India Abroad’s Person of the Year

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India Abroad recently held a gala banquet where it announced the magazine’s pick for “Person of the Year.” The event featured live taped messages from President Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Rediff.com, which owns India Abroad, reports:

Special messages from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George Bush were the highlight of the India Abroad annual awards conferred at a gala banquet at the Hotel New York Palace, which was attended by nearly 300 guests, on Friday.

Relations between the United States and India, on the ascendant for a few years but which soared since the July 28 Summit between President George Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Washington, DC, was picked for the India Abroad Event of the Year 2005 award.

In a specially videographed message for the occasion, Prime Minister Singh lauded the Indian American community for the enhancement in relations between the two nations, spoke warmly of his July summit with President Bush, and singled out India Abroad — the oldest, and largest selling weekly Indian newspaper in the United States – for its contribution to furthering Indo-US ties.

Oh wait. You guys want to know who the Person of the Year was, right? It was the Purple-fingered one himself. Good ole’ Bobby Jindal. Bobby has been very busy of late and keeps getting busier by the day. It was just announced that he will accompany Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert on a trip to India. Dennis needed a local who could translate and was familiar with the ways of the Indians. I’m only kidding.

US House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert and Indian American Congressman Bobby Jindal will visit India in January ahead of President George W Bush’s scheduled trip.

A visit by Hastert signifies the importance Congress attaches to the July 18 agreement between Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, charting a strategic cooperation between the two democracies, including in the critical field of civilian nuclear technology…

Hastert, who is the third highest ranking official in the American government hierarchy, will be visiting India with Representative Jindal (Republican-Louisiana), who became the first Indian American to win a Congressional seat in 46 years after his victory in November 2004.

“And that itself is an indication of the rising importance of India, that the speaker of the House will be visiting India,” Representative Joe Wilson, Republican from South Carolina said. [Link]

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Orwellian logic

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The biggest legal news of the week was a decision yesterday by Judge Michael Luttig of the Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. The Fourth is considered the most conservative of the Court of Appeals, and Luttig the most conservative of judges. He makes Roberts and Alito look liberal, which is why the President thought it would be too hard to get him confirmed to the Supreme Court. It must have thus shocked the Bush administration that he sharply rebuked their handling of the Padilla case. If you’ll recall, over three years ago the government accused American CITIZEN Jose Padilla of being a potential “dirty bomber.” He was stripped of his rights as a citizen under the U.S. Constitution and was thrown into jail as an enemy combatant based upon the secret evidence of the Administration. The assertion was that he had no rights. His lawyer, Andrew Patel, appealed his status and it was headed for the Supreme Court after a brief layover in the Fourth. At this point (over three years into the ordeal) the government changed its mind. To paraphrase the Justice Department’s logic, “let’s just change his status and charge him with other crimes so that the existing case cannot be appealed to the Supreme Court.” Not so fast, said Luttig. The Christian Science Monitor reports:

The administration’s actions create “an appearance that the government may be attempting to avoid consideration of our decision [in the Padilla case] by the Supreme Court,” writes Judge J. Michael Luttig in a 13-page order released on Wednesday.

“We believe that the issue [in Padilla’s case] is of sufficient national importance as to warrant consideration by the Supreme Court,” Judge Luttig writes.

The judge went on to criticize the government for underestimating the damage its actions were causing to public perceptions of the war on terror and the government’s credibility before the courts.

“While there could be an objective that could command such a price as all this, it is difficult to imagine what that objective might be,” Luttig writes.

The rebuke carries extra sting, analysts say, because of who delivered it. Luttig is one of the nation’s most conservative appeals court judges and was on the short list of White House favorites for each of the two recent vacancies on the Supreme Court.

It has been a real bad week for Civil Libertarians, hasn’t it? It seems that every time I turn on the television there is news of one of my Constitutional rights is being eroded. Earlier this week Newsweek asked, “why have [Americans] reacted so insipidly to yet another post-9/11 erosion of U.S. civil liberties?” This question was posed in reference to the revelation of illegal wiretaps. I point this out because these two issues are inextricably linked. A U.S. citizen who is spied upon without a warrant can then be labeled an enemy combatant and locked up without any rights, all on the word of the Bush Administration. Why then are they jonesing so bad for a Patriot Act renewal? This method is way more powerful. Continue reading →

Your palace on the ground

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An Air India flight Monday from L.A. to Delhi turned into a comedy of errors which delayed the passengers by two whole days (thanks, Saheli). First day, a tire blew out on takeoff:

As the plane took off, Gursharan said, it shook after a tire burst, startling passengers. The Boeing 747-400 flew over the ocean and circled, dumped fuel and then returned for a bumpy emergency landing. The landing gear dug into the runway, leaving a 7,000-foot-long field of debris that took 40 employees hours to clean up… [Link]

And the Concorde proved that runway debris is murderous.

