Category Archives: News

Synchronized Bombs Kill Two in Bangalore

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In a move “designed to create panic”, at least seven small bombs exploded in Bangalore, earlier today (thanks Janeofalltrades and smallpress):

Bangalore Police Commissioner Shankar Bidri said the seven blasts went off within several minutes of each other at different spots across the city. One woman was killed in an explosion at a bus stop in the city’s Madiwala neighborhood, he said.
Another person died later of his injuries, federal Home Minister Shivraj Patil said.
Bidri said each of the small bombs contained the amount of explosives equal to “one or two grenades” and appeared to have been set off by timers. [AP]

No one has owned the terrorist act, which took aim at the city’s neighborhoods (vs. its companies), as of yet.

The police took pains to say that the city’s famed technology sector did not seem to be targeted, and that the blasts were designed to create panic. The blasts took place in crowded, middle-class neighborhoods. The city has grown rapidly in recent years from a boom in technology outsourcing.
By Indian standards, where several cities have been hit in recent years by large-scale terror attacks, the explosions on Friday were relatively minor. In the last major attack, serial blasts in Jaipur, an historic city and a main tourist hub in western Rajasthan, killed more than 60 people in May. The authorities have said in the past that terror attacks were designed to sow hostility and fear among Indian Muslims and Hindus.

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Coming Out Swinging

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Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is often described, not entirely without reason, as a somewhat passive and non-confrontational leader — an accidental politician, with the real strings being pulled, behind the scenes, by Sonia Gandhi. (Manmohan may wear the Pagri, but Sonia wears the pants, as it were.)

However, in the speech he gave yesterday in the Indian Parliament before the Confidence Vote (which the UPA government won, by about 20 votes), Manmohan Singh showed no signs of meekness or passivity. Indeed, his take-down of BJP leader L.K. Advani is rhetorically ferocious. I was impressed:

“The Leader of Opposition, Shri L.K. Advani has chosen to use all manner of abusive objectives to describe my performance. He has described me as the weakest Prime Minister, a nikamma PM, and of having devalued the office of PM. To fulfill his ambitions, he has made at least three attempts to topple our government. But on each occasion his astrologers have misled him. This pattern, I am sure, will be repeated today. At his ripe old age, I do not expect Shri Advani to change his thinking. But for his sake and India’s sake, I urge him at least to change his astrologers so that he gets more accurate predictions of things to come.

As for Shri Advani’s various charges, I do not wish to waste the time of the House in rebutting them. All I can say is that before leveling charges of incompetence on others, Shri Advani should do some introspection. Can our nation forgive a Home Minister who slept when the terrorists were knocking at the doors of our Parliament? Can our nation forgive a person who single handedly provided the inspiration for the destruction of the Babri Masjid with all the terrible consequences that followed? To atone for his sins, he suddenly decided to visit Pakistan and there he discovered new virtues in Mr. Jinnah. Alas, his own party and his mentors in the RSS disowned him on this issue. Can our nation approve the conduct of a Home Minister who was sleeping while Gujarat was burning leading to the loss of thousands of innocent lives? Our friends in the Left Front should ponder over the company they are forced to keep because of miscalculations by their General Secretary. (link)

Unfortunately, I gather the din was too great for the speech to actually be heard. But hey, at least he tried to say it.

In terms of content, the only thing that seems off key here is the reference to Advani’s “ripe old age” — I’m not sure that a 75 year old man can really get away with that comment! (Advani, for reference, is even older — about 81.)

The rest of the speech (read it here in its entirety) is more focused on substantively defending the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal and the general policies of the current government. It is, by comparison to the above, a bit dull… but necessary.

In the interest of opposing dullness, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention the second remarkable thing that happened in the chaotic Parliamentary session yesterday: Continue reading →

SM T-shirt contest: Making a Fashion Statement at the DNC

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Folks, it is time to get excited about the fact that we will have greater South Asian participation than ever in this year’s Presidential election. Through this blog we also hope to provide a perspective from the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Denver next month that has been missing in previous years. This has been one of the long term goals of this blog after all. I will sniff out every conceivable brown angle I can find once I get there (especially if Huma is there). However, I would like to make this event as bi-directional as possible. I don’t want to show up there and simply write about what I want to write about. I want you all to send me ideas for what you’d like to learn. I’d like you guys to get me in touch with other South Asians you know will be there. I also want to know what you’d like me to communicate to the other bloggers and citizens I meet while I’m there.

In the spirit of that last point, and so we can have some fun with this, I am asking you guys to dress me. That’s right. You, the SM readers get to decide what I will wear on the convention floor next month. It is simple really: design a t-shirt that features a political or social (but non-partisan) message and I can order it using Café Press, Threadless, or one of many other internet t-shirt companies. Send me the design at abhi [at] sepiamutiny dot com. I will narrow it down to the best entries and have SM readers vote on the finalists. I will be at the convention for three full days so I will purchase up to three winning t-shirts to wear on the floor. The more clever/funny/relevant/socially conscious your t-shirt, the more likely it is to grab attention and communicate your message to all the varied citizens expected to be in Denver (the picture below is a perfect example of what I’m looking for). Let’s have some fun with this. My mom (retired from a major department store) has been dressing me all these years. It’s time for you guys to have a turn.

