towers of World Trade Center in New York glimpsed above the clouds from an airplane by a passenger a year before the attacks.

New York: Just days before the 10th Anniversary of 9-11, the city Department of Education released a new curriculum to help schools discuss the terror attacks with their students.

Developed jointly by the DoE and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the curriculum focuses on, among other things, the sacrifices of first responders and context of the event.

“The tenth anniversary will be an

emotional, difficult time for many New Yorkers, so it’s important that our students understand what happened that day,” said Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott in a statement.

“We’ve created a guide to discussing these events with students in a meaningful way that is also academically rigorous.”

In a letter to school officials, Walcott said, “We have a responsibility to help them learn that the attacks of 9/11 were an attack on all New Yorkers, our nation as a

whole.”

Teachers are encouraged to integrate the lessons into their curriculum for the school year in Social Studies, History, English Language Arts, and Art. “We hope these lesson plans will not only teach children about the history of 9/11, but also about the responsibility of being an American and maintaining the very freedoms that terrorists sought to destroy ten years ago,” said 9/11 Memorial President Joe Daniels.

Balbir Singh Sodhi, a gas station owner in Arizona, became the first post-9/11 hate crime victim—he was murdered on Sept 15, 2001 as he was mistaken to be a Muslim.

Singh Sodhi, a Sikh gas station owner mistaken for a Muslim, was fatally shot 4 days after 9-11 in Mesa, Arizona.

9/11 triggers cascade of books

New Delhi: The 10th anniversary of 9/11 has unleashed a cascade of books, tributes and new editions of old books, swelling a vast body of literature spawned by the fateful day that transformed America and sparked a global war on terror.

"It was not a street any more but a world, a time and space of falling ash and near night," American novelist Don LeLillo wrote tersely, evoking the horrors of that New York day that morphed into a veritable nightmare after the twin attacks on World Trade Tower -- the symbol of American power and pelf.

Authored by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan Drawing, "The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden" claims to be "the first panoramic, authoritative look back at 9/11". The publisher says the book, which includes recently released documents, provides "the perspective that can come only from a decade of research and reflection".

"After the Fall: New Yorkers Remember September 11 and the Years that Followed" is one of the new books that recalls in vivid detail how New York changed after the attack.

The book, authored by Columbia University's Oral History Research Office, includes interviews with hundreds of ordinary people ranging from taxi drivers to immigrants.

Another book creating a big buzz in publishing circles is "The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against Al Qaeda".

To be released Sep 12, the author of the book is Ali H. Soufan, a Lebanese-American FBI agent who investigated high-profile anti-terrorism cases in the US and abroad.

Besides new books, there is a glut of new editions of old books that now come appended with new prologues, their authors updating their account with new insights.

Noam Chomsky, a radical intellectual-academic known for his critique of American foreign policy, was one of the first to come out with a headline-grabbing book that was entitled "9/11." Now, the new edition has an essay entitled "Was There an Alternative?" It "reminds us that today, just as much as 10 years ago, information and clarity remain our most valuable resources in the struggle to prevent future violence against the innocent, both at home and abroad," says the blurb.

10th Anniversary of 9-11 TheSouthAsianTimes.info

September 10-16, 2011

Americans get used to era of war

SATimes Special Fort Campbell, KY: This is the American era of endless war. To grasp its sweep, it helps to visit Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where the army will soon open a $31 million complex for wounded troops and those whose bodies are breaking down after a decade of deployments.

The Warrior Transition Battalion complex boasts the only four-story structure on the base, which at 105,000 acres is more than twice the size of Washington, DC. The imposing brick-and-glass building towers over architecture from earlier wars.

“This unit will be around as long as the army is around,” said Lt. Col. Bill Howard, the battalion commander.

The two sets of buildings tell the story of America’s embrace of endless war in the 10 years since September 11, 2001. In previous decades, the military and the American public viewed war as an aberration and peace as the norm.

Today, radical religious ideologies, new technologies and cheap, powerful weapons have catapulted the world into “a period of persistent conflict,” according to the Pentagon’s last major assessment of global security. “No one should harbor the illusion that the developed world can win this conflict in the near future,” the document concludes.

By this logic, America’s wars are unending

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and any talk of peace is quixotic or naive.

The new view of war and peace has brought about far-reaching changes in agencies such as the CIA, which is increasingly shifting its focus from gathering intelligence to targeting and killing terrorists.

On the home front, the new thinking has altered long-held views about the effectiveness of military power and the likelihood that peace will ever prevail.

In June, when President Barack Obama laid out his plans to begin reducing the number of US troops in Afghanistan, he sought to assure a weary American public that the country’s longest war was drawing to an end.

Obama was not promising an end to America’s wars. He was suggesting that the United States needed to find new, more costeffective ways of fighting them that do not involve tens of thousands of American soldiers and Marines patrolling in Iraqi and Afghan villages.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Americans were willing to bear almost any price for their security. One lesson of today’s endless war seems to be that Americans will have to learn to live with a certain amount of insecurity and fear.

US warns of small airplane terror threats Washington: The FBI and Homeland Security have issued a nationwide warning about al-Qaidathreats to small airplanes, just days before the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Authorities say there is no specific or credible terrorist threat for the 10-year anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

But they have stepped up national security a precaution. According to a fivepage law enforcement bul-

letin issued Friday, as recently as early this year, al-Qaida was considering ways to attack airplanes.

The alert, issued ahead of the summer's last busy travel weekend, said terrorists have considered renting private planes and loading them with explosives.

"Al-Qaida and its affiliates have maintained an interest in obtaining aviation training, particularly on small aircraft, and in recruiting Western individuals for training in Europe or the

United States, although we do not have current, credible information or intelligence of an imminent attack being planned," according to the bulletin.

The bulletin also says alQaida would like to use sympathetic Westerners to get flight training, then get them to become flight instructors.

Matthew Chandler, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, described the bulletin as routine.

Catastrophic cyber attacks are not 'science fiction' en years after 9-11, the nation faces a critical threat to its security from cyber attacks, a new report by a bipartisan think tank warns.

The report, released last week by the Bipartisan Policy Center's National Security Preparedness Group (NSPG), offers a broad assessment of the progress that government has made in implementing the security recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. The comments about cyber security are part of broader discussion on nine security recommendations that have yet to be implemented.

The report notes that catastrophic cyber attacks against US critical infrastructure targets are not a mere theoretical threat.

"This is not science fiction," the NSPG said its report. "It is possible to take down cyber systems and trigger cascading disruptions and damage. Defending the US against such

T

attacks must be an urgent priority."

The report highlights concerns expressed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the US intelligence community about terrorists using cyber space to attack the country without physically crossing its borders. The cyber threat to critical infrastructure systems -- to electrical, financial, water, energy, food supply, military, and telecommunications networks -- is indeed grave.

The report makes note of a briefing in which DHS officials described a "nightmare scenario" of terrorists hacking into the U.S. electric grid and shutting down power across large sections of the country for several weeks. "As the current crisis in Japan demonstrates disruption of power grids and basic infrastructure can have devastating effects on society," the report noted.

Why Al Qaeda is unlikely to execute another 9/11 n the 10 years since Al Qaeda’s attacks against the United States, a lot has happened and much has changed in the world, but many people can still vividly recall the sense of fear, uncertainty and helplessness they felt on that September morning.

Millions of people watched United Airlines flight 175 smash into the south tower of the World Trade Center on live television. A short while later they heard that another plane had struck the Pentagon. Then they watched in horror as the World Trade Center’s twin towers buckled and collapsed.

It was a stunning, cataclysmic scene, a kind of terrorist theatre that transformed millions of television viewers into vicarious victims. The just-released memoir of then Vice President Dick Cheney demonstrates that America’s leaders were shocked and shaken, too, by the attacks.

As a result, many people became fixated on the next attack and began anxiously “waiting for the other shoe to drop.” This spawned an entire industry of fear as dire warnings were propagated by the internet of the impending “American Hiroshima” that was certain to result when al Qaeda detonated all the nuclear devices it had hidden in major US cities. Such attacks that never materialized outside of Hollywood produc-

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Analysis by Stratfor Global Intelligence

Al Qaeda does not have the capability any more. tions.

The 10th anniversary holds some degree of symbolism for many, but the threat of an attack on 11 September 2011 is no higher than it was on 11 August or than it will be on 12 September.

All threats have two basic components: intent and capability. Al Qaeda’s leaders have threatened to conduct an attack more terrible than 9/11 for nearly a decade now, and the threats continue. Ayman alZawahiri, now al Qaeda’s No 1, said the same to his followers on 15 August 2011.

The stated intent of Al Qaeda and the rest of the jihadist movement is, and has been, to

strike the US as hard and as often as possible. Now we need to look at capability.

First, the state of the jihadist movement itself. The efforts of the US government and its allies against the core Al Qaeda group based in Pakistan have left it badly damaged and have greatly curtailed its operational ability, especially its ability to conduct transnational attacks.

Significantly, Osama bin Laden has been killed as well as senior Qaeda leader Atiyah Abd al-Rahman.

The al Qaeda core group is off balance and concerned for its security — especially in light of the intelligence gathered in the raid on bin Laden’s hideout. The core group simply does not enjoy the operational freedom it did prior to September 2001. We also believe the group no longer has the same operational capability in terms of international travel and the ability to transfer money that it had prior to 9/11.

As to the pressure on new Al Qaeda leader al-Zawahiri, the al Qaeda core had been under considerable pressure to prove itself relevant for several years and that, despite this pressure, had yet to deliver.

Finally, we believe that if al Qaeda possessed the capability to conduct a spectacu-

lar attack it would launch the attack as soon as it was operationally ready, rather than wait for some specific date. The risk of discovery is simply too great.

