Author Archives: Abhi

About Abhi

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

Malaysia’s first astronaut?

Posted on by

An engineer named Vanajah Siva Subramaniam is one of the four finalists (and only woman) vying to become Malaysia’s first astronaut:

The Right Stuff

An ethnic Indian woman was on Tuesday named among four candidates short listed to become Malaysia’s first astronaut and travel to the International Space Station next year.

S Vanajah Siva Subramaniam, 35, will travel along with three Malay men to the Russian Space Agency in Moscow soon to undergo medical and technical tests that will establish which of them will take part in the scientific expedition on board the International Space Station in 2007.

The three men are Malaysia Airlines pilot Mohammed Faiz Kamaluddin, 34; army dentist Faiz Khaleed, 26; and Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, a 34-year-old hospital medical officer.

The four were chosen from more than 11,000 candidates who had submitted their applications in a process that started in 2003.

Vanajah is an engineer by profession. She was the only woman to be short-listed. All the three men are from the dominant Malay community, while Vanajah belongs to the ethnic Indian community, which comprises 8 per cent of Malaysia’s 26-million-strong population. [Link]

Her selection of course is dependent upon whether or not Malaysians think she is too sexy for the job of astronaut (I thought astronauts were REQUIRED to be sexy) . The astronaut who makes the final cut is scheduled to spend an expedition aboard the ISS sometime in 2007 (although I will bet money that the mission will be delayed at least a year).

Vanajah has previously said she hopes to inspire other Malaysian women to participate in science-related projects, saying her achievement proved that women could compete alongside men in rigorous trials.

The finalists have endured a battery of physical and psychological examinations, and officials said the remaining four were chosen on the basis of physical fitness, personality and preparedness, including family support. [Link]

I also found an article that describes some of those psychological tests that the Malaysian astronaut candidates were put through:

After extended periods of physical and mental stress, including sleep deprivation, being roused from a nice warm bed at 3am for a run followed by a swim, it becomes virtually impossible for anyone to continue pretending to be Mr Nice Guy.

Candidates were made to spend hours in pitch-dark jungle conditions to gauge whether they could endure long periods of isolation and sensory deprivation.

“It can be frightening if one is not used to the jungle but the candidates were never in any real danger ? what they did not know was that there were commandos assigned to watch over them at all times,” reveals Dr Teoh.

Continue reading →

Best of the Best 2

Posted on by

It’s time once again for the annual Best of the Best competition. It will be held on April 15th in New York City:

Michigan represents at last year’s BOB

The 2nd Annual Best of the Best Indian Dance competition with participants coming from all across the nation will be held on April 15th, 2006! The show consists of three types of Indian Dance: Bhangra, Raas-Garba and Fusion/Bollywood, where competing teams are invited after placing first at a previous competition. The landscape of Indian dance competitions is filled with a variety of shows, each highlighting a different category of Indian dance. Best of the Best is unique in that it is the first large-scale non-profit competition to bridge the gap among these different dance styles and crown one winner among the top teams. The second annual Best of the Best competition will provide an entirely new and memorable experience for the audience and competitors alike. The show consists of three categories: Bhangra, Raas-Garba and Fusion/Bollywood, where competing teams are invited after placing first at a previous competition. A total of four prizes will be awarded among the nine competing teams: a cash prize to the winning team from each category as well as an overall Best Performance prize to the team that truly is the Best of the Best. In addition to the competing teams, the show will feature internationally recognized artists.

If you have never seen Indian dance before, then Best of the Best promises to provide a birds eye view of the wide-spread landscape of Indian dance. For more information and updates please visit www.bobnyc.com, or e-mail us at info@bobnyc.com.

Performance Schedule:
Saturday, Apr 15, 2006 at 7:30 PM… [Link]

The BOB website features some great pictures from the past show as well as more detailed event info. As usual the NYC kids get the fun events in their backyard.

See previous post: Portuguesa flips the ‘Bird’

Continue reading →

In the line of fire

Posted on by

The International Herald Tribune has a fascinating look at the headaches/near-heart-attacks that the Secret Service endured in securing Bush’s visit to Pakistan. It also includes a particularly insightful comparison to Bill Clinton’s 2000 trip. This may go a ways in providing an answer to a post on The Acorn a few days ago that posited some notions that I found a bit far-fetched.

