The Indian American actor Aasif Mandvi got married on Sunday, Aug. 27 to Shaifali Puri in front of about 220 guests during a multicultural celebration in Atlanta.
“I’m most excited about sharing this incredible moment with so many family members and friends from all the different parts of my life,” Mandvi told People magazine.
“I’m so honored they all showed up. After this many years, I think most people had given up on me ever tying the knot,” he added.
According to a Daily Mail report, the couple was married during an interfaith Hindu and Muslim ceremony officiated by Dr. Bhagirath Majmudar and Rev. Farida Ali and their wedding attire was created by Indian designer Anita Dongre with Mandvi wearing Sebastien Grey for the reception.
“We included elements of our Indian Hindu and Muslim cultures in every single aspect of our wedding. From the ceremony, to the food, to the music, to the clothes,” Mandvi said.
Mandvi and Puri got engaged last October in Big Sur, California; they met in 2013 through a mutual friend.
Mandvi portrays Jay Malick on the TV Land comedy-drama series Younger and Puri is the CEO of the Uplift organization that provides aid and support for extreme poverty.
Mandvi was also a correspondent on The Daily show for 188 episodes between 2006 and 2015.
NEW YORK – An Indian American scientist, Vishal Gajjar, a UC Berkeley Postdoctoral Researcher, who was looking for extraterrestrials through a $100 million Breakthrough Listen project, has detected 15 radio bursts coming from a dwarf galaxy about three million light years away from earth during his five-hour-long observation.
“In the early hours of Saturday (August 26), UC Berkeley Postdoctoral Researcher Dr. Vishal Gajjar observed the location of FRB 121102 using the Breakthrough Listen backend instrument at the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. The instrument accumulated 400 TB of data on the object over a five hour observation, observing the entire 4 to 8 GHz frequency band,” Breakthrough Listen said in a statement, shared with Times of India.
Analysis by Gajjar and the Listen team revealed 15 new pulses from FRB 121102 and also confirmed that the source is in a newly active state and is being speculated as energy source used by extra-terrestrial civilizations to power spacecraft.
“Further, the high resolution of the data obtained by the Listen instrument will allow measurement of the properties of these mysterious bursts at a higher precision than ever possible before,” the statement continued, adding that the observations showed that for the first time FRBs emitted at higher frequencies with the brightest emission occurring at around 7 GHz, than what was previously observed.
“When the 15 fast radio bursts (FRB) left their host galaxy, our entire Solar System was just 2 billion years old. Life on Earth consisted of only single-celled organisms, and it would be another billion years before even the simplest multi-cellular life began to evolve,” the statement further said.
Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are brief, bright pulses of radio emission from distant galaxies and they were first detected with the Parkes Telescope in Australia and have now been seen by several radio telescopes around the world.
“FRB 121102 was discovered on November 2, 2012, which gives it the name (121102). In 2015, it was the first FRB seen to repeat, ruling out theories of the bursts’ origins that involved the catastrophic destruction of the progenitor (at least in this particular instance),” the statement said.
According to the Times of India report, in 2016, the repeater was the first FRB to have its location pinpointed with sufficient precision to allow its host galaxy to be identified, residing in a dwarf galaxy about three billion light years away from Earth.
Since then, attempts to understand the mechanism that generates FRBs have made the dwarf galaxy a target of almost all ongoing monitoring campaigns across the world.
Breakthrough Listen, a global astronomical initiative launched in 2015 by Internet investor and philanthropist Yuri Milner and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, is also observing nearby stars and galaxies for signatures of extraterrestrial technology and the Listen science team at UC Berkeley has added FRB 121102 to its list of targets.
Breakthrough claims that whether or not FRBs eventually turn out to be signatures of extraterrestrial technology, the project is helping push the frontiers of a new and rapidly growing area of our understanding of the Universe.
NEW YORK – Indian comedian Amit Tandon does not fear competition from other comedians as he claims they are good as well.
Being a typical engineer with an MBA from a Punjabi family who was busy running a business, comedy was only a hobby for Tandon.
But once he started his comedy gigs seven years ago through YouTube videos, the process has seemed never-ending and today he has his own channel with 129,230 subscribers.
Tandon’s gigs are mainly about the everyday experiences in his life, he said, in a phone interview to News India Times.
In fact, he is known as “the married man” amongst the crowd of comedians because he started off his comedy career with jokes about his marriage and though he also jokes about his two kids, parents and growing up middle class, his jokes seem to be pretty clean compared to others’ lines.