There are also some who still believe that al Qaeda maintains a network of “sleeper operatives” inside the United States that can be called upon to conduct a spectacular terrorist attack. We do not believe this for two reasons. First, because the pressure on the core al Qaeda leadership to conduct an attack in the United States has been so high for several years there is no reason that it would not have activated any sleepers by now. It would certainly not be in the group’s best interest to keep any such operatives idle for a decade, especially since U.S. intelligence has made such headway in rolling up the organization. Al Qaeda has been faced with a use-it-or-lose-it scenario.

Second, while there is a long history of al Qaeda and other jihadist groups employing covert operatives and inspiring jihadist grassroots operatives or lone wolves like Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, there is no history of al Qaeda employing true sleeper operatives, that is, operatives who burrow undetected into a society and then remain dormant until called upon to act.

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Op Ed

September 10-16, 2011

TheSouthAsianTimes.info

Terror war: Still at square one

By Sitaram Yechury

as the ‘global war against terror’ changed the world to make it a safer place? During this decade, US and NATO forces had militarily intervened, in a significant manner, in various parts of the world on 12 occasions. The most blatant, of course, is the war against Iraq and its military occupation. The US’s ongoing military intervention in Afghanistan has already claimed the lives of 2,702 NATO soldiers.

As of August 30, 2011, according to Associated Press, at least 4,474 US military personnel had died in the Iraq war. Put together, these numbers are more than double of those hapless innocents who perished in the attacks on the twin towers. A worse crime against humanity is reflected in the death of innocent civilians. Over a million are estimated to have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan alone during this decade.

In other words, over 300 times as many people have been killed in these battlefields than those who perished in the 9/11 attacks. The US state department maintained data that was available in the public domain in 2004 shows that more than

H

By Samar Halarnkar

At least 4,474 US military personnel have died in the Iraq war.

130 times as many people have been killed in these two wars than those whose lives were claimed in all terrorist attacks in the world from 1993 to 2004.

Given the sharp rise in these numbers, post- 2004, the state department statistics have remained ‘classified’.

This reality at ground zero resoundingly testifies, once again, that State terrorism unleashed by US and NATO and terrorism perpetrated by individual fundamentalist organizations only feed on each other.

Apart from Iraq and Afghanistan, tens of thousands of civilians have

become casualties in this so-called war against terror. US estimates suggest that over 35,000 Pakistanis have been killed between 2004 and 2010 and over 40,000 grievously injured.

We can only share the agony of our brethren across the border, with the unqualified opposition to all forms of terror.

Has this global war against terror led to a ‘peace dividend’? On the contrary, US military spending has exponentially increased since 2001.

It spent an astounding $698 billion on its military in 2010 alone, an 81% increase over the last decade, ac-

cording to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).

Its overall military spending more than doubled during the last decade.

According to Brown University’s estimates, in ‘costs of war’, the US could have spent as much as $ 4.4 trillion in these military interventions.

This does not include at least $1 trillion more in interest payments.

Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz estimates that the combined costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan surpassed $6 trillion.

Notwithstanding such a balance sheet of developments, the US-led Nato forces have now embarked on their latest military intervention in Libya. By the end of this September, it is estimated that the US would have spent at least $844 million in this war on Libya.

Is all these happening because of a criminal inhuman dispensation of the political leadership or is there a pattern that remains masked behind these developments?

As has been with Iraq and Afghanistan, so is this war on Libya dictated by the interests of the US and the West to control the oil and energy resources of the region.

About 95 % of Libya’s territory is

covered by desert.

Afghanistan is absolutely crucial for multi-billion dollar profits that can be generated if the US can secure the safety of pipelines from the Caucasus and Central Asia to the Arabian Sea. Control over Afghanistan is, thus, crucial.

So, whether it is Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya today, these military interventions are triggered by the need to generate massive profits. This is all the more necessary for the US in the background of the current global recession.

Thus, far from abating, US-led military interventions may well increase in the coming days. President Obama, notwithstanding his universally acclaimed announcement to shut down Guantanamo Bay, has chosen to maintain it. The extraordinary rendition and military commissions conducted by US and Nato earlier in Libya are now set to continue. President Obama may have presided over the execution of Osama. But the world, a decade after 9/11, is neither free from terrorism. Nor has it improved the livelihood of the vast millions of our people.

(Sitaram Yechury is CPI(M) Politburo member and Rajya Sabha MP)

Anna fast: details and their devils

get it that people are angry at politicians, our honorable elected representatives, whose latest concern is punishing actors Om Puri, for calling them ganwaar (rustic dimwits) and naalayak (incompetent), and former police office Kiran Bedi, for calling them duplicitous folk who wear "several masks".

I get it that it's a bit rich to call the Anna protestors anti-democratic when democratic institutions, including and especially Parliament, are failing our expectations. The latest example: how a cabal Cabinet-ministers-cum-sport-overlords has stopped a law to make sport more accountable. Like Team Anna, I too am distrustful of government (not just this one but any), and I agree that if it were not for the extreme passions generated, an Indian Parliament may

I

It is hard, if not impossible, to police corruption. The key is to prevent it, and that can only come from reform, more reform, better governance and even better governance. not have been willing to listen.

I get it that whatever reservations

you may have had with Anna's "second freedom movement" - as I do - it

has humbled politicians, at least a bit, and reminded them that earning the trust of India's growing, impatient middle class will not be easy from here on.

What I don't get is this: if we distrust one authority so much, why are we now prepared to trust a powerful institution staffed by other authorities-bureaucrats and judges?

It cannot be anyone's case that Indian bureaucrats and judges are any cleaner than its politicians. For that matter, it is hard to argue that any of us is cleaner than the men and women who administer India. We are all cut from the same cloth.

As some of the passions of restive August die down, this is the time to calmly reflect on the long, bumpy road ahead. Apart from our personal failings, there are two institutional signposts to consider.

First, corruption always rises in a

The views expressed in Op Eds are not necessarily those of The South Asian Times.

rising nation. Countries like the US and South Korea suffered major periods of institutionalised corruption before their institutions became strong enough to survive fickle, corrupt officials and politicians.

Two, this overhaul of institutions is never easy. A corrupt system requires many energizing jolts before it starts to reform. The Anna effect is one of those jolts, a loud, public burst of energy. But national renovation cannot be pushed through only on the streets.

It is hard, if not impossible, to police corruption. The key is to prevent it, and that can only come from reform, more reform, better governance and even better governance.

That, in turn, can only come from sensible, sustained public pressure.

The weeks ahead will indicate if restive August was a harbinger of change or a flash of public petulance.

Subcontinent TheSouthAsianTimes.info

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September 10-16, 2011

Broad agreement with Bangladesh: PM On Board Air India One: India will and must win the war against terror, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, adding that there were "some leads" to the Delhi High Court blast. He also said that India had achieved a "broad umbrella agreement" with Bangladesh during his visit.

"I am confident that this is a war we will and we must win," said Manmohan Singh on the massive bombing that left 11 people dead and 76 injured.

In an appeal to political parties, he said: "Instead of wasting time in mutual recrimination, all political parties must pool their wisdom" on the issue.

On the Teesta issue, which was one of the main accords expected to be signed during his visit but could not with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee staying away from accompanying him

ment would continue to work with her.

"We are a country of great

diversity" and these problems can arise, the prime minister said. "I was in touch with Mamata for quite some time," on the Teesta issue.

He said that the officials concerned had to been told to brief Mamata Banerjee and to seek her guidance on the Teesta water sharing issue.

"I was told that it sorted out," he said and added that Railways Minister Dinesh Trivedi, who is part of Banerjee's Trinamool Congress, had raised objections to it.

National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon was working on getting the agreement done."One learns from ones mistake...We will continue to work with Mamata Banerjee," he said.

On the Dhaka visit, Manmohan Singh said that India has achieved a "broad umbrella agreement"

with Bangladesh that would serve as the pathway for the future.

He hoped that with the demarcation of the India-Bangladesh boundary, "the unfortunate incidents like illegal movement will be things of the past".

During his visit, India and Bangladesh signed a framework agreement on cooperation for development and a protocol on demarcating their land boundary, a pact to facilitate overland transit to Nepal and on conserving the Royal Bengal Tiger and the Sundarbans.

There were Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) in fisheries, cooperation between Dhaka University and Jawaharlal Nehru University, cooperation between Doordarshan and Bangladesh Television and between the fashion technology institutes of the two countries.

Islamabad: Twenty-five people were killed and 55 injured in Pakistan's Quetta city when a bomb went off and then a suicide bomber blew himself up, Xinhua reported.

The dead included three children and two security personnel.

The explosions took place around 9.00 a.m. in front of the office of district commissioner

Naseem Lehri. Several cars and buildings were damaged.

The first blast occurred when a bomb planted on a rickshaw exploded. As people rushed to the site, a suicide bomber struck at a nearby compound, the house of Deputy Inspector General of Frontier Corps, Brigadier Farrukh Shehzad.

To add to the mayhem, two gun-

men, apparently accompanying the bomber, opened fire at security forces in the compound before fleeing.

Shehzad's wife was killed in the explosion, while he and his children were injured. Shehzad was in-charge of a recent operation that led to the arrest of Al Qaeda leader Younas Al Moritani in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province.

Manmohan Singh and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina exchanging signed documents of the framework agreement on cooperation for development between two countries. on the trip, the prime minister said that "provincial sentiments cannot be wished away" and his govern-

New Nepal PM to visit India

Nepal's new prime minister Baburam Bhattarai.

