United States President Donald Trump has played the India card against Pakistan in the Afghan great game, but would that become a true trump card for India?

Earlier this week, Trump assigned a “critical” role for India in his country’s South Asia strategy for fighting terrorism, building up a safe Afghanistan and appealed for help, while at the same time warning Pakistan of repercussions for the double game of unleashing terrorists against the Afghans and the US while collecting billions from Washington.

It amounts to threatening Islamabad that Washington could pivot to India if it didn’t stop supporting “the same organisations that try every single day to kill our people”, as Trump put it.

The US move comes as the civilian leadership is unmoored after Nawaz Sharif was removed as Pakistan Prime Minister by a court order.

It also coincides with the simmering military standoff between India and China, the other power with deep involvement in the region and patron of Pakistan. How Beijing reacts would be a factor in the way things work out for India.

There are two other players in the great game, Iran and Russia, with whom the US has a hostile relationship. They can influence developments in Afghanistan and India can play a covert intermediary role between them.

Past US Presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, have in joint statements acknowledged New Delhi’s humanitarian and development assistance to Afghanistan, but what makes Trump’s statement different is that he openly incorporates India into the US strategy for Afghanistan and South Asia and juxtaposes it with his warnings to Pakistan.

Trump putting Pakistan on notice directly marks a change from the tradition of the Cold War that made Pakistan the indisputable and indispensable ally and there is a twist of irony here.

Soon after 9/11 in 2001, as the US prepared to go into Afghanistan, India offered the use of its airbases, but it was turned down and Washington decided to go with Pakistan despite its history of aiding both the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Trump’s request to India was deliberately open-ended, while stressing what is already being done. “We want them to help us more with Afghanistan, especially in the area of economic assistance and development,” he said.

New Delhi has committed more than $3 billion in aid to Kabul and has undertaken important projects like constructing a Parliament house and building major highways in the face of Taliban attacks.

And there limits to what more it can do.

India couldn’t send troops in combat or frontline advisory roles. But it already trains Afghan troops and police in India — and had one time set a target of putting 30,000 of them through the paces. Now, trainers could work in Afghanistan itself, if India chooses and the US agrees to drop its opposition driven by Pakistani sensibilities — but away from areas of direct conflict.

But it could let the US use airbases in India, though Islamabad could ban overflights and a route through Iran is out of question.

India has provided military helicopters to Afghanistan, and General John Nicholson, the US commander in that country, has recently said that Kabul could do with more of them — as well as other military supplies. New Delhi could also increase its role as middleman for supplying Russian weaponry and spares given the Washington-Moscow standoff.

In the development sphere, India could increase — and probably will — its aid to Afghanistan in cash and kind. However, it may not be able to sustain a major expansion of assistance programmes requiring the deployment of Indian citizens because that would likely require security personnel to protect them and risk direct confrontation.

A major component of India’s economic assistance to Afghanistan runs counter to US interests as dictated by the Middle East because it is linked to Iran. India is developing the Chhabahar port in Iran that will provide landlocked Afghanistan an outlet to the world using the Indian-built Delaram-Zaranj highway to the Iran border. In turn, that highway will link to the Ring Road project that connects important Afghan cities.

This will provide a significant boost to Afghanistan’s economy.

At the same time, dire strategic compulsions could make the US overcome its repugnance to Tehran and through India use the Chhabahar link to get supplies into Afghanistan.

What is behind the changed US attitude to Islamabad — and to India as a collateral — and Trump’s own reluctance to further get involved in Afghanistan? It is the influence of the triumvirate of generals, Chief of State John Kelly, Defence Secretary James Mattis and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, with personal connections to the Afghan war.

Kelly lost his son, a Marine officer in Afghanistan to a terrorist roadside bomb, making the war on the Taliban personal. Mattis was the commander of the CENTCOM that oversaw the Afghan war and McMaster as the deputy to the planning commander at the international forces headquarters in Kabul.

Both have seen Islambad’s double game. Already last month, the US withheld $50 million in aid Pakistan citing its failure to rein in the Haqqani terrorist network.

Add to that Trump’s disenchantment with China over its refusal or inability to rein in North Korean taunts and threats.

How will the military and Islamist establishments react? To acquiesce to the US is one option that may be accompanied by the diversion of Islamist terrorists to India.

The other option of defiance would depend on China. Beijing sees Washington-New Delhi ties in the larger picture — its state media has accused the West, specifically the US, of instigating war between it and India.

But Beijing has some limitations here. Beyond making up for the loss of US billions to Pakistan if Islamabad stood firm, China also has strategic interests in the region that could be endangered by terrorism: The One Road One Belt project and the likelihood of terrorism getting a boost in the Uighar region and in Central Asia.

The real danger would be a Pakistani terror push towards India with Chinese backing.

IANS

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Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s book, “Democracy: Stories From the Long Road to Freedom,” published in May, focuses on the merits of democratic systems of government and the need for the United States to remain active in promoting democracy around the world. It could not have come at a better time.

It is the most readable book on U.S. and Western democracy promotion since Natan Sharansky published “The Case for Democracy” more than 10 years ago. Rice makes the case that the United States must continue to leverage its national example, diplomatic power, and international foreign assistance budget to strengthen and spread democracy. I do not know Rice, although I served in the George W. Bush administration, but I strongly support her focus on democracy promotion. I have “voted with my feet” on this issue by sitting on the bipartisan board of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems – a democracy promotion organization funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other bilateral aid donors.

Rice’s book comes after more than a decade of limited success for the democracy project. The folks in the business call this limited progress the “democracy recession.” One can count on one hand the big wins for democracy in recent years. Myanmar is the country that comes to mind. At the same time, she reminds the reader that although democracy has been in “recession” for the last 15 years, we should recognize the great progress that has taken place over the last 50, 100, or 200 years. She includes a number of maps of the world to make that point. She also rightly references that, according to Freedom House, there are around 150 “free” and “partly free” countries out of about 200 countries in the world. This is a sign of major progress.

The book is thoroughly researched and includes country case studies that provide snapshots of various stages of democratic development. Rice covers Poland, Kenya, Colombia, Ukraine, Russia, and various countries in the Middle East and North Africa, including Iraq, Tunisia, and Egypt.

In each of the case study, Rice brings personal anecdotes from her time as national security adviser or secretary of state. The studies of Russia and Ukraine benefit from her decades of exposure to that part of the world. The fact that she speaks fluent Russian and was a Sovietologist (my Microsoft Word does not recognize this as an actual word, which says something) provides even greater insight.

Perhaps what makes the book most interesting is its constant return to the American experience. She includes a chapter about American democratic development, and reminds readers that women did not get the vote in the United States until 1920 and that African Americans were not fully given the right to vote until the 1960s. Her experiences as an African American woman in various parts of the world – including in Alabama – provide some important insights and perspective. Strikingly, she mentions that she has never missed an opportunity to vote because it would be an insult to her ancestors who did not have the chance to vote. Why does she use the American experience? One of the key messages of the book, and an observation that she tries to drive home, is that democracy takes a long time to build and that progress is not linear.

The book offers an implicit defense of the Bush administration’s “Freedom Agenda,” outlined in Bush’s second inaugural address in 2005. She discusses the halting progress in Afghanistan and Iraq, but notes that both countries have held multiple elections and have a variety of functioning, albeit weak, institutions. She remains optimistic that, in the long term, these countries will become democracies. Rice also takes on one of the usual critiques of the democracy agenda, which points to the successes of places such as Singapore and China. She spends significant time looking at China and ultimately concludes that China will also become more democratic over time.

What about the upheavals in 2016, such as Brexit and the surprise election of President Donald Trump? She gently disagrees with those who say these outcomes put the system at risk. She says that these events represent voters seeking to make change peacefully. She defends the rule-based international order set up after World War II, but also signals that many people have either not benefited from globalization or see many of the changes ushered in by globalization as threats to traditional ways of life or traditional values. Those who seek to promote globalization need to account for those threatened by it. She also makes the case that we need to be brought together and not be sliced and diced into “ever smaller groups,” each with their own interests. In summary, she suggests that the voters have given policymakers and politicians a series of strong messages, and that they should listen to the voters.

Rice makes the case that democracy promotion is unambiguously in America’s interest. Democracies are much less likely to go to war, much less likely to participate in terrorist attacks, and much less likely to tolerate human trafficking than nondemocratic countries. Many global problems are caused by authoritarian regimes (often weak and failed states, I would add). So democracy promotion is not only a values proposition, but also in our enlightened self interest over the long term.

In some ways, Rice’s book is welcome not only because of the democracy recession, but also because of the perceived reluctance of the Obama and Trump administrations to prioritize democracy promotion. Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush each supported different dimensions of the democracy promotion agenda. Giving credit where credit is due, Myanmar’s opening happened under the Obama administration’s watch, and the United States played a critical role in helping birth its young democracy.

Rice likely wrote this book in part to prepare current and future policymakers for the long slog ahead. The bad guys have gotten a lot better at countering the use of social media (for example, the Great Firewall of China). Russia and its partners are very aggressive about closing civil society’s space. In addition, a number of the unfree countries look like pretty hard dictatorships to crack from the outside. Rice and Sharansky would argue that we cannot know for sure if change is coming to these societies. Sharansky argues that dictatorships are actually quite brittle because of the way those societies are organized. Who, for example, would have said the Soviet Union was going to collapse less than ten years after 1982?

Finally, one of the last chapters in the book is titled, “They will look to America.” Will we be ready? Many observers worry that the Trump administration has already deemphasized the democracy agenda. They point to Trump’s so-called skinny budget, which decreases funding for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and zeroes out the Democracy Fund. At the same time, the skinny budget does not reflect what Congress will appropriate and Congress has a large number of democracy promotion champions on both sides of the aisle. Critics also point to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s unusual absence from the release of the annual Human Rights Report by the State Department, a report that is traditionally presented by the secretary of state. All of the above makes democracy advocates around the world nervous.

On the other hand, Mark Green is the new administrator of USAID, which is a major funder of democracy promotion activities by the U.S. government.

Green is a former member of Congress and the former head of the International Republican Institute, one of the four National Endowment for Democracy institutes. Also, the Trump administration has rightly raised concerns about democracy and human rights in Cuba, Syria, and Venezuela, among other countries. I recently asked a prominent democracy promotion advocate if he was worried about whether the United States would engage in democracy promotion under Trump. He told me, “I am not worried because of Article One of the U.S. Constitution and the naming of Mark Green as USAID administrator.”

