My senior year (1997) at the University of Michigan, The Indian American Students Association (IASA) had a novel idea. Why not create a Gandhi Day of Service where people perform volunteer work in honor of his birth anniversary? The next year the idea was picked up nationally and is now in its sixth year. Tomorrow, schools and organizations around the country will participate. From the NGDOS website:

MISSION: National Gandhi Day of Service (NGDOS) is an annual event sponsored by South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow (SAALT) to inspire and empower people around the world through civic engagement and community service. Participants will be united through Gandhi’s common values of equality, tolerance and nonviolence, regardless of ethnicity, racial or religious background.

VISION: To establish NGDOS as a widely recognized and well-respected event that fosters involvement in community service and civic engagement. NGDOS will provide the platform for meaningful service that highlights the universal beliefs of compassion, selflessness, and unity.

HISTORY OF NGDOS: The First Gandhi Day of Service took place on October 4, 1997 at the University of Michigan. Organized by the Indian American Student Association (IASA), their vision was to unify people through the common goal of serving communities in need. On that day, 200 students throughout the campus collaborated for a day of speakers, group interaction, and a range of volunteer projects. The tremendous response received for Gandhi Day of Service led to its expansion in 1999. The First National-level Gandhi Day of Service was a huge success, involving 20 universities and 2000 students nationwide.

Last year, over seven thousand volunteers from over two hundred universities and organizations contributed over twenty five thousand hours of community service in memory of the teachings and spirit of Mohandas K. Gandhi. Join us this October and help make the sixth annual Gandhi Day an even bigger success!

Please check out their site and volunteer if you can.

Well why not? We outsource everything else. It’s good for a free market economy. On September 20th I wrote about the deportation of a Sikh man who claimed he would be tortured if returned to India. You see, it is against international agreements for the U.S. to deport someone if they know that person will be subjected to torture. In the case of th Sikh man there was controversy as to whether or not his claims were false. Soon though, that argument may be irrelevant. From the Washington Post:

The Bush administration is supporting a provision in the House leadership’s intelligence reform bill that would allow U.S. authorities to deport certain foreigners to countries where they are likely to be tortured or abused, an action prohibited by the international laws against torture the United States signed 20 years ago.

The provision, part of the massive bill introduced Friday by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), would apply to non-U.S. citizens who are suspected of having links to terrorist organizations but have not been tried on or convicted of any charges. Democrats tried to strike the provision in a daylong House Judiciary Committee meeting, but it survived on a party-line vote.

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Slate magazine pokes fun at America’s continuing electronic voting anxiety by using India as an example of how to do things right:

While we in the United States agonize over touch screens and paper trails, India managed to quietly hold an all-electronic vote. In May, 380 million Indians cast their votes on more than 1 million machines. It was the world’s largest experiment in electronic voting to date and, while far from perfect, is widely considered a success. How can an impoverished nation like India, where cows roam the streets of the capital and most people’s idea of high-tech is a flush toilet, succeed where we have not?

Apparently India uses an incredibly simple technology that may not be as fancy as the machines here, but does the job well. Continue reading →

It is well known that there is a growing unease between black South Africans and Indians in South Africa. How bad is it? A recent poll suggests that are large percentage of Indians there think that things were better during apartheid. From Rediff.com:

Despite their support for the ruling African National Congress, more Indians than whites in South Africa were unhappy with the present dispensation and prefer the former apartheid regime to the present democratic state, a survey by ANC has revealed.

The survey, conducted in the Guateng region (which has an Indian population of over 3,00,000) revealed that 37 per cent of Indian respondents replied in the affirmative when asked whether they prefer going back to the apartheid regime compared to 19 per cent of whites who made the same choice.

There is of course a lot of racial tension between the two groups:

The [poll] has made the ANC deduce that the “skepticism” of the Indian and coloured communities towards the government was due to the perception that before they were “not white enough and now they are not black enough.”

I remember hearing about a racist song out of South Africa not so long ago (2002) that was very popular.

A new song [2002] by renowned South African composer and producer Mbongeni Ngema is causing a racial stir — this time round between blacks and Indians. The song, “Amandiya,” which means “Indians” in Zulu, has lyrics describing the country’s Indian population as abusive to black people, and being more racist than whites.

Ngema’s song blames Indians for taking advantage of blacks. He denounces the influx of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent, who he says are flooding into South Africa, so much so that “a brave man is required to confront” them.

The song struck a wrong musical note with the country’s leading politicians and human rights activists, who are wary that the song could provoke racial hatred in a country that prides itself on its new commitment to multiracial cooperation after years of apartheid rule. As of June 19, it was removed from the public airwaves until further notice.

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Scientists believe that the Indian curry leaf – an ingredient in many curry dishes and used in traditional Indian healing, may contain agents that slow down the rate of starch-to-glucose breakdown in people with diabetes. The tree’s leaves could control the amount of glucose entering the bloodstream. [link]

A life sized bronze statue of ‘Mahatma’ Gandhi will be unveiled and put on permanent display in Houston, TX this Satarday on the anniversary of his birth. IndoLink reports:

The statue, sculpted in India by renowned artist Ram Sutar, has been gifted to the citizens of greater Houston by the Indian government as a gesture of goodwill and friendship.

Houston Mayor Bill Whitwill formally accepted the statue in the presence of Indian Ambassador to United States, Ronen Sen.

The six-feet bronze statue will be unveiled on October 2, the birthday of Mahatama Gandhi, in the city’s landmark — Hermann Park, which is frequented by millions of tourists each year.

I’m a tad skeptical, but hey – :: Xinhuanet – English ::

NEW DELHI, Sept. 26 (Xinhuanet) — India’s unmanned moon mission -Chandrayan – is expected to take place in 2007-08 as it is progressing smoothly, the country’s space agency chief G. MadhavanNair said here Sunday. “There has been a lot of debate in the scientific community whether we should do this because of the huge cost, but what I would like to say is that the total cost of the project is just Rs.3.8 billion (83 million US dollars),” Nair, chairman of the IndianSpace Research Organization (ISRO), told reporters.

$83M USD sounds insanely cheap but Nasa’s Lunar Prospector was done for only $62M so perhaps that’s the proper ballpark.

Remember how lots of Americans are suspicious of guys in turbans? Now we’re actually hiring Sikhs to tote firepower around U.S. Army bases. It plays in Peoria, though, because these American Sikhs are white:

In the straight-laced world of the security business, where most people have a police or military background, Akal stands out. It is the only security company that anyone in the business, including Akal’s own executives, can think of that is owned by a nonprofit religious organization. “If we are in a room with 50 other contractors, you won’t remember the other guy, but you will remember us,” said Mr. Khalsa, who wears a white turban, has a long beard and refrains from cutting his hair.

In all fairness, although the owners are turbaned Sikhs, the guards generally are not. American Sikhs are an enterprising group with a CEO from Harvard Business School (thanks, Ennis) and a consumer products empire pulling in $60M annually:

Akal is just one of several for-profit and nonprofit entities that are part of a larger Sikh Dharma financial empire. These include Golden Temple, a natural foods company that makes Yogi herbal teas, Soothing Touch health and beauty products, Peace natural cereals, dietary supplements and private-label products for Trader Joe’s, the specialty food chain.

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