Kathmandu: Nepal's new prime UN headquarters either on Sep 17 or minister, Jawaharlal Nehru 19 and return to Kathmandu on Sep University scholar Baburam 24. This will be the third time in a Bhattarai, will visit India after row that Nepal's prime ministers in attending a UN meet in New York recent times are heading towards this month, thereby sidestepping the diplomatic and regional meetings to old controversy about Nepali pre- prevent bad blood with either India miers' first foreign trip after assum- or China. ing office.

Communist chief Jhala Nath The 57-year-old architect, who Khanal, who preceded Bhattarai, took oath of office last month, began his foreign trips as prime Wednesday received the Indian minister with the unlikely destinaambassador to Nepal, Jayant Prasad, tion of Turkey in May to attend the to discuss his first official visit to fourth summit of least developed India after becoming Nepal's new countries. premier.

His predecessor, Madhav Kumar The nearly one and a half hour Nepal from the same communist meeting, the first between the Indian party, chose Cairo to attend the 15th envoy and Bhattarai, was also Summit of the Non-Aligned attended by the latter's wife, senior Movement in 2010.

Maoist leader and former minister The caution over the first foreign Hisila Yami, who confirmed the destination began to be exercised India visit. after Nepal's first Maoist prime minYami told journalists that ister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Bhattarai will visit New Delhi on Prachanda alleged that his visit to the invitation of his Indian counter- China in 2008 to attend the closing part, Manmohan Singh, after attend- ceremony of the Olympic Games ing the 66th UN General Assembly angered New Delhi, who connived in New York. Bhattarai, who has at the fall of his government the promised to wrap up the wilting next year. Traditionally, Nepal's peace process in 45 days, is sched- prime ministers had been visiting uled to lead a small delegation to the India first after assuming office.

Masood Azhar back in business: paper

Maulana Masood Azhar.

Islamabad: One of South Asia's most dreaded terrorists, Maulana Masood Azhar, is back in the business, and recruiting terrorists and promoting terrorism, in all probability targeted at India, according to a leading Pakistani newspaper.

In a report titled 'Masood Azhar of Jaish back in business', The News said: "The dreaded Maulana Masood Azhar of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) is back in business and has restarted recruitment and fund-raising activities in Pakistan, a move timed precisely with the recent progress in the peace talks between India and Pakistan."

Quoting "well informed militant circles", the newspaper said: "Maulana Masood Azhar has already returned to Bahawalpur and resumed his jehadi activities by reactivating the Jaish headquarters in the Model Town area.

The JeM nerve center openly runs a grand religious seminary - Usman-o-Ali - where extremist interpretation of Islam is taught to hundreds of children."

The Lahore datelined report said Masood Azhar had earlier abandoned his Jaish headquarters in the Model Town of Bahawalpur and temporarily shifted his base to South Waziristan in the wake of the mounting Indian pressure for his extradition.

Masood Azhar, who was released from a Jammu jail in exchange for the hijacked passengers and crew of Indian airliner IC 814 in December 1999 and flown to Kandahar, Afghanistan, along with two other terrorists, had set up the Jaish in February 2000.

The terrorist ideologue had sponsored the attacks on the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly in October 2001 and his group in partnership with the Lashkar-eTaiba had attacked the Indian Parliament House on Dec 13, 2001.

The Pakistani newspaper said: "In December 2008, almost a week after the 26/11 terror attacks in the Indian commercial capital of Mumbai, the Pakistani authorities had placed restrictions on Masood Azhar's movements by confining him to his multi-storeyed concrete compound in the Model Town area of Bahawalpur, housing hundreds of armed men."

In the second week of April 2009, Masood Azhar was declared officially missing from Pakistan after Interior Minister Rehman Malik claimed that he was not in Pakistan and that Islamabad would not provide protection and refuge to any criminal.

22

International

September 10-16, 2011

TheSouthAsianTimes.info

Gaddafi shows no signs of surrender Tripoli: Deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has issued an audio message encouraging Libyans to take up arms against rebel forces and accusing the country's rebel-led National Transitional Council (NTC) of being a front for Western powers.

"To all my beloved Libyans, the Libyan land is yours and you need to defend it against all those traitors, the dogs, those that have been in Libya and are trying to take over the land," he said in the message that was broadcast early on Thursday on Syria-based Al-Rai TV. "They were spies for the Italians and now they are spies for France. All those germs and rats... capture all those who are working with NATO and the UK to bomb our country and kill Libyans and our children."

Gaddafi also slammed reports that he had fled to neighbouring

The reports claim Gaddafi and his loyalists have fled into Niger.

Niger as "psychological warfare and lies".

Meanwhile, Libyan fighters said to have surrounded Muammar Gaddafi within a 60km radius.

Anis Sharif, a spokesman for Tripoli's new military council, however, would not say where

‘Gap between US, Palestinians on UN bid deep’

Yasser Abed Rabbo.

Ramallah: The gap between the United States and the Palestinians on approaching the United Nations for a full membership of the state of Palestine is so large and deep, a senior official said.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee, told a press conference in Ramallah that despite the gap, "we asked for a continuation of the meetings."

Abed Rabbo's statements followed a meeting between Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and acting U.S. envoy for peace David Hale.

Over the past couple of days, the Palestinian territories are witnessing an active diplomatic movement of Europeans and Americans as the Palestinians are determined to request a full membership of Palestine at the UN. Meanwhile, Saeb Erekat, a veteran Palestinian peace negotiator revealed that the American officials proposed that the Quartet envoy

Tony Blair, who met Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to form a statement on the resumption of the direct peace talks between the two sides.

"President Abbas responded to this proposal by saying that there is no contradiction between resuming the talks and applying to the UN to gain the full membership of the state of Palestine," Erekat told reporters.

Abbas, who met earlier with Hale and on Tuesday with Blair, had said that the Palestinian leadership would be ready to resume the stalled direct peace talks with Israel "if Israel shows commitment to peace references and the principle of the two-state solution."

Well-informed official Palestinian sources told Xinhua that during the meeting with Hale, the American official threatened that his country would use the veto power against the Palestinian bid at the UN. Hale told Abbas that the Quartet Committee will convene on Saturday to study the resumption of the talks.

exactly Gaddafi had been found.

Amid the continuing hunt for the fugitive leader and his sons, Sharif said Gaddafi had been tracked using high technology and human intelligence. "He can't get out," he said.

Gaddafi, who was removed from

power in August after an uprising against his rule, is believed to be travelling in a convoy of about 10 cars and may be using a tent as shelter, Hisham Buhagiar, who is co-ordinating the NTC efforts to find the former Libyan leader, said.

"It is the tent. We know that he does not want to stay in a house, so he stays in a tent. People say the cars came, and then they made a tent," Buhagiar said, adding that his sources had not seen Gaddafi themselves.

Meanwhile, Libya's fighters are still working to gain full control of the country almost three weeks after the fall of the capital, Tripoli.

Fighters have been engaged in prolonged negotiations to convince representatives from Bani Walid, about 150km southeast of the capital Tripoli, that there would be no retributions if the town surrendered peacefully.

Amid the Libyan fighters' push to gain full control of this North African country, news came of convoys of Gaddafi loyalists, including his security chief, fleeing across the Sahara into Niger.

The United States said it believed the convoy was carrying senior members of Gaddafi's entourage, and urged Niger to detain anyone liable for prosecution for alleged crimes committed during the uprising against the deposed Libyan leader.

Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, said Gaddafi was "on the run" but Washington said it had no reason to believe the fugitive leader had left Libya, something his spokesman Moussa Ibrahim confirmed.

"He is in Libya. He is safe, he is very healthy, in high morale," Ibrahim told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Poor fuel caused Russian plane crash?

Moscow: Poor quality of aviation fuel could be one of the reasons behind the Yak-42 plane crash in central Russia in which over 40 people died, a source in the aviation industry said.

The plane carrying the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team crashed moments after takeoff from Yaroslavl airport at 4.00 p.m. Moscow time, bursting into flames as it hit the ground.

Witnesses spoke of hearing two "loud bangs" before the accident.

"The aircraft failed to gain the required engine takeoff speed and fell from a low height on a Volga riverbank. Refueling the plane with low-quality fuel is seen as a priority reason for the engine malfunction," the source said requesting anonymity.

According to the Russian emer-

Russia’s leading ice hockey team members are among the 40 dead.

gencies ministry, the plane had 45 people on board - 37 passengers and eight crew members.

Two people - hockey player Alexander Galimov and flight attendant Alexander Sizov - sur-

vived the crash and are currently in hospital in critical condition.

The cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder of the illfated plane are yet to be recovered.

Afghanistan rejects allegations of torture Kabul: The Afghan government has rejected allegations of torture in its prisons, calling them politically motivated. The allegations, which appear in an as-yet unpublished UN report, suggest that in some prisons detainees have been beaten and given electric shocks.

They prompted Nato to suspend prisoner transfers to some facilities. But Kabul said the report aimed to disrupt the handover of control of security back to Afghans as foreign troops prepare to leave by 2014. The criticism came from Afghanistan's interior ministry and intelligence agency, the NDS - neither of which have seen the UN report, which is reportedly set for publication within days.

But they co-operated in its production, allowing UN investigators free access to prisons across the

country, says the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul.

They said they strongly rejected the allegations in the report - which have been disclosed to the BBC and include prisoners being beaten with rubber hoses, threatened with sexual assault and in some cases given electric shocks, our correspondent says.

"We consider these [allegations] unfounded excuses for not transferring the prisoners and prisons to the Afghans, and it will damage the process," Interior Minister Bismillah Mohammadi told a news conference in Kabul, referring to the transition of security to Afghan agencies.

