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Friday, June 08 2012 | Vol. 31, No. 23

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3 June 08, 2012IamNEWSNEWSNEWSNEWSNEWSNEWSSince 1982BUSINESS

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NEW YORK: More than 300 of New York’s crème de la crème from the business, finance, and entertainment communities con-verged at the 2nd annual The Light of India Awards, an initiative cre-ated by Remit2India and presented by The Amrapali Group.

The awards ceremony, held on Friday, June 1 at the Taj Pierre Ho-tel, is a platform to honor the excel-lence and exemplary achievements of Indians living abroad.

“Remit2India The Light of India Awards is our humble initiative to acknowledge the contributions of the global Indian community in

Light of India Awards Presented to a Host of NRI Luminaries

making India the emerging super-power,” says Avijit Nanda, Presi-dent of TimesofMoney Group. “These leading lights have lit the global skyline with their beams of brilliance.”

“It is great to see so many lead-ing luminaries excel and build the profile of India globally,” says Dr. Anil Kumar Sharma, Chairman of The Amrapali Group, the title sponsor for the event. “The Am-rapali Group is glad to be associ-ated with these leading lights and hopes to work together in further enhancing the global image of In-dia and its people.”

There were two sets of awards - Jury awards and Popular Choice awards. The organizing team, along with KPMG, shortlisted 4-6 nominees per category. Out of these, the eminent Jury selected their winners in each category. These winners were presented with the ‘The Jury Award’. The shortlisted nominees were also put up on www.lightofindiaawards.com for online public voting. Win-ners of the popular choice catego-ry were based on the maximum number of votes received by the individual nominee.

Lisa Ray (left) and Padma Lakshmi are both hosts of the Top Chef series and winners of the Excellence in Arts & Entertainment Awards.

Excellence in Business Leadership� Bharat Desai Founder of Syntel – Jury Award� Gurbaksh Chahal Internet entrepreneur and a best-selling author – People’s Choice AwardExcellence in Technology� Pradeep K. Khosla Dean of the College of Engineering Carnegie Mellon University – Jury Award� Sabeer Bhatia Co-Founder of Hotmail Service – People’s Choice AwardExcellence in Medical Sciences� Siddhartha Mukherjee Assistant Professor of Medicine Columbia University – Jury AwardExcellence in Corporate Leadership� Anshuman Jain Co-CEO of Deutsche Bank – Jury Award� Padmasree Warrior Chief Technology Officer of Cisco Systems – People’s Choice AwardExcellence in Education & Academics – Deans & Presidents� Renu Khator President of the University of Houston – Jury Award & People’s Choice AwardExcellence in Education & Academics- Scholars & Professors� Soumitra Dutta Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Business and Technology Insead – Jury Award� Mohanbir Sawhney Director of the Center for Research in Tech-nology & Innovation at Kellogg School of Management – People’s Choice AwardExcellence in Literature & Journalism� Amitav Ghosh Author – Jury Award� Indu Sundaresan Author – People’s Choice Award Excellence in Arts & Entertainment� Padma Lakshmi Host of ‘Top Chef’ America– Jury Award� Lisa Ray Actor & Host of ‘Top Chef’ Canada – People’s Choice AwardLifetime Achievement Awards� Jagdish Bhagwati Columbia University Professor & Economist – Lifetime Achievement Award for Study in Global Economics� Narendra Patni Founder & CEO of Patni Computer Systems - Life-time Achievement in Business Leadership� Arun Sarin Former CEO of Vodafone Group – Lifetime Achieve-ment Award for Global Corporate LeadershipThree Special Awards:� Gurbaksh Chahal Chairman & CEO of RadiumOne - Amrapali-Young Achievers Award � Satish K. Tripathi University of Buffalo President - Power of Influ-ence Award in Education� Ajay V. Bhatt Co-inventor of USB Technology - Power of Influence Award in Technology

The Winners Are ...


June 08, 20124 June 08, 20124 COMMUNITY

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281-217-9736email:[email protected]

Sridhar Dadi with Lisa Ray at the Light of India Awards in New York

Sridhar Dadi with A.R. Rehman

Radio Hungama

Sridhar Dadi with

Padma Lakshmi at

the Light of India

Awards in New York

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thank the community, friends, well-wishers, patrons and sponsors

Anniversary5th

Sridhar Dadi with Lisa Ray at the Light of India Awards in New York

Sridhar Dadi with A.R. Rehman

Radio Radio & Radio & Radio Radio & Radio && Radio & Radio Radio Radio HungamaHungama

Radio Hungama

Radio Radio Hungama

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AnniversarySridhar Dadi

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HOUSTON: Radio Hungama, a Hungama Entertainment Inc. regularly broadcasts, locally pro-duced Telugu radio programs. Hungama's aim has been to serve the South Indian households of Greater Houston and in the last five years since inception, they have proved successful in doing just that. Started in June 2007 by Sridhar Dadi, it airs every Sunday from 10:00 am - 1:00 pm CST on KCHN AM 1050. There are mu-sical programs, jokes, and news. The radio station also creates awareness about numerous social, welfare-oriented, and national is-sues in its various segments.

Besides the radio show, Radio Hungama is also associated with several music concerts, carnivals, festival events, New Year parties, Math & Spelling Bee competi-tions, etc. attracting huge crowds ranging from 500 to 3000 people. These events seem to have turned out as strong instruments to bring the community together.

Celebrating their first anniver-sary in 2008, they held an en-tertainment show attracting more than 1000 people from all over the Greater Houston area. In 2009, they hosted another community event drawing more than 1500 people. Sridhar Dadi, the owner and RJ of Radio Hungama Dadi said, “We had active participa-tion from several dance and music schools, local universities, etc. for this event”.

According to Dadi, one of their biggest events was the outdoor carnival in October 2010 at the AshtaLakshmi Temple from 6:00-11:00 pm. Dadi said, “It was some-thing new I guess, for our folks in Houston. Most of the time, carni-vals in Houston are in the morning or in the afternoon and indoors. I wanted to do something under the open skies, in front of a temple, in open grounds, like a true "mela" in India, and that too in the evening after sunset.” Apparently 2000 people attended this event which

was filled with shopping, food, fun, entertainment, and games for the entire family. They organized a similar fest again in Nov 2011 at the DurgaBari.

Radio Hungama were media partners for several Bollywood and Tollywood (Telugu) concerts in Houston and other cities in the US, including Salim Suleiman, and A.R Rehman’s concert. They organized music director Mani Sharma's concert in Houston in 2010. They are also media partners for TANA (Telugu Association of North America), NATS (North America Telugu Society), ATA (American Telugu Association), and NATA (North America Telugu

Association), which are national associations for the Telugu com-munity in the US. Recently they were media partners for the Light of India Awards 2012 held in New York last week.

As part of Radio Hungama’s community outreach, they have been a strong voice for various non-profit organizations includ-ing Vibha, Daya, Sewa Interna-tional, ICC, NSF (North South Foundation),Telugu Association, University of Houston – NASHA etc. As part of an effort to reach out to the larger South Indian commu-nity, they have held Immigration workshops at various universities. Dadi says, “Being part of festivals

and events celebrated with the community and for the commu-nity is community outreach”.

Sridhar Dadi is BOD at ICC (India Culture Center) and served as Cultural Secretary in the local Telugu Association and Publicity and PR Chair for the NATA con-vention in Houston. The other RJs/Co-Hosts of Radio Hungama are Mani Sastry, Raaga Vahini, Hema Nalini and Sonalika Naidu.

Five Years for Radio Hungama! What will the Hulla-gulla be This Time?

The question is what will Radio Hungama, given their reputation for large scale entertainment agen-da, come up with for their fifth an-niversary? How will they beat the competitive trend they have cre-ated in the past years?

For more details visit: www.RadioHungama.Net.

Contact Sridhar Dadi at 281-217-9736/[email protected]


June 08, 20126 June 08, 20126

Ratha Yatra

Char Dham Hindu Temple will celebrate Ratha Yatra jointly with Houston Durga Bari Society.

Sunday, June 23, 2012 09:00 AM to 3:00 PM

( Breakfast and Lunch will be served )

For Information Contact: Dr. Bishnupada Goswami, Chief Priest (832)-367-6646 Partha Mohanty (832)326-4274

Char Yatra jointly with Houston Durga Bari

Dham Hindu Temple will celebrate Ratha Society.

Location: Houston Durga Bari Society 13944 Schiller Rd, Houston, TX 77082

Please RSVP by emailing to [email protected] Email: [email protected]

http://skaifoundation.org http://www.durgabari.org


7 June 08, 2012 7June 08, 2012COMMUNITYA Universal Temple-Shree Madan Dham

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HOUSTON: At 5645 Hillcroft, Suite 312, Houston, TX 77036, there is a small temple called, Shree Madan Dham or Shree Madanji Mandir. On May 22, Tuesday, the temple was opened to the public after an in-auguration ceremony.

The person behind the inception of this temple is S. Indravadan Trivedi, popularly known as Masterji, because he taught Kath-ak, Kuchipudi and Bharatnatyam before, at what used to be known as the Jhankar School of Dance. According to him, that was one of his life projects which is now complete. He has now transitioned to the spiritual path following his Guru, Shree Madan whose main ashram, Shree Madan Dham is near the Nangal dam in Durbar, Manakpur, in Himachal Pradesh. Now Trivedi is known as Devji Prabhu.

In Devji’s temple there are no deities or idols. According to Devji Prabhu, his Guru who he believes to be the incarnation of Lord Shiva lives in the mountains and in order to bring the peace of that ambience down to everyday life in Houston, Devji conceived the idea of this temple.

In Devji’s words, Shree Madan is an in-carnation of Lord Shiva and in this temple, his picture is at the center flanked by the pictures of Shree Jyoti Shakti who he be-lieves to be an incarnation of Lord Ganesha, and Mata Roopvati who is to him, the incar-nation of the Goddess Parvati.

Devji said that the whole concept behind this temple is to simply spread peace, well-ness and positive spirit to all. Therefore all are welcome to the temple regardless of their religion, race or community. He said that if one has a long standing wish or de-sire, this temple would be a wonderful place to sincerely connect with that desire, and make a heartfelt and sincere wish towards realizing it. Apparently the powers of his Guru, Shree Madan and the aura of the en-

ergies in the temple will enable that desire to become a reality.

Devji Prabhu says that in conformance with the regular routine and pattern of func-tioning of the main Shree Madan Dham in Nangal, he gives discourses every evening at 7:00, on matters of spirituality and phi-losophy.

Apparently, the fundamental philoso-phy of this temple is that there is only one God and each person/soul, (Atma) can find the God within themselves, in an effort to unite with the higher consciousness of the universe, (the Paramatma), when their en-ergies are channelized in the right direction.

Devji says that his Guru Shree Madan’s efforts is not to form new religions or seper-ate people by means of religious boundaries, but to break these very boundaries to unite and weave the whole human race, despite differences, into one single fabric.

Apparently their aim is to promote the idea of ‘Universal Brotherhood’ which they term Vishnu-Bandhutva, which means forg-ing friendships and ties with human beings as one would with the supreme being. They believe that such a committed endeavor will bring people together, promoting peace and wellness for all - Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu.

Deviji’s Guru, Shree Madan was appar-ently born on Oct 22, 1947. Shree Madan Dham in Nangal, India, is a Practical Train-ing Center of Spiritual Education. Devji said that he derives inspiration from his Guru and would like to make the Shree Madan Mandir in Houston a spiritual education center, just like the main ashram.

Devji also teaches Yoga Mudra during the weekends – Saturdays 9-10am and 4-5pm, and Sundays 10-11am and 5-6pm. These Yoga Mudra classes are not priced. Anyone interested is welcome to attend and contrib-ute whatever they can for the class.

Devji Prabhu in Shree Madanji Mandir


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Indian-American Wins US Spelling Contest for Fifth Year

(Nydailynews) Indian Americans con-tinued to demonstrate their spelling prow-ess when Snigdha Nandipati, a 14-year-old girl, correctly spelled “guetapens,” French word for ambush, to win the 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee crown.

She retained the coveted national honor for the community, that has been steadily growing in profile and influence, for the fifth straight year.

“It’s a miracle,” said Nandipati from San Diego, California, as she piped fellow In-dian American Stuti Mishra, 14, of West Melbourne, Florida who stumbled over “schwarmerei”, German for extravagant enthusiasm, in the last round of the final at a convention center outside Washington on Thursday night.

Nandipati, an avid reader and coin collec-tor who aspires to become a psychiatrist or neurosurgeon, gets $30,000 in cash, a tro-phy, a $2,500 savings bond, a $5,000 schol-arship, $2,600 in reference works from the Encyclopedia Britannica and an online lan-guage course.

Nandipati plays violin and is fluent in Telugu. She is the fifth consecutive Indian-American winner and 10th in the last 14 years.

The Indian-American community’s vic-tory run began in 1999 when Nupur Lala captured the crown and was later featured in the documentary “Spellbound”. Anamika Veeramani scored a hat-trick for Indian-Americans by taking the crown in 2010. With Arvind Mahankali, 12, of Bayside Hills, New York, a finalist for the last two years, the three Indian American kids were

the top spellers left in the last round from among the nine who made the finals on Thursday.

Forty-one spellers, meanwhile, heard the dreaded bell that signals an incorrect spell-ing in the semi-finals. Those included one of the favorites, 10-year-old Vanya Shivashan-kar of Olathe, Kansas. The younger sister of the 2009 champion got the only perfect score in the preliminary rounds. Breezily confident through the first two semifinal rounds, Shivashankar was flummoxed by “pejerrey,” a small fish. She went with “per-jere.”

Another Indian American fifth-time com-petitor, Rahul Malayappan, also did not make the finals.

The finals did not include the youngest speller in bee history, six-year-old Lori Anne Madison of Lake Ridge, Virginia, who was eliminated during the preliminary rounds when she misspelled one of her two words -- “ingulvies” (the crop, or craw, of birds) -- and then fell short on her written test.

Snigdha Nandipati wins National Spelling Bee

A 14-year-old Indian-Amer-ican was crowned as the 2012 Scripps National Spell-ing Bee champion. Snigdha Nandipati of San Diego won the title correctly when she spelled “guetapens,” French word for ambush.


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June 2, 2012Dr. K. T. Shah, a former volun-

teer co-chair of Houston chapter of Akshaya Patra USA, has cir-culated a letter voicing numerous issues and disagreements with the management of Akshaya Patra. His heart is in the right place but he has chosen a path that is caus-ing unintended damage to the or-ganization and its noble mission: no child shall be deprived of edu-cation because of hunger.

The Akshaya Patra USA board wants to reassure you that while issues and disagreements are driv-en by Dr. Shah’s passionate sup-port of the Akshaya Patra mission, they are his opinion. The Akshaya Patra board and the staff will con-tinue to work in an ethical manner on behalf of the underprivileged children to ensure that hunger is not a barrier to education for them. Sri. Madhu Pandit Dasa, the Chair-man of the parent organization, Akshaya Patra India, who is also a board member of the Akshaya Pa-tra USA, reaffirms full confidence of the India board in the sincere services of Mr. Desh Deshpande and Mrs. Madhu Sridhar.

The first several questions that Dr. Shah is raising can be attrib-uted to difference in style and ap-proach. Our efforts to close the dif-ferences through communication were not successful. So, when Dr. Shah chose to resign on Septem-ber 30, 2011 the Board accepted his resignation.