… the teenager and his family turned on the news to see footage of their plane landing amid a shower of sparks… Airport officials said the pilots made a wise choice to take off, explaining that, if they had aborted, they might not have had enough runway to stop the heavy, fully fueled aircraft. [Link]

Next day, different plane, an engine problem led to a minor passenger revolt:

Flight 136 pushed back from the gate… 2 1/2 hours late… one of the four engines was malfunctioning… the flight crew didn’t provide more detailed information, passengers said, leaving them trapped on the packed jumbo jet for about five hours… Finally, Wenz, the professor, said he just walked through a door that attendants had opened. He climbed down the stairs and off the plane to wait on the tarmac. Other passengers, he said, followed. [Link]

Taking a Delhi-to-Chennai train would’ve been faster than this flight. Last year, an Air India crew forgot to drop landing gear. So if you’re flying Air India, here’s a cheery thought: it may not be Jet Airways, but it sure beats Aeroflot.

Related posts: Air India more efficient than ever, Open skies and Air India

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Always dreaming

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Women from the Nicobar Islands have came up with a creative hack for feminine products handed out by Westerners:

Global NGOs brought in thousands of packets of sanitary napkins and distributed them to the Nicobarese tribal women this year. “Our women don’t use sanitary napkins, so they first used them as toilet paper because there was a water crisis in the islands. Then they made pillows out of them…” [Link]

But cultural misunderstandings can cut both ways. I wonder what NGO women think Indian-style pillows are for:

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Wild Mustangs

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Author Pankaj Mishra read a hilarious snippet of his memoir Butter Chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in Small Town India at the SAJA litfest earlier this year.

Tenzing Tsundue,
Tibetan dissident

I still haven’t tracked down the book, but he just published a piece in the NYT on Tibetan dissidents in India. To me, the most fascinating bit is that the CIA armed Tibetan rebels against China for over a decade:

In the early 70’s, Norbu was among the young Tibetans who dropped out of school, picked up a rifle and joined the Tibetan guerrillas operating out of Mustang, a piece of Nepalese territory that juts into Tibet. The C.I.A. began financing these guerrillas in 1956 and arranged for more than a hundred of them to be trained in the Colorado Rockies in what was one of the most secret anti-Communist operations of the cold war.

In 1958, the C.I.A. first airdropped arms, ammunition, radios and medical supplies into Tibet. Three years later, Tibetan guerrillas based in Mustang ambushed a Chinese military convoy inside Tibet and captured documents that revealed the low capacity and morale of the Chinese military. This turned out to be one of the C.I.A.’s most valuable intelligence hauls during the cold war.

American support for the Tibetans, however, was halfhearted at best, designed to undermine Communist China, not to achieve Tibetan independence. It began to peter out by the late 60’s and finally dried up altogether in the early 70’s, after Kissinger and Nixon befriended Mao. Then in 1994, much to the dismay of many Tibetans, Bill Clinton uncoupled trade agreements with China from the problematic issue of human rights.

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Rickshaw revival

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In NYC today:

When traffic gets tough, the tough take a rickshaw. Some things never change.

The Kali Cow and the Trinidadian ‘Saint dance their dance of destruction. Meanwhile, the walk to the gym turned out to be an hour (the NYC weight loss special!), and cab fare home is up 70%. A Bangladeshi brutha told me traffic turned 10-minute rides into 40, so the city jacked up rates to ensure cabbies turn up for work.

He seemed plenty cheerful to me as he palmed my Andrew Jackson.

Related post: Trainspotting

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Dr. Zehra Attari Found

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We are sad to report (thanks for the tip Yasmine) that Dr. Zehra Attari’s body has been found. It doesn’t appear to have been foul play, just foul weather that is to blame. America’s Most Wanted reports:

After a six-week search, Dr. Zehra Attari’s body was found in her car at the bottom of the Oakland Estuary in Almeda, Calif.

Divers at the Grand Street pier on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2005 located a car matching the description of Attari’s 2001 gray Honda Accord. After lifting the car from the murky water, police discovered the doctor’s body…

According to police and residents, the road on which Attari was traveling is deadly — no barrier between the street and the water exists. They say it is likely that someone who didn’t know the area could drive off the pier and into the water unknowingly. [Link]

This is kind of scary because I think it may remind many of us about our own mothers. Her family describes her as being an under-confident driver and easily disoriented when traveling new routes. I know this description fits my own mother when she is faced with highway driving.

Attari was not far from her destination that evening on Nov. 7. A right turn onto Otis Drive would have set her back on track. Instead, Attari made a left. When she finally made a right a few blocks down, it was onto Grand Street.

While Grand Street is not exactly a road to nowhere, it is a road that leads directly into the cold black waters of the Oakland estuary. That is where Attari’s journey ended. [Link]

See previous posts [1,2]

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Bitter much? (updated)

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Updated: A reader sends us the video. It’s just like Jerry Springer!