Rahmatullah Nabil - head of the NDS, which runs the majority of the jails where mistreatment has been reported - also rejected the report.

Business TheSouthAsianTimes.info

September 10-16, 2011

Yahoo Ousts Bartz as CEO San Francisco: Yahoo Inc.'s board ousted Chief Executive Carol Bartz after growing impatient with the lack of a turnaround at the oncehighflying Web company.

The move was abrupt, amid a raft of competitive and strategic challenges facing Yahoo. Ms. Bartz, 62 years old, was informed of the board's decision by phone and wasn't expecting the change, said a person familiar with the matter.

Yahoo's stock jumped more than 6% to $13.72 in after-hours trading after news of Ms. Bartz's exit was reported by All Things D, a technology website that, like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp.

The board named Chief Financial Officer Tim Morse to be interim CEO while it searches for a replacement for Ms. Bartz.

Bartz wrote a brief memo to employees Tuesday afternoon saying: "I am very sad to tell you that I've just been fired over the phone

by Yahoo's Chairman of the Board.

It has been my pleasure to work

Former Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz. with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward." She didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The departure of the CEO, who had more than a year left on her contract, underscores how much the Internet industry has reordered itself and how difficult it has been for a first-generation Web company to repel younger competitors.

Yahoo, the No. 1 search engine early last decade and a product of the late 1990s dot-com boom, has in recent years lost ground to Google

Inc. and been hurt by social-network firm Facebook Inc. Both are taking away market share in selling online graphical and video ads, a market in which Yahoo previously shone. The number of minutes that U.S. website visitors spend on Yahoo sites per month has dropped 33% since Ms. Bartz's arrival 2 ½ years ago, according to comScore Inc Yahoo's stock price is flat over her tenure, compared with a more than 60% rise in the Nasdaq Composite Index. Revenue has been largely flat in recent years, and a 10-year search-advertising partnership Ms. Bartz struck with Microsoft Corp. hasn't been successful so far. Highlevel executives have left in droves.

Some outsiders have viewed Yahoo as a potential takeover target.

Earlier this year, media executive Peter Chernin approached Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock and fellow director Jerry Yang, Yahoo's cofounder, about a possible deal for the site, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Chernin is a former News Corp. president.

UNCTAD projects 8.1% growth for India n the midst of an anticipated global slowdown to 3 per cent in 2011, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has highlighted India as a shining star, projecting an economic growth of 8.1 per cent — the fastest rate of expansion in the world after China.

In its ‘Trade and Development Report 2011' released here on Tuesday by economist and JNU professor Jayati Ghosh, UNCTAD stated that despite the slowdown in developed countries, the Indian economy is set to grow by 8.1 per cent in 2011 as against to 8.6 per cent in 2010. Surpassing India during the year would be the East Asian giant China with a growth rate of 9.4 per, slightly lower than the 10.3 per cent posted in 2010.

“In South Asia, India continues to pursue rapid economic growth (close to 8 per cent), based mainly on strong domestic consumption and investment, but also on the positive contribution of net exports,” The TDR 2011 said.

Interestingly, UNCTAD's growth projection for India during the calendar year is only marginally lower than the International Monetary

23

I

Kiran Mehra-Kerpelman, Director, UN Information Centre for India and Bhutan, and Jayati Ghosh (right), Economist, at the launch of UNCTAD's Trade and Development Report 2011 in New Delhi.

Fund's estimated of 8.2 per crisis growth rate of 6 per cent and slightly above the cent in 2011, economic 8 per cent level forecast by expansion in the developed the Reserve Bank of India economies is likely to be (RBI) for the current fiscal only about 1.5-2 per cent, it year. The various estimates said. The South Asia region, are also in line with the UNCTAD said, is likely to World Bank's projection of be among the best perform8 per cent 2011-12 and the ers globally, with a growth Asian Development Bank's of seven per cent in 2011.

8.2 per cent for the fiscal.

On the other hand, growth While global economic in the U.S. is likely to growth in 2011, the report remain low on account of said, is likely to slow down low domestic demand, stagto 3.1 per from almost 4 per nating wages. while the cent in 2010, developing European debt crisis is also economies are also likely to expected to act as a drag on be affected by recession in the global growth. As for the developed world.

India, UNCTAD noted that However, even as the its growth story is mainly developing countries are on account of domestic expected to regain the pre- demand.

India-US ties creating jobs: White House Washington: Underlining the importance of economic cooperation between the United States and India, the White House has said a healthy bilateral relationship will mean more jobs in both countries.

"I think that the importance of our bilateral relations with India, our economic cooperation with India, cannot be overstated, for the sake of our economy and for India's economy," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

"And I think that continues to be the case, and that a healthy bilateral relationship will mean more jobs here and more jobs there," he said in response to a question about President Barack Obama's visit to India last November when he had said USIndia business relations would create thousands of jobs in the US. "And I think that remains the case as much today as it was when the President visited,"

White House spokesman Jay Carney.

Carney said.

Asked if the President was following demonstrations in India against corruption and against corrupt Indian politicians allegedly holding billions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts, the spokesman said: "I think we're all aware of the protests that you refer to."

"On the matter of money in bank accounts abroad, I would refer you to the Treasury Department."

World facing stormy period: Lamy New Delhi: The global economy is going through a "stormy period" and is likely to witness further slowdown in growth, unsustainable fiscal deficits and high u n e m p l o y m e n t , Wo r l d Tr a d e O rg a n i z a t i o n (WTO) director general Pascal Lamy.

"The world economy, which was showing signs of recovery at the beginning of this year, is again being confronted by serious challenges," Lamy said at an event organized by Consumer Unity and Tr u s t Society (CUTS) International here.

He said the financial crisis has now become a growth crisis and many economies, especially the developed economies, were not growing at a pace sufficient to achieve the "fiscal consolidation needed after the extraordinary

WTO director general Pascal Lamy with Bajaj Group chief Rahul Bajaj. measures taken during the financial crisis and to reduce the socially destructive high unemployment".

Lamy, who is on a twoday visit to India said, rising sovereign debt problems have resulted in loss of confidence in the financial markets.

He said growth in global trade volume was likely to slump to 6.5 percent

i n 2 0 11 a s a g a i n s t a record 14.5 percent jump in the previous year.

"The growth of international trade in 2010 led the recovery, particularly in emerging economies that were largely innocent casualties of the crisis," he said.

T h e W TO c h i e f s a i d global trade was likely to decline due to weak demand.

24

Sports

September 10-16, 2011

TheSouthAsianTimes.info

Cook powers England to win in second ODI Southampton: Skipper Alastair Cook scored an unbeaten 80 as England stormed to a seven-wicket win over India in a rain-hit second one-dayer at the Rose Bowl.

After the opening match was washed out last Saturday, rain delayed the start by almost five hours here Tuesday before reducing it to 23 overs per side. The win has given England a 1-0 lead in the fivematch ODI series.

Put in under cold and blustery conditions, India scored 187 for 8, Ajinkya Rahane (54) scoring his maiden half century and Suresh Raina, smashing three sixes during a quickfire 19-ball 40.

Skipper Alastair Cook scored an unbeaten 80.

FIH shifts Champion’s Trophy out of India New Delhi: The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) called the International Hockey Federation's (FIH) decision to shift the men's Champion's Trophy out of India "unfortunate and uncalled for" and hoped the world organization will reconsider its decision.

Due to an unending power struggle between Hockey India and the Indian Hockey Federation, the FIH Tuesday announced that the 2011 men's Champions Trophy will be shifted to another country.

"The decision is most unfortunate and uncalled for, and we hope that FIH will rescind it and hold the tournament in New Delhi as per schedule," IOA acting president Vijay Kumar Malhotra said in a statement.

With no immediate solution in sight, the Olympic qualification tournament scheduled to be held in Delhi in February 2012 is also in jeopardy unless the two hockey bodies merge to present a unified structure that the FIH has been insisting on. Several attempts to merge the

two units have failed with neither willing to concede authority and power. The FIH said it will continue to monitor the developments and decide on the future of several international tournaments that have been allotted to India.

Malhotra said the FIH's decision could do incalculable harm to the game in India.

"Hockey is India's national game and a huge number of hockey fans are keenly awaiting to watch Champions Trophy at the Dhyan Chand Stadium," he said. Malhotra held Sports Minister Ajay Maken responsible for this development.

"I don't know what is his real agenda, but he has landed the country in another unnecessary controversy. Thank God, the so-called sports development bill got scuttled, otherwise India would have faced problem from the IOC and its participation in London Olympics and all other international competitions, including Asian Games & Commonwealth Games would have been jeopardised," he said.

New Delhi: India rallied to force a 2-2 draw against Malaysia in the 1st Asian Men's Champions Trophy hockey tournament at Ordos, China.

For India, Ravi Pal (9th min) and Danish Mujtaba (52nd) were the goal scorers while Tajuddin Jalil and Mohd. Amin Rahim

79-run partnership. The Mumbai batsman looked at ease against the quicker bowlers and was deft in playing the spinners. His innings ended in the 19th over when Graeme Swann took an overhead return catch.

Raina's knock towards the end propelled the visitors to a formidable total. In fact, he was on course of scoring the fastest Indian ODI fifty but top edged Bresnan to Ben Stokes at deep square-leg.

The third ODI will be played at The Oval in London, where England will look to extend their lead. The hosts had whitewashed India 0-4 in the Test series last month.

US Open: Rain wipes out all matches New York: Rain wiped out women's quarterfinal matches at the US Open on Wednesday night, completing a washout on the day after six men's matches had already been cancelled.

