Author Archives: Abhi

About Abhi

Abhi lives in Los Angeles and works to put things into space.

The FBI offers employers advice

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The FBI is apparently being proactive in doing its job by laying out specific scenarios on its website that employers can learn from in order to prevent spying and generally help keep our nation safe (via Wired). Here is one fearful scenario:

You hire a foreign-born engineer who has been educated in this country. Over a 10-15 year period, she rises to mid-level management. Then, she returns to her home country—where she gets paid by that government to set up a business that competes with yours.

The key there is “foreign-born.” It doesn’t matter if you have been educated in this country from an early age or even if you are a Greencard holder. If you are foreign-born then employers should watch out for you because you may sell good Americans out to your Motherland. That’s scary. If I was an employer I might instead hire someone that looks American…just to be safe. Here is another one:

A series of university students and professors from overseas take jobs in research labs on campus and get involved in related military projects. Individually, they learn only bits and pieces. But collectively, when they pass that information back to their home country, it paints a telling picture of our country’s defense initiatives.

Good advice. The next time I see a group of “FOBs” eating lunch together I am going to consider them a “collective.” But wait, what if someone thinks that I’m foreign born when they see me sitting with a group of other desis at school! Qué Malo!

The FBI is willing to help by offering a training program (or something) to spot these collectives, or sleeper cells, or whatever…

Specifically: Join our Counterintelligence Domain Program or our Research and Technology Protection program.

Amazing what helpful advice you find on websites paid for by your tax dollars. I hope no foreign born readers visit Sepia Mutiny. Individually they can’t do us any harm but collectively they could use the knowledge they gain here to paint a telling picture of how we operate and then make the blogs of their own countries better. Continue reading →

A better way to see Gujarat

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A friend of mine from here in Texas recently handed me a copy of the Gujarat guidebook she’s edited and published after living there for some time (and with the additional help of some paid local writers). Since my family is originally from Gujarat I’ve never even considered the need for getting my hands on a guidebook before each visit there. After skimming through nearly 400 pages rich in history and photography I think I’ll be taking this along on my next trip to the motherland. Think “Lonely Planet on steroids”:

A grill would have totally completed this cover picture.

Five thousand years of civilization

Savor the history and romance, colors and textures, rhythms and dance of a land where time have never stood still.

From the rocky heights of the Sahyadri Mountains across to the salt flats of the Desert of Kachchh, Gujarat has something for everyone. Wander through remains of ancient Indus Valley civilizations; venture to meet the lions of Gir Forest; soak in the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi; dance on the streets for nine nights of Navratri. Enjoy an unparalleled ethos of hospitality. Experience vibrant crafts, exquisite architecture, rich wildlife reserves, colorful festivals and eclectic traditions. Join five millennia of seafarers, merchants and settlers from around the globe and come explore Gujarat. [Link]

What the hell. Gujarat has lions? I wonder why my dad has failed to ever mention this salient fact to me (but I’m sure he’ll comment on it and give me an earful down below). I remember going all the way to the northern part of India on a tiger safari but had no idea that there were lions right there in Gujarat. I think part of the problem is that to me Gujarat is just Ahmedabad, and if someone asks me what you do there I’d say “ummmmm…CG Road, Gandhi Ashram, and Siddi Sayid.” I love eating Amul cheese sandwiches when I am in India but I didn’t know I could take a tour of the Amul plant and watch it get made. It’s probably similar to going wine tasting in Napa (but cheese sandwiches are better than wine). The guidebook also taught me a little about the village (Sarkhej) that my grandparents lived in and where my parents partially grew up. I’ve been there but either didn’t know, or couldn’t remember, the significance of the place until I read here about the complex that the village was built around:

Sarkhej Roaza is a mosque, tomb, and royal complex dedicated to the memory of Salikh Ahmed Khattu Ganj Baksh, the spiritual advisor of Ahmed Shah…The Roza was a retreat for successive rulers, each adding a garden or pavilion. Sarkej is another excellent example of a structure that combines Hindu and Islamic design.

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Enter South Asians for Hillary

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Earlier today my friend Reshma emailed me about a fundraiser by South Asians for Hillary that will be held this Thursday night in NYC:

We invite you to celebrate Senator Hillary Clinton’s staunch support for the South Asian American community and our community’s lasting support for her.

Please join us on Thursday June 28, 2007 at a cocktail reception for South Asians for Hillary.