Mr. Naveen Khurana, the Aksha-ya Patra USA board member who resigned in August, 2011 has the following to say on June 1, 2012 in response to Dr. Shah’s comment about the role of arbitrator:

“I have been involved with Ak-shaya Patra India and Akshaya Patra USA for over ten years now. I served on the board of Akshaya Patra USA since inception. I was very proud to be on the board of the organization with a noble mission that is executing with complete transparency and discipline both in India and the USA. I resigned on August 1, 2011 to pursue my personal interests related to Vedic

teachings. I had been postponing writing, publishing and teaching work and wanted to devote time to that. Even after my resignation, I have been in touch and in dis-cussions with Akshaya Patra and have kept in touch with both Desh Deshpande and Madhu Sridhar of Akshaya Patra USA. I am still helping the fundraising teams both in India and the USA.”

Dr. Shah also alludes to a lack of transparency in the reporting of financials. The Annual Report of Akshaya Patra India gives a de-tailed accounting of the funds sent from the US. To its credit, Akshaya Patra has won Gold Shield awards for three consecutive years for best financial reporting from the Indian Institute of Chartered Accountants. Akshaya Patra USA files financials with the IRS on a timely basis after they are audited by an independent auditor. In addition, 990s are filed on a regular basis and these are public documents. Mr. Prabhakar Kalavacherla is a board member on the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). Prior to his current role he was an audit partner at KPMG LLP. He serves as the audit committee chair for Akshaya Patra USA board.

The Akshaya Patra India Board is proud to have Mr. Desh Desh-pande, a much sought after vision-ary leader, chairing the Akshaya Patra USA board. He is devoting countless hours in guiding and mentoring both India and the US fundraising teams, traveling all across US promoting Akshaya Pa-tra. He and his wife, Mrs. Jaishree Deshpande, have made personal donation of close to a million dol-lars to Akshaya Patra since 2004 to help build kitchens and continues to support funding of the US office. He spends his after tax dollars for travel and any related expenses to raise funds.

Mrs. Madhu Sridhar, the first President and CEO of Akshaya Pa-tra USA, has worked tirelessly to build the first Akshaya Patra office outside of India and has established the appropriate processes that can scale. She has brought the finest

and the most accomplished lumi-naries to serve on the Advisory Board of Akshaya Patra USA in-cluding Mr. Narayan Murthy, Mr. Nitin Nohria, Mr. Deepak Chopra and Mr. Fareed Zakaria. Mrs. Srid-har’s efforts have been an inspira-tion to start chapters in Canada and UK. Her successful efforts in USA have inspired the organization in India to invest more towards en-gaging professionals in fund rais-ing in India.

We look forward to the leader-ship and guidance of Mr. Desh Deshpande and the invaluable services of Mrs. Madhu Sridhar to build an organization that can raise funds globally to achieve our goal of serving five million children by 2020.

The Akshaya Patra USA Board and the staff will continue to strive to make Akshaya Patra an organi-zation that other NGOs can look up to as a benchmark with your enduring support. We thank you for making Akshaya Patra your philanthropic priority.

Board of Akshaya Patra USA

Letter from Akshaya Patra Board to Houston Supporters

J. Cogliandro Photography

Nisha Mohindra Weds Prashant Kolluri

HOUSTON: The wedding of Nisha Mohindra and Prashant Kolluri took place on Memorial Day weekend, May 25-27.

Nisha is the daughter of Biki and Prita Mohindra, who have resided in Houston since 1975. Nisha graduated from Bellaire High School and obtained undergraduate degrees in Economics, Systems and Electrical Engineering, and South Asian Regional Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and premed from University of Texas before getting an MD from

Northwestern University.Prashant is the son of Sharma

and Kama Kolluri of New Orleans. He graduated with biomedical engineering and law degrees from Washington University in St. Louis.

T h e w e d d i n g f e s t i v i t i e s included mehendi at the Mohindra residence, sangeet at Courtyard on St. James Place and both wedding and reception at Intercontinental Hotel.

The couple will reside in Chicago after their honeymoon.

J. Cogliandro Photography


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14-Year-Old Texan Wins National Geographic Bee

(Stltoday) In the end, it came down to an educated guess as to which Bavarian city located on the Danube River was a legislative seat of the Holy Roman Empire from 1663 to 1806.

Answer: The German city of Regensburg.

And with that, 14-year-old Ra-hul Nagvekar took the top prize Thursday at the National Geo-graphic Bee.

It was a close victory. He and runner-up Vansh Jain had finished the championship round tied after five questions. Next, they were asked a series of tiebreakers in a sudden death round. For the first three, both wrote down the cor-rect answer. On the fourth, only Nagvekar was correct.

“It was a guess, a 50-50 chance,” said the eighth-grader from Sugar Land, Texas. “It just happened to be a good guess.”

The first-time contender in the national competition will receive a $25,000 college scholarship along with a trip to the Galapagos Islands. It was the third time a stu-dent from Texas has won the bee in the past four years.

Nagvekar’s mother, Urmila Sab-nis, said that helping her son train required her to do a lot of research with her husband.

“I have been reading and read-ing and reading ...just to be able to make it tough,” said the software engineer who’s originally from In-dia. “He wouldn’t take a question if it was easy.”

Nagvekar said maps have fasci-nated him for years, but he’s not sure what he’ll study when he gets to college in a few years. He start-

ed preparing for the geography bee in fourth grade and has gone to the state bee every year, placing higher each time.

This year’s bee began with local competitions among 4 million stu-dents in schools across the coun-try.

“I think it’s very important for people to know more about the world,” Nagvekar said. “That helps with world conflict. It helps people understand others better. It helps people understand why problems happen and how to solve those problems.”

The bee tested the 10 finalists’ knowledge of history, world cul-tures, landmarks and climates.

In one round, students were shown a graph with rainfall and temperature averages and asked to pick which city it depicted. An-other round used Google Earth to zoom in on a museum, memorial or church, and the students guessed where it was located.

President Barack Obama asked a question this year by video, quizzing the young contenders on their knowledge of recent events. Obama asked what Asian capital city on the Han River hosted a gath-ering of world leaders in March for a Nuclear Security Summit.

The answer: Seoul.Obama said studying geography

is “about more than just memoriz-ing places on a map.

“It’s about understanding the complexity of our world, appre-ciating the diversity of cultures that exist across continents, and, in the end, it’s about using all that knowledge to help bridge divides and bring people together.”

The contest will be televised Thursday night on the National Geographic Channel and later on public broadcast stations. “Jeop-ardy!” host Alex Trebek hosted the finals.

National Geographic changed the format this year. Rather than eliminate finalists after two wrong answers, the finalists earned points for each correct answer. During four elimination stages, those with the lowest scores were culled.

Jain, a 13-year-old from Mi-nocqua, Wis., will take home a $15,000 scholarship as runner-up. The eighth-grader was making his third appearance in the national geography bee.

“You have to love to look at maps,” he said. In his spare time, he also is on the swimming team and plays the flute in his school band.

The third-place finisher, 13-year-old Varun Mahadevan of Fremont, Calif., wins a $10,000 scholar-ship.

Fifty-four contestants represent-ing each state and four U.S. ter-ritories competed in Washington. The 10 who made the final rounds represented Arizona, California, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachu-setts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin.

Brian McClendon, vice presi-dent of engineering at bee sponsor Google, said it is the nation’s best academic competition. Still, it’s often overshadowed by the Na-tional Spelling Bee.

“You 50 or 54 are the smartest people I know,” he told the con-tenders.

National Geographic Bee host Alex Trebek stands with National Geographic Bee champion Rahul Nagvekar, 14, from Quail Valley Middle School in Missouri City, TX (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)


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Madurai Temple Chairman Karu Muttu Kannan Visits Sri Meenakshi Temple

PEARLAND: Ma-durai Sree Meenakshi Sundreswarar Temple Chairman, Karu Muttu Kannan and his wife Dr. Uma Kannan vis-ited Sri Meenakshi Temple in Pearland, Texas, on Monday May 28, 2012. He was received by the tem-ple priests at the Raja Gopuram with Poorna Kubhambam.

Mr. Kannan was taken along the in-side prakaram and then to Shiva san-nadhi, Meenakshi, Venkateswara and Padmavathi sanna-dhis for pooja. Roopa Balakrish-nan, Meenakshi Temple Society’s (MTS) Religious Activities Com-mittee coordinator, made arrange-ments to honor Mr. Kannan, his wife and other visitors who were in Houston in connection with the 37th convention of the Tamil Nadu Foundation.

On inquiry from Raj Mikkiline-ni, MTS Secretary, Mr. Kannan made brief remarks on a possible memorandum of understanding between the Madurai and Pearl-and Meenakshi Temples. Mr. Kan-

nan said that the MOU was under consideration of the Tamil Nadu Government and that he would be happy to visit again when the document is finalized.

Then the group moved to the visitor center where Karu Muutu Kannan, Movie Direc-tor S.P. Muthuraman, Professor Gnanasambandham and Umayal Muthu made brief remarks and answered questions from the au-dience.

Vatsa Kumar MTS Board mem-

ber and Meena Subramanian, Nat Annamalai and Padma Anantha MTS Adjunct Executive Directors gave a tour of the temple complex. Malar Narayanan, Board member in charge for food services, ar-ranged for lunch. Srikanth, MTS Joint Secretary and Padma Golla MTS Joint Treasurer made neces-sary arrangements. Sam Kannap-pan, S. Muthuraman and Jeyam Thiagarajan, MTS Board member, took care of the transportation.

Poorna Kumbam for T. Kannan


June 08, 201212 June 08, 201212 TRAVELBY JAWAHAR MALHOTRA

AHEPE, Togo: It was just impossible to miss the yelled out greeting, accompanied with a peal of laughter, a flash of a broad smile and a clap of the hands. Little kids would stop, and the boys in the clearing that formed their soccer field would gaze and call him out.

“Je- re- mie! Je-re-mie!!” Long, tall Jeremy would walk by, and

raise his hand in a wave and call back “Bon Soir!” (good afternoon) and keep his pace along the dirt path, his flip-flops leaving a trace on the ochre earth. When he ran into an adult he knew, he’d stop to exchange the rituals of the meeting – a handshake that ended with a snap off the other person’s middle finger and some enquiries. “Com-ment ca va? Tout va bien? Et la famille? Et la travail?” (How’s everything? All goes well? And the family? And work?).

Jeremy had perfected the ritual, the inflec-tions of the local French dialect, the man-nerisms that go with relating to local people. There we’d stand, sometimes by the side of the road, often the other person stepped off their bicycle or moped, as they exchanged pleasantries, and Jeremy might ask about the project that they had worked on together.

And then Jeremy would introduce us. “C’est mon papa, et mon grand frère Stefan” (this is my father, and my older brother Ste-fan) and there would be loud wonderment, broad smiles and incredulous exclamations that we had come all the way from America to visit. “Non!! Ton papa? Aah, bon soir papa!” with a repeat of the handshake and then “Bon soir grand frère!” with another handshake, coupled with much inquisitive-ness at our visit as almost no foreigners vis-ited the village and certainly none who were the relatives of a volunteer of the Corps de la Paix (Peace Corps). By our visit, we had effectively tripled the white population in the village.

And when they didn’t know Jeremy – or us – the little urchins playing outside their homes, or by the side of their mothers who toiled at the roadside stall selling vegetables or pounding yams into a soft white pulp for the daily meal of “fu-fu” would sing a little rhyme in their native Kewe that was so uni-versal across the country you’d wonder if it was taught in school, grinning gleefully and staring with wide eyes all the while, but not tauntingly.

“Yowo, yowo bon soir!” “Yowo, yowo bon soir!” (Whitey, whitey, hello!)

It wasn’t mean spirited, just innocence mixed with excitement and onlookers would stop to grin, and occasionally an adult would admonish them not to say so.

This was the village of Ahepe where my son Jeremy Gyan had gone to for the past two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer, with much of my misgivings about the futility of effort and waste of time. Now, as my older son and I had come to visit him – a trip de-layed a year due to the flagging US econo-my and the disruptions of financial markets – those misgivings were transformed into

marveling at the impact that the experience had not only on Jeremy and on the villagers but was now having on us, outsiders who had suddenly been taken into the affection-ate folds of the village.

The last Peace Corps volunteer who had lived in Ahepe was in 1984, and Jeremy showed us the stone brick that he had left in

A Togolese Village, Ahepe, Where Everyone Knows His Name!

the ground of the garden of his home, etched with his name and the year “Ritchie, 1984”. The old man and owner came out to show it to us, as we arrived without advance notice, but he was welcoming all the same as drop-ping in is a way of life here. He showed us the stone then we walked to the edge of the path to his house, in the shadows of 200 foot tall Boa Bap trees that have a spindly branch structure, resulting in their sometimes being called Upside-Down Trees. A few hundred feet away were some Flamboyant trees, set off against the sunset that arrives almost punctually every evening at 6:30.

Ahepe is a village of maybe 5,000 people who live on both sides of the main asphalt road, often rutted with potholes, that branch-es off from the National Highway 1 (also known as Eyadema) at Tsevie and goes by Agbatope, a slightly bigger village. It lies at the junction of two other wide dirt roads that lead to two other nearby villages – Zafi and Kouve and its commercial heart is at the curve of the road that goes southwards off to Tabligbo some 10 kilometeres away.

We had arrived in Ahepe after some four hours on a 194 km ride after we left the capi-tal Lome by bush taxi –a city taxi that we had negotiated a fare with and usually picks up people along the way. And when we turned into the ochre-colored rain-carved dirt road by the Chef du Village’s (village chief) com-pound, Jeremy’s bungalow came into view behind a walled-in courtyard where he had just hoisted the Texas flag on a wooden pole in anticipation of our visit. The villagers had nicknamed his house “l’Ambassade du Texas” (the Embassy of Texas)!

Clockwise from top left: Jeremy Malhotra at his house in Ahepe with his local mentor Theo and his wife and uncle Bernard (right); from left Theo, Stefan, Jawahar, the Village Chief and Jeremy; village kids after school; Jeremy’s house nicknamed the “Embassy of Texas”; Photos: Jawahar Malhotra

Natraj School Holds Talent ShowcaseHOUSTON: After another successful

Ramleela 2011, the Shri Natraj School of Dance came back with yet another captivat-ing evening on May 25 in a dance studio by the Texas Medical Center a dance recital where the students of the school presented different forms of Indian dances like Kath-ak, Bharatnatayam, and Bollywood.

Kathak is a form of classical dance that originated from the Northern part of India while Bharatanatyam originated from the Southern part of India. Both dance forms are extremely graceful and elegant and also very unique. Bollywood dance form, as the name suggests is mostly the free style dance inspired from Bollywood music

The program started at 7 pm and went on for an hour followed by a potluck dinner for the performers and family. The beautiful dancers were of all ages - from 4 to 35 years – and were enthralling with their colorful costumes and moves.

It began with a prayer dance ‘Mooshika Vahan’ in Bharatnatyam style. Next, was the enchanting Kathak performance ‘Guru Brahma’ by the junior kids followed by some simple tukdas. The show progressed with an elegant recital consisting of tatkar followed by some chakradhar tukdas by the older Kathak students. Showing versatility, the younger students danced their heart out to some popular Bollywood numbers like ‘Chamak Chalo’ and ‘Zoobi Dubi’ capti-vating the audience by their latka and jhat-kas. The show wrapped up with an amazing performance to the song “Mere Dholna” by the senior Kathak students along with their dance guru herself, Kusum Sharma.

