Shashwati reports backs from the protest against Modi at Madison Square Garden (photos here):

Among the anti-Modi and anti-Hindutva signs were some anti-Indian Army in Kashmir signs… the Kashmir folks had been piggybacking on the anti-Modi protest. They were politely banished to the other side of Seventh Avenue…

The passersby hurried by in a typical New York rush, some holding up their fingers in a peace sign, without slowing down… Stan asked him if it was true that two thousand people had been killed, the man very matter of factly answered, “sometimes people needed to be disciplined and taught a lesson…” They looked like they had been herded by the more affluent Indians, who were the organizers of the show. Unlike the folks who had been bussed in, most of these people weren’t wearing a tilak, and were barking orders in their walkie-talkies, and generally looking self satisfied. I spoke to a woman in a leather jacket, I asked her what she thought of the proceedings, which she had been watching with an eagle eye, she answered with great unsmiling certainty, “Modi will be the next great leader.”

While she was chatting up the better heeled delegates, a man draped in a saffron shawl stood on top of the steps, not speaking to anyone and standing very still. He seemed to be committing every protestor’s face to memory… At that point a very large man in a trench coat and hat told me to clear the sidewalk. he was the detective in charge. He was the spitting image of Orson Welles in “A Touch of Evil.”

On my way home, I shared a bus ride with some middle aged Gujarati people who had gone to the event, they seemed like nice people. It was chilling to think that they were unmoved by the brutal killing of so many people…

‘Modi will be the next great leader’? Where do they find these people, under the same rock as David Duke groupies?

Previous posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Wealthy singles in Bombay are getting their first taste of speed dating, which works by bringing together a group of the unattached, and giving them three minutes to impress one another before moving on to the next potential date:

Organisers feel Mumbai was the right venue as it is India’s most liberal and cosmopolitan city. “Mumbai accepts a lot, its very tolerant city,” says Sandeep Shetty, one of the local organisers. Another organiser, Maha Khan, 25, a London-based British Asian who runs the Asian Speed D8, believes India is ready for speed dating. “I think cities like Mumbai are ready for a safe, informal way of getting to know each other face-to-face with a view to finding partners.” [BBC News]

Experts say the western phenomenon of speed dating is bound to find success in India, as it perfectly complements its centuries-old tradition of speed marriage.

BBC News: Speed dating comes to India
Speed dating sites: Asian Speed D8, BombaySpeedD8

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The Asian American Hotel Owners Association is canceling its invitation to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi:

[AAHOA chairman Mike Patel] said Gujaratis settled in USA have decided to stand by the decision of the US administration on the visa issue. He said, “We support the decision of the American government on this issue.” Patel pleaded with Modi to expedite the process of justice for the riot victims in the state…

Modi’s search for the real killers will proceed about as quickly as Robert Blake’s and O.J. Simpson’s. But the Association of Indians of North America wouldn’t know a losing cause if it bit them in the ass. It’s hosting Modi via satellite feed at Madison Square Garden on Sunday:

[The Association of Indian-Americans of North America (AIANA)], the organiser of the public meeting in the Madison Square Garden in New York, said they plan to put up a huge screen in the hall to telecast Modi’s speech live from Gandhinagar… An [AIANA] spokesperson claimed that the organisation represented the point of view of the majority of Indian-Americans in the United States.

AIANA is feting the man behind the abbatoir of Ahmedabad. They sure as hell don’t speak for me. ‘Aina’ means mirror in Hindi — they need to take a good, hard look at what they really stand for.

In related news, desi Christians have set a new record for longest acronym: the Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North America applauded the visa denial.

John Prabhudoss, the chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee of FIACONA, said, “I applaud the decision of the State Department and I thank the US Congress for standing with us in the effort. Those who invited Modi to honour him in the US have done so in total neglect for the pain and suffering he has caused to hundreds of thousands of people in Gujarat and elsewhere…”

Update: Here’s a good way to show someone you disagree: torch an unrelated party’s godown.

Nearly 150 activists barged into the warehouse of U.S.-based PepsiCo in the western city of Surat, smashed bottles and set fire to the place…

Update 2: AAHOA is sending mixed signals about whether it still wants Modi to speak.

Previous posts: 1, 2

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A desi girl from South Africa was rejected by a med school, but her desi friend with lower grades was accepted. Keeping up with the Junejas, the family filed a lawsuit. In court, the med school admitted it had mistaken the friend to be black:

A doctor of Indian origin in South Africa has filed an appeal in Cape Town High Court after his daughter was refused admission to a medical school… He pointed out that [the University of Cape Town med school] had accepted Sunira’s friend, also of Indian origin, although her result was not as good. The friend was accepted because the university believed she was African… [Telegraph]

Due to South Africa’s discriminatory history, the UCT med school has explicit racial quotas for admissions. It even mandates that 2/3rds of its students be female, which must be a major bonus for male applicants:

… UCT’s “target equity mixes” for first-time-entering medicine undergraduates were set at 42 percent black, 28 percent white, 16 percent coloured and 14 percent Indian. Gender targets required 65 percent of these students to be female and 35 percent male. [Pretoria News]