The reception will take place at Sortie, 329 W. 51st (btw 8th and 9th) , from 7:00-9:00pm.

The suggested donation is $20, and there will be a cash bar. Please RSVP at southasians4hillary [at] gmail dot com .

We hope to see you there and that you will bring many friends as we stand together in support of a historic Hillary Clinton presidency.

Also on an important note, we are hosting a bone marrow drive for Vinay Chakravarthy at the South Asians for Hillary event. So again please invite your friends to attend this event, and if they are unable to make it, encourage them to to go to www.helpvinay.org and register.

As some of you longtime readers might remember, Reshma was in charge of South Asians for Kerry in 2004. As a side note, I am very disappointed that the above event will not feature free henna tattoos (i.e., “Henna for Hillary”) as I wisely recommended in a previous post.

I’d like to point out that, as far as I know, this is only the second “South Asians for…” established for the 2008 election cycle (South Asians For Obama being the first). As I requested in my previous post, please let me know if you hear of such groups for any other candidates. So why is it that even though we have a slew of candidates already running for President, South Asians in large numbers only appear to be backing two candidates thus far? Well, South Asian voters are no different than any other voters in this regard. A new poll by CBS/NYT/MTV that targeted young voters between the ages of 17-29 (part of SM’s demographic as well) shows the following:

ARE YOU ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT ANY 2008 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE?

Barack Obama 18%
Hillary Clinton 17%
Rudy Giuliani 4%
Mitt Romney 2%
Fred Thompson 2%
Other 4%
No, none of them 45% [link]

According to this poll there are only two candidates in the race right now that young people are really interested in. The caveat here is that pollsters usually point out that young people never seem to show up on election day, regardless of what pre-election polls might say. In any case, I’ve heard a lot from the SAFO folks, let us know your impressions of the Hillary event if you go.

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Summer is finally here. We’re going fishing.

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…but we promise to throw back the fish and not hurt them for real.

Folks, we have been writing on this blog and ruining your work-day productivity for almost three years now. We’ve had over 8 million visits, 4500 posts, and 143000 comments (all moderated by a single intern who is just not looking too good these days). Most of us are totally and completely burned out. We have been cooped up in our North Dakota bunker for so long now that we don’t even know what an i-Phone is. This is no way to live. It isn’t even fit for our monkeys. Some of us really need to take a break and get out and see some action once in a while (errrr…by which I mean play sports and go on vacation or something).

You may have noticed that the number of posts on SM have decreased in frequency over the past couple of months as everyone takes a bit of time out for themselves. This slow burn will continue through the end of the summer. We might bring in some new faces and lose some old ones but the Mutiny is not dead. Our new site admins are also working on more community-based features and on ways to make the News Tab more interactive by allowing commenting and ranking of stories there.

Enjoy your summer and please say hello if you see any of us outside of North Dakota on our walkabouts.

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Touchdown

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Sunita Williams has returned safely to Earth after setting the record for the longest time in space by a woman.

Praying for a safe Earth entry

“Welcome back,” Mission Control told Atlantis. “Congratulations on a great mission.” Controllers praised the crew for providing a “stepping stone to the rest of NASA’s exploration plan…”

Astronaut Sunita “Suni” Williams returned to Earth on Atlantis after spending more than six months at the space station. She set an endurance record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman at 195 days. During her stay, she also set the record for most time spacewalking by a woman. [Link]

More cute pictures after the fold.

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But Tony, the President still likes Indians…right?

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So a funny thing happened at the White House press briefing today. Yes. Of course. Our boy Goyal was at it once again. I recommend anyone drinking milk right now to put their glass down so as to prevent the milk from momentarily spraying out your nostrils. Here we go:

Q Tony, two questions. One, there is disturbing news, and the Indian American community is very angry that Senator Obama and his campaign has been calling the Indian American community taboo and other names, calling names, and all that because of the relations with the Clintons, President Clinton and Hillary Clinton. My question is, how does — what does President think about the Indian American community and his relations with the Indian American community?