How did it happen that the president spent a night in Pakistan, the assumed haven of Osama bin Laden and one of the one most dangerous countries in the world?

The short answer is that Pakistan’s president, General Pervez Musharraf, insisted. The long answer is a tale about the nightmare scenarios of the Secret Service and the calculated risks of presidential travel…

The fuzziness [of the travel plans to Pakistan] was to keep terrorists guessing about the timing of motorcades and the arrival of Air Force One, basic precautions passed down from a cloak-and-dagger trip that President Bill Clinton made to Pakistan in 2000 that had the Secret Service in an uproar. Six years later, accounts of the trip from former Clinton administration officials are far more harrowing than was known at the time.

“In the preparations for the 2000 visit, the service dug its heels in, repeatedly confronting the top NSC officials with horror scenarios,” Benjamin and Simon write. “There was danger to Air Force One from ground fire. No one trusted the Pakistani military to keep travel routes in the country secret or secure. The service said it could not perform its mission: It could not protect the president. In a meeting with Clinton, Larry Cockell, the head of the presidential detail, told him so.”

Clinton overruled the Secret Service, although he decided that his daughter, Chelsea, who was to accompany him to India on the same trip, should not make the stop in Pakistan. Clinton ended up slipping into Islamabad for less than six hours on a small military jet owned by the CIA while an Air Force One decoy flew in to draw a possible attack. It was a dramatic and, for Musharraf, embarrassing difference to the five previous days that Clinton had spent out in the relatively open in India. [Link]

Very cool. I would love a job planning out stuff like this. Especially after watching 24 last week. I like seeing gutsy calls where the President overrules his bodyguards at his own peril. Continue reading →

Are you ready for some "Football?"

Posted on by

There still aren’t that many desis on the field in U.S. sports. However, that hasn’t stopped us from being an important part of the game. We’ve mentioned young Paraag Marathe in the 49ers front office. Over the weekend Sunil Gulati was elected the head of U.S. Soccer:

U.S. Soccer’s membership elected long-time U.S. Soccer executive Sunil Gulati as president of the U.S. Soccer Federation by unanimous consent on Saturday at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. Gulati succeeds Dr. S. Robert Contiguglia, stepping down after two successful four-year terms. Gulati, who ran unopposed in the election, has served as U.S. Soccer’s vice president since 2000.

“I am honored to serve our membership in this capacity and look forward to helping to continue to guide our sport through the most prosperous period in our history,” said Gulati. “Across the past decade, a platform for this sport has been built that did not previously exist, and we now have an opportunity in the coming years to achieve more for soccer in the United States than anyone could have ever envisioned 15 or 10 or even five years ago.” [Link]

Gulati has spent many years in the trenches, including in the front office of the New England Revolution. It is no fluke that he was elected to this position.

Gulati, a native of Allahabad, India, has played a major role in the development of U.S. Soccer since the early 1980’s and is currently U.S. Soccer’s Executive Vice President. Previously, amongst a number of roles, Gulati has served as Managing Director of National Teams, Chairman of the International Games Committee, Chairman of the Technical Committee and Managing Director of U.S. Soccer’s Project 2010. [Link]

In addition to his soccer job, Gulati is also a professor in the Economics Department at Columbia University. I happened upon a website where students get to rate their professors. This is what they have to say about Gulati:

# Ratings: 5
Average Easiness: 1.8
Average Helpfulness: 4.2
Average Clarity: 4.6
Hotness Total: 0
Overall Quality: 4.4

Also check out our frequent commenter Kush Tandon’s picture. These two must be long lost brothers 🙂

Continue reading →

The Legend of the Flying Elephants

Posted on by
“In the beginning of time, the skies were filled with flying elephants. Too heavy for their wings, they sometimes crashed through the trees and frightened other animals.

All the flying grey elephants migrated to the source of the Ganges. They agreed to renounce their wings and settle on the earth.When they molted, millions of wings fell to the earth, the snow covered them, and the Himalayas were born….”