The show was emceed by Runmee Bar-bara Dutta and attended by the friends and families of all the performers who showed great energy, excitement and enthusiasm. The flawless technique, expressive chore-ography by Kusum Sharma, phenomenal

treat while the tabla that accompanied the Kathak performances was captivating.

Performing at the Natraj School of Dance showcase, front row: Surabh, Geetali and Seema; Back row: Aditi and Shikha.

dancing, colorful costumes, and fascinating music combined to present a stunning visual


13 June 08, 2012 13June 08, 2012

TRAVEL

COMMUNITYRandhir Sahni Urges Kansas State Graduates to Defy Expectations

BY PRAMOD KULKARNIMANHATTAN, Kansas: Randhir Sahni,

Houston’s leading architect and registered investment adviser, was invited to be the commencement speaker at his alma mater, Kansas State University School of Archi-tecture, Planning and Landscape Architec-ture. The graduation ceremonies were held May 11, 2012. Sahni was accompanied by his wife Sunila and youngest daughter Nan-dita.

A native of New Delhi, Randhir Sahni migrated to the United States in 1966 after earning his degree in architecture from MS University in Baroda. He earned a Master of Architecture at Kansas State University and a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from Rice University.

Sahni is president of Llewellyn-Davies Sahni, an international, award-winning ar-chitecture, planning, urban design and con-sulting firm. His work over the past 30 years includes: a $250-million building develop-ment program for Ben Taub and Lyndon B. Johnson in the Texas Medical Center; rede-velopment of 70-city blocks on downtown San Antonio; and redevelopment plans for CBD Pittsburg, PA. and 42nd Street in New York City. 1n 1997, he became a Registered Investment Advisor.

In 2005, Mr. Sahni was elected to the City Council, City of Piney Point. He and his wife, Sunila, have two daughters, Rohini and Nandita.

In his commencement speech, Sahni stressed the value of a life of learning. “In the days and years to come, while there may not be textbooks, professors, papers and classrooms, this school and this degree have primed you for a lifetime of learning. I have made my way through three different architecture degrees and over forty years of work experience, and yet I find that every day there is a lot more to learn,” Sahni ex-plained. “My life’s work thus far has proven this fact true time and again, as I hope to share with you today. I urge you to begin your professional career knowing that this is true.

It may make you flexible, it will make you curious and it will make you determined. But, most of all, knowing that you are al-ways learning means that you never take anything so seriously that you forget to en-joy your work, and, more importantly, your life.”

Sharing four snippets from his life, Sahni said almost all adversities are opportunities in disguise. The first example of adversity was failing in boarding school. “I resented lack of an opportunity for self-judgment, causing me to be an academically poor stu-dent. I failed once and had to stay back a year. I was crushed. I lost my self-respect and could not face friends and family. It was then, that I promised myself, that come hell or high water; I was going to be very serious about my schoolwork from this point for-ward. In college, that promise that I made to myself that day, paid off, every year for the next five years I was in the upper tier of the class. With each of those small steps, came more determination and diligence with which I then began to address each challenge that came my way. It slowly, but surely became a habit.”

The second opportunity that came as an adversity was the choice of going to Baroda for college. “To my surprise, early in the se-mester I was given a clear message by the

Commencement Speech at Alma Mater

students there, I belonged to another part of the country – North India—and was not welcome here, in the state of Gujarat. How-ever, I stayed, and did my utmost to become part of local student population, respect-ing their culture, learning their values and speaking to them in their language – despite barely knowing more than a few words when starting school. However, I would be unapologetic for hailing from a different part of the country. Eventually, I succeeded. In the fourth year of college, I was elected to become a member of the University Stu-dent Senate, a 14-member student govern-ing body, elected from a student population of over 14,000.”

The third example was of life at KSU. “I landed in the U.S. in September of 1966 with all of eight dollars in my pocket.... Not knowing anything about cooking, one day I decided to do just that in the small 2-bedroom apartment. Not realizing that the aroma of frying onions with loads of spices can make people very uncomfortable? This smell made my roommate quite unhappy, he complained once, and was not taken too seriously by me. He got drunk and came at me with an 8” butcher knife and was ready to slit my throat. I managed to lock my door and the next day I moved out. I learned, in a great and frightening hurry, that respect-ing other people’s values and preferences was going to be of prime importance in life. The lesson from an uncomfortable situa-tion forced me into a way of being that has proven indispensable as I have moved from job to job, state to state, meeting new people from a diverse backgrounds and cultures.”

Sahni continued with his life story of coming to Houston to study urban design at Rice University, working for CRS and then joining LDA in 1977. In 1980, he was made partner and the company name was changed

to Llewellyn David-Sahni (LD-S).In 1997, Sahni passed three securities

exams to become a registered investment adviser with Resource Horizons Group. “For the last 15-years, I have practiced ar-chitecture/planning along with wealth man-agement. Not just equities related money management, but capital projects related resource management. While disjointed at first glance, it has been a merging of two worlds that makes nothing but sense to me ... My firm sits in the driver’s seat because of understanding of academic and physical requirements, with capabilities that were needed to convince bond lenders about the different funding needs.”

In closing, Sahni urged, “I encourage you to always defy their expectations, to show them a different side of yourself, to ask for more and to always take the time to explore what interests you, even if it seems, at first, completely disjointed from what you have been doing. Doing so has proven, time and again for me, to lead me on the right path.”

Randhir Sahni at the Kansas State University School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture commencement with his youngest daughter Nandita.

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June 08, 201214 June 08, 201214 COMMUNITYIndia’s Ashish Roy, 80, Runs Half Marathon

WASHINGTON (NYDaily-News): India’s grand old mara-thon man Ashish Roy, who turns 80 June 1, is running again after a gap of over six months, this time by participating in a half marathon in Alexandria.

Roy, who has run a record 113 marathons, completed the half marathon in Alexandria, a Wash-ington suburb in neighbouring Vir-ginia, Sunday with a timing of 3 hours, 10 minutes and 40 seconds. He was awarded a finisher’s medal and an age group winner medal.

Roy, who was bedridden for over three months after a major back-bone surgery in Delhi last Novem-ber, had run his last full marathon in the US in August last year. His 113 marathon tally includes 44 in the US, 12 in Canada, 38 in India and 19 in other countries.

Known as the “Marathon Man of India”, Roy is only Indian to find mention in “The Messengers”, a book by Malcolm Andersen of Kingston University in Canada, about people who have completed

more than 100 marathons.Roy started running marathons

at the age of 52 after retiring as a cardiologist from the Indian Air Force. Starting with his first run in Rath marathon in November 1985 he went on to complete his 100th marathon in January 2010.

Ashish Roy

PSH’s Hands Out Vaisakhi Awards

BY JAWAHAR MALHOTRAHOUSTON: The Punjabi So-ciety of Houston held a dinner

and award ceremony this past Saturday, June 2 for

all the 40 volunteers and performers who partici-pated in the annual Vai-sakhi program, held this year at the Cullen Audi-

torium of the University of Houston on April 28. The party was held at the Hotel Preet at

the corner of Hwy 290 and Beltway 8, which was also the

venue for all the practice sessions for all the groups who danced.

The evening featured a buf-fet dinner for all the guests and bhangra music to dance to for the young and young-at-heart. The program was emceed by Jasmeeta Singh, who was the main coordi-nator and choreographer for the Vaisakhi show and the gold cup trophies were presented to all the participants by the Board of the PSH and its main sponsor, Jasbir Singh Bawa of Bawa Jewelers and Mangat Singh of Hotel Preet.

The Board members of the Punjabi Society of Houston (from left) Jasmeeta Singh, Hardeep Kaur, Bhai Amar Singh, Manohar Singh Mann, Aman Singh and Pritpal Singh.

The Board of the PSH along with the two main sponsors Mangat Singh (fourth from left rear) and Jasbir Singh Bawa (in suit) with a group of young dancers who had received their trophies. Photos: Jawahar Malhotra

Parminder Singh sang several contemporary Punjabi songs.


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Interested in Opening a Niche Salon within Walmart?Exclusive Q&A interview with Vas Maniatis, co-founder of Seva

HOUSTON: The business philosophy of Vas and Sonal Maniatis, founders of Seva, is, “serving selflessly” in everything they set out to do. Seva is a franchise busi-ness, ideal for those interested in beauty. It specializes in eyebrow shaping, facial hair removal, and waxing. Their signature service is eyebrow threading. Seva grows within retail stores, and has established an exclusive partnership with Walmart, with opportunity for future growth in other re-tail stores such as Walgreens, Sephora and Ulta. The Seva business model guarantees entrepreneurs foot traffic in the thousands per week.

What is the story behind Seva?Vas Maniatis (VM): The concept origi-

nated in the late 90’s during a trip to the Lit-tle India neighborhood of Devon Street in Chicago, IL. My girlfriend then, (and now wife of 12 years), wanted to get her eye-brows threaded. Not caring the least about eyebrows and fleeing at the thought of needles (there are no needles), I reluctantly agreed to accompany her. I walked into a packed storefront - salon chairs filled the circumference of the shop, every chair had a woman having her eyebrows threaded. In minutes, with what looked like hands and arms and a spool of thread dancing to some peculiar rhythm, the customer would have shapely eyebrows. I was mesmerized!

I had witnessed the “art of eyebrow threading” - one of those rare cultural gems hiding in the USA right under our eyebrows! This magnificent and ancient technique needed to exposure outside the Indian community! In 2007, as the idea continued fomenting in my brain, the first waves of threading kiosks opened in malls throughout the country. At that time, I sold a real estate company I had founded, and travelled for a year with my wife and our two children. When we returned to the US we were ready for our threading venture.

We analyzed the now successful mall model and concluded that malls were great for threading but the model had seri-ous flaws. First, malls may be fine for the first round of hair removal but were ter-ribly inconvenient for recurring custom-ers. Second, mall kiosks lacked privacy and made customers uncomfortable. We needed a location that would allow for maximum business exporsure without sac-rificing convenience and privacy. It was a no-brainer - within retail environments such as Walmart! More than 30,000 cus-tomers per week enter Walmart. This type of retail environment could offer an unpar-alleled one-stop-shop convenience to the customer.

In 2008, Simply Eyebrows opened its pilot store inside a new Walmart in Indianapolis, IN. It was an immediate success; 3 ½ years later, the 400 square foot pilot store serves more than 1,000 customers per week! In 2009, we opened Simply Eyebrows in more states inside other retail outlets. They were highly successful. In late 2009-early 2010, Simply Eyebrows diversified services and expanded nationwide. The Walmart-based stores were now given the trade name Seva, meaning “To Serve Selflessly.” Simply Eyebrows locations continued to expand in retail and non-retail environments outside Walmart. Seva’s initial franchise offering and nationwide expansion plans came in mid 2010. Seva currently oper-ates in nine states with plans for national and international growth.

Tell us about Seva’s range of products and services. How are you different from com-peting salons?

VM: Seva specializes in brow-shaping fa-cial hair removal by threading and waxing, nail services including no-chip manicures and pedicures, full spa services including body waxing and facials, eyelash extensions, and much more. Salons are conveniently lo-cated within Walmart. Appointments are not necessary. Our location and affordable pric-ing for three servces – (brows and face, spa, and nails), keeps us ahead of competition. We also offer a line of Seva branded products. Seva’s POS system allows customers easy access to “today’s special” offers. Custom-ers electronically receive offers, appointment confirmations, and beauty service receipts.

How’s the demand for your services among Walmart customers? How long will your ex-clusive relationship with Walmart last?

VM: Some Walmart-Seva salons service more than 1,000 customers per week. Our

partnership with Walmart will last as long as both parties are happy with each other. We are free to of-fer our model in other venues but are selective in who we partner with. Currently, the company is preparing for ex-pansion in retail and airport loca-tions.

How does your iPad-based POS technology facilate franchi-sees’ efficiency?

VM: Our POS technology empowers the franchisee with real-time data - live web cam, transaction data from anywhere in the world, allowing for an absentee franchisee business model.

What assistance do you offer franchisees for staff recruitment and training?

VM: We provide them with the best indus-try tools. We utilize our cooperative market-ing fund to proactively recruit the best. Seva Corp. compliments local recruitment efforts of franchisees.Job applicants submit appli-cations on SevaBeauty.com. All franchisees and their managers receive these application

based on proximity of their salons to appl-sicants’ locations. The applications, pushed to their iPad-based POS is accessible via a workflow throughout the hiring process. All Seva locations have access to certified beau-ty professionals trained in a series of hands-on threading instructional classes offered at Seva’s corporate headquarters.

What are the attributes needed to be a successful Seva franchisee

VM: Our franchisees must meet our core values: HLS: Honesty, Loyalty, Skill. Meet-ing the financial requirements is necessary as well, which is $100k liquid. Business acumen is great; beauty or salon experience is not necessary.

What steps do your most successful fran-chisees take to build and grow?

VM: Our best partners listen and follow our protocols. They realize that we’ve al-ready made the mistakes and figured out the best practices.

What do you do to help your franchisees become profitable?

VM: We never stop improving ever! One of our latest efforts: Investing and develop-ing a robust e-Learning platform tied to our iPad POS.

What are your goals for Seva in the next few years??

VM: I don’t believe in selling, I believe in awarding. When the right partner approach-es us for a franchise, we award them Seva.

Interested franchisees visit www.seva-beauty.com

The owners, Vas and Sonal Maniatis.

Seva location at Walmart.


June 08, 201216 June 08, 201216 COMMUNITYTelfair Central Opens in Sugar Land

SUGAR LAND : Last weekend, the grand opening was held for Telfair Central, the final neighbor-hood in Telfair, a Sugar Land com-munity located at U.S. 59 South and University Blvd.

Four new decorated models showcased the lineup for Telfair Central, which is surrounded by lakes and greenbelts, and inter-laced with landscaped parks called mews.

The builder lineup includes: Ryland Homes priced from the $300,000s. David Weekley Homes and Village Builders from the $370,000s. David Weekley Homes from the $490,000s.

Planned for fewer than 200 new homes, Telfair Central is the final major chapter in the development of Telfair, a 2,018-acre commu-

nity opened in 2006. Located in the Fort Bend Independent School District, Telfair has consistently been one of the top-selling com-munities in Houston and the Unit-ed States, ranking 10th in the na-tion last year in sales.

“Location has been key to the success of Telfair, which offers one of the final opportunities to buy a new home right in Sugar Land,” said Heather Gustafson, marketing director for Newland Communities. “The location is so convenient that you can see the community’s landmark arched suspension bridges, and the his-toric building of the Houston Mu-seum of Natural Science at Sugar Land, right from U.S. 59, just past Highway 6.” New homes in Tel-fair have typically sold fast, and

David Weekly homes in Telfair Central are priced from $300,000.

Telfair Central is no exception. Even before the grand opening be-gan, 25 percent of the homes had already been sold.

In some ways, Telfair has saved the best for last in Telfair Central, including a location right in the center of the community, near the museum and the Telfair Central community center complex.

Both the home architecture and the land plan for Telfair Central have been designed to create the feeling of a traditional neighbor-hood that promotes front-porch living and pedestrian activity.