Just a clarification: I am looking for full t-shirt Designs, not merely slogans or catchphrases.

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Closure for Dr. Sneha Philip, 9/11 Victim

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After a long court battle, the family of Dr. Sneha Philip is feeling some closure. The New York medical examiner’s office has finally concluded that she must have died in the twin towers, and restored her name to the list of official victims of the terror attacks (thanks, Art Vandalay).

Her name had been removed from the list in 2006, after a judge found that there was no conclusive evidence she had been in the towers on 9/11. She did not work there, but she and her husband did live a block away. She’s seen on a video camera, buying shoes at Century21, on the evening of September 10. The problem is, she did not come home that evening. When investigators began looking into her activities more closely, they discovered that this wasn’t entirely unusual — Sneha Philip often went out to bars, and sometimes spent the night at the homes of “strangers unknown to her husband.” The judge in 2006 seemed to think that as a result there wasn’t enough evidence that she was in the area — and that it’s speculation to say that she voluntarily went into the towers after the planes hit to try and help people.

The most detailed study of Ron Liberman and Sneha Philip’s story, along with evidence for and against the idea that she died in the Twin Towers on 9/11, is here, in a long article in New York magazine. I would strongly recommend reading it.

I hesitated posting on this a little, because I’m not really into gossip about people’s private miseries — Sneha Philip and Ron Philip’s Liberman’s lifestyle, and the nature of their marriage, isn’t really our concern. And the fact that Sneha Philip seems to have had some alcohol issues doesn’t mean she wouldn’t have tried to use her skills and knowledge to help people on the morning of September 11.

Two tidbits worth keeping in mind: the 9/11 victim’s fund is closed, which means there’s no financial benefit to Ron Philip or Sneha’s parents in Albany. Secondly, there’s at least one other case of someone for whom there’s no proof he was in the towers on 9/11 being included on the list — Juan Lafuente called his mother on September 8, telling her that he was starting a job three blocks from the WTC, and was never heard from again. There is no forensic or direct evidence he was there, but his name has remained on the list. Continue reading →

Izzat? It isn’t

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I’ve never quite understood what “Izzat” means, since it covers behavior I think of as thoroughly dishonorable and fails to cover other things that I think of as being quite honorable. But now, thanks to two tragedies in Georgia that have recently been in the news, I think I understand. Izzat means kill the bride.

Exhibit A: Chaudhry Rashid and his daughter Sandeela Kanwal

Rashid is accused of having killed his daughter because she wanted to get out of her arranged marriage:

Authorities allege that Rashid killed his daughter because he feared that her resistance to a recently arranged marriage would disgrace the Pakistani-American family… “She was very unhappy with the marriage, had not seen the husband in three months and was seeking a divorce,” … “The father felt like the he had to uphold his family’s honor…” [Link]

Let’s ignore for a second the fact that in Islam marriage is a civil affair and divorce is allowed. And let’s ignore the fact that if the marriage broke down, some responsibility must reasonably lay with the person responsible for choosing the groom. And let’s ignore the fact that the father was married to an American, so he clearly had not had an arranged marriage himself.

If the police account is correct (and Rashid has been charged but not yet tried, so the facts are not all out and there is no verdict), Rashid saw his daughter’s behavior as bringing disgrace to the family, and believed that the only way to set things right was to kill his daughter.

Exhibit B: Chiman Rai and his daughter-in-law Sparkle Michelle Rai

In this case, it’s Chiman Rai’s son, Ricky, who the father feels has stained the escutcheon by marrying a black woman, Sparkle Reid. The son is the one who has dishonored the family here, right? So what does the father do? Disinherit him? Kill his son? Nope – he hires hitmen to kill his daughter-in-law: Continue reading →

Where’s the brownz?

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Recently, Fuerza Dulce buzzed me on IM to ask me if I was going to the conference on “Blogging while Brown.” A BwB conference? I’d not heard of such a thing, but website masthead was promising, claiming that this was a conference “for, by and about bloggers of color.”

I eagerly looked to see who they had invited as panelists, expecting to see some of my favorite desi bloggers mentioned, and perhaps some new ones I had not yet encountered. But there was not a single desi name listed of any sort, neither ABD, DBD, IBD, PBD, BBD, SLBD, NBD nor BVD.

Nor were there any Arab or Latino bloggers, another possibility for a conference on “brown bloggers.”

In fact, every single blogger listed was African-American. Blogging while brown may well have been true in terms of skin color, since “black” is a misnomer when describing the hue of African-Americans, but in all colloquial meanings of the word, the conference would better have been described as “Blogging while Black.” And while the bloggers on the panel were all bloggers of color, they represented only one slice of the “of color” spectrum.

What puzzles me is why the promoters of the conference aren’t be honest about what they’re doing. Why not just call themselves Blogging While Black? Are we so cool now that even black folks want to be brown?