THE WASHINGTON POST

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The overwater bungalow — that iconic symbol of the paradisiacal tropical vacation, standing in clear blue water on stilt legs — turns the big five-oh this year. The thatched huts, often outfitted with such luxury amenities as plunge pools and glass floors to better see the fish below, are a staple on the bucket lists and Pinterest boards of aspirational travelers the world over. Yet their origin lies in a surprisingly prosaic exercise in problem-solving.

Back in the ’60s, three tanned, party-hearty California kids — Hugh Kelley, Don “Muk” McCallum and Jay Carlisle — left their 9-to-5s in pursuit of their tropical dreams in French Polynesia. Opening hotels on Moorea and Raiatea, the trio was dubbed the Bali Hai Boys, after the mystical island in James Michener’s novel “South Pacific.”

Carlisle, now in his 70s, reminisces about those days:

“Our Hotel Bali Hai on Moorea thrived with its beachfront property, but Hotel Bora Bora on Raiatea struggled,” he says. “It didn’t have any beaches.” A serious problem, indeed. “Inspired by the vernacular thatched-roof fishing huts,” he goes on, “Kelley derived the idea of building bungalows on concrete stilts out on the bay, providing direct access to the lagoon. We drilled down by hand; there were no electric drills or anything. We did all of the work.” That was in 1967.

The trio assured the government that the stilted bungalows wouldn’t damage the environment. “We built small docks that extended out into a flat place in the lagoon and attached them to pylons, “ Carlisle said, “The coral grows around the pylons and attracts the fish.

They built three bungalows “with Plexiglas on the living room floor so you could see the reef below.” That feature soon became known as “Tahitian TV,” a must-have in any overwater bungalow.

People liked the bungalows, so the Bali Hai Boys built six more. And then another three. Then other hotels in the region started copying them. Even though the originals were never luxe, they ignited a revolution in posh hotel architecture, and French Polynesia became synonymous with tropical glamour.

Today, with the other men’s children, Carlisle oversees the Club Bali Hai Moorea Hotel, the smallest and last of their properties. (McCallum now lives on the U.S. mainland, and Kelley died in 1998.) The hotel remains quite rustic, and Carlisle insists that he has no plans to change that.

The other original resorts are long gone, but in their place is a global industry of overwater bungalows.

“By my last count, there were 165 total resorts in the world with close to 9,000 overwater bungalows,” says Roger Wade, who runs OverwaterBungalows.net.

The true overwater bungalow tends to have one thing: turquoise, swimming-pool-esque waters. They can’t be exposed to waves and tides. At the Four Seasons Bora Bora, the South Pacific boasts what is consistently rated as the world’s best.

“We’ve taken the overwater bungalow philosophy introduced by the Bali Hai Boys and have introduced the next level of design, comfort and luxury,” says hotel spokesman Brad Packer. Each bungalow provides two outdoor living areas, one for sunning and one for dining, soaking tubs built for two, and glorious views of Mount Otemanu at every turn.

That said, you’ll find the preponderance of overwater bungalows — two-thirds — in the Maldives. Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Cambodia have them as well.

Resorts closer to the United States have been feverishly developing overwater bungalows over the past few years, with Jamaica, St. Lucia, Belize, and Mexico all offering the overwater experience. And some, according to Wade, are on par with those in the South Pacific, including Jamaica’s new Sandals Royal Caribbean and the El Dorado Maroma in Mexico’s Riviera Maya. Both are luxurious, offering infinity pools, outdoor showers, two-person Jacuzzis and, of course, the glass-floored living room to view the tropical fish. The main difference, Wade is quick to add, is that while these new Caribbean bungalows are set in very clear bays, their waters don’t compare with the crystalline lagoons of the South Pacific or the Maldives.

Other destinations have what Wade describes as “eco-resorts” that take the overwater concept to rivers and lakes. You’ll find them in Guatemala, Panama, even Honduras. “They’re not quite the same,” Wade says. Meaning, they don’t have the beautiful, clear waters that make the South Pacific bungalows so alluring. Nevertheless, they offer the sublimity of being suspended overwater.

According to Wade, the demand for overwater bungalows shows no signs of diminishing. “Resorts have popped up in Qatar,” he says, “even Africa has a couple, in Kenya and Mozambique.

WASHINGTON POST

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In the middle of Monday night’s fairly orthodox speech on Afghanistan, President Trump swerved into a brief discussion of India. It would have been odd to summarize a “comprehensive review of all strategic options in Afghanistan and South Asia” without mentioning India, with 1.3 billion people. But the president, after studying “Afghanistan in great detail and from every conceivable angle,” used the occasion to prod India to do more to solve America’s 16-year Afghanistan problem.

Consistent with his mercantilist worldview, Trump highlighted that “India makes billions of dollars in trade with the United States.” This is true: India shipped approximately $24 billion more in exports to the United States in 2016 than it imported from the United States. After underlining India’s vulnerability, Trump then stressed, “We want them to help us more with Afghanistan, especially in the area of economic assistance and development.”

India already gives a lot to Afghanistan.

So what’s the story here? India has done much to help Afghanistan already, as Trump appropriately acknowledged in his address. India has provided $2 billion of aid to Afghanistan, and pledged an additional $1 billion more last September. It is, by far, the most generous donor among the “regional countries.” India is still a poor country, making its contributions all the more remarkable.

Indian-built projects include a large hydroelectric dam and a “spur” that connects the Afghan highway network to Iran — and even the newly built Afghan parliament building. India has also trained more than 4,000 Afghan National Army officers and provided helicopters to the Afghan Air Force.

Like the United States, India does not want Afghanistan to act as a staging ground for international terrorists, many of whom would be as happy to target Indian cities as European or American ones. When U.S. cruise missiles struck al-Qaeda-linked training camps in Afghanistan following the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, several members of anti-India terrorist groups were killed in the apparently shared facilities.

In addition, India suffered the unique embarrassment in December 1999 of having to hand over three captured terrorists in Taliban-controlled Kandahar to secure the release of the passengers and crew aboard a hijacked Indian airliner.

But India faces serious obstacles to doing more in Afghanistan.

Here’s the problem: India does not have the strategic tools — or the geography — to alter the strategic course of Afghanistan. Its $3 billion aid commitment is about 2 percent of total international donations to Kabul since 2002.

Pakistan, which sits between India and Afghanistan, is the bigger obstacle to Indian engagement. Wary of facing adversaries on both its western and eastern borders, Pakistan has used violent proxies to prevent the emergence of a stable Afghanistan that it perceives as hostile to Pakistan’s interests.

To achieve that end, Pakistan has provided haven to militant groups, most notably the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network, to maintain influence in its Afghan neighbor. It appears to have conspired to kill Taliban moderates who it worried might make a political settlement without Pakistan’s blessing.

U.S. policymakers have long considered a greater Indian role, but such deliberations quickly led to brutal arithmetic: What economic aid, military training or even ground forces could India send to Afghanistan that Pakistan could not offset through even greater support to hostile militant groups?

Despite having the world’s second-largest military, India cannot take over for the United States in Afghanistan. Since independence, India has modest experience operating expeditionary forces in hostile environments, mostly from U.N. peacekeeping operations but also a failed attempt to intervene in Sri Lanka in the late 1980s, what some described as “India’s Vietnam” experience. The Indian military, despite its ongoing modernization, would still find it hard to support major operations at considerable distance.

Any large-scale Indian military effort would have to bypass Pakistan, and require support from Iran. In fact, it is difficult to imagine any enhanced Indian role — economic or military — in Afghanistan without closer Indo-Iranian ties, which would probably generate friction with Iran hawks empowered in the Trump administration.

The bottom line? No big improvements in Pakistani behavior.

Trump’s public invitation of more Indian involvement is likely to put more pressure on Pakistan, which already faces the prospect of cutbacks in U.S. aid. Pakistani military leaders have a choice: acquiesce to outside pressure and lose their current veto on Afghan stability, or continue to use proxies and accept possible sanctions. The prospect of greater Indian involvement may empower hawks in Islamabad who argue Pakistan must bear whatever costs necessary to avoid strategic encirclement. Trump’s effort seems more likely to escalate Pakistan’s own involvement than compel an end to Pakistani interventionism.

If India does play a bigger role and Pakistan continues — or increases — its cross-border support, it is likely to leave all the players roughly where they now sit: engaged in a holding action to prevent the territorial defeat of the Afghan state from a mostly indigenous insurgency bolstered in part as a result of Pakistan’s havens and support of militant proxies.

India probably will contribute more aid, technical expertise and military training in Afghanistan, but there should be no illusions that those efforts will substantially ease the U.S. mission there. At the end of the Trump administration, in all likelihood there will still be thousands of U.S. service members in Afghanistan, many of them younger than the war in which they will be fighting.

THE WASHINGTON POST

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Whenever I’d see George, the first thing I always noticed was his shoes. He loved Jordans. He must have had two dozen pairs. The bright colors contrasted with the uniform he wore at the restaurant he managed, adding personality.

George was great at his job. He knew what my wife and I wanted to drink without asking, and had the drinks at the table a few minutes after we’d sit down. He always made sure there was a table available for his regular customers. My family went to George’s restaurant for weeknight dinners, to celebrate new jobs and promotions, when family and friends came to visit, when we brought our baby son home from the hospital.

He worked hard, holding down a second job as a waiter at another restaurant down the street. It wasn’t until a few weeks before he left the U.S. earlier this summer to return to his native Philippines that I learned he had been sending money home to his family for many years, at great personal sacrifice. To provide for his children, he would go years without seeing them.

I thought of George when I saw this summer’s edition of the Claremont Review of Books, a conservative journal. The cover art depicts immigrants as men with masks holding knives, Hispanics wearing sombreros, ominous-looking Asians, men with turbans and Muslim women in burqas, all shrouded in gray. They surround a worried-looking Uncle Sam holding a pennant reading, “Welcome.” It illustrates the alarmist and nationalist lead essay, titled “Diversity and Its Discontents.”

Portraying immigrants this way is shameful, and is a sad reflection of the ugly nationalism and xenophobia that apparently reaches further into the mainstream of the political right than we conservatives would have thought possible just a few years ago.

