Author Archives: A N N A

They couldn’t keep it up forever

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So an Airborne Express Supe in Philly gets suspicious and…busted.

An Internet pharmacy based in India that sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of drugs without prescriptions has been indicted by U.S. authorities, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

Dr. Brij Bhushan Bansal of Agra (say THAT teen times fast) was “charged with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, money laundering and misbranding drugs”.

Though Bansal is the alleged mastermind behind a business that provided the pills to practically 200 websites which promoted them, his son, daughter and son-in-law are also defendants, since they helped him purvey Codeine and Viagra.

The market rate for 100 tablets of Codeine is $64; Dr. BBB added a tidy $200 premium to that. Valium was even more expensive– a hefty $198 vs. the $27 your local scam-artist charges. 😉 Authorities were able to seize $7.1 million of the group’s proceeds. Pity. That’s a paltry portion of the hundreds of millions of dollars they probably made.

Prepare for more “P”s:

“There was no physician, no pharmacist and no quality control of these drugs that were sold at above-market rates,” Patrick Meehan, U.S. attorney for Eastern Pennsylvania, told a news conference.

Continue reading →

We AREN’T the champions, my friends…

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London’s Restaurant magazine just released their annual list of the 50 best places to get fat– and of course I’d be the Mutineer to post on this. 😉

I am slightly miffed that the list is not down with anything brown, unless New York’s lauded, pan-Asian-street-food mecca Spice Market counts. Since I cannot partake of their “chicken samosas” with cilantro-yogurt, I’m inclined to say…”NO”. 🙂

Now last year, the greatest place in the world for Dal Makhni made both the list AND the award for “Best Asian Restaurant”– I’m talking about New Delhi’s legendary Bukhara, mais oui. What a difference twelve months makes? Oh, well. I’m just amazed that a Brit magazine that listed no less than FOUR English restaurants in their top 10 couldn’t find a decent curry. Whatevs. Continue reading →

Clinton + Indian Pharmaceutical firm Cipla = good

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Unicef says that of the 2.2 million HIV+ children in the world, an underwhelming 20,000 receive some form of treatment. The last Democrat to occupy 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW wants to change that.

(IANS News) New York: Former US President Bill Clinton’s foundation has tied up with Indian pharmaceutical firm Cipla to provide medicines for 10,000 AIDS-affected children in 10 developing countries, Xinhua reports.

There is a huge need for such initiatives. Last year, half-a-million children died of AIDS.

The agreement with Cipla would enable supply of the AIDS drugs at less than half current market rates, Clinton told reporters Monday. His foundation will give $10 million for treatment of the children.

HIV/AIDS-stricken youngsters could be treated as early as next month; medicine has “already been ordered for children in China, the Dominican Republic, Lesotho, Rwanda, Mozambique and Tanzania”. The former President’s foundation has set a goal of treating 60,000 children by 2006. Continue reading →

Susan’s choice.

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ali family.JPG“Did you read the Post yesterday?”, SM-loyalist Deepa asked me over AIM. I replied negatively and she sent me the link to a love story…

The two were as opposite as could be. Saqib is tall, olive-skinned and athletic. Susan is tiny, fair-skinned and delicate. Saqib is Muslim, the son of immigrants born in India. Susan was raised in a conservative Christian family from a small town in Pennsylvania. He’s a door-knocking community activist who hopes to run for public office someday; she’s soft-spoken and cherishes her privacy. He’s a perpetual pessimist, always managing expectations and planning for the worst; she’s an eternal optimist who’s always smiling.

Though both of their families initially balked at a desire to be with someone so “opposite”, eventually, all the in-laws came around.

After a few years together, Saqib and Susan wanted to become parents. Surely they might have thought that after the considerable struggle they survived just to get married, this next phase of their lives would be less fraught with turmoil. One would have hoped.

“It’s a girl!” the technician announced, to a round of cheers. Susan squeezed Saqib’s hand. The couple had already settled on a girl’s name: Leila. Her middle name would be Daine, a tribute to Susan’s mother, Diane, who had died suddenly a year earlier, two weeks after learning she had a brain tumor.
Leila Daine Ali. It was a name that Saqib knew he’d never tire of saying — introducing her to the world, chastising her for trying to poke her pudgy toddler fingers into wall sockets, exclaiming over her good grades in school. It was a name he knew he would scrawl countless times on the “memo” line of his checkbook. “For clown at Leila’s party.” “For Leila’s tuition.” “For Leila’s wedding dress.”

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Happy Birthday to one whose music sounds like “cats meowing”.

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ravi sukanya.JPG Today, NPR’s Morning Edition surprised me with a lovely present, though it wasn’t my birthday they were celebrating. Ravi Shankar is 85 today, and the story I blasted on my way to work was produced in honour of that.