MR. SNOW: Well, the President, obviously, is proud of our — the growing closeness of the United States and the Indians. Not to be holding a brief for Senator Obama, but I don’t believe that he made comments of that sort. I do believe that was a staff comment for which he issued apologies. But having said that, it is important to realize that the United States looks upon India as the world’s largest democracy, as an important and vital ally in a whole host of things — regional security, global trade, climate change. I mean, the role of — the importance of India is not to be understated. And we are certainly glad that the relations between the nations continue to draw closer. [Link]

I am trying to wrap my head around this one. I mean, why would the White House have an official position about what an Obama staffer wrote about Sen. Clinton? Is this what reporters assigned to a scandal-plagued White House really want to know about? Then it just gets even funnier:

Q Second, just on Sunday I was in Washington, here at the Verizon Center, over 20,000 Indians, mostly Hindu, gathered together there. And their message was peace and unity, internationally and here also. The question is here that President has gone to all the denominations here, but never to a Hindu temple. And he goes to church, I go to temple, but he is a religious man, so am I. What my question is that this weekend —

MR. SNOW: You want to know if he’s going to go to the temple?

Q This weekend there is a grand opening of Hindu temple in Adelphi, right on the beltway, if he can make it there sometime or —

MR. SNOW: I don’t think that’s on the schedule, and I think you do appreciate, Goyal, that Presidents don’t do casual drop-bys.

Q He has been invited.

MR. SNOW: Again, I appreciate the suggestion. [Link]

Yo, that would be tight if W did a “drop-by.” Any D.C. area mutineers going to be in Adelphi who can let us know? And for those still following the D-Punjab soap opera, Rediff got an exclusive with Obama today:

[Obama] explained that “I think what happened was that the people who were writing the memo thought that to quote back Hillary Clinton was clever somehow. They were wrong and I let them know in no uncertain terms that this was unacceptable.”

Obama acknowledged he had no idea about the document that was being circulated by some members of his campaign staff till the controversy erupted, when the Indian-American community was in uproar and his Indian-American supporters contacted his campaign expressing their concern. [Link]

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When landlords get all up in your bidness

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It’s bad enough when your parents hound you for being single and ask why you were out so late last night, but the Christian Science Monitor points to the double standard that single women renters face in India at the hands of their prospective (and over-protective) landlords:

It took Chiya Singh three months and seven real estate agents working in tandem to find an apartment to rent in New Delhi.

The problem wasn’t her credit history or salary. It was her status as a single Indian woman. The questions blocking Ms. Singh from a room of her own were a bit personal, she says. Prospective landlords wanted to know why, at age 29, she wasn’t married and why, as a single person, she didn’t want to live with her parents.

“It was an exhausting process,” Singh says, of trying to find her own place after she divorced. “I became a broken record. They asked ‘Why do you want to live alone?’ I said, ‘Um, because I think I’m old enough.’ “

That response usually netted Singh a cold expression and a vague “We’ll let you know” from the landlord. [Link]

Because, I mean…why would a single woman want to live by herself?

In India, “If you want freedom, it can only be for one thing – sex,” Singh says. “You want to tell them [landlords], ‘That’s the last thing on my mind. I think I’m old enough to take care of myself.’ But for the landlord, it becomes an issue of respectability.” [Link]
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Suni side up

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When my worlds align, you know I’m going to blog it:

SUNI WILLIAMS DAY AT JSC

Help celebrate a major spaceflight milestone as Expedition 15 Flight Engineer and STS-117 crew member Sunita Williams sets a new female long duration spaceflight record. She will surpass Shannon Lucid’s long-held record of 188 days, 4 hours this Saturday, June 16 at 12:47 a.m CDT.

So how do we help celebrate this kick-ass achievement?

To show your support for Suni, wear something red this Friday, June 15 (In honor of her love of the Red Sox). Also on Friday, the Starport cafés will feature 2 eggs “Suni”-side up on Texas Toast for $.99 and Chicken Indian Spiced Malai Murgh for $ 3.49 ala cart and $5.99 Combo. The Chicken breast is coated with a mixture of spices (cumin, garlic, pepper, lemon juice, chopped jalapenos, paprika, and sour cream) then roasted and served with rice.

Oh yeah! Curry in the cafeteria. Have any of you had government institutional food before? This intrepid blogger’s passion for venturing places where no man has gone before compels him to try the chicken on Friday. If I’m ever lucky enough to go in to space someday I am going to make them serve dosas with sour cream and ketchup in the cafeteria when I come down. Let’s pray our girl makes it down ok:

NASA engineers and astronauts are working on innovative ways to fix a tear in the heat shield of the shuttle Atlantis which had taken off last Friday.