The public face of the right wasn’t always so hostile. Rather than succumb to base emotions and fear of “the other” following the traumatic attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush called on Americans to be their best selves. Upon hearing that some Muslims felt intimidated by other Americans, Bush went to a mosque six days after the terrorist attack and said: “Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger don’t represent the best of America. They represent the worst of humankind.”

He also said: “Women who cover their heads in this country must feel comfortable going outside their homes. Moms who wear cover must be not intimidated in America. That’s not the America I know. That’s not the America I value.”

President Ronald Reagan, standing at New York harbor, said of the immigrants who passed under the Statue of Liberty: “They brought with them courage, ambition and the values of family, neighborhood, work, peace and freedom. They came from different lands but they shared the same values, the same dream.”

I am not advocating policy by sentiment. The appropriate number of immigrants allowed into the U.S. is a subject on which people of good will can disagree. And there are real issues with immigration: the wages of some native workers might decrease, the pace of assimilation may be slower than some would like, local resources might be stretched.

But advocates of reducing immigration should realize that demonizing immigrants is counterproductive. When I see a picture like the one in the Claremont Review, my gut reaction is that immigration should be increased, not decreased. More importantly, it’s wrong. Immigrants are our neighbors, and they deserve respect. It’s immoral to stoke fear and anxiety. It encourages bigotry. It violates American values.

The dignity of the human person should be a central concern of public policy. But policy is often abstract. To grasp its meaning, it helps to put a human face on its impersonal constructs. I’ve recently tried to put a face on labor market policies by discussing the invisible victims those policies create. With immigrants, the faces are visible – you can pick one. Is the image on Claremont’s cover your choice? I hope not.

For me, the face is George’s. I am in awe of his courage. He left his home, traveled thousands of miles, and built a career on our shores. People like George help make America great. I am grateful that my country, and my family, got to share in George’s success. And I am proud that of all the nations in the world, George wanted to come to America. I hope that the lamp’s light beside our nation’s golden door never fades.

Strain is a Bloomberg View columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the editor of “The U.S. Labor Market: Questions and Challenges for Public Policy” and the co-editor of “Economic Freedom and Human Flourishing: Perspectives from Political Philosophy.”

THE WASHINGTON POST

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ANEW DELHI – Hundreds of people have been arrested in a north Indian city after protests over the rape conviction of a religious sect leader turned violent, leaving 32 dead and more than 200 injured.

Followers of the Dera Sacha Sauda sect were there to support its chief, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, known as India’s “rock-star baba” and the “guru of bling” for his garish rhinestone-studded costumes and on-screen performances.

In an anonymous letter in 2002, Singh was accused of raping two female devotees, and in 2008 he was formally charged with rape and intimidation.

The violence began Friday afternoon in Panchkula, in the northern state of Haryana, where an estimated 100,000 followers had gathered, awaiting the verdict in the trial. Singh’s supporters were seen weeping and fainting as they waited for the judge to rule on the long-running case.

Media reports suggested that Singh has been given a special cell at Sunaria jail as he awaits his sentencing on Monday. And the Haryana government has come under sharp criticism for giving him special treatment.

Haryana’s chief secretary, Depinder Singh Dhesi, denied allegations that Singh was being held in a police guesthouse: “He has been kept like a normal prisoner. In the whole case, if anyone had done any sort of leniency in his duty, then required action will be taken.”

Judge Jagdeep Singh, who convicted the famous guru, criticized the Haryana government for allowing such a dangerous situation to build up outside his courtroom. India’s Home Ministry directed the state government to provide high-level security for the judge.

Followers had started trickling into Panchkula a week before the verdict was due. Many had laid out tarpaulins and squatted on the streets outside the court.

By Friday, there were so many people on the streets of Panchkula, that a sports stadium was prepared as a mass jail for arrested protesters.

Clashes also spread to the town of Sirsa, where Singh’s sect has its headquarters.

Eyewitnesses described protesters throwing stones, setting vehicles ablaze and toppling media vans in Panchkula. In the Indian capital of New Delhi, an empty train was set on fire.

Haryana Police Chief B.S. Sandhu said Friday night that 550 people had been detained and that some weapons were recovered in Panchkula.

An unnamed staff member from the sanitation department at the Civil Hospital in Panchkula described to the Indian Express seeing about a hundred people, some of them dead, on stretchers. “It was a horrific scene inside [the] emergency [room],” the staff member was quoted as saying. Cellphones in the pockets of corpses rang through the night, the Express reported.

Doctors told reporters that many of those admitted were police officers and that the death toll could rise because of the number of those seriously injured.

The Times of India reported that the government gave orders to fire at rioters after a senior police officer was surrounded by an angry mob.

In a series of tweets, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for calm Friday night: “The instances of violence today are deeply distressing. I strongly condemn the violence & urge everyone to maintain peace,” he wrote.

Police fired shots in the air after the violence erupted, using water cannons and tear gas to quell the crowds. About 600 soldiers were also deployed.

After his conviction, Singh was flown out of Panchkula. A minimum seven-year sentence is expected to be pronounced on Monday.

Singh, who claims to have 60 million followers and supernatural powers, has a penchant for appearing in self-produced music videos and movies such as “MSG: The Messenger” and its sequels, for which he co-wrote scripts, co-directed, and sang songs. In the films he has superhero-like qualities, performing motorcycle stunts and killing ghosts and aliens. In 2016, his song “Love Charger” was played by Jimmy Fallon in a segment on “The Tonight Show.”

Followers defend Singh for setting up vast social welfare programs, including huge blood donation drives, and performing mass marriages for former sex workers.

But behind his flamboyant image, Singh and his entourage are dogged by accusations of criminal activity.

In ongoing cases, Singh and members of his inner circle have been accused of two murders and intimidation in attempts to bury the accusations of rape.(The Washington Post )

Dera violence: Toll rises to 38

Indo Asian News Service

Chandigarh, Aug 27 (IANS) With two more people succumbing to their injuries, the death toll in the violence following the conviction of Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim has risen to 38, Haryana government officials said on Sunday.

Out of these, 32 deaths have been reported in Panchkula, while six persons have died in Sirsa town, where the headquarters of the sect is located.

Haryana Director General of Police B.S. Sandhu told media here that out of the 38 people, 24 have been identified and post-mortem examination had been conducted on the bodies.

“These include 11 people each from Haryana and Punjab, and one each from Rajasthan and Uttarakhand,” he said.

As many as 264 persons were injured, out of which only 17 were still admitted in the General Hospital, Panchkula, including three police personnel. (IANS)

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NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India is deploying thousands of riot police and shutting down internet services in two northern states, as it prepares for the sentencing on Monday of a self-styled ’godman’ whose followers went on the rampage after he was convicted of rape on Friday.

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s cult Dera Sacha Sauda has a vast rural following in Punjab and Haryana states, where frenzied mobs burned down gas stations and train stations and torched vehicles after a local court found him guilty of raping two women in a 2002 case.

At least 38 people were killed and more than 200 injured in the violence in Haryana, officials said, drawing sharp criticism for the state government run by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The case has also highlighted the Indian heartland’s fascination with spiritual gurus, who enjoy immense political clout for their ability to mobilise millions of followers frustrated by the shortcomings of the state.

Security forces have cordoned off a jail in Rohtak city, 70 km (44 miles) from New Delhi, where Singh – also known as the guru of bling for the clothes he wears in the movies he has starred in – is being held.

The judge who convicted Singh will hold a special hearing inside the prison in Rohtak around 2.30 pm local time (0900 GMT) on Monday to decide the punishment, in a move that officials hope will prevent his followers from gathering in the streets like they did on Friday.

Singh faces a minimum of seven years in prison.

The town of Sirsa, home to Dera’s headquarters, is already under lockdown, BS Sandhu, Haryana’s police chief, told Reuters. School and colleges have been ordered shut, the government said.

“We’re fully prepared, we have a contingency plan in place,”

Sandhu said, adding that more than 10,000 police would patrol the state as it awaits Singh’s sentencing.

Neighbouring Punjab, where violence was sporadic, has summoned more than 8,000 paramilitary and police, banned large gatherings and switched off mobile internet connections across the state until Tuesday, its top administrator said.

“Our intelligence reports caution that there could be arson and some other incidents,” Karan Avtar Singh, the chief secretary to Punjab government, told Reuters.

In godman Singh’s two films, “Messenger of God” and its sequel, there are sequences in which he fights off villains and tosses burning motorbikes into the air.

In his spiritual avatar, Singh dresses in plain white traditional clothes, giving sermons or planting trees. In the movies he dons bejewelled costumes, rides motorbikes and sends bad guys flying.

MODI PROMISES TOUGH RESPONSE

The Haryana government has faced severe criticism from opposition Congress and a state court for failing to stop the rioting and vandalism.

Singh, whose verified Twitter profile calls him a saint, philanthropist, sportsman, actor, singer, movie director, writer, lyricist, and autobiographer, has been photographed with senior BJP leaders including Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar.

Last year a Haryana minister announced the state would donate 5 million rupees ($78,000) to Singh’s Dera to promote sports.

Bir Kumar Yadav, BJP’s Haryana spokesman, said the party had been associated with Singh only in his capacity as a social worker who had spread awareness about public sanitation and cleanliness.

Modi also weighed in on Sunday, vowing tough action against anyone trying to break the law.

“I want to assure my countrymen that people who take the law into their own hands and are on the path of violent suppression – whether it is a person or a group – neither this country nor any government will tolerate it,” he said in his monthly radio address, without directly mentioning the recent violence.

Singh’s conviction in a rape case is the latest in a series of cases involving spiritual leaders who have been accused of sexually abusing followers, amassing untaxed money and finding favour with politicians.

Besides the rape charges, he is also under investigation over allegations that he convinced 400 of his male followers to undergo castration, allegations he denies.

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Bio-fuels produced from plants and other renewable sources may become greener and more affordable, thanks to research by an Indian-American scientist at the University of Illinois’ Prairie Research Institute and co-researchers in U.K.

Professor B.K. Sharma, a researcher at Illinois Sustainability Technology Center, and his co-authors, have identified and tested a new processing method, according to an Aug. 25 press release from University of Illinois. Their research avoided going through an expensive processing of bio-oil, the precursor product, before any biofuel is sent to a refinery for being transformed into liquid fuel.

In their study, Sharma et al common bacteria, and the metal palladium which can be recovered from waste sources like discarded electronics, catalytic converters, and even street sweeper dust and processed sewage, the press release says.