Four men's last-16 contests and two quarterfinals were cancelled on a rainy day in Flushing Meadows, but organizers had hoped to salvage the day by playing all four women's quarters simultaneously on Wednesday night.

Serena Williams made it as far as Arthur Ashe Stadium to warm-up for her match with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova before misty rain again intervened and play was called off at 2015 local time.

"While it is only misting currently at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the forecast predicts worsening conditions," the US Tennis Association said in a statement.

"Due to this forecast the USTA is canceling the Wednesday, September 7 night session."

Officials were no doubt extra cau-

Hockey: India drew 2-2 against Malaysia

Mujtaba Danish, who scored one of India's goal against Malaysia traps the ball in a midfield action.

But opener Craig Kieswetter (46) ripped apart a toothless Indian attack, hitting three sixes in his 25ball knock, and alongwith Cook, who smacked five fours and a six, powered England to victory with five balls to spare.

The hosts, however, could not get the seam movement they were expecting when decided to field, with openers Parthiv Patel (28) and Rahane giving India a flying start.

Patel smashed Tim Bresnan over mid-wicket for two sixes in the third over before nicking James Anderson to wicketkeeper Kieswetter. Rahane made most of his role as a opener and with Rahul Dravid (32) shared a

struck for Malaysia in the 24th and 32nd minutes. A win against Malaysia would have ensured India a place in the final.

They now, with eight points from two victories and two draws, will have to wait till their last round robin league match against Pakistan.

India began aggressively and repeatedly breached the Malaysian defense. They took the lead nine minutes into the game when Sunil's shot was padded away to Pal who picked up the high rebound and slotted it home.

Malaysia were quick to step up their ante and equalised through their third penalty corner when Jalil deflected the flick past Indian goalkeeper Sreejesh.

Malaysia are now out of contention for the final as they have four points from as many matches.

tious after Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and Andy Roddick complained to tournament referee Brian Earley after they were sent out to play shortly after noon in misty rain on courts they said were too slippery.

Williams and Pavlyuchenkova warmed up on the meticulously dried Ashe court, but tournament referee Brian Earley came out to check on conditions when the drizzle resumed and after keeping them

sitting court-side for several minutes brought them inside.

World number one Caroline Wozniacki and second-seeded Vera Zvonareva never made it that far.

Wozniacki had been slated to take on Germany's Andrea Petkovic on the Armstrong Stadium, Zvonareva was to face ninth-seeded Australian Samantha Stosur on the Grandstand and Italian Flavia Pennetta was to take on German Angelique Kerber on Court 17.

M&M is Indian F1's official vehicle partner

Buddh International Circuit (BIC) will host the inaugural Indian grand prix next month.

New Delhi: Automobile major Mahindira and Mahindra said that it has become the official intervention and support vehicle partner to the Buddh International Circuit (BIC)

which will host the inaugural Indian grand prix next month.

"Mahindra will provide 25 Scorpios as the official intervention and support vehicles to the BIC over the next five years and for various motor

sports including the Formula1 race," the company said in a statement.

According to the company, the fleet of sports utility vehicles (SUV) would include 10 VLX 4wd Scorpios (fourwheel drives) and 15 Scorpio getaways 4wd.

"This partnership is in line with our goal to promote motor sport. This (partnership) will also enhance our other initiatives that we have taken in Moto GP races," Vivek Nayer, senior vice president, marketing, automotive division, Mahindra and Mahindra told reporters on the sidelines of an event here.

On its part, BIC said that it will support the company's adventure initiatives that will take place on the track through out the year.

Fashion TheSouthAsianTimes.info

September 10-16, 2011

Focus on brand building at men's fashion week New Delhi: Branding more important than business seems the mantra for designers making men's wear in the country! There were not too many buyers at the just concluded third edition of the Van Heusen India Men’s Week (VHIMW), but connoisseurs of fashion are not complaining as the event provided the right platform to build their brands and create awareness.

"I want to tell you one thing that it is not a business-to-business event right now. In one way, it is, but that is when these designers are approached independently by their clients who have seen their collections either on the ramp or at their stores," Sunil Sethi, president of the Fashion Design Council of India that organized the event, said.

"The sole aim right now is to promote both brands and designers - and tell the people that our designers are creative and have come out with best possible designs for men in India.

So the people should know that men too can wear fashionable clothes. It's no more a females' domain," he added.

Despite being young, the three-day event saw collections from 17 top-notch designers, who brightened up the stage with clothes in earthy tones to red, from seductive blue to funky yellow! In short, the men had it all of it on their side.

Mumbai-based designer Troy Costa, who focused on the nerdy look by dressing models in business suits and accessorizing the look with stylish bow-ties and large-framed glass-

25

Models during the Van Heusen India Men's Week. es, is set to open his first flagship store in Mumbai in October.

The young designer isn't worried about the fact that there were not enough buyers: "If you are good, business follows.�

Manoviraj Khosla too feels that the men's fashion week is "more of a brand establishment platform. The word spreads through the media - so the people who want to buy will come to you automatically".

Interestingly, the event had very few Bollywood faces and, therefore, the focus remained on the garments and the designers.

The event also kept to its promise of throwing up fashion trends for men. So whether it was teaming up a simple kurta with a tornjean or a Nehru-collar jacket or waist-coats with dhotis or Jodhpuris - the men's fashion evolved with each presentation.

26

Ultimate Bollywood

September 10-16, 2011

TheSouthAsianTimes.info

Salman Khan, a star on ascendant is biggest fans admit he isn't the greatest actor and say his films aren't really quality cinema. But Salman Khan is unstoppable, spinning box-office magic from Chandigarh to Chennai and Bhopal to Ballia, with his "Bodyguard" confounding critics and being declared a hit on day one of its release.

The lukewarm reviews and the thumping success of the SalmanKareena Kapoor film across single theatres in India's hinterland and multiplexes in metro malls could be perplexing for some.

But not for his fans queuing up to get entertained as only Salman it seems can; so what if the film isn't top-notch?

If his 2009 release "Wanted" revived single screen theatres, his

H

‘Bodyguard’ Salman beats ‘Dabangg’ Salman.

2010 release "Dabangg" was the top grosser of the year. This year his first release "Ready" did decent business at the ticket window but "Bodyguard", released

this Eid, is breaking records, beating the opening day collections of "Dabangg" and "3 Idiots".

"Bodyguard", the remake of a

Female directors get respect in Bollywood irector Zoya Akhtar laughs as she tells the story of the Steadicam operator who worked on her first film, "Luck by Chance."

He had earlier worked with her younger brother, Farhan, a director-actor who was playing the lead in Zoya Akhtar's film. Brother and sister sat behind the monitor as the operator set up the shots. After each shot, he turned to Farhan instead of Zoya to check if it was all right.

The third time it happened, Zoya Akhtar could no longer Akhtar, 38, is among an emerging breed stay silent. "I took him of female directors altering the contours of Bollywood. aside," she recalled in an interview, "and very politely The first contemporary female told him: 'I am the director of the filmmaker to break the all-male film. If you can adjust to that, it's stranglehold at the box office was great. If not, we can't work together.' Akhtar's first cousin Farah Khan. In Akhtar, 38, is among an emerging 2004 Khan made her directorial breed of female directors altering debut with "Main Hoon Na" ("I Am the contours of Bollywood, the Here for You"), which became the Mumbai-based Hindi film industry. second-highest-grossing film that It has largely been a boys club year, and followed it with "Om behind the scenes. Though women Shanti Om," the biggest hit of 2007. have made inroads into editing, art Mira Nair, one of the first female direction, writing and production in Indian directors to become known the past decade, there are no studio- globally, said Bollywood's new head equivalents of Sony Pictures female directors "think in a more Entertainment's co-chairman, Amy expansive way." She added, in an Pascal, or DreamWorks' chief exec- email, "Their cinema is a reflection utive, Stacey Snider. of their world, keeping their own In the past female filmmakers tangent, wanting the marketplace were largely relegated to art-house and managing." films and smaller budgets. But now Kiran Rao, who made her directAkhtar and a handful of other ing debut with the artsy "Mumbai women have cracked Bollywood's Diaries" in January, is writing her glass ceiling by succeeding where it second film, a more mainstream counts the most: the box office. project, and grappling with inserting The current toast of Bollywood is a strong female voice.

Akhtar's second film, "Zindagi Na These filmmakers haven't exactly Milegi Dobara" ("You Only Live come out of nowhere. Rao is marOnce"). Audiences and critics have ried to Aamir Khan, while Akhtar is embraced the film, about three male second-generation Bollywood, friends who rediscover themselves daughter of Javed Akhtar, a revered on a road trip in Spain. lyricist and writer.

D

Malayalam film, has broken "Dabangg" opening day record by a huge margin of about Rs 7.5 crore and the second day collections at Rs.18 crore is bigger than any film's Sunday collection.

"The film is going 100 percent occupancy in Uttar Pradesh.

Single screens are also going houseful.

Both distributors and exhibitors are likely to rake in the moolah.

Although the reviews have been not very good, the film will cross the Rs.100- crore mark," Joginder Mahajan, a Delhi-based distributor, said.

The star, known to be close to his family, has helped his family cash in on his success. Brother Arbaaz hit the gold mine when he produced "Dabangg" and now brother-in-law Atul is raking it in

with "Bodyguard".

"We were expecting a good opening, but the number has gone beyond our prediction," said Atul.

"Even in Cochin where people have seen both its Tamil and Malayalam versions, the film is doing extremely well."

Sanjeev Lamba, CEO, Reliance Entertainment, said expectations from a Salman film at Eid are sky high. "We expect that the film will continue to create new milestones at the box office. For Reliance Entertainment 'Bodyguard' caps an extremely successful summer."