Currently, Tandon is on his first U.S. tour, having performed in some cities, and will continue to perform in other cities in the following weeks.
Tandon recently performed at Carolines on Broadway in New York and will be performing his comedy act in East Brunswick, New Jersey, on Sunday, Sept. 17 at 6 p.m.
His advice to youngsters who want to become comedians is “don’t get into it for the money and be original because the more honest you are, the better connection you have with the audience.”
Tandon has performed and hosted more than 700 comedy shows throughout the world across the globe and is known for his clean comedy in corporate field.
He has give over 100 performances across Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chandigarh and is a regular at the Best of Stand up lineup at The Comedy Store in Mumbai.
He has also opened for Dan Nainan’s tour of India and is responsible for bringing a popular comedy face-off show of Singapore, Fight Comic, to India.
Tandon hosts a weekly show on Radio City 91.1 and is the founder of Grandmasters of Comedy, a company focused on bringing stand-up comedy and spreading happiness to the corporate world.
He was the runner up at CEOs Got Talent which was telecasted on CNBC TV 18 and is also the first comedian featured on NDTV, Rising Stars of Comedy.
Tandon has hosted the New Year show on Doordarshan as well, and led the Spread the Cheer campaign for Comedy Central in Delhi.
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s advisers knew he was taking a political risk when he entered the Rose Garden in June 2012 to announce plans for allowing young undocumented immigrants, known as “Dreamers,” to stay in the country and work without the threat of being deported.
Obama’s announcement amounted to a last resort, a sweeping use of executive power in the face of opposition from a Republican Congress. All presidents have used their authority to unilaterally change policies, but it had never been tried on immigration at this scope – granting deportation relief and renewable, two-year work permits to hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the country illegally as children.
Five years later, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals has been, by many measures, an unqualified success. Nearly 800,000 immigrants have enrolled and most have already renewed their protected status. Polls show widespread public support for the Dreamers. Forty five percent of DACA recipients are attending school, while those in the workforce have seen their wages rise from an average of $10.29 per hour to $17.46, according to the Center for American Progress.
There is just one problem: The program was never meant to be permanent. And, in a cruel irony for those enrolled, DACA’s very success could lead to its undoing.
Buoyed by the program’s achievements, Obama moved in November 2014 to use more executive power to create another deferred action program for an additional 4 million immigrants, a decision made despite his own repeated public disavowals of the power to do so.
That action opened the door for Texas and other Republican-controlled states to sue, winning an injunction from a federal judge in 2015 that remains in place after the Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 last year.
Now, Texas and nine other states have set a Tuesday deadline for the Trump administration to rescind DACA or face a similar legal challenge.
That has put President Donald Trump – who ran as an immigration hard-liner but has wavered over DACA since taking office – in his own political bind and prompted fears among advocates that he soon will begin unwinding the program.
The president has promised to “show great heart” in his decision and is reportedly torn between conflicting advice from senior aides. Immigration hard-liners, such as senior policy adviser Stephen Miller and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, want to end DACA. Others, including Chief of Staff John Kelly, who previously served as Homeland Security secretary, consider it a political liability for Trump to terminate the program.
Meantime, the looming deadline has prompted widespread outcry.
“We have a crisis of confidence,” said Tom Tait, the Republican mayor of Anaheim, California, a co-chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors immigration task force, which supports DACA. “A promise was made to them to come out of the shadows to work and go to school and pursue the American dream.”
The situation also has laid bare a difficult truth for Obama: that his decision to govern largely through executive power in his final years in office was done at the risk that his legacy could be quickly undone by his successor.
Obama has learned that lesson repeatedly – from Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from a global climate deal and an Asia trade pact to his rollback of financial and environmental regulations. But nowhere is the pain more acute and personal than for the Dreamers, who rejoiced over DACA but who are suddenly staring at a bleaker, more uncertain future.
They turned over personal information to the government, including their home addresses, to register for their work permits – but now face the prospect that this information could lead to their apprehensions or deportations.
Senior Trump administration officials have said they are not targeting Dreamers. But the National Immigration Law Center has been inundated with calls from DACA recipients asking whether they should consider moving, said executive director Marielena Hincapié.
“At the end of the day, people need to make informed decisions over their assessment of risk,” she said.
Former Obama administration officials said they always recognized that a Republican administration could roll back the program and that it was intended as a temporary patch until Congress approved the first major comprehensive immigration legislation since Ronald Reagan signed a bill into law in 1986.