I went to an amazing exhibit of sepia photographs earlier today at a “nomadic museum,” four stories high and made of cargo containers, on the Santa Monica pier. The exhibit was titled “Ashes and Snow,” and will be in Los Angeles through May:

Gregory Colbert’s Ashes and Snow is an ongoing project that weaves together photographic works, three 35mm films, art installations and a novel in letters. With profound patience and an unswerving commitment to the expressive and artistic nature of animals, he has captured extraordinary, unscripted interactions between humans and animals.

His 21st-century bestiary includes more than 40 totemic species from around the world. Since he began creating his singular work of Ashes and Snow, Colbert had mounted more than 30 expeditions to locations such as India, Egypt, Burma, Tonga, Sri Lanka, Namibia, Kenya, Antarctica, the Azores and Borneo…

Continue reading →

My bunker key is up for bid

Posted on by

DePaul graduate student Hemant Mehta had an idea. Instead of selling his soul to the devil (who always ends up screwing you), why not offer it up on Ebay to see how much people would pay to “save” it? It isn’t THAT crazy. I bet lots of people want to know how much their soul is worth. I sure do. The Wall Street Journal had and article the rocketed Mehta to fame a couple of days ago. Unfortunately a subscription is required to access the article. Luckily, Arzan has it pasted in his blog:

A few weeks ago, Hemant Mehta posted an unusual item for sale on eBay: a chance to save his soul.

The DePaul University graduate student promised the winner that for each $10 of the final bid, he would attend an hour of church services. The 23-year-old Mr. Mehta is an atheist, but he says he suspected he had been missing out on something.

“Perhaps being around a group of people who will show me ‘the way’ could do what no one else has done before,” Mr. Mehta wrote in his eBay sales pitch. “This is possibly the best chance anyone has of changing me.”

Evangelists bid, eager to save a sinner. Atheists bid, hoping to keep Mr. Mehta in their fold. When the auction stopped on Feb. 3 after 41 bids, the buyer was Jim Henderson, a former evangelical minister from Seattle, whose $504 bid prevailed.

Mr. Henderson wasn’t looking for a convert. He wanted Mr. Mehta to embark with him on an eccentric experiment in spiritual bridge-building… Days after the auction, Mr. Henderson flew to Chicago to see Mr. Mehta, who is studying to be a math teacher. The two met in a bar, where they sealed a deal a little different from the one the student had proffered. Instead of the 50 hours of church attendance that he was entitled to for his $504, Mr. Henderson asked that Mr. Mehta attend 10 to 15 services of Mr. Henderson’s choosing and then write about it.

Mr. Mehta also agreed to provide running commentary on the church services on the off-the-map site and take questions — bluntly sharing a nonbeliever’s outlook… [Link]

Hmmm. What is this “off-the-map site” that the article mentions? Could it be…yep, you guessed it. Mehta is a blogger:

I told my mom about the WSJ article. She was thrilled:

Me: Mom, there’s an article about the auction on the front page of the Wall Street Journal!

Mom: Go back to med school. [Link]

All this hoopla got me thinking. It would no longer be original if I put up my soul for sale on Ebay (besides, I’ve already sold it). Instead, what if I offer up my set of keys to the North Dakota bunker which serves as the SM world blogging headquarters? You could use them to create havoc for just one day by taking control of our website. Any takers? The bidding starts at $505. Continue reading →

It’s not easy being Green

Posted on by

SM tipster Veeral informs us that 29-year-old Californian Mehul M. Thakker is running for state Treasurer as a Green Party candidate. From his website:

Ummm. Is it just me or does Thakker look like he is auditioning for The Apprentice?

Mehul M. Thakker is an Investment Advisor in Oakland, CA with a focus on Socially Responsible Investment and Community Development. He is passionate about securing Economic Justice for low-income and minority groups in the U.S., and strives to educate on how to use the power of investment to create positive social change locally and globally.