Builders are creating all-new floors plans designed especially for Telfair Central, with architec-ture inspired by the Craftsman style and other historic influences. Spacious front porches will be a prominent feature along the streets of Telfair Central, with builders re-quired to provide front porches on at least one-third of the homes.

Some portions of the 58-acre neighborhood will feature a net-work of rear laneways, or alleys, to provide access to garages. This will add to the neighborhood’s green atmosphere by eliminating driveways and garage doors from the view along the streets.

But perhaps the most unique feature of Telfair Central will be its many mews, or neighborhood parks. A British term, mews tradi-tionally refers to a group of homes

or stables surrounding a central court.

At Telfair Central, the mews are numerous green spaces that pro-vide views for many homesites, as well as parkland for residents. One distinctive feature, a long central mew, leads to an open waterfront park.

Telfair Central is surrounded on two sides by the largest lake in Telfair, and all lake frontage in the

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The Telfair Central neighbor-hood is within walking distance of the community’s flagship amenity, also called Telfair Central.

This 25-acre recreation complex includes a community center, fit-ness center, water park, tennis courts, playgrounds and water-front park space.

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®All rights reserved. No material herein or portions thereof may be published without the written consent of the publisher. The deadline for advertising and articles is 5 pm on Monday of each week. Please include self-addressed, stamped envelope for return of all unsolicited material. Published at 7457 Harwin Drive, Suite 262, Houston, Texas 77036. Tel: 713-789-NEWS or 6397 Fax: 713-789-6399, email: [email protected], website: indoamerican-news.com

CORRESPONDENTSCHICAGO: NAND KAPOOR, NEW DELHI: RAJ KANWAR

Indo American NewsFOUNDER: DR. K.L. SINDWANI

EDITOR: PRAMOD KULKARNIBUSINESS MANAGER: JAWAHAR MALHOTRA

MANAGING PARTNER: KRISHNA GIRI

COMMUNITY EDITOR: MANASI GOKHALEADMINISTRATIVE MANAGER: VANSHIKA VIPIN

GRAPHIC DESIGN: SAQIB RANACOMMUNITY CORRESPONDENT: SOWMYA NANDAKUMAR

June 08, 201218 EDITORIALIf an airliner takes off and lands a 1,000 times without fail, it is

not news. It becomes news if it crashed on its 1,001 fl ight. As such, a newspaper is full of tragedies and bad news. In this particular issue of Indo-American News, I’m pleased to report that there are quite a few instances of happy news.

We have news of UH President Renu Khator win the Light of India award. Then we have the U.S. spelling bee champ Snigdha Nandipati and Missouri City’s Rahul Nagvekar winning the Na-tional Geographic bee. India is beaming about fi ve-time chess champion Vishwanathan Anand. And cricket fans from Kolkota and around the world are still in delirium about the Kolkota Knight Riders winning the IPL 5 trophy.

Let’s enjoy the happy news while we can and postpone the news of corrupt politicians and Eurozone fi nancial crisis till tomorrow.

Pramod Kulkarni

BY AAKAR PATELThe annual ritual where Indians

demonstrate they are smarter than all other Americans is the National Spelling Bee.

So dominant are the Indians in this school competition that they have been winners eight times in the last 10 years. If anything, this trend is becoming even more pronounced. Indians took the first spot in each of the last five years and all three top places in this year’s contest that finished on May 31. What explains this total dominance of Indians, who are only one per cent of America’s population? It is hardly the case that we speak or write English bet-ter than Europeans or Americans. How are Indians so good with dif-ficult words?

The online magazine Slate ex-plored this subject in 2010 in their “Explainer” column. The writer concluded that the effort of an or-ganisation called the North South Foundation was responsible.

This body of expatriate Indians conducted local spelling and other contests that made Indian children better. These contests were very competitive, therefore, giving In-dians both experience and an edge when they took the national stage. The Slate writer doesn’t explore why it is that Indians are so enthu-siastic about this particular contest in the first place.

The fact is that it plays to their strength, which is learning by rote. Memorising tracts is and has always been the Indian way of ac-quiring knowledge. It is also the way in which learning is exam-ined in Indian schools. Answers to questions about history, geogra-phy and even science that aligned word for word with what the textbook said got you full marks when I was a child, and this hasn’t changed.

Indians have a word in each of their languages for this sort of learning. It is called ratta in Hindi, for instance, and gokh in Gujarati. It refers to reading, repeatedly re-citing, and thereby, memorising whole pages of prose.

This may not be a good way of

learning, if it is learning at all, but this has always been the case in India. Hindus developed a com-plex system of memorising and reciting the entire Rig Veda so that it would not be lost in the period before literacy.

Even today, Indian adults con-sider it an act of learning to be able to put on display their abil-ity to be mug up. Stephen Cohen wrote about this in his book India: Emerging Power. He remarked that there was a difference in styles when Indian and Ameri-

Why Indians Win the Spelling BeeHappy Newscan diplomats negotiated. Indians took pride in recounting the mi-nutiae of events in the past, dates and background and that sort of thing. This was done, Cohen felt, for no reason other than to show that there was mastery over the subject. Americans, on the other hand, were focused only on the is-sue at hand.

It is true that all students, wheth-er Indian or not, must memorise to be able to do well in America’s Na-tional Spelling Bee. A Washington Post report before the finals quot-ed one American child’s mother saying that her son had studied for 8,000 hours in preparation.

But it is also true that because of their legacy and culture of do-ing this, Indian kids have an ad-vantage. Our middle class values of parental supervision of stud-ies makes sure more kids spend those thousands of hours learning words.

Indian newspapers take great pride when these values show re-sults, as they did again on June 2 when Snigdha Nandipati won, beating Stuti Mishra and Arvind Mahankali.

Snigdha’s father has trained her since she was four, and used 30,000 flash cards to help her memorise tough words — words like “guetapens” and “chionablep-sia” that she is unlikely to encoun-ter again in life.

This advantage Indians have of being able to find the time and motivation to commit things to memory is not particularly use-ful outside of things like spelling contests. It is of no use in think-ing about problems and solutions. I would say it is the reason why the output of our colleges and uni-versities is low on quality (India’s software body NASSCOM says nine out of 10 Indian engineering graduates who apply to one of the big four software firms are reject-ed as being unemployable).

So while India’s dominance of the National Spelling Bee puts on display its middle class values, it also showcases the problems of its system of education.

Express Tribune

Stephen Cohen wrote in his book India: Emerging Power that there was a difference in styles when Indian and American diplomats negotiated. Indians took pride in recounting the minutiae of events in the past, dates and background and that sort of thing. This was done for no reason other than to show that there was mastery over the subject. Americans, on the other hand, were focused only on the issue at hand.

Still Ample TimeIt’s swelling into an overwhelming chorus now. Even many

Congress Working Committee (CWC) members have come round to the view that the economy is the problem, to which the party’s electoral reverses can be attributed. In the circumstances, one would have expected Congress’s apex decision-making body to come out of its Monday meeting guns blazing, in an effort to start up long-stalled policy decisions on the economy. The an-nouncement of a concrete plan of action on economic reforms and effective governance would have gone a long way towards dispelling the prevailing gloom. Instead Sonia Gandhi and Man-mohan Singh, leading lights in party and government, played it safe by issuing the usual strictures against the opposition and the Anna Hazare-led civil society movement.

But the delegates voiced real anxieties, on issues ranging from price rise, rupee devaluation, petrol price hike to the overall economic slide. Without openly dissenting with the leadership, state leaders candidly expressed concern about the dismal state of affairs in party and government. The speakers exhorted the top leadership to think big and take bold economic and political steps. For instance, while Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda suggested another ‘Kamraj Plan’ to cleanse the party.

It’s swelling into an overwhelming chorus now. Even many Congress Working Committee (CWC) members have come round to the view that the economy is the problem, to which the party’s electoral reverses can be attributed. In the circumstances, one would have expected Congress’s apex decision-making body to come out of its Monday meeting guns blazing, in an effort to start up long-stalled policy decisions on the economy.

With two years to go before the Lok Sabha elections, the UPA still has ample room to make bold policy changes. Any further delay in this regard will undoubtedly cost the nation — as well as the party — dear.

Times of India


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BY SUCHITRA KALYAN MOHANTYINDORE (JAGRAN POST):

Three months after baby Falak’s brutal abuse and subsequent death in the AIIMS hospital which has shaken our collective conscience in nurturing girl children, a similar case of horrifi c signs of abuse has come to the fore in Indore.

Nobody could put a blind eye on seeing the 11 cigarette burns and mul-tiple fractures on different parts of the body of 18-month-old baby Shireen, who has been recently admitted to a hospital in Indore.

The barbarity meted out to Shireen could well be gauged from the fact that her hands bear the marks of multiple fractures and bruises.

Baby Shireen was brought to the hospital by her mother, Zarina, whose lover reportedly abused the toddler for weeks.

The doctors, however, attending to Shireen says, the baby’s life is not in danger. Like Falak, Shireen has battered baby syndrome, as per TV reports.

It is to be noted that Baby Falak had died in March after being treated for serious physical abuse at Delhi’s

AIIMS hospital.Zarina separated earlier from her

husband; the couple had three chil-dren; including Shireen. She then ran away with a man named, Wahid to Ajmer.

He reportedly abused her children and forced Zarina into prostitution. She, however, managed to escape with her children and returned to

Another ‘Falak’case surfaces in Indore

Another Baby Falak in Indore: Cigarette Burns, Multiple Fractures

Indore this week after which she took her children to the hospital.

Acting on the complaint, the police have arrested Wahid.

“It is pathetic to say that such kind of persons exist in our society. No sane person could do this kind of brutal abuse to children,” social activist Ranjan Kumari said.

Obama Campaign Attacks Romney on Outsourcing to IndiaNEW YORK: The Obama Cam-

paign launched an advertisement blitz against Republican rival Mitt Romney accusing him of a dismal economic record and outsourc-ing jobs to India as the Governor of Massachusetts, contrary to the US President’s stand during his maiden visit to New Del-hi.

“Instead of hir-ing workers from his own State, Romney out-sourced call centre jobs to India,” the 1.02 minute advertisement alleges with visuals of call centres in India in the background.

The “Heard it Before” ad is now airing in nine States of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio,

Pennsylvania, and Virginia.The ad highlights Romney’s al-

leged failed economic record as Gov-ernor of Massachusetts -- and how he wants to bring that same economic philosophy to the White House.

“When running for Governor, Romney promised more jobs, less debt and smaller government. Once in offi ce, he fell short on those promises and more, Massachusetts plummeted to 47th out of 50 in job creation, tax-payers were left with more debt per

person than in any other state, and the size of government increased,” the Obama Campaign alleged.

“Now that he’s running for Presi-dent, we’re hearing the same empty promises. And America can’t af-ford the same results. The bottom line is simple, Romney Economics didn’t work then, and it won’t work now,” it said.

The Indian IT software and ser-vices companies get about 60 per cent of their revenues from the US market, as American fi rms out-source their back offi ce jobs to In-dia and other countries to cut cost.

On his trip to India in 2010, Ba-rack Obama had said, “...when I go back to the US, a part of the reason that I advertised these 50,000 jobs is I want to be able to say to the Ameri-can people when they ask me why are you spending time with India when they are taking our jobs.”


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BY SOWMYA NANDAKUMARFrom wanting to major in journal-

ism to a career in modeling, acting and fi lms, Lisa Ray’s story is quite something! Lisa Rani Ray was born on April 4, 1972 in Toronto, Canada. She is a Canadian of Indian and Pol-ish origins born to a Bengali father and a Polish mother. She went to three different high schools in Canada– Etobicoke, Richview and Silverthon Collegiate Institutes. When she was 16 and vacationing with her family in India, she caught the attention of a modeling agent, and the rest is history!

Wearing a bold, black swim suit for a Bombay Dyeing advertisement was when she was prominently noticed in India. After her brief modeling stint as a teenager, she returned to Canada to pursue journalism. Apparently, her mother had a car accident which foiled Lisa’s career plans, directing her back to India. She modeled for Glad Rags, in a daring swimsuit. This made her quite a sensation winning her more modeling contracts, and magazine cover appearances, and fi nally landed her in a television job as a host for her own show business program.

In 1996, she made her fi lm debut in a Tamil fi lm, Nethaji, starring Sarat Kumar. In 1996, she was also famous for being the raunchy Afreen Afreen girl, in Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s song. In 1998, she featured in the Daler Mehendi song, Har Taraf Tera Jalwa. A Times of India poll, named her one of the Ten Most Beautiful Indian Women of the Millennium - she was the only model in the top 10. Her Bollywood debut, Kasoor came in 2001, in which she starred opposite Aftab Shivadasani and in 2002, she did a Telugu fi lm, Takkari Donga, opposite Mahesh Babu.

Canadian-Indian Director Deepa Mehta, famous for her trilogy –Fire (1996), Earth (1999), and Water (2005), spotted Lisa Ray in Kasoor and offered her a role in the fi lm Bol-lywood Hollywood released in 2002. She was voted Star of the Future, at the Toronto Film Festival 2002.

After Bollywood Hollywood, she went to London to study acting with the aim of pursuing a career in the performing arts. After she graduated from drama school in London, she worked again with Deepa Mehta in Water (2005) and became a part of an Oscar nominated fi lm – Mehta’s Water was nominated by Canada to the Oscars, in the category of Best Foreign Language Film. Ray is quite fl uent in Hindi, although Hindi is not her fi rst language and she was not raised in India. In the role of Kalyani in water, she is extremely convincing. She even cut off her waist length hair for her role. This hair cut actually takes place as part of a scene in Water.

Her other fi lms include A Stone’s Throw and Quarter Life Crisis (2006), All Hat and The World Un-seen (2007). In a review of Water (2005), Ebert and Roeper, declared Lisa Ray, “One of the most Beauti-

ful Women on Film” in 2007. It is rumored that about this time, Ray was strongly considered for the role of Bond Girl, in Quantum of Solace. In 2008, she did Kill Kill Faster Faster based on a novel of the same name, in which she supposedly appeared in a few uncensored sex scenes.

The year 2009 was a big year with good and bad things in store - she worked with Deepa Mehta’s brother, Dilip Mehta in the fi lm, Cooking With Stella, a story that the siblings had scripted together. She appeared in the highly rated television series Psych directed by Jay Chandrashekar. The same year, in May, the Canadian edition of Hello Magazine featured her as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People of the Country, and she was given the title, Trailblazer at the Reel-world Film Festival, held annually in downtown Toronto. She received the Voice Achiever’s Award 2009 given to South Asian immigrants in Canada, who through their focused efforts and perseverance have excelled in their fi elds. Right after a string of life and career successes, on June 23, 2009, Ray was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells in the bone marrow.

When she was at the Toronto In-ternational Film Festival 2009, to support her work in two fi lms, she made a public announcement of hav-ing been diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma. Reportedly, the support she received after the announcement was overwhelming. She helped to raise funds at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, for the estab-lishment of the fi rst research chair of Multiple Myeloma. In Dec 2009, she had her stem transplant surgery. During her struggles with cancer, she was extremely optimistic about her cure and started a blog, The Yel-low Diaries, (http://blog.lisaraniray.com/) in which she wrote of her experiences. Her voice to fi ght cancer overpowered the debilitating effects of cancer on her – the candidness with which she shared her personal experiences won her the pride and

respect of people all over the world. She was awarded the Hope Award 2010, for her fi ght against cancer. The same year she acted as a cancer sur-vivor in the fi lm 1 a Minute,directed by Namrata Singh Gujral. In April 2010, it was announced that Lisa Ray was cancer free. An interview about her cancer experiences, reportedly appeared on the cover of the 2010 anniversary issue of the Indian Men’s Luxury Magazine, The Man.

