Reading this story at thestar.com, I was reminded of two things. First, that old Bollywood song (to which I confess I don’t understand the lyrics) Mera naam chin-chin-chu that my parents must have played on long car rides. Secondly, I was reminded of the movie, Elf.

KUALA LUMPUR: He can speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien and Hakka fluently, but Lim Meng Sain was born an Indian.

And this anomaly has sometimes put him in a tight spot.

The contractor was raised as a Chinese after his biological parents gave him up for adoption when he was an infant.

Now 25 years old, Meng Sain is a true product of the community he grew up in.

Oh, I’m sure this isn’t nearly as unique as it would seem, but I still thought it was a cute story, especially when compared to this earlier post about preconceived notions based upon skin color.

Once, while parking a truck behind his house recently, he was stopped by a police officer.

“The officer asked for my identity card and when I gave it to him, he took a good look and asked me if it was a fake,” he said.

“I’ve gotten used to all the puzzled stares. Maybe it’s just God’s way of testing me,” said Meng Sain, who was baptised a Catholic when he was 12.

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After decades of advocating Tibetan independence, India now accepts Chinese control of Tibet, much to the chagrin of thousands of Tibetan refugees in Dharamsala. [CSM]

I’m disappointed, but not at all surprised to hear this news. Like any newly popular teenager, India is kicking its penniless lover out of bed for a wealther swain. India has ended its support for a free Tibet, and is seriously cozying up to China. It’s getting increased commerce, a new border agreement, China’s acceptance of India’s invasion and annexation of Sikkim, and China’s tacit consent of how India treats its own domestic independence movements.

The kissy-face between India and China today is a substantial change from the four decades of frosty relations between the two countries. Why? It’s all about the benjamins, ‘natch:

India’s bilateral trade with China touched $13.6bn last year with the balance of trade reportedly favouring Delhi. The two sides were surprised with the growth in bilateral trade as it was a mere $1bn a decade ago. Experts say with this rate of growth, China may soon overtake the US as India’s largest trading partner. Indo-US trade stood at about $20bn in 2004. [BBC]

Bilateral investment is going up as well, and mainly in one direction:

Indian investments in China crossed $100m last year. On the other hand, China feels the Indian economy is not opening up to Chinese investments, which remain at a mere $20m. With the Indian side now favouring 100% foreign investment in the construction sector, Beijing hopes to increase its presence in India. [BBC]

With increased commerce comes … cheesy lines from politicians:

On a visit yesterday to India’s technology capital of Bangalore, Premier Wen urged Indian software companies to come to China and take advantage of his nation’s manufacturing capabilities. “Cooperation is just like two pagodas, one hardware and one software,” Wen said. “Combined, we [India and China] can take the leadership position in the world.” [CSM]

[Somebody please get Premier Wen some game! We’re dying here.]

Is this a good idea for India? Should it trust China even as it plans to build a jet fighter with Pakistan? How much does India in fact trust China? Well … Continue reading →

Remember how everybody in 7th grade would snicker in SexEd when the teacher would put a condom on a banana? Well, Indians are far thriftier than that. Instead of wasting a perfectly good condom on a banana, they use the condoms to weave a sari, and use just the banana as birth control. Well, kinda:

India’s western state of Maharashtra has told banana and sugar cane farmers they will not get water for irrigation if they have more than two children. The state’s water minister says the move will help curb the rising population and solve water shortages. The bill also requires all banana and sugar cane farmers, regardless of child numbers, to use drip or sprinkling systems of irrigation within five year or lose their supply. The bill is targeting the crops because of the large amount of water they require. The upper house of the state’s parliament has backed the bill and it will go to the lower house on Monday. If the bill is approved into law it will not apply to farmers who already have more than two children. Maharashtra is agriculturally one of India’s most advanced states but has suffered bad droughts … that have led to hundreds of farmers committing suicide. [Note: Quotes out of order from the original BBC article]

Would this have been half as funny if I had posted about sugar cane? Continue reading →

A Citibank call center worker in Pune allegedly stole $350K from NYC customers’ accounts via electronic transfer (via Slashdot). It sounds like he and 11 of his closest friends may have done the nasty via online banking:

Thomas, who worked in the callcentre for six months… had the secret pincodes of the customers’ e-mail IDs… In January, he roped in his friends and transferred money from four accounts of the bank’s New York-based customers into their own accounts, opened under fictitious names… The customers, from whose accounts the money had been withdrawn, alerted the bank officials in the US, after which the crime was traced to Pune…

… police sources said some of those arrested were employees of Msource [a subsidiary of Mphasis], Kalyaninagar. Police sources said the alleged mastermind [was] Ivan Samuel Thomas (30) of Sangamnagar…

Mphasis, which owns the call center, is a multinational with an office on Park Ave. It’s not known whether Thomas actually uttered the line, ‘Thank you, come again.’ Indian cops are gently questioning the suspects with their special brand of TLC.

A while back Manish had a post featuring a multimedia exhibit titled “DISAPPEARED IN AMERICA.”