“Bio-oil forms from the same chemical reaction that forms petroleum,” Sharma explains in the  press release. “But what takes millions of years naturally in the ground takes only minutes in the lab using a process that is very similar to pressure cooking.” According to Sharma, the bio-oil produced in the lab from algae contains impurities like nitrogen and oxygen, but treating it with palladium as a catalyst during processing helps remove those impurities to meet clean-air requirements.

He noted that the carbon porous particles currently used for flowing the bio-oil through the palladium, is expensive. “Instead of using commercially produced carbon particles, we can use bacteria cell masses as a sort of biologic scaffolding for the palladium to hold on to,” Sharma said. “The oil can flow through the palladium-decorated bacteria masses as it does through the carbon particles.”

After Sharma and his co-authors conducted a variety of chemical and physical analyses to find out if the biofuel produced through their new method was comparable in quality to previous more expensive methods, “We found our product to be as good or even slightly better,” Sharma said. “We were able to remove the oxygen and nitrogen impurities at a comparable rate, and yielded the same volume of product using our cheaper, greener catalyst as is observed using the more expensive commercial catalyst.”

However there is an added cost in the new method. Unlike the costly commercial catalyst which  can be used over and over without extensive processing, the Sharma group’s palladium-on-bacteria catalyst will need to undergo processing to be reused. But that “is a minor caveat,” Sharma contended. “The fact that we have shown the potential of making refinery-ready crude oil from algae bio-oil using a catalyst that can be prepared from low-grade recycled metals and green and economical bacterial biomass proves that this is a very promising advancement. In addition, this bio-catalyst would work equally well in petrochemical processing.”

The work was conducted in collaboration with professors Joe Wood and Lynne Macaskie from the University of Birmingham, and co-funded by the Birmingham-Illinois Partnership for Discovery, Engagement and Education program as well as the U.K Natural Environment Research Council.

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Many aspects of your daily life, the sorts of activities and purchases you take for granted, are regulated by a single federal agency.

From the toothpaste you use to the lipstick you apply, the medicines you take to the food you eat, the Food and Drug Administration is supposed to stand between consumers and faulty products that could do them harm. It oversees $2.4 trillion of the U.S. economy-some 20 cents of every dollar Americans spend.

But in the first months of Donald Trump’s presidency, the FDA has shown signs of retreating from its mission.

From January to July, the agency sent 265 to companies, notifying them of what it alleged to be serious violations of federal rules. That’s the lowest tally for the first seven months of any year since 2008, according to a review of letters posted on the FDA’s website. Compared with the first seven months of the Obama administration, that’s an 8 percent decline. On average, it’s a 30 percent drop from the number of letters sent during the same period of all eight years Barack Obama was president.

In March, Trump nominated 45-year-old Scott Gottlieb to run the FDA. Confirmed by the Senate in May, he’s embraced some muscular regulation over the past few months: The agency recently asked drugmaker Endo International Plc to take an and proposed in cigarettes to non-addictive levels.

But Gottlieb, who also worked for the agency under President George W. Bush, has been critical of FDA practices in the past. In late 2011, when he was a resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, he wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal suggesting that the regulator’s enforcement approach contributed to generic drug shortages by driving up costs for pharmaceutical companies. While concerns with product safety are valid, he wrote, “the FDA and the manufacturers often don’t understand the drug-production processes well enough to detect the root cause of problems. Instead of calling for targeted fixes of troubled plants, the agency has often taken a very costly shotgun approach that requires upgrades virtually everywhere.” He echoed those remarks in Congressional testimony later that month.

The FDA, in response to questions about the drop in warning letters under Trump, says there’s been no order to slow down enforcement and that Gottlieb doesn’t plan to soften the regulator’s approach.

“Commissioner Gottlieb and the FDA support and will vigorously enforce the agency’s current laws and regulations,” FDA spokeswoman Lyndsay Meyer said in an email. “Any honest analysis of the agency’s overall enforcement statistics will reflect results that are comparable to annual statistics from previous years. Enforcement statistics reflect actions initiated many months and sometimes more than a year prior to the reporting of the final action.”

Besides warning letters, the FDA has a variety of other tools to get companies to comply with food, drug, and safety laws. For the most serious violations, it can order recalls, seize products, and seek court-ordered injunctions. The agency obtained 17 injunctions in the 2016 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. It also has a criminal investigation office that can help initiate prosecutions. The FDA declined to provide additional data on its enforcement activities in 2017, including the total number of inspections, citing ongoing investigations. Agency representatives also contend it’s too early to fairly assess FDA enforcement under Trump by looking at the data it makes public.

Nevertheless, warning letters remain one indicator of the agency’s enforcement intensity. Any slowdown would be consistent with reports of diminished activity by other federal agencies since Trump, who campaigned on the promise of , took office. The Environmental Protection Agency has brought fewer actions and collected smaller fines compared with previous administrations during the same period, according to an Aug. 10 report by the Environmental Integrity Project, a non-partisan . Penalties levied by financial regulators against Wall Street firms are down significantly as well, the Wall Street Journal reported Aug. 6. The slowdown isn’t across the board, however: During the first six months of the new administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration conducted workplace inspections at a pace similar to the first six months of 2016, Bloomberg reported Aug. 3. (However, OSHA’s reporting of workplace fatalities is falling, the Wall Street Journal said Aug. 27.)

FDA oversight “is critically important to make sure that there aren’t defects in the products”

The FDA conducts thousands of inspections each year in the U.S. and globally, sending companies detailed observations of possible violations. If manufacturers don’t address serious problems, a warning letter may follow, sometimes months or more than a year after inspectors first find something wrong. The letters are a potent tool to alert both companies and the public to trouble at manufacturing plants or other sites. The agency’s policy is to post all warning letters publicly, with most published within a few weeks of having been sent to the target company.

For example, an August 2015 letter to snack-making giant Frito-Lay Inc. cited “insanitary conditions” at a plant in Pulaski, Tennesee, that could lead food products to “become contaminated with filth or rendered injurious to health.” The FDA pointed out leaks in the roof and peeling paint directly above exposed food production lines, cookie dough and cheese filling leaking from machinery and large areas of the plant “soiled with apparent food debris and dust.” In an inspection the following July, the that Frito-Lay had fixed the problems. (Frito-Lay didn’t respond to a request for comment.)

An October 2016 letter to a Chinese dental implant-maker stated that tanks of water at its plant had “unidentified green/brown particulate accumulation.” The water was used to steam-clean implants throughout the manufacturing process. As a result, the FDA said it would stop the products from entering the U.S. until the concerns were addressed.

One FDA official whom the agency allowed Bloomberg to interview on the condition he wouldn’t be identified said there’s natural variation in the pace of enforcement activities, and that the FDA prefers to evaluate its performance with a full year of data.

Warning letters represent “one of their more forceful instruments to use in trying to assure high-quality manufacturing processes,” said Eric Sacks, director of health-care product alerts at the ECRI Institute, which monitors the safety of medical products. He said the number could decline for many reasons and didn’t necessarily reflect a drawback in enforcement. Voluntary product recalls initiated by companies have not declined, Sacks said.

Another potential contributor to a dip in regulatory activity may be tied to the administration’s slow pace in filling federal posts, a former FDA official said. Pending matters from a previous administration are also sometimes delayed, said Joshua Sharfstein, the first FDA political appointee under Obama. “There were definitely some enforcement actions that were held up for me to review” in 2009, said Sharfstein, now an associate dean at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“There’s little reason to believe that overall the industry is doing dramatically better”

The change in warning-letter activity this year hasn’t been uniform across the FDA. The regulator operates through a network of district offices and several national centers focused on specific industries such as drugs, medical devices, food, and tobacco. Activity varies across these units, according to FDA data.

The sharpest drop has been at the group that regulates medical devices, which has all but stopped publishing warning letters. Since mid-November 2016, the Center for Devices and Radiological Health posted a , regarding St. Jude heart implants that had previously been recalled for battery problems. (A spokesman for St. Jude parent company Abbott Laboratories said in an email that the company is making progress toward resolving the FDA’s concerns.)

In 2016, the device center had sent 18 warning letters by the end of July. On average, from 2009 to 2016, the device center sent 48 letters to manufacturers during the first seven months of a year. Meyer, the FDA spokeswoman, said in an email that the device center has issued additional warning letters-11 in total-but didn’t specify when they were sent or why they weren’t posted publicly. She said the center is working to “improve the issuance and posting process.”

A slowdown in enforcement would be worrisome, said Michael Carome, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, a watchdog organization. He reviewed the data analyzed by Bloomberg.

The dramatic dropoff in warning letters to medical device makers appears particularly problematic, Carome said. “This is a huge market,” with hundreds of thousands of products, he explained. FDA oversight “is critically important to make sure that there aren’t defects” and that malfunctions are properly reported.

The FDA’s food regulator, the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, ensures the safety of America’s food supply, polices dietary supplements, and oversees cosmetics. That office is in the process of implementing new rules related to the , which was signed into law in 2011. Its warning letter rate dropped significantly this year compared with 2016.

The FDA official said the new rules focus on preventing contaminated food from entering the market, rather than reacting after the fact. The agency wants to help companies understand the new regulations before enforcing them, he said. The agency has issued blanket restrictions on certain food imports from regions with a record of problems, he noted, including cilantro from Mexico and shrimp from Malaysia-actions he noted wouldn’t show up in the food safety center’s warning letter tallies.

The food center has sent nine letters from January to July of this year, compared with 36 sent during the same period last year. The FDA official said the effort to put the new rules into place may have affected agency activity.

The FDA is a sprawling agency. Beyond its White Oak, Maryland, headquarters, it operates 19 district offices across the U.S. and Puerto Rico. These outposts are empowered to issue warning letters regarding food, drugs, devices, and other products regulated by the agency. So far, they have issued more than half of all agency warning letters in 2017. But their numbers have dropped as well.

In the first seven months of this year, district offices were responsible for 168 letters, compared with 228 over the same period in 2016. That’s a 30 percent decline-the same percentage drop for the agency overall-from the average January to July pace in all eight years of the Obama administration.

Michael Jacobson, co-founder and president of the health-advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest, called the drop in FDA warning letters “an ominous sign” that Trump’s anti-regulation rhetoric has become official policy. “More Americans will get sick-or not get well-if laws ensuring the safety of our food and drugs are not enforced,” he said in an email.