In early 2011, to raise public aware-ness of Multiple Myeloma,, Ray completed a national media tour in Canada called Making Myeloma Matter. For Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Toronto, on July 5, 2011, Ray was conferred the honor of being the host of the informal lunch for the Queen.

In 2011, she acted in television series, Murdoch Mysteries and End-game, and in a short fi lm, Patch Town. In November 2011, she was named to host Season 2 of Top Chef Canada, Food Network Canada’s top rated series. A strong advocate of stem cell research and a long time Yoga practitioner, Lisa Ray partnered with co-owners, Paris and Annette, in 2011 to open Moksha Yoga Brampton. In May 2012, it was announced that she was acting in a fi lm, Boy Toy, a fantasy drama, based on Craig Goodwill’s short fi lm, Patch Town. The shooting for Boy Toy is supposed to begin in Nov 2012.

The Times of India reported on Feb 3, 2012 that Lisa Ray was engaged to Jason Dehni, a banking executive and philanthropist in Toronto. The wedding is to be held on Oct 20, this year, at the Napa Valley in California. Apparently, Oct 20 is the chosen date as it marks the beginning of the Durga Puja in West Bengal, and is considered a very auspicious day in India. It has also been reported that she has asked Goan designer Wendell Rodricks to design her dress for the big occasion. As Lisa Ray gets ready for the big occasion, one wonders how this woman, sensational for her beauty, will look on one of the most important days of her life!

Life Unfolds for Lisa Ray–Model and Actress, to Cancer Conqueror

The Afreen Afreen Girl, Lisa Ray


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N. Srinivasan: Two Different Ball GamesThe India Cements MD, vice-chairman, and BCCI chief on business, cricket, and missing those golf putts

BY ANUPAMA CHANDRASEKARAN(Mint) Quiz Srinivasan Narayanaswami

about cricket and the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)—cricket world’s wealthiest administrative body—will dish out rote responses with his much-publi-cized, trademark straight face. But talk golf, and the 67-year-old beams, gushes and even jokes, no longer sounding like a scratched vinyl record. I’ll save that for later.

A lunch meeting being fi rmly ruled out due to paucity of time, the venue for this meeting is Srinivasan’s 10th fl oor offi ce at the Chennai headquarters of India Cements Ltd—south India’s largest maker of concrete, co-founded by Srinivasan’s father just a year before India’s independence.

The 4pm appointment on a Monday squished any likelihood of rusticity arising from dining at the company’s second-fl oor canteen. So I found myself seated in his roughly 2,000 sq. ft offi ce overlooking clear blue skies over the Bay of Bengal instead of digging into a masala dosa—Srinivasan’s choicest meal—to break the ice.

It took months to nail this meeting with the BCCI chief and India Cements managing direc-tor and vice-chairman, who also wears the top hat at the Tamil Nadu Golf Federation. This is in addition to running a cement business through which he is the de facto owner of Chennai Super Kings (CSK), labelled in 2011 by UK-headquartered valuation agency Brand Finance as the most valuable cricket franchise in the fi ve-year-old Indian Premier League (IPL).

With more sports than cement plastered on his résumé, it sounds unconvincing when Srini-vasan says, “Cement is not only my heart, it is my job and it is what I do well.”

The disbelief over his response also stems from quarterly profi t announcements where Srinivasan frequently glances sideways for prompts from company managers shuffl ing through fi nancial statements a few feet behind him. Of course, just a fraction of the time is generally spent on discussing the cement business—Rs. 4,203 crore in revenue for April 2011-March 2012. The rest is usually cricket chit-chat.

During one such February meeting, journal-ists probed for titbits on the tiff between the BCCI and the Sahara group, which had with-drawn its 11-year sponsorship of the Indian cricket team a few days earlier. Srinivasan’s face was deadpan as he hinted that things would be sorted out.

Two weeks later, BCCI and Sahara buried their differences.

This is why Srinivasan is often stamped with superlatives such as “the most powerful” and “the most infl uential”. But his stocky build, neatly patted-down salt and pepper mop, sus-penders, and the slightly smudged kumkum on his forehead, exude the demeanour of a conservative Tamilian accountant rather than a cricket honcho. The only overt signs of his status are the Swiss luxury watch Rolex on his wrist and his voice, an undertone that reminds one of acclaimed actor Kamal Hassan’s award-winning act as an underworld don in the 1987 Tamil blockbuster Nayakan. In that gravelly, yet assertive voice, Srinivasan tells me about his serendipitous entry into his father’s cement business.

Srinivasan was the eldest of two boys and two girls born to T.S. Narayanaswami—a mathematics major who jointly set up India Cements with S.N.N. Sankaralinga Iyer. The latter’s family, which divested its entire stake in India Cements by 2007, runs the Chennai-based Sanmar Group, with interests in shipping, met-als and speciality chemicals.

As an engineering student in the 1960s at Madras University, Srinivasan played cricket, hockey and tennis. But he fi gured he should stick to his books.

“I knew I wasn’t going to become the best sportsperson and would do better concentrating on my studies,” Srinivasan says. He became a chemical engineer and travelled to the US in the early 1960s to get a postgraduate degree in engineering and business from Chicago’s Illinois Institute of Technology.

When Srinivasan was on the cusp of his fi nal semester of management education at Illinois, he contemplated doing a master’s degree in economics. However, his 57-year-old father died and the reins of the cumbersome, govern-ment- controlled cement business were thrust on the shoulders of the 21-year-old.

It’s been nearly half a century of cement in Srinivasan’s life, with sales growing at an aver-age 10% clip every year for the past 20 years. Yet, his name is glued more to cricket.

“From my father’s time, India Cements has been supporting cricket,” he says. “Many Ranji Trophy players were employed in the company. When there was no money in the sport, we were promoting cricket and cricketers,” he says.

I go down a laundry list of questions on fatigued, ageing cricket players and his conten-tious ownership of CSK as a BCCI offi cial. He’s heard these questions before and his responses may as well be lip-synched to a recorded tape.

“We’ve had some reverses in England but overall the scorecard is good,” he responds, re-ferring to India’s losses in all versions of cricket played in England just months after winning the 2011 World Cup. The downtrend in audience ratings for cricket’s miniature version (IPL) has been an added thorn for the game’s sponsors.

But if Srinivasan is worried, he’s adept at masking it.

“People expect all three formats of the game to perform at the same level all years,” he says. “That’s not possible.”

“Today, the audience for all three formats (fi ve-day Tests, One Day Internationals and Twenty20) put together is higher than what it was for any one form previously,” pitches in Srinivasan, who hiked from state-level cricket

administration to the BCCI top slot in a little over a decade, stoked by his company’s early association with the game.

The sexagenarian’s game face slips only when I query him about two of his adversaries: former BCCI president A.C. Muthiah and IPL founder Lalit Modi.

Four years ago, Muthiah, who last year retired as chairman of the troubled Southern Petrochemical Industries Corp. Ltd (Spic), lost to Srinivasan in the Tamil Nadu Cricket Associa-tion (TNCA) presidential elections. In 2010, he fi led two petitions in the Supreme Court, claiming there was a confl ict of interest in allowing Srini-vasan, who was then treasurer at BCCI, to bid for an IPL team through his company.

“I didn’t think Mr Muthiah would stoop to this level after he lost an elec-tion to me,” says Srinivasan brusquely. “I think he should be concentrating on his business.”

On Modi, currently in London, Srini-vasan is even more caustic. “I will say nothing because I don’t respond to him.”

Knowing I’ll have to confront the blistering Chennai heat as I step out-side, I shift the focus to golf. It’s the only

time during the interview that Srinivasan smiles. Both Srinivasan and daughter Rupa Gurunath, who is likely to succeed the India Cements managing director, are ardent golfers.

At one point, the grandfather of Gurunath’s

two daughters had an enviable handicap—a numerical representation of a golfer’s ability, a lower score being better—of 6. But it now stands at 14. “There’s nothing more frustrat-ing than missing a short putt,” Srinivasan says about his passion, for which he has had less and less time. But things aren’t as green as the golf course otherwise.

His cement business posted disappointing fourth-quarter results—the company’s 2011-12 profi ts came short of analyst expectations as energy and transportation costs weighed. The company posted a net profi t of Rs. 293 crore for the year ended 31 March and fourth-quarter profi ts rose 18% to Rs. 65 crore. The profi t num-bers were lower than average analysts’ forecast of a net amount of Rs. 302.37 crore for the full year and Rs. 85.25 crore for the quarter.

And CSK seems to be losing sheen in the IPL—the defending champion team was in fourth position after 15 matches before Thurs-day’s match.

“Everyone knows there’s an economic slow-down and growth expectations have been belied and are being revised downwards,” says Srinivasan. “That coupled with high interest has increased uncertainties and so capacity expan-sion in the cement industry has slowed down. I will hesitate to borrow money to expand.”

On the personal front, recent news of the arrest of his son Ashwin—who Srinivasan says isn’t interested in the cement business—after a brawl in a Mumbai pub is keeping up the heat.

Add to that the controversy of fi ve cricketers being accused of spot-fi xing in the ongoing IPL.

It might be a while before Srinivasan lowers his golf handicap.

N. Srinivasan’s term as the BCCI president ex-tends till 2014.


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Beyond B-town BY HARSHINI VAKKALANKA

(Hindu) No, she does not know to speak Kan-nada, but she can understand the language and is learning. Then how does one of Bollywood’s most popular singers, Shreya Ghoshal, ensure her pronunciation is in order?

“Oh I take notes in Hindi. I think Hindi is one of the most phonetic languages. Plus I fi nd out the situation the song is for,” she answers quite breezily to one of the women who had come to welcome her.

Her career, at 28, is going great guns. She has won four National awards and eight Filmfare awards (including the South). But she’s not even close to done.

In town for a concert, Shreya says: “I think good songs, interesting work, the excitement of doing something new everyday keeps me going. I’m in a position where I have so much still to explore.”

Her career was launched with Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s “Devdas.” It’s quite hard to imagine that it is the same delicate voice that is behind “Chikni Chameli”.

“I enjoy singing. It’s not a profession; it’s more of a passion. I think that refl ects in my work. I am aware of the fact that I have a lot more to do, I’m always aware of it. There’s always a hunger to learn, to go into other genres and I’m constantly learning by listening to every kind of music. ”

Of course, singing in over 300 fi lms offers quite bit of room for experimentation and growth. “I’ve defi nitely evolved. My singing style and my voice has changed over the time. I entered the scene when I was 16. Since then maturity has come in, my voice has changed. I have seen more of life and I express songs differently.”

But she’s still quite uncertain about where she wants to go. “I have lots of things on my mind. Nothing is clear enough to say this is my future. But I defi nitely want to do more than just Bol-lywood music. Right now, most of our singers are limited to fi lm music. I want to create a ratio that favours non-fi lm music.”

This doesn’t necessarily mean collabora-tions. “I’m not saying no to collaborations. But it cannot be a forced collaboration, there has to be some kind of commonality of thought between two artists, whether the artist is from LA or from Africa.”

About competition, Shreya says: “I don’t think I believe in competition, especially in the

arts because each person has a different voice and personality. There cannot be any competi-tion because you are not doing the same thing, you are two completely different people. I can go on as long as there is belief that I can do justice to a song.”

Shreya has received training in both Hindu-stani classical and folk music and also trained under fi lm composer Kalyanji Shah. She re-grets

“Not learning classical music. I was more in-clined towards light music. I would like to restart my lessons in classical music and reach perfor-mance potential. Then again, had I become a classical singer I would not have understood the nuances of light or fi lm music. I’m glad that

Shreya Ghoshal says she doesn’t want to be limited to film music. She would like to bring in a ratio that favors non-filmi music.

Shreya Ghoshal Photo: Bhagya Prakash K

I chose this path.”The songstress feels fi lms refl ect society.

“Today there is so much of junk happening and that is what is shown in the fi lms. Music is also made accordingly. The only way for good Indian music is when we do more non-fi lm music and singers have more say in what they want to do.”

The talented youngster observes that the “Kannada or Malayalam industries are more music centric. You cannot put South Indian fi lm music in one homogenous group as fi lmmak-ers in Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada, have different tastes. In comparison to the north, there is a lot more respect for musicians in the South.” Though she was fi rst noticed by the fi lm

industry for in the television show “Sa Re Ga Ma Pa”, she feels that commercialisation has crept into talent shows.

“It was not a reality show. I could sing rare, diffi cult songs which nobody had heard of. Today, everybody has to sing songs which will raise the TRP of the channel. Having said that, I would not say reality shows are wrong. After all, it is up to the indi-vidual. If one is focused, I think one can do well. The gates are always open gates for freshers.”

BY SRIJANA MITRA DAS(TOI): The fi lm’s an unabashed, gunpowder-

hot, sambar-spiced star-vehicle which runs along energetically most of the time because its star - Akshay Kumar, essaying a double role as Rathore and Shiva - is worth it, something that’s emphasized often. At one point, a girl asks Shiva, pursuing pretty Paaro (Sinha) from Patna, ‘Na tum mein Hrithik ke looks hain, na Shah Rukh ka charm, na Aamir ki cuteness, na Salman ki body - what’s so cool about you?’ Ak-shay drawls back, “Lagta hai Khiladi ko bhool gayi aap.” Cue for crowd - erupt in rapture.

Multiply that moment by 100 and you have Rowdy Rathore, a peppery pot-boiler brim-ming over with action, slapstick comedy and romance, dynamite lines and Akshay Kumar - lots of Akshay Kumar, channeling vintage heroes Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna, Amitabh Bachchan, adding a dollop of Jeetendra, topping with his trademark fl air as he snarls, tongue deeply in-cheek, “Don’t angry me!”

A lull in its second half aside, Rowdy’s mostly quick-stepping, moving from Mumbai’s malls to medieval Bihar where Baapji (Nasser) and his hamming henchmen terrorise Devgarh’s townsfolk through pillage, beatings and rape. Till cop Vikram Rathore (Kumar) arrives on the Shramjeevi Express, assaulting local yokels with handy gannas, infusing new meaning to ‘sugar-cane’.

Despite an injury to his brain (which the doc-tor says causes ‘hammo-rage’), Vikram and his little daughter Chinki reach Mumbai. Here, their paths cross with Shiva who adopts Chinki when Vikram’s felled. And goes to Devgarh where he tells Baapji, ‘A village can have only one Rowdy.’

This involves toe-curling violence though. A guy gets stabbed in the mouth, a head’s crushed on a rock, swords slash through navels. Against the gore, Shiva’s dancing with Paaro provides breezy relief but the music itself is unmemo-rable. Sonakshi glows as Paaro, a spunky Indian beauty showing fl ashes of her star-father’s con-fi dence when she snarls at the villains, ‘O saand ke bhes mein kukur.” This Patna girl’s stepped out in style with Rowdy. But the same can’t be said for those playing Devgarh’s dread-struck. Apart from Yashpal Sharma (sincere as a junior cop), the rest are unconvincing, as is the vil-lainous set-up itself, located somewhere oddly between feudal Bihar, accented Andhra and Sholay’s bandit lair. Indeed, Rowdy Rathore pays homage to iconic fi lmi characters - identi-cal heroes, golden-hearted chors, brave Men in Brown beating evil people to pulp. However, it pays most homage to its own star, Akshay Ku-mar, who pulls off Shiva with style but Vikram less so, possibly because all that violence over-whelms acting itself.

