A20 – March 25, 2011 – INDIA-WEST

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By PEARL S. DRIVERSpecial to India-West

LIVERMORE, Calif. — Volun-teers with diverse charities across the Bay Area congregated at the Shiva Vishnu Temple here March 19 to receive a total sum of $25,000 from the Hindu Community and Cultural Center.

Ranging from domestic violence shelters to child welfare and devel-opment groups, and organizations that provide family-based counsel-ing and crisis counseling, HCCC distributed the funds on a need and suitability basis among 38 dif-ferent charities under its Grant In Aid initiative.

“Nearly 75 groups applied for the grant this year. We encourage them to tell us what they would do with the funding from our organization in their own words. Our screening committee then reviews the appli-cations and determines the amount to be apportioned to each recipi-ent,” HCCC founder G.S. Satya told India-West.

“We consciously allocate more funds to the local charities here because we want to be a part of the Livermore-Amador community,” he added.

Livermore Vice-Mayor John Marchand attended the event to ex-tend the local community’s support to the Grant In Aid program, which was first initiated in 1987.

Marchand was joined on the dais by Jane Moorehead from the Livermore Fire Department and city

(l-r, sitting) Livermore Fire Department representative Jane Moorehead, Livermore Police chief Steve Sweeney, Livermore Vice-Mayor John Marchand, Shiva Vishnu Temple chairman Prasuna Reddy Dornadula, Shiva Vishnu Temple president Veera Raghavamma Gullapalli, and Shiva Vishnu temple vice-chairman Anand Kumar Gundu are seen here March 19 at the temple premises with a group of volunteers (standing) for the HCCC’s Grant In Aid project.

HCCC founder G.S. Satya (l) and his wife are seen here next to a display board featuring letters of gratitude from various charities which were awarded grants March 19 at the Shiva Vishnu Temple in Livermore, Calif. (Pearl S. Driver photos)

HCCC Awards $25,000 Under ‘Grant In Aid’ Project

Police Chief Steve Sweeney. In addition to local charities,

HCCC allocated funds to several international charities, including Udaipur-based Seva Mandir that works towards the development of the rural and tribal population in Udaipur and Rajsamand districts of southern Rajasthan.

“The grant from HCCC would be put towards educational learning camps for local children in the six-to-14-years age group to teach them basic English and the sciences. These camps last for up to seven weeks during which students from nearby villages reside at the camp site,” said Priya Shankar, a Fulbright scholar who volunteers with the non-profit Seva Mandir.

A student at Irvington High School, Rajeshwari Ramanathan’s Pencil Project, which she initi-ated four years ago with her sister Gayatri Ramanathan, was also a recipient of a grant from HCCC.

The project involves collecting pencils, stationary and other school supplies from the community and distributing them among students who face the prospect of dropping out of school due to a shortage of supplies.

“The grant from HCCC helps us meet the cost of shipping the sup-plies out to school children who need our help in different parts of the United States and abroad,” said Rajeshwari Ramanathan. The group has helped schools in remote loca-tions in Africa and in some parts of the United States.

By a Staff Reporter

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Two Indians have been named to the International Research Panel by Dr. Amy Gutmann, chair of the Presi-dential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, to consider the standards for protecting human subjects in scientific studies.

The announcement Mar. 1 comes in response to a request from Presi-dent Barack Obama, who asked the commission to report on the effectiveness of current U.S. rules and international standards for the protection of human subjects in scientific studies supported by the federal government and to assure him that “the current rules for research participants protect people from harm or unethical treatment, domestically as well as internationally.”

The panel, which includes Unni Karunakara and Nandini Kumar, will consider the effectiveness of current federal rules and interna-tional standards governing research involving human subjects.

Karunakara was the deputy director of health for the Millen-nium Villages Project at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Currently, he is an assistant profes-sor in the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health.

Kumar is a member of the ex-ecutive committee of the Forum for Ethics Review Committees in India, a national chapter of the Forum for Ethics Review Committees in Asia Pacific. She was closely involved in finalization of the Indian Council of Medical Research Ethical Guide-lines of 2000 and of 2006.

Two Named to President’s Bioethics Commission Research Panel