However, the star is himself missing the action as he is sitting miles away in a hospital in Pittsburgh and recuperating after a surgery to fix his nerve problem.

Dons, politicos funded B'wood: WikiLeaks leaked US diplomatic cable has said that Bollywood welcomed funding from gangsters and politicians, known in India as "black money."

While there is no direct reference of Dawood Ibrahim which allegedly financed a number of movies, the cable revealed that in recent decades, the Bollywood film industry has been associated with the notorious Mumbai underworld, at the nexus of gangsters, money, and politics.

According to Jehil Thakkar, Head of Media and Entertainment for (KPMG), this association stemmed from the financing needs of the industry; until 2000, by government fiat, the film industry was ineligible for bank credit, private equity, and other means of legitimate commercial financing.

"As a consequence, films were financed by ad hoc collections of investors, many of whom were from the construction and trade industries, who charged interest rates as high as 60-100 per cent.

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"The industry also welcomed funds from gangsters and politicians, looking for ways to launder their illgotten gains, known in India as "black money", said the cable issued by the US Consulate in Mumbai, released by WikiLeaks.

After the government added the film industry to the list of legitimate industries, the corporatization of Bollywood -and the wider entertainment industry began," the cable said.

Vidya, Naseer get 'dirty' he reactions to the first trailer of “The Dirty Picture” unveiled last week were overwhelming. Producer Ekta Kapoor has now decided to immediately cut a second trailer and release it within the next few weeks to keep the momentum going. Footage as it is being shot is being brought to the editing room daily to kick-start work on Trailer No. 2 that promises to be hotter than the first.

Meanwhile, choreographer Pony Verma is celebrating the fact that the first promos took a lot of shots from her first song picturized on Naseeruddin Shah, an ageing superstar, and Vidya Balan, the struggling item girl.

“It encapsulates the highlight moments from various chartbusters over the years, including the Jeetendra-Sridevi’s matka song from Tohfa (1984),” informs Verma, adding that both the actors went through 15 to 20 costume changes

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Quite an item: Actors Vidya Balan and Naseeruddin Shah in a song from ‘Dirty Picture’. for all their looks in that one track.

“Naseer sahab’s bling came from MGR and his moves from Kamal Haasan. He’s a typical ’80s hero.”

To get the looks, attitude and loca-

tions right, the choreographer spent hours watching the Bollywood blockbusters she’s grown up on and editing footage for a show reel to show to director Milan Luthria.

Ultimate Bollywood Thesouthasiantimes.info

27

September 10-16, 2011

'That Girl In Yellow Boots' a gamechanger ecently, with the advent of digital filmmaking, little droplets of creative cinema have been foreshadowing another cloud-burst of creativity. However, it needs patronage. Perhaps NFDC (National Film Development Corporation), transformed from FFC (Film Finance Corporation), would provide that shot in the arm to extremely talented, but unfinanced filmmakers in India. And "'That Girl In Yellow Boots" (TGIYB), co-funded by NFDC, could be that game changer.

A British national of Indian origin, Ruth (Kalki), is in India looking for her dad who had left her

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Actor Kalki Koechlin in a still from ‘'That Girl In Yellow Boots.’ when she was young. To fund her 'happy endings' to her customers. trip, she works in a shady massage She is caught up in her druggie parlour charging Rs.1000 to give boyfriend's mess but a greater mess

Director Jag Mundhra passes away ixty-four-year-old filmmaker Jagmohan Mundhra passed away in Bombay Hospital after suffering a gastrointestinal hemorrhage for about two days before he had a multiple organ failure.

Mundhra was brought to Bombay Hospital early with chest pain, sweating and a blood pressure as low as 50.

Mundhra taught at several universities in California before he decided to take a plunge into filmmaking. He got noticed with his film Kamala, a socially-relevant film. He then went on to make horror and erotic thrillers. Some of his films are The Jigsaw Murders (1988), Halloween Night (1988), Night Eyes (1990), L.A. Goddess (1993), Sexual Malice (1994) and Monsoon (1998).

He became more of an NRI director, who worked with international stars and made films in

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patronage. In a few months' time NFDC will also release Dibakar Banerjee's "Shanghai".

TGIYB is a statement on modern life and society. The character of Ruth, despite her seeming loss of innocence and purity, is the purest character in the film. Yet, like a beautiful flower in full bloom, she is trampled upon by a ruthless society that ceaselessly uses her. Her yellow boots becomes a metaphor for the beauty and cheer that is stolen from her.

This is a typical Anurag Kashyap film as it returns us to the themes that form the backdrop in many of his films - sex, drugs and violence.

'Aishwarya's upset with Kareena' areena Kapoor and the Bachchans have a history.

Since the Karisma KapoorAbhishek Bachchan engagement went kaput, the relationship between this set of Kapoors and the Bachchans has been strained.

Now news has it that the Bachchan bahu Aishwarya Rai is not very happy with the fact that Kareena has readily accepted Heroine, a project that was started with her; a film she had to let go off when she realized that she was pregnant.

Ash has gracefully returned the signing amount of Heroine; but she has reportedly issued an ultimatum to the producers, saying they cannot use any of her stills from her weeklong shoot of the film. In other words, Ash wants closure. So, it comes as a shock to learn from an insider that Ash is not happy with

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Director Jag Mundhra English.

He also directed Aishwarya Rai in Provoked, a film based on the real life story of Kiranjit Alhuwalia, a victim of domestic violence.

I won't get back to Twitter: Imran Khan mran’s “Delhi Belly” rocked at the box office and the rushes of “Mere Brother Ki Dulhan” are looking good too.

But his fans are a tad disappointed considering, Imran has stopped interacting with them on twitter. The actor has even deactivated his Twitter account.

awaits her in the discovery of her father. TGIYB is good news for Indian cinema for many reasons.

Firstly, it is perhaps India's first commercially released film to be not just entirely shot in digital (LSD was the first) but also shot on cameras that are usually used to shoot stills. Seeing what digital can do on big screen, like LSD, is an experience and lesson in filmmaking. Secondly, it will perhaps become the second innings of NFDC. The brilliant films produced by its precursor FFC in the 1970s and 1980s will vouch for the veracity of how much creative cinema needs and deserves governmental

We asked the otherwise tech savvy actor what made him distance himself from the microblogging site.

"I didn't like Twitter as a mode of communication. There are people who make nasty comments about you, who don't even know you! Someone says "you are a

loser" but the point is does he even know me! On what basis are you writing these things? I prefer personal interaction.

I would like to sit down with my fans and talk to them instead. I have deactivated my account and don't think will reactivate it" said Imran.

Ash is not happy with Kareena's decision to accept ‘Heroine’.

Kareena's decision to accept into a project that Ash was meant to Heroine. Says the source, "Ash is resume post her maternity leave is rumored to be upset with Bebo. Just reportedly the reason for the stress.'' the fact that Bebo decided to walk Kareena denies knowledge of this.

Actors Katrina Kaif and Imran Khan in a still from ‘Mere Brother Ki Dulhan’.

28

Humor

September 10-16, 2011

TheSouthAsianTimes.info

Humor with Melvin Durai

It's tough to leave the past behind t seems so long ago that I graduated from college. In fact, a baby girl born in 1987, the year I graduated, would now be old enough to go out on a date with Woody Allen. It's amazing how time flies.

Even so, I have vivid memories of college, especially my academic woes. I never appeared on the Dean's List but I did make several appearances in the Dean's office. I wasn't a dope, but a perpetual SOAP (student on academic probation).

Getting a good grade in a class was almost as hard for me as getting a good date.

But I've since made up for it in graduate school (the grades, not the dates) and was hoping that others had forgotten my past. Apparently not. The other day, a retired professor ran into my mother and told her what a troublesome student I was.

Yes, much to my dismay, he gave her a report card that was atleast 14 years late -- almost as late as Michael Jackson's psychiatrist.

That makes me wonder: Isn't there a statute of limitations on bad grades? After all, if I had taken a tub of ice cream from the college

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cafeteria, I couldn't still be prosecuted. (I'm not saying I did. I deny any involvement with such a crime.

And my lawyer has advised me not to say any more.)

Even if I had filed for bankruptcy, my record would have been cleared after 10 years and I would now have enough credit to buy not just one, but several politicians.

I wouldn't have minded if the professor had been a little tactful and said something like this to my mom: "I remember your son. Didn't he get a bachelor's degree in video games?" or "Your son was quite a student. The other professors and I are still celebrating his graduation."

I must admit that I hate discussing the errors of my past. I know I can't change them, so I'd rather focus on the present and future. If you want

me to talk about the past, you'd better bring up my achievements. I'm willing to discuss them until the day Don King goes bald.

I'm beginning to understand how President George W. Bush felt when reporters kept asking about his drinking days or how former President Bill Clinton felt when asked about his draft-dodging days.

"Those darn reporters will never forget my younger days," Clinton must have said to himself. "I wish they had something else to write about.

Hey, who's that cute intern over there?"

Politicians who run for the presidency open their entire past to scrutiny. Eager for a scoop, reporters delve into almost every area of their lives. Did they write on a bathroom wall in grade school?

Oh no, that means they might deface the White House walls and draw a handlebar mustache on JFK's picture. Did they smoke marijuana in high school? Oh no, that means they might legalize drugs and turn Colombia into the world's richest country. Did they attend a PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) meeting in college? Oh

no, that means they might appoint a monkey to the cabinet.

It must be even tougher when you're a convicted felon who's already served time. Society never quite accepts you. Getting a decent job is a struggle. And you're not allowed to vote, even though you'd

do a better job than most people in Florida.