“It is absolutely a muscular use of enforcement authority,” said Cecilia Muñoz, Obama’s domestic policy adviser. “We did a lot of careful work and felt we could defend it legally. But there was a lot of soul-searching about whether it could hold up politically.”
In 2011, DHS had undertaken a massive review to try to speed up an immigration court backlog of nearly 400,000 cases, offering administrative closure to tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants that would have provided deportation relief. But many rejected the offer because it did not include a work permit, said John Sandweg, a former DHS senior official who was involved in the process.
Aides informed then-Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano that about 3,000 of the cases involved Dreamers who would have qualified for a path to citizenship under the 2010 Dream Act that was defeated in the Senate. The aides recommended offering this group deferred action, which would allow them to work.
Napolitano countered that they should expand the pool to all qualified Dreamers.
“I remember being stunned. That would be a massive program,” Sandweg recalled this week. “She said, ‘If we just offered it to the ones who are caught, you’ll have Dreamers trying to be arrested and that does not make sense. If we do it, do it for all and fix the problem.'”
Napolitano pitched the idea to then-White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, who brought in Muñoz and then-Chief of Staff Jack Lew. The White House, under mounting political pressure from Latinos in an election year, had already been mulling, similar ideas, former Obama aides said, and quickly agreed to go forward. Less than two weeks later, Obama announced DACA in a Rose Garden ceremony on June 15, 2012.
“Let’s be clear: this is not amnesty, this is not immunity, this is not a path to citizenship. It’s not a permanent fix,” Obama said. “This is a temporary stopgap measure that let’s us focus our resources wisely while giving a degree of relief and hope to talented, driven, patriotic young people.”
The announcement was punctuated when Obama was interrupted by a reporter from the Daily Caller, a conservative news website, who shouted a question about what it meant for American workers. Obama chided him, but later answered, saying DACA was “the right thing to do for the American people. And here’s the reason: because these young people are going to make extraordinary contributions.”
White House aides feared the political blowback, but it was relatively minimal. Obama won more than 70 percent of the vote among Latinos and Asian Americans in sweeping to reelection over Republican Mitt Romney.
Over the ensuing two years, however, an effort on Capitol Hill to pass a comprehensive immigration bill died in the GOP-controlled House.
Pressure from advocacy groups mounted again on Obama, who protested repeatedly that he did not possess the power to expand DACA. The legal underpinnings were based on a concept, known as “prosecutorial discretion,” that law enforcement agencies with limited resources must set priorities, and White House aides feared that expanding it would undermine that rationale.
Days after Republicans gained control of the Senate in the 2014 midterms, however, Obama announced plans to create another deferred action program for up to 4 million immigrant parents of U.S. citizens.
It never happened. Texas and 25 states sued, and District Court Judge Andrew S. Hanen of Brownsville, Texas, issued an injunction a day before the program was to begin.
Looking back, even some Democrats said Obama’s move was a mistake. The issue became fodder in the 2016 presidential race as Trump railed against deferred action, while Democrat Hillary Clinton promised to do more than Obama had.
Expanding deferred action to more than 4 million people means the administration was unilaterally implementing a “policy that is pretty broadly not only not permitting immigration enforcement but is doing 60 percent of the work of a comprehensive reform bill,” said Leon Fresco, an immigration attorney who served as an aide to Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. “That’s where it may be overreach.”
Dreamers said that despite their fears over DACA’s future they have no regrets in their strategy. Cristina Jiménez, executive director of United We Dream, called DACA the “most significant immigrants’ rights victory in 30 years.” But she emphasized it was never the “end goal.”
“For our community, the undocumented, the solution needs to be permanent,” she said, “and it needs to be delivered by Congress.”
FILE PHOTO: A SAAB Gripen fighter plane flies during the Aero India show at the Yelahanka Air Force Station in Bengaluru, India, February 15, 2017. REUTERS/Abhishek N. Chinnappa/File Photo
NEW DELHI – Sweden’s Saab will tie up with India’s Adani Group to bid for a contract to make fighter aircraft in India, its chief executive said on Friday, pitting it against Lockheed Martin in a race to equip India’s air force with new jets.
Saab is offering its Gripen fighter and U.S. defense contractor Lockheed its F-16 to supply hundreds of aircraft that India’s air force says it needs to replace its Soviet-era fleet.