The pace of warning letters this year seems to match the pace set during the administration of George W. Bush. On average, the agency overall issued 251 warning letters in the January to July period of each year between 2005 and 2009, close to the 265 issued overall this year. (Warning letters prior to 2005 are not archived on the FDA’s website.)

After Bush left office, the scope of FDA authority expanded to include tobacco. Enforcement activity by the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, created as a result of additional powers conferred by Congress, has picked up in 2017. The 49 warning letters it has sent through July exceeds the 42 it sent in the same period in 2016. (Bloomberg’s analysis excludes warning letters sent to tobacco retailers, which the FDA issues by the hundreds to stores that sell tobacco to minors. The agency .)

Likewise, the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, which regulates pharmaceuticals and such over-the-counter products as toothpaste, issued slightly more warning letters this year than over the same period in 2016.

Beyond warning letters, there are other ways in which to view FDA performance. One the agency publishes tracks the number of citations issued by inspectors. Citations are observations recorded to alert companies about possible problems in manufacturing, food safety, or other areas. They don’t necessarily constitute violations and usually come before warning letters.

Citations reported in the first quarter of 2017, the latest period available, appear to be down significantly compared with recent years-but there are important caveats. Citations made during inspections that could lead to further enforcement actions are withheld from published data until cases are resolved, the agency says. Data for recent months, therefore, may undercount the number of citations actually issued in that period. The agency declined requests for additional data to gauge the number of inspections performed and citations issued in 2017.

In written testimony for his confirmation hearing, Gottlieb pledged to run the FDA “as an impartial and passionate advocate for public health” guided by science. He said the “FDA’s enforcement tools are a bedrock of its mission.”

These initial numbers, however, have watchdogs such as Public Citizen’s Carome worried that Trump’s pledge to roll back red tape has reached the FDA-potentially endangering Americans who rely on the 17,000-employee agency to protect them.

“I think there’s little reason to believe that, overall, the industry is doing dramatically better,” he said, reflecting on the decline in warning letters. “That’s unlikely to be the explanation for the drop in these numbers.”

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NEW YORK – U.S. crude oil futures fell on Monday but gasoline prices surged to 2-year highs as Tropical Storm Harvey kept hammering the U.S. Gulf Coast, knocking out several refineries which backed up crude supplies and disrupted fuel production.

The U.S. dollar dropped to its lowest in roughly 16 months against a basket of major currencies and a more than 2-1/2-year low against the euro, following comments from central bankers on Friday and worries over the storm hurting the U.S. economy.

Harvey made landfall in Texas late on Friday as the most powerful hurricane to hit the region in more than 50 years and caused large-scale flooding, forcing refineries in the area to close.

U.S. crude futures fell as the refinery shutdowns could reduce demand for American crude.

“The reduced inputs to those Gulf refineries will result in an increase in crude inventories,” said Tony Headrick, energy market analyst at CHS Hedging.

“That outweighs the outages in crude oil production from the storm.”

U.S. crude <CLc1> settled down $1.30, or 2.7 percent, at $46.57 a barrel.

The refinery shutdowns sent U.S. gasoline prices soaring. Spot prices for U.S. gasoline futures <RBc1> surged 7 percent to a peak of $1.7799 per gallon, before easing to $1.7135.

In the U.S. equity market, the Dow and the S&P were slightly lower.

“We’re looking at this as more of a shorter term phenomenon and the energy stocks have held in relatively well,” said Matt Miskin, market strategist at John Hancock Investments.

“The market is not seeing that as a significant move but we’ll have to see how the dynamics play out over the course of the week.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> fell 16.63 points, or 0.08 percent, to 21,797.04, the S&P 500 <.SPX> lost 0.29 point, or 0.01 percent, to 2,442.76 and the Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> added 15.08 points, or 0.24 percent, to 6,280.72.

European shares fell as the euro strengthened after European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi did not express concern about a strong currency in a closely watched speech.

MSCI’s world index <.MIWD00000PUS>, which tracks shares in 46 countries, was little changed on the day.

The U.S. dollar extended its weakness from last week.

“The disappointment from (U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet) Yellen at Jackson Hole on Friday has carried over to trading this week,” said Kathy Lien, managing director at BK Asset Management in New York.

Yellen did not address monetary policy at the summit of central bankers in Wyoming. The impact of Harvey was also weighing slightly on the greenback, she added.

The dollar index <.DXY>, which tracks the greenback against six major currencies, was down 0.58 percent at 92.202, after falling to 92.184, its lowest since May 2016.

U.S. benchmark Treasury yields fell to two-month lows after strong demand for a five-year note auction and as market participants waited on U.S. economic data that will culminate on Friday with the August employment report.

Benchmark 10-year notes <US10YT=RR> gained 5/32 in price to yield 2.155 percent.

The weaker dollar helped gold <XAU=> rise to a more than nine-month high.

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WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday issued an executive order revoking limits imposed by predecessor Barack Obama on the transfer of surplus military equipment to local law enforcement agencies, the White House said.

Obama had curtailed the equipment transfer programme after law enforcement officers using military-style armoured vehicles and guns confronted protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 following the fatal police shooting of a black teenager.

Trump’s executive order said, “All executive departments and agencies are directed, as of the date of this order and consistent with Federal law, to cease implementing those recommendations and, if necessary, to take prompt action to rescind any rules, regulations, guidelines, or policies implementing them.”

The Republican president has reversed or cut back many of his Democratic predecessor’s policies since taking office in January.

The use of military equipment in Ferguson prompted a wider outcry over the use of war-fighting equipment by local law enforcement agencies in the United States.

After a review, Obama barred the military from transferring certain types of equipment to police or sheriff’s departments, including tracked armoured vehicles, armed aircraft or vehicles of any kind, .50-caliber firearms and ammunition, grenade launchers, bayonets and camouflage uniforms.

Obama also required law enforcement agencies to justify the need for items like helicopters and other aircraft, wheeled armoured vehicles, unmanned drones, riot helmets and “flash-bang” grenades.

“These restrictions that had been imposed went too far,” U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions told a meeting of the Fraternal Order of Police union in Nashville, Tennessee, earlier on Monday.

“We will not put superficial concerns above public safety. We will do our best to get you what you need.” Sessions did not specify what those superficial concerns were.

Sessions said helmets and body armour available through the Defense Department programme were the types of equipment that saved the life of a police officer during the 2016 Orlando, Florida, nightclub shooting. And helicopters and armoured vehicles are vital to emergency and disaster response, he said.

Monday’s order drew criticism from some of Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress.

“It is one thing for federal officials to work with local authorities to reduce or solve crime, but it is another for them to subsidise militarization,” Senator Rand Paul said in a statement.

Paul promised to introduce legislation that would ban transfers of certain military equipment to local law enforcement agencies, improve transparency surrounding such transfers, and require the agencies to return equipment prohibited under the proposed law.

U.S. Representative Mark Sanford also condemned the executive order, criticizing the transfer program as a potential waste of taxpayers’ dollars. He said in a statement that he had introduced a bill in 2016 to auction off military equipment instead of give it to local agencies.

The Defense Department’s law enforcement support program has transferred more than $6 billion worth of equipment to police agencies since its inception 25 years ago, Pentagon figures show.

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HOUSTON – Rain pelted this battered city anew Monday as emergency teams – aided by a growing contingent of citizen-rescuers – plunged into waist-deep water seeking people stranded by devastating, historic flooding in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.

Officials in Texas said Monday afternoon that at least eight people appear to have died as a result of the storm battering the state. That toll includes six people in Harris County, home to Houston; one person in Rockport, near where Harvey made landfall; and another person in La Marque, near Galveston.

Authorities expect the toll to rise as rescue efforts continue and more rain, rising rivers and surging floodwaters pummel the Gulf Coast.

About 2,000 people had been brought to safety with more still in need of help. Yet even with several deaths attributed to the storm, the full toll of Harvey’s destruction remained unclear in Houston and across Texas and Louisiana, with officials warning that the flooding would linger and saying more than 30,000 people would be forced from their homes.

“We are not out of the woods yet,” Elaine Duke, the acting Homeland Security secretary, said during a Monday morning briefing in Washington. “Harvey is still a dangerous and historic storm.”

Fears also grew beyond Texas, where the floodwater pounding this city and others was measured in feet, not inches. President Donald Trump on Monday declared “emergency conditions” in Louisiana, where forecasts have called for as much as two feet of rainfall in some areas.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, D, had asked Trump for an emergency disaster declaration, similar to one signed for Texas last week, saying that Harvey posed a “serious danger to life and property” in the state, which is just a year removed from a massive flood disaster. A flash flood watch was issued Monday morning for part of the state as well as part of Mississippi.

The immediate focus for many remained Houston, the country’s fourth-largest city and a sprawling metropolitan area, which faced dire circumstances and National Weather Service forecasts warning of more heavy rainfall.

Two reservoirs were opened to release water to relieve the stress the downpour has caused in the region, which has seen as much rain in a few days as it averages in an entire year.

“We are seeing catastrophic flooding, and this will likely expand and it will likely persist as it’s slow to recede,” Louis W. Uccellini, the NWS director, said at the Monday morning briefing.

Parts of Harris County, which encompasses Houston, were pelted with 30 inches of rain in the past 72 hours, the Weather Service reported early Monday.

The Weather Service said Harvey’s rain is causing “catastrophic and life-threatening flooding over large portions of southeastern Texas,” and it warned of more agony to come, estimating that Harvey could produce up to an additional 25 inches of rainfall through Friday along the upper Texas coast and part of Louisiana. Some areas in Texas could see as much as 50 inches of rain in total, forecasters said.

“We have not seen an event like this,” William “Brock” Long, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Monday morning at a news briefing. “You could not draw this forecast up. You could not dream this forecast up.”

The National Hurricane Center said Monday that Harvey is expected to gradually shift on Tuesday before its center moves “just offshore of the middle and upper coasts of Texas through Tuesday night.” Harvey could make a second landfall northeast of Houston in Texas on Wednesday, but forecasters say that will not necessarily lead to a repeat of the damaging rain that pummeled the city.

Authorities in Texas fielded scores of calls for help throughout the night from people stranded by water, although many areas had imposed curfew overnight Sunday in hopes of cutting down on the number in need of being rescued from vehicles. Help was pouring in from swift-water rescue teams from around the country.