His priorities as California State Treasurer would include reforming the State’s Investment Policy to create Economic Justice for low-income and minority groups, and implementing Renewable Energy Revenue projects to fund public schools and better teacher pay. In addition, he believes these reforms can help clean up California’s environment, create high-paying jobs, fix the State’s fiscal crisis, fight corporate corruption, and advance social justice and equal opportunity.

Mehul has served as Treasurer of NetIP-SFBA (Network of Indian Professionals) and is active in the movement for shareholder rights, and corporate social & environmental responsibility. He is also a member of the CA League of Conservation Voters, The Sierra Club, and The Gujarati Cultural Association of the SF Bay Area….

A first generation, South Asian American, Mehul was born and raised in Odessa, Texas and holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Texas at Dallas. His parents Mahendra and Vasant Thakker immigrated to the U.S. from India in 1969. Mehul has one sister, Shilpa Chaparala, and brother-in law, Amar Chaparala. He enjoys many hobbies, including travel, sports, camping, reading, and volunteering. [Link]

Wait. If he was born and raised here that would make him second generation, not first. I got to say that I really like his stance on the issues.

Continue reading →

“…an important part of growing up there”

Posted on by

Many of you may remember my previous post about the two Lodi, CA men (father and son) being tried for terrorism:

U.S. v. Hamid Hayat and Umer Hayat

Federal criminal charges alleging that a 47-year-old California father and his 22-year-old son lied to the FBI about training at and/or visiting al Qaeda terrorist and jihadi training camps in Pakistan. (June 7, 2005)

The Los Angeles Times provides details from their ongoing trial:

In a 2004 visit to a clandestine camp in Pakistan, Umer Hayat said he witnessed nearly 1,000 terrorist trainees — masked like “ninja turtles” — slashing curved swords at dummies with images of President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

In a videotaped interrogation by FBI agents shown in federal court Tuesday, Hayat said trainees at the camp allegedly attended by his son also practiced pole vaulting “like 50 feet” so they could leap rivers.

Hayat, 47, an ice cream truck driver, and his son Hamid, 23, both of Lodi, are on trial in Sacramento. Hamid Hayat is accused of attending a terrorist training camp, and both are accused of lying to federal agents.

The son is the one who the FBI thinks visited the terrorist training camp and he faces up to 39 years in prison. The dad, who faces up to 16 years in prison, is basically accused of trying to protect his son by covering up the facts. Here is the part that got my attention though. I have seen this a thousand times on episodes of NYPD Blue or The Shield, but it caught me off guard to see it in real life, even though I know how it’s done. Check it out:

As in the videotaped interrogation of Hamid Hayat shown earlier in the trial, the FBI agents did most of the talking and sometimes appeared to reassure the Hayats, who speak halting English, about their actions.

FBI agent Timothy Harrison described attending training camps in Pakistan as “an important part of growing up there.” FBI agent Gary Schaaf characterized terrorist camps as a rite of passage for Pakistani males. Another agent described Umer Hayat’s visit to the camp as the equivalent of a father inspecting a child’s college campus.

Defense attorney Johnny L. Griffin said Umer Hayat was “psychologically bullied and emotionally pressured into doing whatever the FBI agents wanted him to say or do.”

Why the hell didn’t they have a lawyer present? Were they tricked into speaking on the record without one because they didn’t understand English too well, or because they just didn’t want one? Continue reading →

The bill gets paid before the meal

Posted on by

As usual, I’ve been keeping an eye out for desis in politics here in the U.S. Just over a month ago I read that Kamil Hasan had been appointed as a Member-at-Large of the Democratic Party by DNC chairman Howard Dean. There wasn’t too much about him at the time but today the San Jose Mercury News features him:

Kamil Hasan of Saratoga has a new job: collecting serious cash from the Indo-American community for the Democratic National Committee.

That job may not be as powerful as senator or congressman. But for the Bay Area’s roughly 155,000 Indo-American community members, Hasan’s appointment represents another step the well-educated, affluent immigrant group is taking to gain political clout. His goal is to raise at least $5 million through a newly formed Indian fundraising council in time for the next presidential election.

What’s most important, community members said, is that the appointment isn’t just about Hasan: It’s about the voice of the entire Indo-American community, about 2 million strong.