Saab and Lockheed have both offered to build a single-engine aircraft locally to comply with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s signature “Make-in-India” initiative to cut imports and build a domestic defence industry.
Hakan Buskhe, Saab’s CEO, told reporters in New Delhi that the company would invest “billions of dollars” if it won the order, and that it was prepared to export the Gripen from India if the government allowed it to do so.
Saab and Adani have yet to decide on a location for manufacturing, Buskhe said.
Lockheed Martin is also proposing to manufacture F-16s in India for export.
Under India’s new “strategic partnerships” defence policy, a foreign aircraft maker must collaborate with an Indian firm to develop a world-class indigenous aeronautical base that India has struggled to build for decades.
Lockheed has already picked India’s Tata Advanced Systems as its local partner to produce F-16s that will compete for the contract with Saab’s Gripen.
Adani is a $12 billion group with businesses ranging from energy and logistics to real estate but it has little presence in defence.
The Indian government will issue a formal request to Lockheed and Saab over the next few days to provide information about their plans to design, develop and produce combat jets in India, a government official told Reuters earlier this week.
Defence analysts say the competition is between Lockheed and Saab, the only companies that have announced joint ventures with Indian companies and a pledge to build locally if they win.
India signed a deal in September last year to buy 36 twin-engine Rafale fighter jets from France’s Dassault Aviation for around $8.7 billion, the country’s first major acquisition of combat planes in two decades.
Indian air force officials have warned for years of a major capability gap opening up with China and Pakistan without new state-of-the-art planes, as India’s outdated fleet retires and production of a locally made plane was delayed.
India originally awarded Dassault an order for 126 Rafales in 2012 after the fighter beat rivals in a decade-long selection process, but subsequent talks collapsed.
Downtown Houston is seen in rain and clouds on Sunday. Rising water from Hurricane Harvey pushed thousands of people to rooftops or higher ground. CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford
PORT ARTHUR/HOUSTON – A week after Hurricane Harvey came ashore in Texas, rescuers kept up a marathon search for survivors on Friday as large pockets of land remained under water after one of the costliest natural disasters to hit the United States.
The storm has displaced more than 1 million people with 44 feared dead from flooding that paralyzed Houston, swelled river levels to record highs and knocked out the drinking water supply in Beaumont, Texas, a city of about 120,000 people.
Chemicals maker Arkema SA and public health officials warned of the risk of more explosions and fires at a plant owned by the company. On Thursday blasts rocked the facility, about 25 miles east of Houston and zoned off inside a 1.5-mile (2.4-km) exclusion zone, after it was engulfed by floodwater.
With the presence of water-borne contaminants a growing concern, the National Weather Service issued flood watches from Arkansas into Ohio on Friday as the remnants of the storm made their way through the U.S. heartland.
The Neches River, which flows into Beaumont and nearby Port Arthur, was forecast for a record crest from Friday well above flood levels. The flooding and loss of drinking water forced the evacuation of a hospital on Thursday.
Two of the last people remaining in their flooded home near the river, Kent Kirk, 58, and Hersey Kirk, 59, were pulled to safety late Thursday.
“They were the last holdouts, the last house,” said Dennis Landy, a neighbor who had spent the day in his airboat ferrying people from a small, remote group of houses near Rose City, Texas, close to the Neches’ banks, to safety.
It took an hour of coaxing by a rescuer but Hersey Kirk finally let herself be carried from her wheelchair to the airboat and then to a Utah Air National Guard helicopter.
“I’m losing everything again,” she said. “We got flooded in Ike, in Rita. My husband just got a new car – well it was new to him anyway. It’s sitting in 5 feet of water.”
Harvey roared ashore late last Friday as the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in half a century. It dumped unprecedented quantities of rain and left devastation across more than 300 miles (482 km) in the southeast corner of the state.
People are rescued by large trucks along Tidwell Road near toll road 8 in Houston. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford
COST OF UP TO $75 BILLION
Moody’s Analytics estimated the economic cost from Harvey for southeastern Texas at $51 billion to $75 billion, ranking it among the costliest storms in U.S. history. Much of the damage has been to Houston, the U.S. energy hub.
At least 44 people were dead or feared dead in six counties including and around Houston, officials said. Another 19 remained missing.
Some 779,000 Texans have been told to leave their homes and another 980,000 fled voluntarily amid dangers of new flooding from swollen rivers and reservoirs, according to federal estimates.
Tens of thousands crowded in evacuation centers across the region.