The Houston police dispatched officers on boats that were sent through streets where the floodwater reached the pumps at gas stations. While urging residents to stay off the roads, police have asked people with high-water vehicles and boats to assist in rescue efforts.

In Houston, the fire department responded to more 4,000 water-related calls for service. Police rescued 2,000 people in the city, and another 185 critical rescue requests were still pending, Art Acevedo, the Houston police chief, said at a news briefing Monday.

“The goal is rescue,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said at the briefing. “That’s the major focus for the day.”

Acevedo also disputed social media claims suggesting that looting had erupted in the city, saying that police had arrested four people for attempting to loot.

Across Houston and suburbs many miles away, families scrambled to get out of fast-flooding homes. Rescuers, in many cases neighbors rescuing one another, used fishing boats, huge dump trucks and front-end loaders to battle driving rains.

In downtown Houston, some of the floodwater had receded. The swollen Brays Bayou had gone down several feet overnight, while some streets that had been flooded were dry as the sun rose over Houston.

Abandoned cars were left in intersections and alongside roads, and in one case, a school bus had been parked on a high grassy area and left behind. A brief respite overnight had given way to people wandering the streets in the morning, looking at the scattered debris. A woman wearing hospital scrubs, knee-high rubber boots and a backpack, carrying an umbrella, trekked through the water toward a hospital.

But by midmorning Monday, a hard rain had begun to fall again.

Austin city officials said they had been asked to shelter thousands of evacuees and were figuring out how many people they could take. A shelter at the M.O. Campbell Center in North Houston had begun turning people away Sunday evening, leaving hundreds stranded, according to local emergency officials.

All day, local fire departments, the Army Reserves and good Samaritans had brought people from their flooded homes to a fire station before transporting them to the M.O. Campbell shelter. But when it reached capacity, the shelter’s doors were shut, and at least 300 people were stranded at the fire station.

The firefighters put a call out for help, asking if anyone could take the evacuees in. One local youth pastor answered the call. The rescue teams picked up Pastor David McDougle, 26, and his wife from their flooded home so they could open the First Baptist Church North Houston as a makeshift shelter for those stranded.

McDougle said he got a call Sunday evening asking if he would let evacuees sleep at the church, so he and his wife took all the food and water they had gotten and brought it to the church.

Though they now have a roof over their heads, the church is not a designated shelter and has no food or water for the evacuees. The church reached capacity with nearly 300 people lying on the floor of the gym, and the food supply ran out around 5 a.m. People are nervous to drink tap water. The restrooms at the church will not flush.

“It’s frustrating, but I’m just relying on God to fulfill his promises to us,” McDougle said. “We’re all praying.”

The Brazos River, which runs southwest of Houston, is expected to reach record heights in the coming days. National Weather Service models showed the river rising to 59 feet by Tuesday, topping the previous record of 54.7 feet.

Early Monday morning, the Fort Bend Office of Emergency Management issued voluntary and mandatory evacuation orders for wide areas along dozens of miles of Brazos River banks. River banks are expected to overflow across that part of the state as trillions of gallons of rainfall runoff consolidates over coming days.

“A 59-foot river level threatens to over top many of the levees in out area,” said Fort County Judge Robert Hebert. “It exceeds the design specifications of our levees.”

He said anyone who ignores mandatory evacuation orders – issued for an area that includes a part of Houston with sprawling mansions – will not be aided by first responders when the waters rise.

Gov. Greg Abbott, R, on Monday activated the entire Texas National Guard in response to the storm, pushing the total deployment to 12,000, his office said.

“It is imperative that we do everything possible to protect the lives and safety of people across the state of Texas as we continue to face the aftermath of this storm,” Abbott said in a statement.

On Monday, the Pentagon said that active duty units were heading to staging areas in anticipation of a formal request for help, saying national guard units from across the country had readied cargo jets, Black Hawk helicopters and others to help with the response. In addition, a Pentagon search and rescue team was deploying to Fort Worth, Texas, to help, according to spokesman U.S. Army Col. Robert Manning.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said federal agencies have more than 5,000 employees working in Texas, and the White House said Trump plans to visit parts of the state on Tuesday.

The devastation that evoked Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans was also reverberating around the world from the Houston area’s large international community. In India, foreign minister Sushma Swaraj posted a tweet Monday saying 200 Indian students were “marooned.”

“They are surrounded by neck deep water,” she wrote.

Officials said Houston, a major center for the nation’s energy industry, had suffered billions of dollars in damage and would take years to fully recover. Oil and gas companies have shut down about a quarter of their production in the Gulf of Mexico. Spot prices for gasoline are expected to jump on Monday, but the full extent of damage will not be clear for days, companies and experts said.

Harvey’s sheer size also became apparent Sunday as heavy rains and flooding were reported as far away as Austin and even Dallas. What started with a direct impact on the tiny coastal town of Rockport on Friday night turned into a weather disaster affecting thousands of square miles and millions of people – with no clear end in sight.

The Texas National Guard has deployed across the state, including engineers in Corpus Christi and an infantry search-and-rescue team in Rockport. Another search-and-rescue unit was staging in San Antonio and was likely to be deployed to affected areas shortly, officials said.

As the extent of the disaster became sharper, some criticized Houston officials for not calling for an evacuation of the city.

Turner had defended the decision not to evacuate, noting that it would be a “nightmare” to empty out the population of his city and the county all at once.

Trump has praised the way officials were handling the flood, and he signed a disaster proclamation for Texas on Friday night after Abbott made a dire request warning that the storm would be deadly and lead to billions in damages.

Both of Houston’s major airports were closed, and many tourists and visitors found themselves stranded in hotels with no hope of leaving anytime soon. While Houston was spared Harvey’s initial onslaught, disaster suddenly beset the city, as severe storms Saturday evening gave way to flooding Sunday morning.

The Weather Service said Sunday that at least five people had been reported dead because of Harvey. Local officials have confirmed that at least three people have died as a result of the storm, and officials in the hardest-hit counties expect that as the waters recede the number of fatalities will rise.

As it scrambled to open shelters across Texas, the Red Cross command center in Houston was “physically isolated” because of floodwaters, said Paul Carden, district director of Red Cross activities in South Texas, which includes Corpus Christi.

“The advice is, if you don’t have to be out, don’t be out,” said Bill Begley, a spokesman with the Joint Information Center in Houston. He said most of the calls for help the center had received had come from residents who tried to drive through the storm and got stuck in high water.

In some cases, people could not wait. Early Monday morning, a man came running into the lobby of the Marriott Courtyard hotel in Southwest Houston. He said he had a pregnant woman in his truck who was about to deliver.

Crystal Manker, the hotel’s operations manager, was shocked enough that anyone made it to the hotel, which had been surrounded by deep, impassable floodwaters and abandoned, submerged cars since the night before. Nobody had gotten in or out for 24 hours. But hotel staff went with the man through the swamped parking lot, and finally into waist-deep water where his truck had stalled, with a pregnant woman and her husband inside.

The man said he had seen the husband’s desperate call on Twitter that his wife was in labor and they couldn’t get out of their home. It was close by, so he and a friend drove through the deep water and picked them up. They started toward Texas Children’s Hospital, but as they got closer to the overflowed Brays Bayou, the water became too deep to pass.

As their truck started stalling, they saw the Courtyard, which is on the banks of the Bray, and ran inside to get help. Manker said she called 911, and got through after ten minutes. She told the operator the woman’s contractions were eight minutes apart, and the operator told her to call back when they got closer.

At that point Manker said the baby seemed destined to be born in a hurricane-marooned Marriott, so she and her staff rolled a bed into a ground-floor meeting room. They hurried in with sheets, towels, water, pillows and scissors.

Manker remembered that three nurses from Louisiana had been relocated to the hotel. She called them and they rushed down – even though none of them had ever delivered a baby.

As the mother-to-be lay in the bed in the meeting room for more than an hour, Manker called 911 again and told the operator contractions were down to two minutes apart. The nurses were getting ready.

Then a huge city dump truck appeared. Several men helped the woman into the truck, which then headed off into the 4-foot deep water, across the swamped bridge across the bayou and toward the hospital.

Maker was still waiting for word Monday on how everything went. She was most amazed at the men who answered the Twitter call for help.

“They had to be her angel,” she said.

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Acharyya Rupak, also known as Rudy Rupak, has been sentenced to 24 months in jail and must pay a fine of $10,000 for crimes he committed relating to his international surrogacy company, Planet Hospital.

Rupak founded Planet Hospital at the beginning of 2003 and has been the sole operator since then, doing business with companies in San Diego, Calexico, and Calabasas, California.

The hospital has facilitated medical tourism services, which are the visit of foreign patients to hospitals across international borders in order to receive medical treatment, including organ transplants and cosmetic surgery.

In 2006, the hospital began offering international surrogacy services, which is a surrogacy agreement involving an overseas country, and generally involves the carrying of a pregnancy by a surrogate for intended parents.

From September 2012 to January 2014, Rupak made interstate wire transfers with the intent to facilitate commercial bribery, solicited, and instructed Planet Hospital employees to solicit medical tourism and international surrogacy clients by falsely representing that their funds would be “set aside” or put in escrow accounts and used only to pay for medical services provided to the respective client.

In some instances, however, Rupak caused funds obtained from new Planet Hospital clients to be used to pay for services provided to existing Planet Hospital clients like in December 2013, he directed an employee to solicit funds from PH clients by fraudulently representing that the clients’ funds would be maintained in an escrow account.

The clients were also told their funds would be sent to My Donor Cycle, a San Diego-based business for surrogacy egg donation services and Rupak instructed the employee to make the representation to the clients without the knowledge or consent of My Donor Cycle.

On December 5, 2013, the Planet Hospital clients, wire-transferred $24,000 to a bank account controlled by Rupak but he did not place those funds into escrow and instead comingled some of their funds with funds received from another client.

He then wire-transferred the combined funds to My Donor Cycle to pay for services already provided to prior clients.

Rupak also initially undercharged clients for the cost of medical tourism and international surrogacy services in order to induce them to begin services through Planet Health without knowing that additional payments would be required however, Rupak often failed to forward clients’ funds to service providers.

The service providers included the Fertility Clinic Cancun and the IREGA Clinic which were clinics that provided surrogacy services in Cancun, Mexico.

Rupak’s failure to forward client funds to these clinics caused the service providers to demand additional funds from the Planet Hospital clients in order to initiate or continue international surrogacy services.