In the latest report for the NPR/National Geographic co-production Radio Expeditions, NPR’s Susan Stamberg travels to New Delhi, the capital of India, to meet with the artist…
…Shankar is totally in his element when he performs — sitting on his oriental rug, sitar nestled in his lap, the air scented with incense, he appears lost in a trance.
“Ravi Shankar’s music is like a fine Indian sari — silken, swirling, exotic,” Stamberg says. “It can break your heart with its beauty.”

Oy, Ms. Stamberg…we could’ve done without the dreaded “E”-bomb, but we forgive you.

SM readers (and Mutineer Manish) might enjoy the legend’s take on why he is known as “Pandit”; personally, I was more amused by the piece’s description of Shankar’s wife as one “…in a crowd of Ravi’s lovers”. Ahem. No sex please, we’re Indian. Wait, too late for that–listeners are treated to Sukanya Shankar (“Ravi’s merry, dimpled wife”) trilling, “what you do to me!” in answer to a befuddled/barely-risque question that her husband poses.

Oh and yes, there is the obligatory Norah Jones ref; they played a snippet of “Don’t know why”, since THAT wouldn’t be predictable, at ALL. 😀

Enjoy the interview (and some “pillow talk”) here. Continue reading →

Caught…handed.

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I’ll never be able to sleep on a plane again (which is great since whenever I fly, it’s cross-country).

Sick, sick, SICK:

BOSTON — An Arizona executive was convicted on Tuesday of sexually assaulting a sleeping woman seated next to him on a flight from Dallas to Boston.
Deepak Jahagirdar, 55, of Scottsdale, Ariz., was convicted by a federal jury after a six-day trial and five hours of deliberations of sexually abusing and having abusive sexual contact with the 22-year-old woman.

Of course, he tried to claim it was consensual. Sleep always means, YES, doesn’t it???

The woman, traveling alone and returning home from a vacation in Texas in March 2002, told authorities that she fell asleep early on the Delta Air Lines flight and awoke to find that Jahagirdar had covered her with a blanket, unbuttoned her pants and had his hand inside her.
The woman left her seat and alerted the flight crew. Jahagirdar, a marketing manager for a health care company, was arrested by Massachusetts State Police when the flight landed at Logan International Airport in Boston.

Jahagirdar’s sentencing is set for June 24. He faces up to 20 years (for sexual abuse), three years (for abusive sexual contact) and a half-million dollar fine. He also faces the prospect of me cursing him violently whenever I have to stay awake during the long flight home to California. Continue reading →

More stupid Radio tricks.

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The Beeb reports that Montreal’s CKAC-AM has been “ordered to make a full apology” for their December 2003 broadcast of nasty remarks about the Sikh community. The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC), a self-regulatory body, censured the station after a listener called them out on “racism of the first order”.

Psychiatrist Pierre Mailloux, host of the Doc Mailloux phone-in show on Montreal’s CKAC-AM station, had referred to Sikhs as a “gang of bozos”.

Want some more of the bad Doctor’s magic?

“You cultural communities come from a wacko country. You live a wacko culture. Don’t bring it with you. That’s the message to convey,” he said.
Mailloux, referring to immigrants’ attitudes, said: “I flee northern India because the Sikhs are a gang, a gang of bozos, and then I bring all that with me. No, no, you really don’t get it. If you flee your country because it makes no sense, then don’t bring those senseless things with you.”

Uh, I think YOU make no sense, Doctor Mailloux. Continue reading →

“I made a doody.”

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The very awesome Turbanhead sent me the most deliciously evil link earlier today; it had to do with a college co-ed who needed to write a paper on “Hindu”.

This stellar, morally upright young woman required a little…help. And boy, did she get some.

Laura K: hi can i ask u a quick question Nate Kushner: what’s that? Laura K: i see in ur profile it says something about Hindu….i am a college student and i have to write a paper on Hindu is there anyway u can help me with that Nate Kushner: I can try. Laura K: have u ever written a paper on it before Nate Kushner: I am qualified, seeing as how it says Hindu in my profile. Laura K: well i am looking fro soemone to write me a paper i am more than willing to send u a check in the mail…money isn’t really an object to me…

By the by…the profile they both refer to states that Nate is interested in “Eating Hindu Sculpture.”

What follows, boys and girls, is a stern lesson about how you shouldn’t randomly IM comedy writers and ask them to do your all-nighter work.
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I blame the “Vestern” influence…

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A sizzling performance by dance group during the Pond’s Femina Miss India 2005 in Mumbai on Sunday ( TOI Photo/ Uma Kadam. )

I’m so confused. And yes, I’m American-born. I’ve gone to several brown cultural shows at major Amreekan universities, and the filmi/”fusion” dancers don’t look like this. Metallic hot pants and Come-prance-with-me-in-Switzerland-in-the-rain boots? What the-? Continue reading →