A new hurricane, Irma, had strengthened into a Category 3 storm, the midpoint of the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, on Friday. It remained hundreds of miles from land but was forecast to possibly hit the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and neighboring Haiti by the middle of next week.
Seventy percent of Harris County, which encompasses Houston and has a population of about 4.6 million people, was covered with 18 inches (45 cm) or more of water, county officials said.
As signs of normal life returned to Houston, the nation’s fourth most populous city, there were concerns about health risks from bacteria and pollutants in floodwater.
The Houston Astros baseball team, forced to play away from the city due to the floods, will return and play at its home field on Saturday. It has invited shelter residents to attend its double header against the New York Mets, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said on his Twitter feed.
Flooding has shut some of the nation’s largest oil refineries and hit U.S. energy infrastructure, which is centered along the Gulf Coast. It has sent gasoline prices climbing and disrupted global fuel supplies.
The national average for a regular gallon of gasoline rose to $2.519 as of Friday morning, the highest since August 2015, up 17 cents since before the storm hit, according to motorists advocacy group AAA.
The storm knocked out about a quarter of U.S. oil refining capacity and the signs of restarts were tentative.
In major Texas cities including Dallas, there were long lines at gas stations, prompting state regulators to tell people they were sparking a panic and saying there were ample fuel supplies.
Power outages had decreased from peaks of over 300,000 to about 160,000 homes and business in Texas and Louisiana as of Friday morning, data from utilities showed.
Evacuees take shelter from Tropical Storm Harvey in the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, U.S. in this August 28, 2017 handout photo. Texas Military Department/Handout via REUTERS
U.S. President Donald Trump pauses as he announces his decision that the United States will withdraw from the landmark Paris Climate Agreement, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, U.S., June 1, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/Files
WASHINGTON – As President Donald Trump considers ending an Obama-era program that allows immigrants brought to America as children to obtain legal status, a small number of congressional Republicans are pitching a “conservative Dream Act” as a fail-safe. But it’s far from clear that Republicans could wrangle the votes to pass that bill in the House – or where it might fit in a crowded September session already thrown off by Hurricane Harvey.
Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., who represents a Denver swing district, said Thursday that if Trump ends Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, he would use procedural maneuvers to force a vote on the Bridge Act – an encouraging sign for Democrats, who long said that they need just a handful of Republicans to join with them to force a vote on such legislation.
Several other Republicans in diverse swing districts, including Reps. David Valadao, R-Calif., Jeff Denham, R-Calif., Will Hurd, R-Texas, Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., and retiring Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., have said they would support seeking protections for DACA recipients. In the Senate, the Bridge Act is co-sponsored by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who have said that it would likely have the support to pass.
In the House, the math is trickier. Coffman said on Twitter that he would use a discharge petition, a tactic that can send a bill to the floor without the approval of the committee, a way to rescue legislation that the majority party does not support. In theory, the Bridge Act could come to the floor, and pass, if 23 Republicans joined Coffman and every House Democrat to support it.
Most House Republicans, however, share the president’s opposition to DACA and to legal status for undocumented immigrants. In 2010, just eight House Republicans voted for the original version of the Dream Act; only two of those Republicans, Florida’s Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart, remain in Congress. In 2015, 26 House Republicans voted against an amendment that would have defunded DACA; six have since left the House, although several were replaced by Democrats.
At the moment, Coffman’s Bridge Act has just 12 Republican co-sponsors. A separate rewrite of the Dream Act, the Recognizing America’s Children Act sponsored by Curbelo, with Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., drafting a companion bill in the Senate, has just 18 co-sponsors, all Republicans. Both bills would go against a pledge Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has made to conservatives – that no immigration bill would get a vote without majority support from the majority party.
Congressional Democrats are more united in their response to DACA. The party is widely expected to use a Trump decision to end the program to withhold support for the spending bill and other measures. As in previous years, GOP leaders may need Democratic votes to offset opposition to any spending plan from fiscal conservatives.
“This is the time of year when Republicans need Democrats look like they’re not crazy,” said one Democratic aide, who asked for anonymity to speak frankly about party strategy. “If the president pulls the trigger on DACA, that is going to be a factor in whether they can get any Democrats to cooperate with them to help get some of this stuff across the finish line.”