Tip-Off: Fans will love Akshay’s mooch-twirling masala-act but be ready for hardcore action too - some pretty gruesome.

Movie Review:Rowdy Rathore

Shreya Ghoshal will be performing live in Houston, on September 29,2012 at Arena Theatre. The show is presented by AAPI-IDA Charitable Foundation.

For further details call Dr. Nik Nikam at 281-265-7567.


23 June 08, 2012 23June 08, 2012RECIPES

Both Recipes by Vaishali Sharma

Visit www.zesty-fl avors.com or visit https://www.face-book.com/pages/Zestyfl avors-Add-ing-Zest-to-your-

Cooking/145518712165348 Also “Like” Zestyfl avors on Facebook

Potato Stuffed Spicy Baked MushroomsIt was an impromptu decision to make

these today. I had already prepared the lunch and all was set. Opened my re-frigerator and saw I had a few button mushrooms left that should be put to use soon enough or else they may spoil. At fi rst I thought let me make Mushroom Peas gravy and we will be done for the dinner. Then don’t know what came to my mind, I decided to make these stuffed baked mushrooms, probably because I had one more leftover I could put to use. I had made aloo paranthas in the morn-ing and had some potato mixture left in the fridge. I am glad I made these baked mushrooms .....These were delicious! We enjoyed having them as a snack.

My husband poped one HOT mushroom in his mouth (as soon as they came out of oven) and it was a fun show to watch him jumping afterwards :D

These were so perfectly spiced, baked well and smelled so heavenly! And these are one of the quick and easiest appetizers/snack to make.

Here is the recipe Ingredients:12-15 button mushrooms-large,

washed and stemmed1 large potato (boiled and mashed)1/2 fi nely chopped onion2 medium green chillies finely

chopped1 tsp fi nely chopped ginger1/4 tsp garam masala1/4 tsp red chilli powderSalt to tastesome cheese (i used pepperjack)

to sprinkle.some red chilli fl akes, dried orega-

no, parsley and basil.Some parmesan cheese fl akes or

you can use the shredded dried par-mesan cheese.

Method: 1. Pre-heat the oven to 400 degree

F.2. Make a mixture for the stuffi ng

by adding potatoes, onions, green chillies, chopped ginger, garam masala, red chilli powder together in a bowl and mix well.

3. Now add the potato mixture fi ll-ing to the top in each mushroom.

4. Now sprinkle some shredded pepperjack cheese on each mush-room. Then sprinkle some of red

chilli fl akes, oregano, parsley and basil. Finally top it off with some parmesan cheese.

5. Arrange the mushrooms on a greased baking sheet and bake the mushrooms for about 20-25 min-utes.

Enjoy them warm (not HOT )

Eggless Saffron Pistachio Cookies

Crunchy, aromatic, perfect for tea cookies. I don’t know what came to my mind today, I just suddenly got up and scanned my pantry. Then I picked a few ingredients, mixed those up and baked these delicious cookies! You can also call these cookies- Fusion Cookies!! Why? Because apart from the 2 dominant fl avors...Saffron and Pistachio; these cookies have orange and vanilla too....And trust me these are going just so perfect together!

These cookies are so easy and breezy to make. Took 10 min to mix up everything and 12 minutes to bake the cookies!

Ingredients:1 cup less 2 tbsp- all purpose

fl our3/4 cup sugar2 tbsp- corn starch

1/2 tsp baking soda1/4 tsp salt1 tbsp- dried or fresh

orange zest6 tbsp melted butter2 tbsp vegetable oil1/2 tsp vanilla essence1 tsp saffron essencefew strands saffronfew chopped pistachios-

for ganish

Method:1. Pre-heat your oven

to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a baking sheet.

2. In a bowl, cream together but-ter and sugar. Add in the vanilla and saffron essence.

3. In a bigger bowl, add all the dry ingredients and mix well.

4. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix gently making a soft dough.

5. Make small balls and fl atten them a bit in-between your palms. Arrange on the baking try keeping some distance in between balls.

6. Now garnish by adding pis-tachio and saffron strands to the center of each fl attened balls.

7. Bake for 12 minutes in the pre-heated oven. Let cookies cool for a 3-4 minutes before removing from the tray and let cool completely on a wire rack.

Is your kitchen fi lled with aroma already? Mine did....:))

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June 08, 201224 June 08, 201224OPINION

End of an Ugly Chapter in India’s Military HistorySmooth Change of Guard at Army Headquarters in India

BY RAJ KANWAR IAN INDIA CORRESPONDENT

A controversial, unsavory and somewhat ugly chapter in the history of the Independent India’s army mercifully and thankfully ended 31 May when Gen. Vijay Kumar Singh handed over the ceremonial baton to his successor Gen. Bikram Singh. Almost everyone including the defense minister AK Antony and his successor-to-be Gen. Bikram Singh must have heaved a big sigh of relief when the term of VK Singh eventually ended. The outgoing army chief seemed to have had a Pandora box from which he pulled out one rabit after another almost every second week. Even on the penultimate day of his tenure, he continued with his agenda and almost ‘incapaci-tated’ Lt. Gen. Dalbir Singh by sending him a show cause notice and imposing a ‘DV ban’ that virtually ruined the prospects of his becoming the next army chief after Gen. Bikram Singh.

Gen. VK Singh had become chief of the army staff on 31 March, 2010 with lot of goodwill. Everything was honky dory for fi rst 18 months of his 26-month tenure and there was not even an inkling of the things to come. It all started with Gen. Singh’s date of birth controversy. He claimed that his real date of birth is May 10, 1951 and not May 10, 1950. If his claim was to be accepted, then the general would have his tenure as the army chief extended by a year. Gen. Singh was extraordinarily particular about his correct date of birth and had moved heaven and earth to get his version accepted. Over the following few months, his plea on this matter was considered, reconsidered and rejected by the various authorities; the defense minister too did not give him any relief. The General had become so obsessed about his date of birth issue that he considered it as a matter of personal honor. As a last resort, Gen. Singh knocked at the doors of the Supreme Court. Though the apex court gave him a patient hearing but de-clined to agree with his contention and allowed him to withdraw his writ rather than face its dismissal. The General then had no option but to acquiesce. In going to the Supreme Court to vindicate, what he called his ‘personal honor’, the army chief had perhaps forgotten the credo of the Indian Military Academy, his alma mater which had enjoined upon all of its passing out gentlemen cadets that

“The safety, honor and welfare of your country come fi rst, always and every time. The honor, welfare and comfort of the men you command come next. Your own ease, comfort and safety come last, always and every time.”

It was at this stage that the General came out with one exposé after another. He fi rst said that he was offered a bribe of 140 million rupees by a retired army general if he were to approve

purchase of 600 Tatra trucks for the army and that he had then verbally informed the defense minister about it. This issue has been dwelt at length in one of my earlier columns; it will be suffi ce here to say that the General had then decided to rattle whatever skeletons he could fi nd in other peoples’ cupboards. Some of his peers felt that the General was being vindictive and was keen to settle scores with those who had crossed swords with or stepped on his toes during his long and checkered career in the army. This allegation of bribe has spawned other cases, with the retired general fi ling a libel suit against Gen. Singh.

A day after, Gen. VK Singh demitted his offi ce, Bharat Earth Mover Limited (BEML) has slapped a notice on the retired army chief demanding an apology for his ‘false and moti-vated’ allegations against it in connection with the Tatra trucks case. Chairman & Managing Director Mr. VRS Natarajan of BEML which is a defense ministry company, has threatened that the company would fi le a defamation suit against the general if he did not apologize for his unwarranted and baseless allegations. The defense ministry behemoth must have waited for the general to retire before it could legally confront him. The general had also criticized the bureaucracy in the defense ministry for its dithering and obstructive mindset. It is thus

obvious that the bureaucrats there too would have egged BEML corner Gen. Singh in order to settle scores with him.

This is possibly for the fi rst time that a serving army chief was embroiled in unsavory contro-versies. There had been 25 chiefs of the army staff before Gen. VK Singh. Many of them were men of strong will power who were not afraid to speak their mind even in presence of stal-warts like Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel and later even Indira Gandhi. There were men like Cariappa who took up cudgels against the then defense minister Krishna Menon who was also temperamental and even arrogant. But that was all done within closed doors and no scandals of any signifi cance came out. There were other strong generals such as KS Thimayya, SHF Manekshaw who did what they wanted but did not cross the Lakshman Rekha.

In the couple of months leading up to his retirement, Gen. Singh had become politically active in the sense that he attended meetings of ex-soldiers at which speeches of political nature against the current government were openly made; Gen. Singh kept mum like sphinx. His kin took part in politically explosive meet-ings by Anna Hazare and his team at which serious allegations of corruptions were made against the Manmohan Singh government. Hazare team members openly said that Gen.

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Singh would join their anti-corruption crusade against the Central government as soon as he hung up boots; the general did not care to issue any denial. He even became hyperactive in giving interviews to print and electronic media during the past two weeks. All these utterances and other acts of commission or omission are certainly against the accepted conduct rules of army offi cers. Not that the General was not aware of these rules but he nevertheless chose to bypass them.

Despite all the muck that was spewed dur-ing the past few months, the change of guards at the army headquarters on 31 May was a smooth affair. Marked by bonhomie, it was a simple ceremony, with the outgoing chief of the army staff handing over the ceremonial baton to his successor Gen. Bikram Singh. His wife Bharti and Gen. Bikram Singh’s wife Bubbles watched their husbands exchange pleasantries and smiles. Traditionally, a chief’s wife also performs a signifi cant role as the president of Army Wives Welfare Association (AWWA). Thus in a way, Bubbles has also succeeded Bharti as the new chief of AWWA.

Gen. Bikram Singh is much decorated chief

Though Gen. Bikram Singh’s elevation to the top army post was not a smooth affair and could have gone awry if certain developments had happened. For instance, had the Supreme Court accepted Gen. VK Singh’s contention that he was born on May 10, 1951 and not 1950, he would have continued for one more as the chief and Gen. Bikram Singh will have retired during VK Singh’s extended tenure. Here, I should like to point out that the army chief retires at age 62 and Lt. Generals retire at age 60. There were other possible roadblocks that could have stopped Bikram Singh’s promotion. Fortunately, however most things went Gen. Bikram Singh’s way and he was duly anointed as India’s 27th chief of the army staff.

Commissioned in 1972 in the Sikh Light Infantry, Gen. Bikram Singh became the fi rst army chief not to have seen action in a con-ventional war; the last conventional war that India fought was Bangladesh-liberation against Pakistan in 1971. Yet, with over six decorations for gallantry he is possibly the most decorated army chief in many years. He has also held many high profi le staff positions and jobs which included three UN Peace Keeping Missions, chief of Srinagar-based 15 Corps and General offi cer-commanding-in-chief, Eastern Com-mand. Interestingly, Gen. Bikram Singh has twice stepped into the shoes of Gen. VK Singh; fi rst when the former took over from him as the chief of the Eastern Command and now as the army chief.

Gen. Bikram Singh, the new Army Chief

INDIA


25 June 08, 2012 25June 08, 2012

OPINIONINDIA

India’s New ‘English Only’ GenerationBY SARITHA RAI

(NYT) Sudhir Nagaraj and his wife, Bidisha, live in the mini-India that is Bangalore. She, a Bengali speaker from a family hailing from India’s east, heads marketing for a social net-working start-up. He, fl uent in the native Kan-nada tongue of Bangalore, runs a subsidiary of a multinational telecommunications company. Between them, they speak and understand half a dozen Indian languages.

Quite ironic then that their daughter, Ahana, six-and-a-half, growing up in a country with a profusion of tongues, speaks only one lan-guage: impeccable English. And English is the common tongue that binds the Nagarajs as a family.

In Bangalore and elsewhere in Big City India, factors like great mobility, a demanding school system and mixed marriages are churning up a startling consequence: a generation of urban children is growing up largely monolingual — speaking, thinking and dreaming only in English.

This is a country with 20 offi cial languages including English, some three dozen languages spoken by over a million native speakers each, and a few hundred “live” languages.

“How do we defi ne Ahana’s mother tongue?” asks Nagaraj. He speaks Kannada with his mother; his wife speaks Bengali with hers. Both grandmothers live nearby and attempt to con-verse with Ahana in their respective tongues. But she responds only in English.

It is an issue that at once cheers and distresses an entire band of middle-class Indians.

On the one hand, English has opened the doors to great job mobility in the past decade and much economic success. In a country of so many varied languages, English is the only linguistic commonality. Yet as the language in-

At her schools, Ms. Sabharwal counsels par-ents to raise children to speak a native tongue alongside English. In her home, she has knuck-led down and initiated compulsory “Hindi time” in the evenings for her children, Dhruv, 10, and Noor, 7.

Her husband, Manish, initially predicted the death of all dinner-table conversation. Ms. Sab-harwal happily reports to the contrary. A year on, both her children speak Hindi with confi dence.

In the lower socioeconomic strata, where learning English is aspirational, the language is trickling down quickly. Neighborhood private schools have unstated admission requirements: at 3 and 4, the child is required to be toilet-trained and speak English. Parents who stretch their family budgets to get their children into “Eng-lish medium” schools see that the language has obvious economic benefi ts in an increasingly globalized world. Higher up the economic lad-der, though, it is a matter of convenience.

Rimjhim Chakraborty is 9. Her mother, Pinky, a realtor, speaks Sindhi, a language from the northwest. Rimjhim’s father, Apurba, who heads sourcing for a sporting goods multina-tional, is fl uent in both Punjabi and Bengali. Rimjhim, despite learning Hindi at school, re-fuses to answer when spoken to in anything other than English. So that is the language that rules the Chakraborty household.

That is unfortunate, says her mother, who wants to make an effort to teach Rimjhim an Indian language. But “between her math home-work, sports, a little bit of PlayStation and televi-sion, where is the time?” Ms. Chakraborty asks.She ends up scolding Rimjhim in Sindhi. “Not the best introduction to a language,” she admits.Then she makes a dire prediction: “At the rate we are going, all Indian languages will die.”

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creasingly becomes the de facto mother tongue in urban families, many are dismayed at the trend, contending that its rampant use will strip them of their sense of Indian-ness.

“English is unifying us with the rest of the world but alienating us from our familial and cultural roots,” says Nagaraj, who still turns to Kannada metaphors when he needs to drive home a point.

Like and Mrs. Nagaraj, a fi fth of India’s popu-lation — some 250 million — is multilingual. Many Indians of their generation are polyglots. They string sentences in English, but insert words from multiple Indian languages.

But even as scientifi c evidence mounts that being bilingual or multilingual makes a person smarter and could shield against the onset of de-mentia, many fear that future Indian generations may turn monolingual. Already, English is the fi rst language many urban children learn.

Preeti Kumar, a communications professional and her husband, Nipun, who works in the ap-parel industry, are native Hindi speakers from

India’s north. However, their two daughters, Eva, who is 8, and Inika, who is nearly 2, speak only English at home and outside. “They’ve learned Hindi by watching cartoons on TV,” says their mother.