“It’s basically a seat at the table,” Hasan said in an interview at Hitek Venture Partners in Mountain View, a company he founded in 1995 that funds about 30 high-tech start-ups. “It’s a clear acknowledgment that the Indo-American community has made major contributions. We want to make a major impact on where this country should go, and to be involved as a player.”

A couple of things. First, is this really about the entire Indo-American community as Hasan believes? I don’t think so. This is about money and the members of the community that have it.

Kamil and Talat Hasan have long been leaders in the Indo-American community, where Hasan is known as a nice guy who plays golf at the Saratoga Country Club and a father who is strict about once-a-week family dinners with his daughters, Minal, 24, and Saima, 20. Hasan was born into a privileged family in Aligarh, India, in 1944. His father was a wealthy landowner. He came to the United States in 1968 to study engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology….

“This is important because this says to the community, ‘We value you,’ ” he said. “And it’s a smart thing for the politicians to do, because this expands their base. And as we all know, this is a community with a lot of money.”

Those are two separate things. Valuing one’s money is a lot different than valuing the “community.” Or perhaps they are no longer separate things in contemporary American politics. Of course, Hasan also recognizes that he may have a problem herding cats:

The challenge for Hasan is to be the voice for a community whose members hail from one of the most diverse countries in the world. It’s not clear how many Indo-Americans are Republicans or Democrats, though Hasan is trying to figure that out. He estimates the breakdown is about 70 percent Democrats, 30 percent Republicans. Even within their own party, many Indo-Americans support different candidates for governor. Others disagree on whether to invest in local or national politics.

Continue reading →

Could the Kennewick Man have been South Asian?

Posted on by

You have all most likely heard of the Kennewick Man:

In 1996, there was a boat race on the Columbia River, near Kennewick, in Washington State, in the extreme northwestern United States. Two fans pulled ashore to get a good viewpoint of the race, and, in the shallow water at the edge of the bank, they found a human skull. They took the skull to the county coroner, who passed it to archaeologist James Chatters. Chatters and others went to the Columbia and retrieved a nearly complete human skeleton, with a long, narrow face suggestive of a person of European descent. But the skeleton was confusing to Chatters; he noticed that the teeth had no cavities and for a 40-50 year old man (the most recent studies suggest he was in his thirties), the teeth were extremely ground down. Cavities are the result of a corn-based (or sugar-enhanced) diet; grinding damage usually results from grit in the diet. Most modern people don’t have grit in their food, but do consume sugar in some form and so do have cavities. And Chatters spotted a projectile point embedded in his right pelvis, a Cascade point, normally dated between 5,000 and 9,000 years before the present. It was clear that the point had been there while the individual was alive; the lesion in the bone had partially healed. Chatters sent off a bit of the bone to be radiocarbon dated. Imagine his astonishment when he received the radiocarbon date as over 9,000 years ago. [Link]

The cover of Time Magazine this week is dedicated to new discoveries about the Kennewick Man reported inside. For many years his remains were the subject of a heated court battle. Native Americans claimed that they had the right to reclaim and bury his remains (thereby preventing scientific study) because he was one of their own. The Time Magazine article (subscription currently required) explains how forensics reveals that the Kennewick Man was not racially what we would consider Native American, but rather Polynesian or Ainu. He therefore predates existing Native American tribes. Indolink.com takes it a step further and includes speculation that he may have been from South Asia. It gets tricky because some people use “South Asia” when they really mean “Southeast Asia”:

Now it appears that analysis of Kennewick Man, places him “closer to southern Asians and nearly equidistant to modern Native Americans and Polynesians.”

That’s because the skull “appears to have strongest morphological affinities with populations in southern Asia, and not with American Indians or Europeans in the reference samples” according to one study.

The interpretations by anthropologists Joseph F. Powell and Jerome C. Rose are based on a scientific technique called craniofacial morphometric analysis. It involves detailed study of the shape of the skull and face, using a sophisticated method called multivariate analysis. In some cases, more than 60 different dimensions of a skull are measured and compared with comparable dimensions considered typical of specific racial groups. [Link]

Continue reading →