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.