Your past always follows you, never lets you go. And you want to scream, "I'm a changed person!"

But nobody listens.

They're too busy running away from you.

Laughter is the Best Medicine

by Mahendra Shah Mahendra Shah is an architect by education, entrepreneur by profession, artist and humorist, cartoonist and writer by hobby. He has been recording the plight of the immigrant Indians for the past many years in his cartoons.

Hailing from Gujarat, he lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Tech Life

Now, an iPhone app to help you locate restaurants Bangkok: Tired of digging through long-winded restaurant reviews to find a great meal? Next time, turn to your smartphone where personalized search engines will lead your stomach in the right direction.

A newcomer in the world of personalized search, Ness Computing recently released a free iOS app that provides restaurant recommendations based on a user's personal tastes and information from friends gathered through social media sources such as Foursquare and Facebook.

The app uses that information to calculate a "Likeness Score," which is the probability a user will enjoy a particular venue. Integration with social networks is optional, however, it is one way Ness can achieve more relevant results. "There's all sorts of information that people's friends have left when they check in (to a venue), or mention 'I'm having a great meal at this place'", said Corey Reese, co-founder and CEO of Ness Computing.

The app, which some bloggers compare to Netflix (movies and TV) or Pandora (music) for

restaurants, provides information such as addresses and phone numbers, check-ins, comments and tips from social networks. Check-ins amongst friends influence a restaurant's ranking in search results.

The app provides the ability to filter out major chains, which appeals to people looking for independent restaurants. And to facilitate finding new places to eat, users can hide restaurants they have already rated. Search results can also be filtered by distance and price. Looking to Apple as a model, the company hired Scott Goodson as Director of Mobile Engineering, a former engineer at Apple who was one of the first members of the iOS team and helped to build some of its original flagship apps. According to Reese, upcoming plans for Ness include sentiment analysis of data from social sources, which is the ability to automatically determine whether a particular comment is positive, negative or neutral. They also plan to increase Facebook support and implement Twitter integration. The app is currently available on the iOS platform on the Apple store, and only in the US.

How hackers steal your ATM PIN Washington: Beware!

Modern-day hackers can recognize your PIN numbers from ATM keypads using a digital infrared camera.

At the USENIX Workshop on Offensive Technologies earlier this month, researchers from the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) have described how a digital infrared camera could be used to reveal digits of PIN numbers after a user punched them in on ATM keypads.

Researchers showed that the residual heat our fingertips left behind on the ATM keypad can be detected by the digital infrared cameras, easily revealing the digits of

your PIN. When the camera was used immediately after the transaction, researchers correctly identified the numbers with over 80 per cent accuracy.

Even after a minute, researchers were able to correctly identify digits about 50 percent of the time.

Plastic and rubber keypads were most prone to retaining fingertip heat. Even so, they still had their flaws.

"With plastic keypads, we can reliably detect which buttons were pressed, but it is really difficult to determine the order," Discovery News quoted Keaton Mowery, a doctoral student in computer science at UCSD, as telling Technology Review.

Mowery conducted his research with fellow student Sarah Meiklejohn and professor Stefan Savage.

Astrology TheSouthAsianTimes.info

September 10-16, 2011

By Dr Prem Kumar Sharma

Chandigarh, India: +91-172- 256 2832, 257 2874; Delhi, India: +91-11- 2644 9898, 2648 9899; psharma@premastrologer.com; www.premastrologer.com

Stars Foretell: September 10-16, 2011 Aries: No matter how alluring new ventures might seem, do not sign any agreements without proper consultation. This is an ideal week to impress others with your creative talents. Outstation travel would prove beneficial for some. You need to go out and revive contacts with old acquaintances later in the week. Take sufficient rest and spend time playing games and on other outdoor activities.

Friends would provide necessary support.

Taurus: This week focus on one thing at a time. You would have few things on your mind, which might make you feel slightly run-down mentally and physically. A little rest and nutritious food would go a long way in lifting your energy. You would also benefit if you listen to people with experience. Foreign related matters would prove beneficial. Your charming personality would easily attract members of the opposite sex.

Gemini: This week you would find yourself with less energy than you generally do. Don’t overload yourself with additional work. Set your mind to creative activities, which you enjoy, the most. This is not the best period for making important decisions. Go out with your beloved, party with friends or take a small pleasure jaunt. Outdoor sports would attract you. Meditation and yoga would bring gains.

Cancer: This week you would be in a strong position to put together a team and work towards a collective goal. You would also feel the need to make few decisions, which are hard but important to get a favorable outcome of your work. Self-improvement techniques would do wonders for you. A period when you would have lot of energy, but do not waste it by isolating yourself. Mix with people whom you think would bring you new opportunities.

Leo: This week watch out for individual who might try to mislead you or give you information that might cause you some harm. Secondhand news should be verified.

Travel would entice you; however your tendency to overspend is likely to upset your budget.

Your ability to help people would enhance your reputation and win you appreciation from others. Investment should be made with proper consultation.

Virgo: Pleasure jaunts taken this week would be highly exciting and full of fun and freedom. You would immensely enjoy being with those who accompany you, but if you are alone then chances of a romantic alliance would be strong. Good period to show your capabilities to your seniors. You should rely on your past experiences and listen very attentively to what important people have to say. You would be able to handle things without any problems and immerge a clear winner.

Libra: This week, don’t rely on others for help, until you are absolutely sure you cannot handle things on your own.

Opportunities to meet new lovers would come through pleasure trips or social events.

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Financial planning would be important before you make any investments. Listen to the advice of elderly people who are more experienced and can provide you necessary help. Health needs extra care.

Scorpio: You can easily double your output, if you concentrate on your work.

Your energy level would be high and you should use it to complete pending jobs.

Gracefully accept the invitation, if you are invited to attend functions, which include influential people. You would impress people around you with your talents and confidence.

Exciting romance for some, so make the best of it.

Sagittarius: Some changes at work place would make you highly sentimental, but you would be able to effectively communicate your feelings to people who matter the most. It’s better not to get carried away by emotions and accept things as they come.

Complete pending work before your boss takes a note of it. Rearrange and reorganize yourself to increase productivity. Love affairs might develop if you socialize with friends.

Capricorn: This week your seniors would make few administrative changes that don’t seem to please you. Probably the people at the helm of affairs are not aware of the problems at your level. If you have to show your resentment, do it in a dignified way, certainly don’t make it look like a revolt. Learn some new skills to increase your productivity.

Spouse and children would provide support.

Aquarius: This week someone with big plans and ideas would catch your attention. Verify the credibility and authenticity of the person before making any investments.

Dedicate your time and energy in helping others; don’t get involved in matters that don’t concern you at all. Friends might take advantage and interfere more than required in your personal life. Don’t trust others with your possessions.

Pisces: This week others might demand too much of your time. Before you make any commitment towards them make sure that your work is not affected and also they are not taking advantage of your kindness and generosity. Investment should be made with care. Outstation journey will be exciting and educating, but prove bit expensive, unless you control your spending. Colleagues, seniors would be supportive.

Before you consult... i) Accurate Data: Please make sure Date, Time and Place of birth is accurate. ii) Careful: Did you check background of the astrologer before disclosing your secrets. iii) Fee: Discuss the charges before, don’t feel shy. It’s his business. iv) Expectation: Expect the best, if the outcome is not as desired, never give up. v) Consult: Take second opinion before spending thousands on cure/remedies.

Annual Predictions: For those born in this week Sep 10: Governed by number 1 and the planet Sun, you are original, attractive, warm hearted and philosophical in nature. You are admired by those around you for your ability to take quick and courageous decisions, but you need to check your tendency to behave quarrelsome, impatient and short-tempered at times. This year you will gain from your ability to do smart business and you would also build up excellent rapport with eminent people in public and private sector. Favours from banks and financial institutions would enable you to streamline your present projects. New job opportunities for those in service are quite imminent. Romance and new alliances look likely for the unattached. Elders and children in the family will demand a lot of your attention. Health of your spouse may cause concern and anxiety. Spiritual gains for some later in the year.

August, November, January and May will be result oriented.

Sep 11: Influenced by number 2 and the Moon, you are active, imaginative, simple, trustworthy and impressive. You are fond of travelling to distant places and learn more about different cultures and people, but you need to check you tendency to behave moody and highly unpredictable at times. This year promises good and unyielding returns. Take extra precautions before making any major investments. Those involved in art, writing and other creative professions should expect recognition and monetary benefits. Sudden help from an influential person will bring a major boost to your career and prosperity. Later in the year you are likely to get involved in construction or designing activities for yourself or for others. Financially you would be in a much better state and you would find your confidence and morale very high. Matrimonial alliances for some around the yearend. Judicial matters might not bring in the desired results, therefore avoid getting involved in legal complications. Children will be supportive and bring in some happy and good news later in the year.

September, December, April and Sep will especially prove to be significant.

Sep 12: Influenced by number 3 and the planet Jupiter. You are ambitious, dignified, philosophical, and religious. You are self-reliant and possess enormous leadership qualities and you like to take your own decisions, but you need to check your tendency to be jealous, over ambitious and self centered at times. This year improvement in your work atmosphere would be there, giving you lot of job satisfaction. Sudden major monetary gains, either from foreign transactions or a major govt. contract, cannot be ruled out. The later half of the year could bring opportunities to travel overseas for business as well as pleasure. Selective speculation will bring you gains. Some thumping news expected from your children towards the last quarter of the year.

Some renovation, construction and pilgrimage should also be carried out this year. Meditation and yoga should be practiced for spiritual as well as physical gains. The months of November, January and Sep would be highly eventful.