Mumbai: Actors Bhumi Pednekar and Ayushmann Khurrana along with “Shubh Mangal Savdhan” director R.S. Prasanna during the promotion of the song ‘Kanha’ from their upcoming film “Shubh Mangal Savdhan” at Fever 104 FM station in Mumbai on Aug 17, 2017. (Photo: IANS)
MUMBAI
Prasanna, who is making his Bollywood debut with the film “Shubh Mangal Saavdhan”, which deals with erectile dysfunction, says the Hindi film industry is encouraging filmmakers to explore unusual subjects and thanks to the new age audience, such films are making a difference.
Considering the fact that the film is the remake of its Tamil version “Kalyana Samayal Saadham”, which was also directed by him, asked if it was a safe choice to make a debut with, Prasanna told IANS here: “Well, I think Bollywood has always encouraged experimental subjects. Therefore, films like ‘Vicky Donor’, ‘Dum Laga Ke Haisha’ and ‘Hindi Medium’ have been made and accepted in mainstream cinema of Bollywood.
“Even when I was making the film in Tamil, I knew that the subject of erectile dysfunction has a universal appeal. So when in a conservative environment of Tamil cinema, the multiplex audience received the film well, I realised that the story touched the right notes. So yes, that gave me a certain level of confidence.”
While the Hindi version of the film is set in Gurugram, the Tamil version was set in southern India. According to him, it was quite an interesting process to set the film in a different city, capturing the culture of that city, its society and the texture.
“Making the transition from south to north was not a challenge for me because as a maker, I knew what story I want to tell. I worked with a wonderful team where the producer (Aanand L Rai) and writer (Hitesh Kewalya) are from that part of the country and managed to make their mark. So the collaboration was fantastic,” said Prasanna.
“Shubh Mangal Saavdhan”, featuring Ayushmann Khurrana and Bhumi Pednekar, is releasing on Friday.
Republican U.S. Presidential nominee Donald Trump attends a campaign event at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio August 1, 2016. REUTERS/Eric Thayer
NEW YORK – There’s massive surge of support for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which President Donald Trump may end, forcing at least 800,000 recipients to be deported over two years, as their work permits expire. Those young men and women then would either be forced to leave the country, or join the shadow workforce, becoming officially illegal immigrants all over again.
The DACA program officially started on June 15, 2012, when the Obama administration announced that certain illegal immigrants who came to the US as children and met some guidelines – including being in school, or high school graduates, had served or were serving the military, had no criminal record, had a record of paying taxes and were not welfare recipients – may request consideration for a work permit, to be renewed every two years.
These individuals had to be under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012, and had to show they had come to the US before reaching 16th birthday. It allowed these immigrants to study and work without fear of being deported.
Trump had vowed to end the DACA program in his campaign speeches, but had demurred on the issue, saying he had compassion for DACA recipients, who had only known the US as their home.
However, reports said Trump has now decided to end the program.
Trump may find ending DACA a politically explosive move, though, as not only fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill, but a majority of Americans are in favor of retaining DACA, in some form or the other, if not give chance of permanent residency to DACA recipients.
Results from an NBC News/Survey Monkey poll released Thursday show that 64 percent of Americans support DACA.
House Speaker Paul Ryan on Friday, in a radio interview, urged Trump to not tear up the program, reported CNN.
Responding to a question about DACA, on his hometown radio station WCLO in Janesville, Wisconsin, Ryan said Congress was working on a legislative fix to preserve the problem.
“I actually don’t think he should do that,” Ryan said of Trump’s consideration of terminating the program. “I believe that this is something that Congress has to fix.”
The Washington Post reported hundreds of business executives — from Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and other companies – have urged Trump to preserve DACA.
The national coalition on Thursday petitioned Trump to rethink his plans to scrap the program. Doing so would imperil the economy and jeopardize the futures of nearly 800,000 young people — 97 percent of whom are in school or in the workforce, they wrote.
“Dreamers are vital to the future of our companies and our economy,” the executives wrote. “With them, we grow and create jobs. They are part of why we will continue to have a global competitive advantage.”
They have already submitted to extensive background checks. They pay income taxes. Without them, the economy would lose $460.3 billion from the national GDP and $24.6 billion in Social Security and Medicare tax contributions, the letter said.
The letter, organized by Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us and signed by leaders of nearly 400 other companies, also urged Congress to pass legislation that would provide a permanent fix for the young undocumented immigrants.
Among the signatories are business magnate Warren Buffett, fashion designer Diane von Furstenburg, Tim Cook of Apple, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, and Meg Whitman of Hewlett-Packard.
Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella wrote in a LinkedIn post that “smart immigration can help our economic growth and global competitiveness” in addition to creating more jobs for Americans.
“As I shared at the White House in June, I am a product of two uniquely American attributes: the ingenuity of American technology reaching me where I was growing up, fueling my dreams, and the enlightened immigration policy that allowed me to pursue my dreams,” he wrote. “As a CEO, I see each day the direct contributions that talented employees from around the world bring to our company, our customers and to the broader economy. We care deeply about the DREAMers who work at Microsoft and fully support them.”
Nadella added: “This is the America that I know and of which I am a proud citizen. This is the America that I love and that my family and I call home. And this is the America that I will always advocate for.”
NBC reported that many advocacy groups have pressed Trump to ignore the “arbitrary” deadline set by 10 attorneys general around the US to end DACA.
DACA advocates have been keeping a vigil at the White House since August 15. In New York this week, hundreds marched from Trump Hotel to Trump Tower chanting in favor of DACA. In New Jersey, a pro-DACA rally was held at New Jersey City University. Other groups have planned a march and rally on September 5 in Washington.
“This really is a crisis that was created by the administration itself and by the bullying and threats that have come from the Texas attorney general Paxton and the other attorneys general,” Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, told reporters last week.
“Shame on the president for being bullied himself into threatening the DREAMers who have given so much to this country and are continuing to give so much,” Gupta said.
There was growing support in media for DACA.
Rex Huppke, writing in the Chicago Tribune, opined to “keep the dreamers, deport the Nazis,” noting that two-thirds of Americans support DACA, and a new ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 9 percent of the country — or about 22 million people — think it’s OK to hold “neo-Nazi or white supremacist views.”
A study out this week by the University of California, San Diego and the groups United We Dream, the National Immigration Law Center, and the Center for American Progress reported that DACA recipients make “significant and positive” contributions to the U.S. economy, with 91 percent currently employed.
After receiving DACA, 69 percent move on to a better-paying job, and DACA recipients are starting businesses at a higher rate than native-born residents of the U.S., according to the report.
Fox News anchor and commentator Geraldo Rivera was another media luminary who took strong exception to Trump’s likely hit at DACA.
“If this program is revoked, then the all of the false statements up until now, false statements about the cruelty of Donald Trump will be true. If he, for no reason that I can see other than appealing to his base,” he said.
“The DREAM Act students, these are people that commit fewer crimes than citizens, they are people who have by requirement must be registered, they must be clean. They can’t collect any welfare payments. They must pay taxes. To throw them out for what? Who benefits from this?” Rivera asked, on a Fox News program.
He said 800,000 “innocent young people who now have become political footballs and their lives are totally disrupted. They’re living in fear now.”
Ending DACA will have economic repercussions too, with many experts warning that Trump’s proposed tax overhaul will not live up to expectations as the US struggles with an ageing population and rising health care costs.
If DACA ends, the impact will be felt across the US – universities will be hard hit as enrollment dips, businesses will lose young workers, and the treasury department will lose out on taxes.
There was also indication that the menace of stagnant job growth is hovering month after month, despite the growth in economy. Job growth lagged in August, with the economy adding a lower-than-projected 156,000 jobs and the unemployment rate ticking up slightly to 4.4 percent.
If Trump ends DACA, Congress would be forced to act on immigration reforms. It would come at an awkward time for the administration, as it struggles with disaster relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, the looming issue of debt ceiling, and the ambitious tax overhaul.
(Sujeet Rajan is Executive Editor, Parikh Worldwide Media. Email him: sujeet@newsindiatimes.com Follow him on Twitter @SujeetRajan1)
Mumbai: Actor Amitabh Bachchan during a press conference over anchoring the upcoming season of “Kaun Banega Crorepati” in Mumbai on Aug 23, 2017. (Photo: IANS)
MUMBAI
After playing a Bal Thackeray doppelganger in Ram Gopal Varmas “Sarkar” series, it is time for the indefatigable Amitabh Bachchan to play yet another real-life character in “Sairat” director Nagaraj Manjules new film — his first in Hindi.
In the film which is yet to get a title Big B plays Vijay Barse who more than a decade ago, established the Nagpur based NGO Slum Soccers which helps slum kids find their bearings through the game of football.
Though he is more than happy to speak about his adulation for Bachchan, Manjule is reluctant to talk about the project he will start shooting with the megastar in October.