Rupak then made several excuses to those clients for its failure to provide successful surrogacy services and created a fraudulent website and email address through which he sent unauthorized emails in the name of a clinic and its physician to Planet Hospital clients in order give false excuses why the hospital had not provided promised services.

Rupak also instructed the hospital’s employees to make misrepresentations to its clients regarding prior medical tourism and international surrogacy successes and those unsuccessful surrogacy procedures were the fault of foreign service-providers, restriction from foreign laws, or failed bank transactions.

Rupak also identified himself with an alias to potential employers in order to conceal his true identity and pending fraud allegations and acknowledged that he caused total losses of at least $247,620.

In imposing custody, Judge Bashant noted that Rupak lied to vulnerable victims who were sick, and who were desperate for children.

“The defendant betrayed the trust placed in him by people desperate to have a child. By preying on their vulnerable emotions, he was able to extract more money on the false promise that he was doing everything possible to help them obtain a baby. To use the dream of parenthood as leverage for obtaining fraudulent proceeds is intolerable and heartbreaking,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Robinson.

“Today’s sentencing is justice overdue for the many victims affected by this defendant’s deceitful practices. Acharyya Rupak can no longer prey upon those desperate to have a family,” stated FBI Special Agent in Charge Eric S. Birnbaum.

Rupak is scheduled for a restitution hearing on September 13, to determine exactly how much he must pay back to his victims.

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NEW YORK – The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will, from October 1, interview in-person certain visa holders and others seeking a Green Card, including those on H-1B visa who are approved for permanent residency, and also family members of refugees and those receving asylum.

The new requirement, which was confirmed Friday by a spokesman for the USCIS, will apply to anyone moving from an employment-based visa to lawful permanent residency, which will also include L visa holders, as well as O and F-1.

visa holders who are family members of refugees or people who receive asylum will also be required to undergo an in-person interview when they apply for provisional status, a stage that precedes receiving a green card, according to USCIS, according to a report on Politico.

In fiscal year 2015, nearly 168,000 immigrants in these categories obtained lawful permanent residency, according to annual statistics from the Department of Homeland Security. Most (roughly 122,000) moved from an employment-based visa to a green card.

The interview mandate is part of President Donald Trump’s plan to apply “extreme vetting” to immigrants and visitors to the U.S.

The travel ban executive order signed by the president in January and revised in March called for federal departments to develop “uniform screening and vetting standards” to identify terrorists or people who “present a risk of causing harm.” The standards could include an in-person interview, the order stated.

Carter Langston, a spokesperson for USCIS, told Politico that the categories of visas that require interviews will expand in the future, calling it “an incremental expansion.” The policy, Langston said, is “part of a comprehensive strategy to further improve the detection and prevention of fraud and security risks to the United States.”

The requirement for an in-person interview is not, technically, new. But the agency currently waives the interview requirement for these visa holders “most of the time,” according to William Stock, a Philadelphia-based attorney and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Under the new policy, such waivers won’t be granted.

Stock said requiring more interviews would take the agency “back to the future.” Until about 10 years ago, in-person interviews for people moving from employment visas to green cards were standard. Waivers became ubiquitous during the past decade, he said.

“The immigration service realized that most of the time it was a colossal waste of everyone’s time,” he said.

The added interview workload will almost certainly lengthen wait times for green card applications.

Stephen Legomsky, USCIS chief counsel from 2011 to 2013, said it’s difficult to say whether the interviews will be worth the effort, reported Politico.

“It probably does add some marginal value,” he said, “but whether that value is enough to offset that additional work is hard to say.”

Langston said the agency plans to take measures to speed up the interview process, including increased training and streamlining operations.

The agency did not provide details about where the interviews would take place.

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Swati Dandekar is back both geographically and professionally, after serving 10 months as ambassador to the Asian Development Bank in Manila, Philippines, to form a new consulting group known as Thirty-Ninth Street Strategies.

Dandekar is partnering and taking the help of a former Clinton administration official, Marc Silverman, who worked for the National Economic Council in the White House on energy, telecommunications and environmental issues.

She was a former member of the Linn-Mar school board and has served on the Iowa legislature for nine years while Silverman is a member of the United Kingdom Parliament and an international adviser.

Dandekar was an ambassador to the Asian Development Bank where she dealt with 60 countries in Asia and the Pacific Rim on energy, telecom, water and transportation issues as well as helped the bank develop infrastructure projects in many of those countries.

Dandekar, 66, who was appointed by the Obama administration, returned to Marion in February after the new presidential administration recalled ambassadors.

“I’m proud of what I did in 10 months,” Dandekar told The Gazzete as one of her priorities was to award contracts, basing them on life-cycle costs rather than simply on the lowest bid and believes she helped build bridges between the United States and other countries.

Dandekar told The Gazzete that when she left Manila, the bank’s president Takehiko Nakao, paid her a compliment saying, “I now know what ‘Iowa nice’ is.”

In her new role, Dandekar will be taking the experience she had as an ambassador and as a former member of the Iowa Utilities Board when dealing with energy and telecommunications issues and will do market research, write policy papers and work on international licensing agreements.

Thirty-Ninth Street Strategies is a Washington-based market research and intelligence firm serving businesses, political campaigns, public interest groups and nonprofits.

Dandekar used Silverman as a pollster in her past campaigns and Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller is one of the firm’s clients.

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NEW YORK – Although a flop at the box office and a major disappointment for Shah Rukh Khan fans, Imtiaz Ali’s recent film Jab Harry Met Sejal, which also stars Anushka Sharma, is about a Punjabi guy who meets a Gujarati girl in Europe.

Upon reaching the airport with her family, Sejal realizes she has lost her engagement ring and asks Harry to take her back to all of the tourists’ spots they visited to look for her ring and in the process the two fall in love with each other.

Within a week of the release of the film, News India Times identified a ‘real’ Harry and Sejal: Sonny Ahuja and Ami Ahuja (Patel).

When Ami came to the U.S. with her family in 1997, they had no money and were living at her aunt’s house from where they used to travel by bus to get groceries in the snowy days of winter.

Being the eldest child in a family who was in search of a new life in the U.S., Ami started off by working three jobs a day until she stumbled upon a job at a perfume store in Wisconsin, which Sonny owned and even though she joined in September, it wasn’t until December that she saw him for the first time when he came to give her the inventory.

Then, when their district manager left, Ami took over the business handling all five stores they owned and they started doing 13 trade shows a year for 9 years. While travelling together on business, they eventually fell in love and got married in 2006.

After their business started declining in-store due to the online shopping boom, they decided to launch it online and since they were not experienced in the field of e-commerce, they had to learn the basics of it first, including SEO, so they could get traffic online.

“I knew how to get traffic in the store but not online,” Ami said, in an interview tyo News India Times, adding that they started their business online in 2009 and after gaining much confidence, closed down their last store in 2011.

Today, their business is thriving and they want to help other entrepreneurs start their online businesses so they don’t have to face similar types of problems.

Both husband and wife are also bloggers; Sonny provides tips on business while Ami writes about how to find love and happiness.

Sonny is a Social Media Trainer in his own online business KiLLitOnLine.com where he coaches members and clients on how to use Social Media to increase their business revenue.

He is also involved with High Converting Websites, Google AdWords and SEO at SonnyAhuja.com and Social Media Leap where he helps individuals and companies increase their web presence, revenue and personal brand by developing search engine optimized High Converting websites & blogs.

He also manages Pay Per Click & SEO campaigns for some prominent companies in Wisconsin along with consulting, coaching and training individuals and companies on Pay Per Click, SEO, Twitter, Facebook, Blogging and YouTube through boot camps, workshops and online webinars.

Sonny has been the President and CEO of GrandPerfumes.com for almost 21 years and was on the Board of Directors for the Better Business Bureau Wisconsin in the Greater Milwaukee Area for one and a half years.

Sonny was recently given the title of being one of Milwaukee’s 6-Pack. This is a distinct honor given to the top 6 “need-to-know” people in the city who are considered to be “Milwaukee’s Most Well-Connected” by The Milwaukee Press Club.

In addition, he is a member in good standing with the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association and wants to expand his business into other states and areas to help smaller businesses become bigger on the online platform.

Ami works from home on her own schedule and helps her husband run his Social Media Business at www.SocialMediaLeap.com as well as www.KiLLiTOnLine.com.

In the past she ran for Mrs. Wisconsin and received 3 out of 5 awards along with writing a book called Live Positively with Ami’s Umbrella: 8 Easy Ways to Jump-Start Your Happiness, where she talks about her own struggles and how she has never lost hope in the hardships of life.

Ami says she gets her inspiration of never giving up from her mother who is a breast cancer survivor and has realized that having the support of her family and friends was what empowered her in her battle.

From that, Ami has started a woman’s group called A Woman’s Journey at www.TheBeautifulWomen.org, which has over 225 members where she organizes free monthly events for them, calling in different guest speakers who talk on topics that will empower, motivate and help women and intends to expand her group from a small local community to a national and eventually an international level within the next two years.

Together, Sonny and Ami say they have become the first couple in the world to have a social media/internet marketing related membership site that keeps its members up dated on Social Media and Internet Marketing for less than one dollar a day and their business; GrandPerfumes.com, is a website that carries the largest variety of designer perfumes and Colognes worldwide.

Sonny is originally from New Delhi and has a B.A. in Marketing from the College of Vocational Studies while Ami is from Ahmedabad, Gujarat and has a Bachelors in Commerce from Indira Gandhi National Open University. They have four children.

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Umair Hamid was sentenced to 21 months in prison for his role in an international diploma mill scheme operated through the Pakistani company Axact by the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Joon H. Kim.

“Umair Hamid and Axact operated a massive diploma mill that preyed on consumers who thought their tuition would pay for a college education. Instead, Hamid provided victims with worthless fake diplomas. Defendants like Hamid who profit from fake schools face very real penalties, including prison time,” Kim said.

Hamid pled guilty on April 6, 2017, to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

According to court documents, Hamid helped run a massive diploma mill through his employer, Axact, one of the world’s leading information technology providers.

Hamid and his co-conspirators deceived individuals across the world and the U.S. into enrolling in supposed high schools, colleges and universities.

Consumers paid upfront fees, believing that in return they would be enrolled in real educational courses and eventually, receive legitimate degrees but instead, consumers received no instruction and worthless diplomas.