Even the children of the Kumars’ friends, couples who have a common language that they grew up with, have adopted English as their primary language at home, she says.

The situation is exacerbated in diverse Ban-galore, where residential buildings represent a microcosm of India. “Somewhere in this cosmopolitan-ness, kids growing up with only English are missing something,” rues Kumar.

Kavita Sabharwal, who runs a chain of up-market preschools in the city called Neev, says that English has become the common language denominator in families. That is a fraught issue for some parents, including herself.

“As both an educator and a parent I fi nd my-self asking, ‘Where is the Indian-ness in India?’ Is losing our languages the fi rst sign of our dying culture? Or, is it the cause? ” she asks.


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MUMBAI: From “gasping el-ephant” to “stagflation”, analysts have panned India’s quarterly growth of 5.3% with some omi-nous language.

India’s growth in January-March was its weakest in nearly a decade, and sparked a new round of eco-nomic downgrades from invest-ment banks, with Morgan Stanley cutting India’s forecasts for the second time in as many weeks.

Some analysts also say they now expect a rate cut as early as on 18 June, the next Reserve Bank of In-dia (RBI) meeting.

It will still be a close call though, given the RBI has expressed con-cerns about continued inflation-ary pressures and has previously shown reluctance to ease until later in the year.

“There is rising hope for quick monetary policy action supporting the growth outlook, but we believe the current stagflation-type envi-ronment will make quick effective reduction of cost capital difficult,” Morgan Stanley analysts said in a report.

The US investment bank cut its 2012 economic growth estimates to 5.7% from 6.3%, after already downgrading its forecasts about two weeks ago from an initial esti-mate of 6.9% growth.

Though Morgan Stanley does not expect a rate cut in June, oth-ers say the chances are growing more likely.

Standard Chartered Bank cut its fiscal 2013 GDP forecast to 6.2% from 7.1%, adding a 25 basis point rate cut in June was “now more likely than before.”

The bank added that the slow-down in investment demand has spilled over to India’s consump-tion demand, the driving force be-hind the growth story.

India’s Economy Heading into Stagfl ation

Meanwhile, CLSA said it “will probably” lower its already below consensus GDP forecast of 6.3% to around 6%.

This all but guarantees another few weeks of volatile domestic markets, especially at a time of in-tensifying worries about the euro zone, signs of a slowing Chinese growth, and continued doubts about the health of the US econ-omy.

In a report titled “gasping ele-phant”, HSBC warned of the chal-lenges ahead, though it did not cut India’s forecasts.

“The poor growth number has increased chances of another rate cut, but elevated and sticky infla-tion limits the scope for aggressive rate cuts and suggest a need for continued caution,” HSBC said.

Quizzed on the Indian currency’s precipitous slide to record lows, Prime Minister Manhoman Singh blamed the global economic slow-down and the euro zone’s emer-gency, and he voiced hope that the G20 would sort these troubles out at a summit in Mexico later this

month.Two days later, when gross do-

mestic product (GDP) data showed India’s growth rate had plunged to its lowest level in nine years, fi-nance minister Pranab Mukherjee likewise pointed a finger at “weak global sentiments”, as well as the central bank for its tight monetary policy.

But as warning lights flash on India’s economic dashboard - with manufacturing output and con-sumer demand now fading as well as corporate investment, fiscal and trade deficits ballooning and infla-tion stubbornly high - few buy the line that it’s somehow not the gov-ernment’s fault.

“There is so much denial, but almost all of the problems in In-dia are self-inflicted,” said Rajeev Malik, senior economist at CLSA Singapore. “The Indian situation is ... an outcome of policy incoher-ence, a government that’s asleep.”

Economists say New Delhi’s policy inertia and the absence of significant reforms to sustain growth have now turned India’s

slowdown from a cyclical one to something that is structural or sys-temic.

The country is now stuck with lower growth than its potential: not the “Hindu rate of growth” of about 3.5% that dogged the state-stifled economy before big-bang reforms two decades ago, but a 21st-century version of that, which Malik calls “growth with a govern-ment-incompetence discount”.

To be fair, the external environ-ment does partly explain the falter-ing growth. However, all of Asia’s emerging markets have been buffeted by chill winds from the United States and Europe, and yet India has fared worse than others, losing its ranking as the region’s second-fastest growing economy.

Last week’s news that GDP grew by 5.3% in the first three months of this year, a stunning tumble from 9.2% in the same quarter of 2011, put India fourth among Asian emerging-market economies be-hind China, the Philippines and Indonesia.

For JP Morgan Chase’s India chief economist, Jahangir Aziz, what the government needs to do is “begin by admitting that the problem lies not in Greece, but at home”.

Western nations might look with envy at a growth rate of more than 5%, but not at India’s inflation rate of over 7%, a current account gap now at its widest since 1980 and a fiscal deficit that has been allowed to swell to 5.9% of GDP thanks to a raft of crippling subsidies.

The rash of macroeconomic im-balances has raised the spectre of India’s balance of payments crisis in 1991, when the central bank was forced to airlift tons of gold to Europe as collateral for a loan to avert a sovereign default.

NEW DELHI: Petrol prices were brought down by around Rs. 2 a litre by state-owned oil marketing companies on Saturday evening, days after the steepest ever hike set off protests across the country.

Effective from Sunday, the re-duction—the first in six months—is thanks to falling global crude oil prices.

Oil companies last reduced pet-rol prices by Rs. 0.78 a litre on De-cember 1 and by Rs. 2.22 a litre on November 16.

In Delhi, petrol will cost Rs. 71.16 after the cut. Once the re-duction of value added tax (VAT), promised in the state budget, comes into effect middle of next week, it will go down further by about 92 paise.

VAT has also been cut by Ker-ala and Uttarakhand. But the cut failed to please either the Opposi-tion or Congress allies, including the DMK and Trinamool.

The unanimous demand was for a complete rollback of the Rs. 7.5 hike made on May 24.

“The cut is not enough,” BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy said, “We want a total rollback.”

Trinamool Congress chief and main UPA ally Mamata Baner-jee told HT in Kolkata, “I am not happy as it is still a burden on the common man.”

Petrol is cheapest in BJP-ruled Goa, at Rs. 59.51, since VAT has been totally removed. It’s the costliest in Hyderabad — at Rs. 79.17— because of steep taxes.

Petrol Prices Cut


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NEW DELHI (HT): Ahead of his joint fast with Anna Hazare against UPA government on cor-ruption today, yoga guru Ramdev threatened the government with a fight to finish by August for bring-ing back black money stashed abroad. As he headed to Rajghat from Tikri Kalan on Delhi border before reaching the dharna spot of Jantar Mantar, Ramdev said the economic situation in the country is very bad as the rupee was falling and growth rate has declined.

“We need to bring back black money. I appeal to people of the country to join this fight. We are intensifying this fight. From today, we are intensifying our protest to bring back black money stashed abroad and want all of the country-men to be part of the fight to finish by August,” he said after paying tributes to Netaji Subhash Chan-dra Bose at Azad Hind Gram.

The protest at Jantar Mantar is likely to see Hazare and Ramdev announce their strategy with regard to the 2014 General Elections. The one-day fast demanding bringing back black money stashed abroad and against the corruption and corrupt system will have its echo in the state capitals as well with Ramdev’s Bharat Swabhiman An-dolan organising protests.

This is also their first joint ap-pearance on a public platform in the past one year after the team distanced themselves from the

yoga guru due to his Hindutva links.

Stepping up his anti-graft of-fensive, Anna Hazare on Sun-day made a strong pitch for ‘right to reject’ and said people with criminal cases pending against them should be kept out of Parliament using the clause. “Arvind (Ke-jriwal) has just said people with cases against them are sitting in Parliament...to stop this, we must use right to reject,” Hazare said addressing the gathering at Jantar Mantar during the joint one-day fast with yoga guru Ramdev.

When a voter feels that none of the candidates contesting is good, he should use the right to reject, he said.

“If eight candidates are contest-ing from a constituency, and a vot-er feels these are all criminals, not

one of them is good’, he should choose the last option which is right to reject,” he said.

“We have to implement this and not just speak about it,” he said.

Team Anna member Kiran Bedi said on Twitter, “Anna says v

(sic) have a long struggle ahead! We must strive for Right 2 Re-ject. To reject devil/deep sea. Next round will get better candi-dates.”

Hazare refuted allegations about rift in Team Anna or any misun-derstanding with Ramdev.

“I was on a tour of 36 dis-tricts in Maha-rashtra. I left the tour and came as I had promised Ramdev that I would support him,” he said.

“If I hadn’t shown up, peo-ple would have again said that there is a rift with Ramdev,” he said.

On the other hand, rebutting allegations that

he left the fast venue after Ramdev virtually snubbed him, Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal on Fri-day said that he had to leave as he was unwell and he has the “great-est respect” for the yoga guru.

Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare are planning a joint fast to draw attenton to corruption issues such as stashing black money abroad.

“I had to leave fast venue bcoz I am v(ery) unwell. I told this to Anna and swamiji. It is wrong to say that I left in protest,” Kejriwal said in a tweet.

“I have greatest respect for swa-miji,” he tweeted.

He said he would convince the yoga guru about the importance of taking names and demand action against corrupt people.

“This is a political battle and we will have to name and shame and demand severe action against cor-rupt people,” he said in his tweet.

“I will personally speak to Swa-mi Ramdev ji. I am sure I will be able to persuade him that naming is important,” he said.

Earlier, yoga guru Ramdev, while virtually snubbing Kejri-val, disapproved of his comments against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other politicians during his fast along with Anna Hazare saying he was against personal criticism.

Soon after Kejriwal, who was on fast along with Anna Hazare and the yoga guru, finished his speech, Ramdev took the microphone and said “today, we thought that we will not take anybody’s name. But Arvind took the names”.

“We don’t want any controver-sies. Arvind does not have any enmity with anyone. The names have been taken in some context. We are against personal criticism,” he said.

Baba Ramdev, Anna Hazare Holding Joint Fast vs. Corruption in UPA GovtINDIA


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MUMBAI (Outlook): The mid-dle class has been left to fend for itself—and no one is talking to it as the political system continues to ignore this constituency. San-tosh Desai, social commentator and CEO of Futurebrands India, says that the UPA government and most parties across the spectrum send out the signal that the middle class does not count as a votebank. “They feel that with the group not being significant in number, why listen to their whining. It is also never clear whether their anger is real, and if so, is it temporary,” says Desai.

However, social activist Nikhil Dey thinks one cannot blame the political class for not taking the urban middle class very seriously, “as it has not shown any propensity to keep to any issue in a sustained manner”. In fact, a common ob-servance of the middle class is that it has a magnified sense of self and a perceived sense of neglect. This class of divergent people rarely comes together as a force, and their sense of power does not get translated into electoral power.

A sales executive in a software company earning Rs 8 lakh a year, he finds it increasingly difficult to save for the education of his two children. “I’m most upset about the rising fuel prices,” he says. “Ear-

lier, I’d spend Rs 5,000 a month on fuel, then Rs 6,000. Now, I’ll pay an extra Rs 1,000.”

But the Anna Hazare-led move-ment against corruption last year put a lie to that notion. It was an in-dication of the middle-class’s need to find a political space. Middle-class activism also gained strength on online forums and via NGOs. Sadly, the enthusiasm remained shortlived, and like the television TRP, middle-class activism too disappeared soon from the radar.

And in the current economic scenario, when there is no threat to life or livelihood, it seems unlikely that the middle class will push for a long battle, including against cor-ruption—though inflation remains a concern. According to this point of view, with growth in most sec-tors having flattened, it is directly impacting rise in salaries and lead-ing to “some frustration”.

Other observers feel that the middle class has no reason to be optimistic as the government continues with populist measures in the name of inclusive growth. That’s the reality in a country with so many poor people. Diplomat-author Pavan K. Varma feels the middle class is facing a double jeopardy. “When the economy slows down, the middle class, which has been the beneficiary of higher growth, is likely to be the

first to be hit. And it is precisely during such times that the govern-ment’s focus shifts to the larger population of poor to ensure ben-efits reach them.” But, as Usha Ramanathan, an expert on devel-opment and poverty issues, says, while several policies are formu-lated for the poor, they are not implemented properly and as such the benefits rarely reach them.

At the root of the present crisis is the government failure to carry out the promise it made in its 1991 budget: of administrative reforms, as also ensuring social protection and quality of employment. “The assumption that we will collect from the people and spend on the people is at fault as the rich are al-ways seeking ways to dodge taxes. There is no political will to charge the rich high taxes,” says Dr Indira Hirway of the Ahmedabad-based Centre for Development Alterna-tives.

Under pressure on all fronts then, this is a fresh moment of trial for the middle class. With such poor mood, the economy will go through some turbulence. Many say the Indian middle class—dogged, resolute and always op-timistic—will eventually prevail. If that sounds a bit like the “India story”, the middle class (com-plaints and all) will continue to bear that cross.

Middle Class Ignored as Political Vote Bank

Mr & Mrs Rahim Khan New Delhi: A maths teacher who earns Rs 3 lakh annually taking tuitions, the biggest challenge for Khan is ensuring a good education for his own four children. “Though there are many scheme for us, they remain out of reach. For everything you need ID proof, or a bribe.”

ISLAMABAD (PTI): Ahead of its key talks with India on the Sia-chen issue, Pakistan has claimed that the biggest hurdle in resolv-ing the military standoff on the world’s highest battlefield are the armies of the two countries.

Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, who was the defence minister till yes-terday and has now been given the water and power portfolio in a minor Cabinet reshuffle, said India and Pakistan both stand to benefit from resolving the Siachen issue.

Both countries stood to gain nothing from the standoff on Sia-chen and the matter only served to satiate egos, he claimed during an interview with BBC Urdu.

He said the only way for India and Pakistan to coexist was to sit at the table and discuss the Sia-chen issue.

The Pakistani minister claimed that the biggest hurdle in resolv-ing the military standoff on the Siachen glacier are the armies of Pakistan and India.

Senior Indian and Pakistani of-ficials are set to hold talks on the Siachen issue in Islamabad on June 11 against the backdrop of renewed calls from the Pakistani civil and military leadership for the demilitarisation of the world’s highest battlefield.

In response to a question, Mukhtar claimed Siachen was Pakistani territory and Pakistan had “responded” when India claimed the glacier.

“We think we can come to an agreement. India wants to talk on the Sir Creek issue first, we want to talk about Siachen first - the same issue of egos,” he claimed.

“I think (Pakistan army chief Gen) Ashfaq Parvez Kayani un-derstands this issue better than all of us and will help reach a deci-sion when the time comes.”

Asked how the Defence Minis-ter, who is placed higher than the army chief, would allow a subor-dinate to take a decision, Mukhtar said that “Kayani would offer guidance (and) support, just as the government cooperates and sup-ports the army.”

Responding to a question why Pakistan is not making the first move of unilaterally withdrawing its troops to resolve the Siachen is-sue, Mukhtar contended that India was a big country and Pakistan ex-pects it to demonstrate magnanim-ity by making the first move.

In response to aquestion, he said Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and his Indian counterpart Man-mohan Singh want to resolve the Siachen issue through dialogue.

Siachin Solution Thwarted by Armies?