One of the methods that could be used to fix the tear would be using a stainless steel wire serving as thread and an instrument with a rounded end resembling a small needle.

This is usually used to repair tears in astronaut suits but may work here as well. [Link]

By the way, Suni’s dog, the terrier she had to leave behind on Earth and who goes by the name of “Flat Gorby,” is becoming kind of famous. You know how people sometimes take pictures of gnomes at different locations around the world? Just type in Flat Gorby in Google and see all the hits the dude has and where he has “visited” while she has been up in space.

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On the cheap

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Lately it seems like everywhere you look people are starting to move up as fast as George and Weezy. Prices on typically expensive goods are coming down so that companies can make a play for the disposable income of the world’s vast middle class. Monday’s L.A. Times brought us word of a ridiculously priced car out of India:

Tata Motors Ltd. is set to unveil the world’s cheapest car as early as January as it takes the growing interest in low-cost vehicles to a new extreme.

The Indian carmaker will launch its $2,467 vehicle by the third quarter of 2008 and may unveil it at January’s Auto Expo in New Delhi, Managing Director Ravi Kant said.

Separately, Tata Motors is developing a line of small hatchbacks and mid-size sedans to be introduced next year. India produces 1.3 million cars a year. With the market growing at 10% to 12% per year, this could reach 3 million within a decade.

The four-door car — a pet project of Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata — would be the cheapest by far in its class. The current cheapest, the Maruti 800 produced by Suzuki Motor Corp., sells for more than $4,000. [Link]

Just to clarify, I don’t think that a really cheap car is ridiculous. No. What I find crazy is the exact price. Somewhere there was a room full of marketers that decided that $2,467 was the exactly right price for this car! I mean, why not $2,499? But this is going to be a hooptie right?

Competitors are skeptical about the price and quality of the car, which the group says will have a 600-cubic-centimeter engine and come in a range of models.

However, [Managing Director Ravi ] Kant said: “It will be a good-looking car which you will want to purchase…” [Link]

Well, okay then. The Christian Science Monitor had an article last week that hinted at how owners of such a cheap car might immediately seek to pimp their ride:

While its materialistic glamour revolution is still in its infancy, the new capitalist India is all about keeping up with the Kumars. At all socioeconomic levels, Indian shoppers are becoming more “aspirational,” using their new wealth to buy status in a country where social cachet is a vital commodity.

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NOW Paris is relevant

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The more I thought about it today the angrier I became. I never expected to write a post about Paris Hilton on this blog. I’m incensed whenever mainstream media thinks that her life is worth reporting to the masses, especially in light of the real events in our world that go ignored. She is a harbinger of the Assault on Reason. But finally, today, Paris became relevant to me. TMZ.com has had the best blow-by-blow on the internet:

Law enforcement sources tell TMZ Paris Hilton’s medical condition was purely psychological and that she was in peril of having a nervous breakdown, and that’s why she was released early this morning.

Psychiatrist Charles Sophy visited Hilton in jail yesterday and the day before. We’re told after Sophy’s visit yesterday, word was passed to the Sheriff that Hilton’s mental state was fragile and she was at risk.

The reason for releasing her had nothing to do with a rash or other physical issues. It was purely in her head. [Link]

And the breakdown of our society is complete. Just think about this for a minute (if you haven’t been already). A rich white girl was convicted of being a drunk driver and sent to jail. She was convicted even after making use of the best lawyers that money could buy and having full and transparent use of the American legal system. After three days she gets out because prison was too much for her fragile mind and she wasn’t eating well. Meanwhile, you have so-called “enemy combatants,” some of them South Asian, who in many cases don’t get a lawyer or even get to hear the evidence against them. They are simply thrown into a cage. Not only do they not receive a get-out-of-jail-free card for mental illness, they get tortured in a manner meant to hasten mental illness. Even children. I know some of you think it might be unfair of me to compare Hilton to Guantanamo inmates. You are quite correct. The Guantanamo inmates have only allegedly committed a crime. And what about the thousands of non-rich women and juveniles in the American legal system? Many get raped or assaulted in prison without any justice. They don’t get to go home with an ankle bracelet if they cry about it or don’t eat the soggy vegetables on their plates. Mental illness is very real and shouldn’t be treated lightly (but it is unless you are rich). What we are witnessing here is a perfect example of the “Two Americas” that candidate John Edwards is always going on about.

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