Hamid, who served most recently as Axact’s Assistant Vice President of International Relations, helped Axact conduct the fraud in the United States, among other locations.

On Axact’s behalf, he served as the primary contact during negotiations with a former competitor for Axact’s acquisition of websites for fake educational institutions, which under Axact’s control, continued to deceive consumers into paying upfront enrollment fees for non-existent educational programs.

In May of 2015, Pakistani authorities shut down Axact and arrested multiple individuals associated with the company for participating in the diploma mill operation however Hamid continued working on the fraud as he was not arrested.

He even personally traveling to the United States in 2016 to open a bank account used to collect money from the defrauded consumers.

Along with his prison term, Hamid was ordered to forfeit $5,303,020.

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The first sign that there was something off about Amole Gupte’s “Sniff!!!” came in the fifth minute of the film. After digging her fingers into a jar of pickle (a disconcerting sight for any pickle enthusiast), Sunny’s grandmother looks at him with pity and says something to the effect of, “We have a pickle factory. For us, not being able to smell is as good as not being able to see.”

There are so many things wrong with this sentence, but the worst part is that it comes in the beginning of a children’s film. In one stroke, she belittles her grandchild’s handicap (a problem with his olfactory nerve renders him unable to smell), undermines his confidence, and implies that the only path in life he can follow is to join the family business.

There is an initial pall of gloom over the film, complete with sad background music and a tear-jerking essay about the importance of a being able to smell – until Sunny (Khushmeet Gill) gets cured in a freak accident.

Our protagonist sneezes out a giant ball of mucus and his olfactory nerves are miraculously set ablaze – his sense of smell goes from zero to super sensitive. He can tell what you’ve had for dinner if he stands next to you, he knows the odour of an illicit affair by smelling the two parties involved, and even catches a thieving teacher by smelling a stolen wallet.

In short, he’s a sniffer dog in the form of a boy. When a spate of car robberies is reported in Mumbai, it is up to Sunny and his superhuman nose to sniff out the culprits.

But Gupte barely spends time on solving the mystery at hand. Instead, he spends an inordinate amount of time (in an 89-minute film) on scenes where residents of a housing colony are squabbling on petty issues. There are some lovely moments there, and perhaps there is a seed of an idea for a separate documentary on the great Indian housing society meeting. But “Sniff!!!” is not the place for it. Gupte also seems to have some leftover shots from his last film “Stanley Ka Dabba”, because we get unnecessary shots of food being plated, tiffin boxes being opened and whatnot, all of which take away from the main mystery.

The mystery itself is not very intriguing and dealt with in an amateurish fashion. You can see the red herrings a mile away. If this is going to be a children’s franchise film (which is what we are given to understand in the end), Sunny and his magical nose are going to have raise a much bigger stink than they did in “Sniff!!!”.

REUTERS

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At a high-profile reception for India’s newly-arrived diplomats, Dr. Sudhir Parikh, publisher and philanthropist, launched a think-tank that would advocate for India’s development policies.

Dr. Sudhir Parikh, publisher of Desi Talk and recipient of India’s Padma Shri award, held a reception in Watchung, New Jersey Aug. 25, to welcome the new Consul General of India in New York Sandeep Chakravorty and Deputy Chief Mission in the Indian Embassy in Washington, D.C., Ambassador Santosh Jha.

On the occasion, he also announced the launch of a think tank, Parikh Foundation for India’s Global Development, that will advocate for India’s policies and initiatives as an emerging global player. He urged policymakers, elected officials and Indian-Americans to step-up efforts on this front, and to educate American counterparts and the public.

Among the invited guests were members of the New Jersey state Senate and Assembly, Indian diplomats, as well as Indian-American politicos, entrepreneurs and specialists in different fields of endeavor.

“Welcome to my home, it’s a very good feeling to have all of you today to meet and greet our ambassadors (from India) … and also our elected officers of the New Jersey government,” said Dr. Parikh. “As you all know the bilateral relations between the United States and India are very vibrant and strong, business between the countries is booming. It is a key aspect of the growing friendship acknowledged by both Prime Minister Modi and President Trump. Today, I am confident that despite of change of elections in the future, may it be in New Delhi or Washington, close ties between India and the U.S. will be a defining relationship in the 21st century,” he added.

Despite India being a “natural and dependable ally,” Dr. Parikh said, “It has not been easy to reach where we are today. We have worked hard towards this goal,” he said thanking all the elected officials in the room without whom it would have been impossible to achieve such a goal, he said.

“I have personally been striving to achieve closer bilateral ties for the last four decades; from the time we managed to help launch India Caucus on Capitol Hill in 1990, the formation of the Washington Leadership Council and then the passage of the India-U.S. nuclear deal, it’s all gone a long way to ensure that the U.S. and India see eye to eye on the issues that matter the most,” he continued.

Dr. Parikh said Indian-Americans cannot sit on their laurels and must do more to enable the rest of America to understand India better.

“The question also arises as to what else can the Indian diaspora do here to put a spotlight on India and its initiatives,” he said.

Over the years many Indian and Indian American organizations have done their bit to push the image of India in America, and many Americans today recognize the contributions of the Indian Americans, Parikh noted.

“But more needs to be done on their perceptions of the Indian government’s initiatives, and its efforts to expand bilateral ties,” Parikh noted. “Perhaps, the first thing would be to start a dialogue, to ensure the initiatives of the Indian government, its efforts to expand bilateral ties, is put in perspective,” he said. “The only way perhaps to achieve this would be with firm commitment on a regular basis; To have top experts – policymakers, politicians, intellectuals, to participate in this endeavor,” he stressed.

“So, I am announcing today my keen interest in launching a think tank focused on the issues, challenges and opportunities of the Indian polity,” he said, urging the Indian diaspora to contribute in helping with this initiative so India can be understood better by all.

Sheila Oliver, former Speaker of the New Jersey Assembly, who is in the running for the next Lieutenant Governor of New Jersey with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Murphy, said she was astonished by the work of Indian-Americans adding that she has been a fan of Deepak Chopra ever since she was a teenager.

“For many years on my night table I had a book that a friend gave me and it was called ‘The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success’ and as I watched this video I thought; that is why the Indian community is successful, it is why it is philanthropic and it is why it has a global view of the world,” Oliver said. “I believe that one of the strongest characteristics of Indian-Americans and of people in India is their connection to spirituality and accepting the fact that there is something greater than themselves,” she said.

Assemblyman Jon Bramnick thanked Dr. Parikh for the services that he has provided for the State and the community. At the event, Bramnick presented a Joint Legislative Resolution welcoming and honoring Consul General Chakravorty. and Deputy Chief of Mission Jha, praising their contributions to the U.S.-India bilateral relationship and global diplomacy, and lauding the Indian-American community’s contributions to the diversity of the state.

Assemblywoman Nancy Pinkin, thanked Dr. Parikh for his hospitality and said there was a need to bridge the deep political divide in the country. “A lot of people think that what is missing today is that ability of everybody to work together. We have serious problems on both sides and we really need to be able to do that,” Pinkin said. “We have so many healthcare issues and I thank you doctor for your leadership and I agree with speaker Oliver that the focus on … human values is what we need now to address these issues. So, we are here to help in any way we can and so appreciate your hospitality,” she added.

Assemblyman Jamel Holley said he wanted to continue working with Indian-Americans and praised Indian culture. “You are very good rich people with great culture and great diversity” and that was an important aspect of diversity in New Jersey.

Assemblyman Raj Mukherji, the only Indian-American in the New Jersey legislature, said he feels proud to be an Indian-American and that it was an honor to be a representative of the Indian American community.

“I usually leave Indian events with pride. It is a privilege to follow (former Assemblyman) Upendra Chivukula’s footsteps in the legislature and I am hopeful and optimistic that my dear friend Vin Gopal will double the Indian American presence in the New Jersey legislature in this election,” he said. Gopal, a Democrat, is running for the New Jersey state Senate from Monmouth County.

“I really with great pride want to welcome Ambassador Jha and Consul General Chakravorty because among other things the New York consulate is the busiest in the country, it is the representative of the world’s largest democracy in the cultural, commercial and economic capital of the world and one of the most densely populated states in the country,” Mukherji added.

Consul General Chakravorty joked about how the Indian Consulate should be in New Jersey instead of New York because in his three-week appointment, all of the events he has attended had been held in New Jersey.

Chakravorty thanked Dr. Parikh for inviting him to his home and welcoming him to the U.S. and New York.

“Dr. Parikh is an allergy specialist but I think you have developed a unique ability of not being allergic to anybody, you are so friendly and so welcoming and that is the root cause of being so generous and philanthropic,” he told Dr. Parikh at the gathering.

The Consul General also provided many statistics on the win-win relationship between India and the U.S. and emphasized the fact that Indians visiting the U.S., spend about $5 billion annually.

Deputy Chief Mission Jha also said he was extremely honored to be at Dr. Parikh’s home, praising him for his work for the community.

The invited guests also included New Jersey State Senator Sam Thompson, Assemblyman Andrew Zwicker, Dr. Maya Sanghavi, an OBGYN; Paul Mehta, a businessman; Sunil Gupta, Dr. Parikh’s partner in Zifiti.com; H. K. Shah, a financier; Dr. Manoj and Saroj Desai, trustee of the Share and Care Foundation; Dr. Paul Ehrlich, a renowned allergist and Dr. Parikh’s senior partner; entrepreneur Bob Carroll; well-known businessman Anil Monga; Krishna Jhaveri, a urologist in Long Island; Minal Jhaveri, a pediatrician; Govind Munjal, the president of the Associations of Indians in America; Paramita Tripathi, the deputy consul general in New York; Amit Jani, founder of NJLead, a non-profit to groom South Asian youth for political leadership, and currently appointed as the point-man for outreach to Asian Americans for New Jersey’s Democratic gubernatorial campaign; Binod Sinha, a urologist in New Jersey; former Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula, and Albert Jasani of Royal Albert’s Palace, Fords, N.J.

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The 10th Meena Bazaar took place August 27th at the Ellora Banquet Hall, in Edison NJ. The event was filled with vendors, fashion shows, belly dancing and a musical night.

There was a celebrity appearance by Pakistani TV star Juvaria Abbasi, who crowned the Model of the Year 2017. The winner was Ivy Dominic.

Gifts were given to participants, with a lot of people from South Asian communities attending the event. Sponsors were thanked by plaques.

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