Normally I don’t like featuring “odd-ball” stories from the subcontinent, but this one was really unusual in my opinion. We all know that in certain parts of the world, including India, public displays of affection are frowned upon. In many cases the authorities decide to arrest, punish, or otherwise chastise amorous couples who are getting their groove on in public. This however, is the first time that I have read about women in authority doing the heavy handed punishing. The BBC reports:

Two policewomen have been suspended in the northern Indian city of Meerut for slapping and punching couples who were dating in a public park.

Police were carrying out “Operation Romeo,” which they said was to target the sexual harassment of women.

Anti-police protests erupted after TV pictures showed officers punching and pulling the hair of young women.

Police chief Rajiv Ranjan said the drive was to tackle obscenity but the officers had “clearly gone overboard.”

I don’t get it. You would think that as women they would be more sympathetic to women, especially if their intent was to prevent sexual harassment as they claim. Yet apparently the girl always gets the blame no matter the gender of the authority figure. I’m wondering if perhaps these policewomen were a bit bitter about their own romantic fortunes and simply releasing their frustration.

[The chief] said the police action was part of a drive undertaken at periodic intervals – often at the behest of the parents of young women – to “cleanse” parks and other public places of people indulging in acts of public obscenity.

But he made it clear that there was no law which banned men and women walking together in public places or sitting in a park.

He said police personnel had no business bothering, let alone beating up, couples sitting together in public.

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Will SM be blacklisted by O’Reilly?

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My posts today have featured two particularly gruesome subjects. Since I am on a roll, I thought why not try for a hat trick? Bill O’Reilly, the resident jingo at that “Fair and Balanced” news organization is at it again. A few weeks back he encouraged Al Qaeda to lay waste to San Francisco. Recently he has created his own media blacklist, sort of like Oprah’s book club, except what NOT to read. SM reader “Mephistopheles1981” informs us that Bill has most recently decided to take Circuit City and its “Indian owners” to task for not sharing in the Christmas spirit. He is sick and tired of all these secular stores that take advantage of Christmas giving, without acknowledging it. Only one problem. Circuit City isn’t owned by Indians. Media Matters for America reports:

O’REILLY: Yeah, Target’s changed its policy. And we appreciate that.

CALLER: That’s fantastic. So, I hope now you can do something about Circuit City. I was in there last week —

O’REILLY: [Laughing] Circuit City —

CALLER: — and —

O’REILLY: I think people from India own Circuit City. I think that’s the problem there.

O’REILLY: I can’t — I can’t do — I can’t do everybody. I’m trying to do the big ones that are all over the place. Yeah, look, you know — but again if you go into any retail store and you’re buying a Christmas present and they refuse to acknowledge Christmas, you know what I’m going to do. You know what E.D.’s going to do —

…Contrary to O’Reilly’s ownership theory, none of the major, direct, institutional, or mutual fund holders of the publicly traded company is Indian. The same appears to be true of the company’s senior management and its board of directors. In addition, the retailer limits its business to the United States and Canada.

It’s not just what he says. Click on the audio file to listen to how he says it. Tell me his voice isn’t lined with a tinge of bigotry. Oh please, oh please can we end up on his blacklist? We are Indian owned. I’d rather be on Oprah’s list but we got no shot at that.

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Not so Intelligent Designing

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I really wanted to write a post about the U.S. Federal Court slapping down “Intelligent Design” in Dover, Pennsylvania today:

A federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled today that it is unconstitutional to compel teachers there to present “intelligent design” as an alternative explanation to evolution because it amounts to establishing religion in public schools.

I couldn’t find a strong Desi-angle beyond what we’ve already blogged about though. So instead, I’ve decided to write a post about “Un-intelligent Design.” Most people know that Hitler’s Third Reich was fascinated by the occult and was always looking for mystical weapons and methods in order to defeat the Allies. Essentially, that is what the plot of Raiders of the Lost Ark is about. He is also thought to have been fascinated by Eastern religions. After reading the following article out today in the Scotsman, I wondered if the brutal dictator Joseph Stalin might have been reading up on his Hindu mythology when he came up with this VERY unintelligent design idea:

The Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the creation of Planet of the Apes-style warriors by crossing humans with apes, according to recently uncovered secret documents.

Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia’s top animal breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, was ordered to turn his skills from horse and animal work to the quest for a super-warrior…

According to Moscow newspapers, Stalin told the scientist: “I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat…”

Mr Ivanov’s experiments, unsurprisingly from what we now know, were a total failure. He returned to the Soviet Union, only to see experiments in Georgia to use monkey sperm in human volunteers similarly fail. [Link]

Sick, sick, sick. Nothing is going to convince me that they were really “volunteers.” I wondered if Stalin may have been inspired by Hanuman’s story. He is after all the mightiest of warriors and proved himself during the Ramayana War. He was conceived more naturally…well sort of.

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