Sep 13: Ruled by number 4 and the planet Uranus. You are bright, energetic, active, methodical and systematic.

You are fond of good, respectable lifestyle and you specially enjoy building new contacts and relationships, but you need to check you tendency to behave stubborn, destructive and vindictive at times. This year new assignment and plans come your way. Work pressure would increase and specific time schedule would make you work overtime. Financial gains and other rewards would be plenty but working under extreme stress levels would show on your health. Legal matters that have been bothering your mind would be

decided in your favour. For those unattached romance would add a zing to their life. Children would be interesting and a major source of your happiness. For those who have been unsuccessful in finding a life partner till now should rejoice, as a matrimonial wedlock seems later in the year. The months of October, February and April will prove to be eventful.

Sep 14: Influenced by number 5 and the planet Mercury. You are active, smart, confident, original, and highly independent individual. You are loved by your friends and your parents take enormous pride in you, but you need to check your tendency to behave moody, introvert and restless at times. This year new alliances and partnerships would bring in prosperity. Your confidence and determination will be at its peak. Financial gains as delayed payments and bad debts are recovered. Speculation in real estate and stocks will prove to be profitable. Those at service might face hectic period at work, because of the unpredictable behaviour of their boss. Your spouse would be supportive to your concerns and provide you with love and affection. A budding romance is on the horizon for some of you. A distant trip cannot be ruled out for pilgrimage or auspicious ceremonies. The month of July, September, November and March seem to be highly significant.

Sep 15: Influenced by number 6 and the planet Venus. You are active, energetic, warm-hearted, and are fond of worldly pleasures. You are good at conversation and you easily make friends because of your helpful nature, but you need to check your tendency to behave spendthrift and stubborn at times. This coming year good financial gains are foreseen along with appreciation and plenty of reward. Your stars seem favourable for building new alliances and partnerships. Promotion and transfers likely for some. Selective speculation would be beneficial therefore be extra careful not to squander hard-earned money. Romantic alliances likely for those unattached, others would get tied into a matrimonial wedlock. Distant journey, pilgrimage or foreign travel later in the year. You are likely to be more inclined towards religious and spiritual activities. September, November, January and May will be highly significant months.

Sep 16: Governed by number 7 and the planet Neptune. You are simple, dignified, original, dashing and confident.

You possess remarkable leadership qualities and blessed with strong imagination and intuition, but you need to check your tendency to behave extravagant, hypocrite and stubborn at times. This year friends and family members would provide good support. Professionally things look much better and you would move around with new confidence and energy. A change for the better in your business or career seems likely later in year. Those involved in art, writing and other creative profession should expect recognition and monetary gains. Health would definitely need more attention. Meditation and yoga should be practiced for physical and spiritual gains. Children will be supportive and bring in some happy and good news. Pilgrimage or journey would be high on your agenda. The months of October, December, February and March will especially bring in happiness and prosperity.

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30

Spiritual Awareness

September 10-16, 2011

TheSouthAsianTimes.info

Non-violence through meditation First of a three part series of Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj's keynote address at the 26th International Human Unity Conference held in Mexico City, Mexico, in November 2008.

By Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj t is a pleasure to be here with you in Mexico City, Mexico, to inaugurate the 26th International Human Unity Conference. I find that the people here are loving, warm, and caring and are deeply spiritual. I always feel welcomed here because of the love and kindness of the people of Mexico.

People from all over the world have gathered here in your beautiful country to find ways to bring about human unity. One of the biggest blocks to human unity is violence. The people of Mexico are undergoing many of the same difficulties that other countries around the world face.

Every day there are threats and challenges to our peace. We have come together at this conference to find ways to bring nonviolence into our own lives in the midst of a world filled with conflict and suffering. The purpose of my visit to this beautiful country of Mexico is to give people techniques to achieve nonviolence, peace, and joy through meditation.

Most people want to go through the day in peace without getting injured in any way. We want our children to be safe. We want our parents to be safe. We want our brothers and sisters to be safe. We want our friends to be safe. We want ourselves to be safe.

Unfortunately, life offers many challenges. We worry about our family getting hurt. We worry about violence to our families, friends, and community. We hear about violence when countries go to war. We pray for an era of nonviolence when people everywhere, including our own families and selves, are free of violence.

This physical world is filled with violence, challenges, and

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dangers. From the moment we are born until our ultimate end, we face illness, accidents, mishaps, losses, and disasters both man-made and natural. The news contains one event after another filled with violence that can bring fear and panic into our lives. People worry about crime, illness, financial loss and disasters such as floods, volcanoes, earthquakes, and other threats to our lives. Is there anyway to lead our lives so that we are not engulfed by fear or violence?

Can we navigate through the roadblocks on our way to happiness so that we can lead a life of calm, peace, and joy? Although people have prayed for an era of nonviolence for centuries, history shows there has not yet been a single period without war. Is there any way then to end violence and have a period of nonviolence on this planet?

People engage in violence because they do not think about the effects it brings. In this connection, there is a story about a farmer who kept many animals.

Most of the animals got along peacefully, except for two goats that were always fighting. It disturbed the peace of the whole farm.

The other animals complained to the farmer about the two fighting goats and asked him to resolve their problems.

The farmer called together the two goats and told them that they were disturbing everyone else on the farm. The farmer said to the goats, "You have to stop fighting. People do not want to come to the farm for goods because of the disturbance. The sale of farm products has dropped because of your fighting. I am going on a trip and want you to resolve your problems, so that when I return, you are peaceful."

The farmer then went out of town and hoped that when he returned the goats would get along. As soon as the farmer left, the goats began to fight again.

They rammed each other hard with their horns, and ended up breaking off their horns. By the time the farmer returned from the trip, both goats had broken horns. He called them together and said, "I have asked you to get along with each other.

Instead, I return and you have been fighting and now you both have injured yourselves. I request you both to stop fighting.

I am going on another trip.

Please be peaceful. When I return I want you to have worked things out so that you both get

There is a law in the universe that tells us that whatever we think, say, or do will come back to us. This is known in the East as the law of karma. If we want to hurt someone, then we have to think if we want to be hurt in the same way that we have hurt someone else. If we do not want to receive back the pain we give to those whom we do not like, then we should not proceed with our harmful words or deeds along well."

As soon as the farmer went away, the goats began fighting again. They were knocking each other over by pushing each other hard with their strong bodies and biting. Soon, their bodies were bruised beyond repair. When the farmer returned he said, "You are both hurting yourselves in the attempt to hurt each other. Please stop this." The farmer had another trip, and begged them to resolve their problems and be peaceful since they were now both hurt badly by their fighting.

When the farmer left, they fought so hard that they hurt each other’s legs and both of them could not use their legs anymore. When the farmer returned he saw them lying on the ground still looking angrily at each other. The farmer said, "You have now destroyed almost everything about each other except for your tails. I suggest you resolve your problem or there will be nothing left of either of you." When the farmer left, they fought so hard that they finally destroyed each other.

There was nothing left of the two goats except their bones. When the farmer returned he did not see the goats, so he asked the other animals where they were.

The other animals on the farm explained that the two goats had fought each other to death. They took the farmer to the place where only the bones remained.

The farmer said to the other animals, "As you can see, each of the goats was so intent on destroying the other goat that they ended up destroying themselves. This is the fruit of violence.

Each goat thought it would hurt the other goat, but both of them were destroyed in the end.

Violence hurts ourselves more than the other person."

This lesson is a powerful one that we can take to heart.

Whenever we set out to hurt someone, we think we are hurting another person. But there are ramifications that extend far beyond our own violence. It spoils the atmosphere for everyone else, and it ends up coming back to hurt us. We cannot avoid the reactions of our actions.

There is a law in the universe that tells us that whatever we think, say, or do will come back to us. This is known in the East as the law of karma. This law of karma states that whatever we think, say, and do comes back to us. If we are violent to someone in action it will come back to hurt us. Either the other person will respond to hurt us, or the law of karma will have some repercussion that will come back to us.

Thus, in our attempts to hurt someone else with words or deeds, or even the power of our thoughts, we can expect that they will boomerang back to us. So, it

causes us to think twice and thrice before we utter any harsh words to anyone. That is why the Golden Rule is so powerful. It says, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."

It means that whatever we do to others will come back to us.

If we want to hurt someone, then we have to think if we want to be hurt in the same way that we have hurt someone else. If we do not want to receive back the pain we give to those whom we do not like, then we should not proceed with our harmful words or deeds. If we are not prepared to suffer the effect that we dish out to others, then we should think twice before dishing it out to them.

We should also consider that even if we do not like someone, if we hurt them, it will only hurt us. It will come back in the same measure that we give out. We will be hurt in the same measure as we hurt them. We should instead be calm and cool. We can iron out our differences in a peaceful and loving way. We can try to settle any disputes. We can do so lovingly and peacefully.

We should not fall into the trap into which the two goats fell. We should not be so intent on destroying our enemies or those whom we do not like, for in the process we will only destroy ourselves.

Let us not be like the two goats. Let us remember their plight of how they each tried to destroy the other and they themselves were destroyed in the process. If we can remember their example, we would think twice before hurting anyone else, because when we are violent to others, we only hurt ourselves.

Let us learn how to be peaceful. There will always be people who differ from us. There may be reasons that certain people just do not like someone else.

We may feel someone did something to us and then instead of finding out the real reason or the true story, we jump to conclusions and want to hurt them back.

For whatever reason there are people we do not see eye to eye with; we should at least recognize our differences in a peaceful way. We should be resolved not to hurt them or be violent to them. We should be loving, cordial, and respectful in our interactions with them. (www.sos.org) (To be continued next week)