The parents objected to assuming a disadvantaged background even of wealthy blacks:

They pointed to documents that showed that all African and coloured students who applied to study medicine at UCT were considered to be “educationally disadvantaged” even if they attended private schools. [Cape Argus]

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For those of you who have never had the privilege of listening to the radio program This American Life, you are missing out on quite simply the best radio program on U.S. airways. If you have listened to the program, in your car perhaps, you are sitting in front of your computer nodding your head in agreement right now. This past weekend one of the three acts in a program titled “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” featured a young man from Pakistan making his first trip home after traveling to the United States for an education. He reflects on the freedoms and opportunity he has been given in the U.S. versus the desire to return home and to be with his family. He has changed a great deal, as has the society he had left behind. He attends a party with vodka flowing and 50 cent’s music playing, and yet is shunned when he goes to speak to a girl at the party (you can’t go up to a girl in an Islamic culture he explains). At the heart of this story is a choice. Does he return to his native Pakistan and “serve his country,” or does he explore his full potential in the U.S? Should he stay or should he go? By the end of the story he decides and gives the rationale for his decision. Put your headphones on right now. Tune out work, and tune in to his story.

Note: the story is in the first act of the radio program and starts at 4 min and 45 sec and ends at 25 min and 15 seconds. Continue reading →

From mobile ultrasound units that determine if a baby needs to be extinguished to bribery for keeping them, India now offers it all;

Families having a single girl child in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh will be given 100,000 rupees ($2,300) in an attempt to boost the female population…

…The state government says it is concerned at the falling female-to-male ratio – in 2001 it was 943 to 1,000.

The only-child receives the money as soon as she turns 20. In addition to that payola, from ages 14-17 (9th through 12th grade), a yearly grant of Rs. 1,250 will be available for the girl’s educational expenses. If either parent passes away, Rs. 50,000 is provided immediately. See? Attractive!

To ensure that the girl is a couple’s ONLY child, both parents must be sterilised;

…both parents would have to undergo operations certified and verified by government hospitals to qualify for the scheme.

Oh, and what’s a scheme without some PR?

The Andhra Pradesh government says it is also planning a major publicity campaign to promote female children.

It has named the rising Indian tennis star and local girl, Sania Mirza, as the “ambassador of the girl child of Andhra Pradesh”.

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So. J.Lo does German TV wearing a very unique outfit; embroidered on the cuff of her white dead-animal-skin with more dead-animal fur-hooded jacket, there is a logo that includes an Iron Cross, a lightning bolt and skulls.

I don’t expect any of you to connect the dots THIS late in the day, so I’ll just TELL you what’s up– the design resembles patches that were once worn by SS troops during WWII. Thanks to Adolf Hitler, the Iron Cross transitioned from a “proud symbol of courage among German soldiers” to something that represented the Third Reich.

Many of you are aware of another symbol that was tragically misappropriated by Hitler– the swastika. Well, the way that Hitler ruined the Iron Cross was by–you guessed it (assuming you intellectuals are still reading about our gen’s liz taylor)–slamming a swastika on it. Heil Assh@le.

J.Lo’s taste in clothing always gets attention, but this time Drudge and the pajamahadeen are on her like a potential husband.

From Drudge’s site:

The designer of the one-of-a-kind, $2,300 jacket, Jeff Sebilia, says his imagery not only doesn’t endorse Nazism, but is meant “to make people aware of just how powerful imagery can be. We all know the swastika was a peaceful Hindu image, and we know what the Nazis did to that. I think we can use imagery that has stark emotion and make it our own.”

Suuuuuure. Hide behind the “Hindu” explanation. I have no doubt that when people see this swastika-less coat of his, they are thinking, “oh, isn’t it sad that something good from Hinduism was so misused?” :p

I’m positive that’s what J.Lo had in mind, too; she was obviously reclaiming symbols– for all of us. Continue reading →

Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM) is organizing a rally on Saturday, March 5th at noon in Queens “to protest attacks on immigrant communities and to demand that Governor Pataki and other political representatives recognize all immigrants’ right to a driver’s license.” This according to their press release:

The New York State Department of Motor Vehicles initiated plans last year that would result in the suspension of nearly 300,000 immigrants’ driver’s licenses and inappropriately use the DMV as an immigration agency. Over 40 organizations, mostly based in Queens and many belonging to the New York Coalition for Immigrants’ Rights to Driver’s Licenses, have come together to form the Queens Drivers’ License Coalition and will march in opposition to this policy. They are demanding that the right to drive be recognized as an immigrant worker rights issue, that all drivers be granted one license (no separate driving permits for immigrants), that DMV not act as immigration enforcement, and that Governor Pataki and other elected officials stop pushing immigrant workers underground.

Obviously this issue is of great importance to the South Asian community, many of who make their living as drivers:

Moni Alam, a Bangladeshi mother of two and family organizer at DRUM, expresses, “My husband, who is also a target of Special Registration, is very worried that his driver’s license will be taken away and that the DMV will help the Department of Homeland Security to deport him. He drives a taxi six days a week and if he can’t do his work, our family will have no income and we’ll be pushed further underground. I want to ask Governor Pataki and the DMV, ‘How will we survive?’”

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