Since 9/11, thousands of American Muslims were detained in a security dragnet. To date, none have been prosecuted on terrorism charges. The majority of those detained were from the invisible underclass of cities like New York. They are the recent immigrants who drive our taxis, deliver our food, clean our restaurant tables, and sell fruit, coffee, and newspapers. The only time we see their faces are when we glance at the hack license in the taxi partition, or the ID card around the neck of a vendor.

SM Tipster “Joykee” sends us this article hot off the NYTimes press:

For years, the father said, he watched as his daughter, now 16, became more and more drawn to the family’s Muslim religion. At 14, she began wearing a full-length veil and teaching religion classes at mosques around the city.

A year ago, she withdrew from her Manhattan high school because, a school official said, she felt uncomfortable with typical teenage banter. She told her family she wanted to go to an Islamic all-girls school, and when they could not afford to send her, she chose to study at home.

The father, a Bangladeshi watch salesman who describes himself as far more devoted to American education than to prayer after 13 years as an immigrant illegally in the United States, said he pushed for his daughter to return to public school.

Then last fall, the daughter he also describes as loving Bollywood soap operas and shopping with girlfriends startled him and her mother by seeking their approval to marry a young American Muslim man they had never met and whom she barely knew. The father refused the marriage overtures, which were made by the young man’s father in a call from Michigan.

A few months later, when the teenager stayed out overnight for the first time, the father, fearing an elopement, went to the police for help.

It is a decision he regrets deeply. His daughter and another 16-year-old girl are now described by the government as would-be suicide bombers and are being held in a detention center for illegal immigrants in Pennsylvania. He is sure that his visit to the police set off the F.B.I. investigation that led to a chilling assertion, in a government document, that the girls are “an imminent threat to the security of the United States based on evidence that they plan to be suicide bombers.” Family and friends call that absurd.

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The Bus that will regularly (I hope) make the trip between the Indian an Pakistani controlled parts of Kashmir got its roll on Thursday, despite the brave passengers being attacked by terrorists in their guest house on Wednesday. The Independent reports:

Passengers on a historic bus trip between the Pakistani and Indian portions of Kashmir crossed a bridge spanning the de facto border on Thursday, the halfway point on a voyage both sides hope will lead to lasting peace on the subcontinent.

Family members kept apart during more than a half-century of bloodshed waited anxiously to receive their loved ones, while Indian officials offered the visitors from the Pakistani Kashmiri capital of Muzaffarabad marigold garlands and bouquets of flowers. One passenger waved a victory sign.

Two buses from Srinagar, the capital of Indian Kashmir, were expected to arrive later at the heavily militarized Line of Control, where a 220-foot long bridge closed since the 1940s connects a winding and rutted road through the Himalayas.

The bus service started a day after an attack in Srinagar by suspected Islamic militants on a guesthouse where passengers were staying. Six people were injured but the passengers escaped unharmed. Both sides vowed not to let militants disrupt the occasion.

I must say that I really admire the courage of those passengers. You’d find it difficult to get me onto a bus moving through ambush-able territory knowing that every militant for hundreds of miles around would be gunning for me. I know security was tight, but still. In a way, the “elderly” passengers riding this bus reminded me of Rosa Parks daring the MAN to do his worst. ABC News reports:

Nineteen Indian Kashmiris, mostly elderly, defied separatist threats and crossed the metal bridge — painted neutral white for the occasion — hours after 31 Pakistanis walked into India to reunite divided families. “I can’t control my emotion. I am setting foot in my motherland,” said a tearful Shahid Bahar, a lawyer from the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, Muzaffarabad. “I am coming here for the first time to meet my blood relations,” said Bahar, whose father crossed over in 1949. “It was my dream. It is unbelievable. Everyone is here.” On both sides, they were hugged and kissed by relatives they had not held for decades, or in some cases, ever. “It’s for the first time that I have seen my uncle,” sobbed Noreen Arif, an adviser to Pakistani Kashmir’s prime minister, hugging him tearfully as he stepped off the bridge.

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Nirali Magazine gives us another reason to love them ever so much: This month’s issue includes a full-fledged feature about “Numb3rs” actress Navi Rawat, complete with a dizzying array of photos —

With her impressive resume of film and television roles and a number of upcoming projects in the works, Navi Rawat certainly lives up to the “One To Watch” moniker. Whether as a literature scholar, dramatic actress, kick-ass heroine, sensitive girl, multi-ethnic woman or the down-to-earth girl next door, she reveals a number of different faces, each with its own particular power and grace. And that very versatility and talent ensures that hers will soon be a familiar face you won’t forget. [Nirali Magazine]

Other notable articles:

• Finding a Modern Male — Roxanna Kassam lists five things to look for when trying to bag a “thoroughly modern South Asian male” South Asian metrosexual.
• The Wedding Planner — Sonia Kaur’s IndianWeddingSite.com takes the pain out of planning the day of reckoning. Her site is great, but desperately needs a section on shotgun Indian weddings. Depending on the e.p.t® results, it could soon come in very handy around here.
• A Traditional Beauty — Shobha Tummala successfully brings threading, a traditional Indian method of hair removal, to salons in New York City. Couldn’t hurt to give it a try. At the very least, it has got be safer than the Mach3 we’re currently using to shear our scrotum.

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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 →