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Sam Manekshaw and Obama

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On June 27th, India’s Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji “Sam Bahadur” Jamshedji Manekshaw died at age 94. Manekshaw was one of the heros of the 1971 India-Pakistan war, and an extremely popular figure in India:

Sam Manekshaw, who has died at the age of 94, was the first general of the modern Indian army to be made a field marshal; he was awarded this honorary rank in 1973, at the end of his four years as chief of army staff. His career lasted almost four decades, saw five wars, and culminated in his successful masterminding of the Indo-Pakistan war of 1971. [Link]

As an ABD I had never heard of Sam Bahadur until somebody sent me this statement from the Obama campaign:

“I offer my deep condolences to the people of India, on the passing of Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw. He was a legendary soldier, a patriot, and an inspiration to his fellow citizens. Field Marshal Manekshaw provided an example of personal bravery, self-sacrifice, and steadfast devotion to duty that began before India’s independence, and will deservedly be remembered far into the future.” [Link]

Who in the campaign knew about Manekshaw? The new India brain trust had:

Obama’s statement is a product of a new India policy team set up two weeks ago within his campaign team. The team, co-chaired by two prominent Indian-Americans Vinod Khosla and Swadesh Chatterjee, includes some 20 Indian-Americans and South Asia experts from Bill Clinton’s administration. A key member of the team and the only Indian-American in Obama’s inner circle is Preeta Bansal, a Harvard Law School colleague of Obama. [Link]

What benefit does the campaign get from this? It wont help them with this Indian government if Obama becomes POTUS; neither the defense minister, nor the service chiefs, nor a single member of parliament were at the funeral.

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Sabhnanis sentenced

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Last week, on Thursday and Friday, a federal judge handed down sentences to the Sabhnanis, the couple in Long Island who were charged with enslaving and torturing their Indonesian maids (Previous SM coverage: 1, 2, 3).

  • Varsha Sabhnani, identified as the person responsible for torturing the maids, received 11 years in prison.
  • Her husband, Mahender Sabhnani, was sentenced to 40 months in prison for allowing the crimes to take place and benefitting from them.

The sensational details of this case caught the attention of the mainstream press, as did the resemblance of Varsha Sabhnani to a certain Disney villain. I can imagine this made other Indian families in Long Island, especially the ones who knew the Sabhnanis, a bit unconfortable.

What I can’t understand is why their friend, Jotwani, thought that this would be a defense:

“This case is very frightening for Indian families here,” said Bharat Jotwani, a wealthy friend of the Sabhnanis’ who lives nearby. “We are all educated, nice people. We came here to make it…”

“There is no way on earth any Indian family in the United States could do what they were accused of,” he said. “The [Indian] people I know here all feel this way. Anybody from India who has come here comes from a very good family…” [Link]

WTF? The Sabhnani’s couldn’t possibly be guilty because … they’re educated and nice people from good families? No Indian could possibly commit a crime? I know Jotwani’s speaking uncle-speak here, but I honestly can’t figure out what this would translate to in ABCD English. They couldn’t be criminals because they’re wealthy? Sometimes you just gotta shake your head and wonder …

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Maybe they were sleeping off the booze

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Indian aviation just can’t seem to catch a break. First there was a story about the number of pilots who get grounded because they are have had too much to drink:

Around 50 pilots each year in India are being grounded because they had consumed alcohol before taking a flight, the country’s civil aviation authorities said Tuesday… Civil aviation rules specify that pilots and cabin crew cannot consume alcohol 12 hours before taking a flight… India is one of the fastest growing aviation markets in the world with dozens of new airlines competing with each other everyday, often resulting in pilots forced to fly at short notices. [Link]

Notice that this is meant to be a positive story. Even if pilots are boneheaded, they’re getting caught before they get into the cockpit. If they’re actually catching all the tipsy pilots (and that’s a big if), then oversight authorities have done their job well.

However, there’s no good way to spin this next story other than to point out that at least nobody got hurt:

An Air India flight headed for Mumbai overshot its destination and was halfway to Goa before its dozing pilots were woken out of a deep slumber by air traffic control, a report said…

“After operating an overnight flight, fatigue levels peak — and so the pilots dozed off after taking off from Jaipur,” … The plane flew to Mumbai on autopilot, but when air traffic there tried to help the aircraft land, the plane ignored their instructions and carried on at full speed towards Goa. “It was only after the aircraft reached Mumbai airspace that air traffic control realised it was not responding to any instructions and was carrying on its own course,” the source said.

Finally air traffic control buzzed the cockpit and woke up the pilots, who turned the plane around, the report said. [Link]

Air India has strenuously denied the story, saying that it was merely a communications glitch:

“The report is absolutely incorrect, devoid of facts, misleading and irresponsible. It is a figment of imagination,” Air India spokesman Jitender Bhargava told AFP by telephone from Mumbai. [Link]

Note that a shutdown in communication still doesn’t explain why the pilots neglected to land the airplane as they were supposed to in Bombay. At best Air India is saying that its pilots simply … forgot, and there was nobody to remind them. Maybe they had a bit too much to drink.

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