Indian and Pakistani troops have been engaged in a standoff on Siachen since 1984.


June 08, 201230 June 08, 201230

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AHMEDABAD: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today said the state is emerging as a global hub in the automobile sector.

After signing of the State Sup-port Agreement (SSA) agreement with Maruti Suzuki for its manu-facturing facility here, Modi said that Gujarat has emerged as a prominent global hub in the auto-mobile sector.

“The journey started with Tata Nano, Ford, Peugeot, and now Maruti has entered in Gujarat which will strengthen the ‘brand Gujarat’ as a globally preferred business location,” he said.

Maruti Suzuki will set up two units in two phases in the back-ward taluka of Mandal-Becharaji in Ahmedabad district.

The first unit (1st phase) will be near the historical town of Becharaji and the second unit (2nd phase) will come up at a lo-cation, about 25 kilometres from Becharaji.

“Manufacturing and engineering sector in Gujarat contributes over 27 per cent to state GSDP and overall 9 per cent to the national engineering output,” Modi said.

“There are more than 30 engi-neering clusters and more clus-ters are emerging like Sanand- Viramgam, Mandal-Becharaji, Halol-Savli, Anjar, Santhalpur. This will make Gujarat a global hub in the engineering sector as a

whole,” Modi further said.Maruti and the Gujarat govern-

ment have also decided to set up a state-of-the-art automobile re-search institute, the company said.

Another important factor is the proposed Delhi-Mumbai Industri-al Corridor (DMIC) with Japanese aid and loan worth $90 billion. About 38 per cent of the 1,483-km long industrial highway will pass through Gujarat alone, including Ahmedabad district. This would make transportation faster and cheaper.

Besides, MSIL is also said to fa-vor the possibility of using Mun-dra Port both for exports as well as coastal navigation to reduce

transportation costs to the south-ern states.

Maruti Suzuki will be the fourth major carmaker to set up a plant in Gujarat, the three others be-ing General Motors, Tata Motors, Ford and Peugeot. Sources said Maruti Suzuki needed to set up an entire township.

GM had set up its plant at Halol in the Panchmahals district close to Vadodara about a decade ago. In recent past, Tata Motors, which invested Rs 2,200 crore, had set up their plant in 1,100 acres of land, while Ford India got 480 acres and Peugeot 584 acres, both investing around Rs 4,000 crore in the in-dustrial belt at Sanand.

Gujarat is emerging as a global hub in the automobile section, according to CM Narendra Modi.

Gujarat Emerging as Global Automotive HubINDIA


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PAKISTAN

WASHINGTON: The United States has rejected majority of the demands pressed by Pakistan with respect to the coalition support fund claiming them to be unrealis-tic, DawnNews reported.

The US is not only adamant in its refusal to apologise for the Salala border checkpost incident that had resulted in the killings of 24 Pakistani soldiers in November last year but also cornering Paki-stan as punishment for the apology demand.

Sources claimed that Pakistan’s federal government has decided to pass the burden of the US punish-ment onto the public and the price of compressed natural gas (CNG) has been increased by 15 to 20 per cent to deal with the impasse. The price hike would be affective from 1st July.

US military authorities rejected Pakistan’s request seeking USD 2.8 billion in respect of the coali-tion support fund stating the re-quest as ‘unrealistic’.

Both the countries have held more than half a dozen meetings related to the disbursement of the support fund’s amount but the is-sue remains unresolved in face of the rejection by the US.

Pakistani-US relations went into freefall last year.

There were hit when a CIA con-tractor shot dead two Pakistanis and dented further by an Ameri-can raid that killed al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and by US air strikes in November that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

After the air strikes, Pakistan shut its Afghan border to Nato supplies and ordered US staff out of an air base reportedly used as a hub for drones.

Seven US drone strikes have been reported since May’s Chi-cago summit, which failed to se-cure a deal on resuming the supply lines.

In March, Pakistan’s parliament

A Pakistani waiter distributes free rotis to impoverished men in Karachi.

agreed to reset US relations on condition that Washington apolo-gise for the troops’ deaths and end drone attacks on its soil.

Pakistan has been incensed by Washington’s refusal to apologise for the November air strikes and US officials have so far rejected Pakistani proposals to charge sev-eral thousand dollars for each alli-ance truck crossing the border.

Islamabad, which is understood to have given its tacit approval for attacks on al Qaeda and Taliban targets in the past, has become in-creasingly vocal in its opposition to the perceived violation of na-tional sovereignty.

Despite Pakistani criticism US officials are believed to consider the drone attacks too useful to stop them altogether. They have argued that drone strikes are a valuable weapon in the war against Islamist militants.

According to an AFP tally, 45 US missile strikes were reported in Pakistan’s tribal belt in 2009, the year US President Barack Obama took office, 101 in 2010 and 64 in 2011.

The New America Foundation think-tank in Washington says drone strikes have killed between 1,715 and 2,680 people in Paki-stan in the past eight years.

Different associations related with CNG business and public transport have condemned the imposition of new levy on CNG in the new year’s budget, term-ing it an “anti-public move” and demanding it’s immediate with-drawal.

A joint meeting of the All Paki-stan CNG Association, CNG Deal-ers Association, CNG Owners As-sociation and Karachi Transport Ittehad was held here on Saturday to deliberate over the govern-ment’s decision of slapping new levy on CNG and devise a joint strategy against it.

Addressing the meeting Chair-

man CNG Dealers Association Abdul Sami Khan said that his associations would go on strike against the government decision on 6th June. He appealed all CNG filling station owners to keep their business closed on the day.

Central Chairman of All Pakistan CNG Association, Ayaz Abdullah Paracha rejected the government decision and said it would com-pletely destroy the CNG business and as a result hundreds of thou-sands of people related to it would become jobless.

Irshad Bukhari, President Ka-rachi Transport Ittehad flayed the government, calling it a regime of looters. He appealed to the pub-lic to take to the streets to protest against the government’s decision as it would eventually affect the common man.

Loss of U.S. Funds Prompts CNG Price Hike

Support from ChinaBEIJING: Chinese Foreign

Minister Yang Jiechi assured Pakistan of co-operation in its agriculture sector’s improve-ment and in resolution of its en-ergy crises.China has once again stepped up coming to the aid of Pakistan which is surrounded by difficulties and the Chinese foreign minister clarified that nothing is above the friendship between the two countries.

Talking to journalists in Bei-jing Jiechi said that the Chinese leadership was sincere for Paki-stan’s economic development and all possible support was be-ing provided in this regards.

While replying to a ques-tion on counter-terrorism co-operation the Chinese foreign minster expressed hope in Paki-stan that it would take stringent steps against those backing the extremist elements engaged in terrorist activities in western China’s muslim-dominated-province of Xinjiang. WWW.INDOAMERICAN-NEWS.COM

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A wonderful title like that has a plus and a minus attached to it. The plus is obvious: you immediately want to read the book. The minus is that it raises the expectations of the reader, so it better be good. The best thing I can, therefore, say about The Taliban Cricket Club is that it lives up to its title.

The book is set in the dark days of Afghanistan when the Soviets had left and the writ of the Taliban ran large in that benighted country. ‘Dark days’, of course, is a relative term; there’s not much light there now either, with American troops about to leave and the Karzai gov-ernment accused of large-scale corruption. But at least now there is no ministry for the propagation of virtue and prevention of vice as there was under the Taliban, where a man and a woman caught in ‘adultery’ are summarily shot, where beauty parlours, hair-dress-ing salons and cinema halls are shut; where watching television is haram; where a woman can’t be alone on the streets: if she goes out at all, it has to be with her husband or someone closely related to her. In fact, as the notorious Zorak Wa-hidi, head of the ministry for the propagation of virtue and preven-tion of vice was fond of repeat-ing, “Women should be seen only in their home and in the grave”. The Tali‘ban’ were aptly named,

because they banned every-thing: “Comput-ers, picnics, wed-ding parties, New Year celebrations; childrens’ toys, including dolls and kites, card and board games, and chess”. There were to be “no more cameras, or photographs, or paintings of peo-ple and animals. No more pet para-keets, cigarettes and alcohol, mag-azines and news-papers and most books”.

In this chill-ing and bizarre scenario, the Talibs suddenly decide that Af-ghans should play cricket. It’s their attempt to show the human side of their regime; besides, it is a non-contact sport, and the players are fully clothed. When Rukhsana, the spirited first-person narrator of the book, hears this announce-ment, she is amused: the only national sport in Afghanistan un-til then“Why is the Taliban pro-moting cricket?” Rukhsana asks

herself. “Do the Talib know that they are encouraging the kinds of behaviour they have been trying to suppress all these years? Because they are presenting us with the freedom to express who we are, to discover ourselves, to express our defiance on a playing field...cricket is a democracy of ac-tions and reactions....” Above all, cricket’s ideal is fair play, ethical

Taliban Cricket Club: Liberation on a 22-Yard Patch

Taliban clamped down on entertainment and women, but encouraged the young men to play cricket.

behaviour, and following the rules of the game. Do the Talibs know any of this?

However, the sudden enthusi-asm for cricket in Afghanistan is not because of the game’s attrac-tion or its higher moral values: it’s merely because the selected play-ers will be sent abroad for coach-ing, thus giving a few young men the chance to escape the clutches

of the Talibs. The only catch is that no one in Afghanistan knows a thing about the game. Except for Rukhsana, who learnt and played the game as a student in Delhi. But women aren’t supposed to play games, certainly not with men, so how will our lively heroine impart her precious knowledge?

Timeri Murari has an imagina-tive tale to tell, and he tells it with the flair of a born story-teller. Rukhsana is spirited and defiant, but she has more than her share of complications in her life: she is engaged to a childhood friend who has escaped to the West; she is in love with an Indian she met in Delhi; and as if that’s not enough, Zorak Wahidi now wants her as his wife.

The narrative moves swiftly, the suspense is piled on expertly and the oppressiveness of Taliban so-ciety is described in claustropho-bic detail. Aleph, David Davidar’s new publishing venture, has come out with surpr is ing speed with two highly r e a d a b l e books (the other being Jerry Pinto’s first novel). Reason for readers to celebrate.


33 June 08, 2012 33June 08, 2012SPORTS

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CHENNAI: World Champion Viswanathan Anand was felici-tated in Chennai on Sunday, an occasion when the Grand Master chose to explain how he managed to defend his title despite the pres-sures.

Anand said it was all about how well he prepared. “Boris was a complicated opponent. In chess, it is all about how well you are pre-pared and how little your opponent is. I was expected about what was to come and wanted to put him un-der pressure,” he said.

Saying he has known Gelfand since 1989, Anand said the Grand Master from Israel had a deep un-derstanding of chess. “He had pre-pared very cleverly. He managed to control the match to a great deal - it was only in game 11 and 12 we started to break out a bit.”

Sponsors NIIT also announced a scholarship to honour the five-time World Champion. Tamil Nadu government previously, had announced a Rs. 2 crore reward for him.

With players making the Grand-master cut at the age of 12 or 13, chess is increasingly being seen as a young man’s game. But Viswanathan Anand’s victory on Wednesday at the age of 42 has renewed the debate on whether age has anything to do with per-formance.

Anand prevailed over older rival Boris Gelfand of Israel, 43, via a tiebreaker to assert his supremacy in match play and in the process made a mockery of the rating system in the game which has 22-year-old Magnus Carlsen of Nor-way at the top , 28-year-old Levon Aronian of Armenia at No. 2 and teenager Fabiano Caruana of Italy at No 8.

Anand’s triumph would also probably bring back the debate

over the traditional match play format being out of fash-ion, with younger players finding it boring and un-wieldy. It doesn’t really matter. It is a tribute to Anand’s prowess that he has mastered a format that he was not comfortable with when he was a young player him-self and managed to stay on top even when the youth brigade overtook him in the ratings list over the past 12 months.

“I am relieved,” Anand said after the match in Mos-cow. He refused to admit that he was the favorite to win the rapid tie-breaker games. “I knew I would get my chances but I don’t think I was the favorite when the games started.”

So what is the next stage for the five-time World champion? He will most probably play his next title contest at home, maybe in Chennai next year, and will have to contend with opponents in their 20s. Is age catching up with him?

“Chess is a very strenuous sport. You can see that the top players are getting younger all the time,” Anand told TOI during the match. “We have Magnus (Carlsen ) and (Fabiano ) Caruana in the top 10.”

The match between the seniors in Moscow mostly centred round theoretical contests and perhaps

lacked the intensity of a World championship contest. Was it be-cause the contestants were both in their 40s? “Like I said stamina has become a very important aspect . If you have a small advantage you should know how to keep push-ing till your rival breaks down . This could take seven hours and if you make a mistake you could be busted almost immediately,” Anand said.

Anand is perhaps the most prac-tical chess player around. Like Sachin Tendulkar, who has grown steadier with age, the world cham-pion knows when to press and when to pull back. The world may

wonder why Anand did not press in the two classical games when he had white and huge time ad-vantage against Gelfand, but the world champion had clearly calcu-lated both the risks and the potential gains in such situ-ations.

They trash-talked him, ridiculed him, and wrote him off. They said he had slowed down, lost his flair and chutz-pah, and become conformist and traditional in his play. But Viswa-nathan Anand took on everything the Russ ian- Is rae l i chess mafia and his growing band of critics threw at him and emerged on top yet again on Wednesday, winning the world chess title for the

fifth time, and shutting up detrac-tors for now.

For sure, they will carp and crib at Anand’s struggle to retain the ti-tle, the same way critics put down Sachin Tendulkar when he’s going through a lean patch, or plays con-servatively. But these two heroes of India have set such stratospheric standards for themselves that any hint of a slowdown or downturn in form is enough for detractors to write finis to their careers.

However, 42 is not 24; even the greatest don’t have the same reflexes and mindset they when they push 40 -- much less in the

Vishwanathan Anand has become the fi ve-time world chess champion at the age of 42.

twilight of a career -- that they had in their teens and twenties. But when it comes to the crunch, great champions find a way of winning. The flesh and bones might have sagged a little, but a lifetime of experience and a capa-cious heart comes into play. That is pretty much what Vishy Anand summoned on Wednesday to win the world title in a tie-breaker af-ter Boris Gelfand, an Israeli chal-lenger from the Russian stable of chess greats, held him to a 6-6 tie in regulation play.

The stakes were enormous. Anand has not been in top form for several months now; he’s given up several titles he routinely won on the chess circuit. He’s also the happy father of a year-old son who is more important than anything on the board. And to top it all, the Russian chess mafia has long been smarting at the loss of the chess crown to the genial Indian after the Karpov-Kasparov combine domi-nated the game for decades.

Anand has taken on everything they have fired at him from since 2000, including a divided and discredited world title. But since 2007, he had been the undisputed world champion, defeating the Russian Vladimir Kramnik, whom Moscow regarded as the heir to the two Ks, and the Bulgarian Veselin Topalov in 2010.

In each instance, Anand has had to battle not just his opponent, but also a mighty chess establishment, and sometimes even forces of na-ture. In 2010, he had to drive from Spain to Bulgaria, a distance of nearly 3000 kms across Europe, after the volcanic ash disrupted flights and the (challenger’s) host country refused to delay the start, citing TV rights issues. He got to Sofia just in time -- and went on to win.

“It’s All About How Well You Are Prepared”: 5X World Champ Vish Anand


June 08, 201234 June 08, 201234

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