“Let’s just say, it is based on a real-life character. But the way I’ve written the part and the film, it moves very far away from the original source,” he said.
Manjule has been writing his new Bachchan film for a good two years.
“And before that I was researching on the subject. I don’t mind spending time on my script. I spent a good 8 years on the script of Sairat. I wrote it with only Bachchan Saab in mind. I’ve been his fan from childhood.
“I grew up copying his clothes, speech and mannerisms from Majboor and Deewaar. I’d go to school with my shirt tied like Bachchan Saab in ‘Deewaar’ and get severely reprimanded by my teachers. But the punishment had no effect on me. I’d still do it,” he said.
Manjule, a self-confessed Bachchan bhakt, says when he met Bachchan he was somehow able to control his adulation.
“I don’t know how but I managed to remain calm, restrained and dignified. I actually wanted to jump out of my seat and dance around him. But I narrated my script in an even tone. I am happy I did that. I didn’t want to come across as just a fan. Of course I am a fan for lifetime. And someday when I complete my film with him I’ll tell him how much effort it took me to not gush and rave when I met him for the first time,” he said.
The director wants to focus on making a good film.
He said: “I don’t feel burdened by the responsibility of living up to ‘Sairat’. But yes, I want the audience to say I made a good film again. I don’t want people to say, “Yeh Nagaraj ne kya banaya hai?’
La Colección Resorts is offering 50 percent off the rates at a dozen properties in Mexico. The special applies to resorts in such beach destinations as Cancun, Chetumal, Cozumel and Los Cabos. For example, the Live Aqua Beach Resort Cancun starts at $214 per person double, including taxes, down from $282; the Grand Fiesta Americana Puerto Vallarta starts at $146 per night, down from $292. Both resorts are adults-only and all-inclusive. Book by Sept. 7; travel by Dec. 12 and use promo code LABOR2017. Info: 800-343-7821, www.lacoleccionresorts.com
Conestoga Ranch, a glamping resort in northern Utah, is discounting weekday September stays by 50 percent. Prices vary, depending on accommodations. For example, the Traditional Tent starts at $75 per night and the Conestoga wagon goes for $80, including taxes. Stay Sunday through Thursday, Sept. 4-28. Book by Monday. Guests also receive 20 percent off rentals of ATVs and water equipment. Use promo code LongSummer. Info: 844-GO-GLAMP, www.conestogaranch.com
The Red Lion Inn, a historic property in the Berkshires, is offering 25 percent savings. The Endless Summer sale rate starts at $149 per night (plus $14 tax) for a deluxe queen room, a savings of $49. The 125-room inn in Stockbridge, Mass., was founded in the late 1700s and features a year-round heated outdoor pool. Stay Sunday-Thursday through Sept. 28, except Sept. 3 blackout date. Info: 413-298-5545, www.redlioninn.com
Sea
With AdventureSmith Explorations, couples save $800 on select Baja’s Bounty cruises aboard the 84-passenger Safari Endeavour. The seven-night trip, which sails round trip from La Paz, Mexico, starts at $2,595 per person double (plus $220 port charges). Sale applies to four departures in December and one in January. Book by Sept. 30 for non-holiday cruises and by Nov. 1 for trips departing on Dec. 23 and Dec. 30. Info: 877-620-2875, www.adventuresmithexplorations.com/bajas-bounty.
Air
Aer Lingus has a sale on nonstop flights from Washington Dulles to Dublin. The round-trip fare starts at $566, including taxes. Travel Nov. 1-March 31; holiday blackouts apply. Minimum Saturday-night stay required. By comparison, connecting flights start at $618. Book by Sept. 6 at www.aerlingus.com
Package
Book a package with JetBlue Vacations and save 15 percent on the base airfare. The airline is also offering discounts on select hotels. For example, a four-night trip to Florida in October starts at $921 per person double, a savings of $466. Price includes nonstop round-trip air from Reagan National to Fort Lauderdale, accommodations at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach and taxes. Travel through Nov. 7, except Fridays-Sundays and holiday blackout dates. Book by Sept. 6 at www.jetblue.com/vacations/sale/15-off-air
British Airways has a sale on a five-night London vacation. The deal starts at $740 per person double and includes round-trip air from Washington Dulles or BWI Marshall to Heathrow, lodging at the Royal National Hotel, daily breakfast and taxes. Book by Sept. 26 and travel by March 31. Priced separately, the trip costs about $1,100 more. Info: www.britishairways.com
Consul General Neeta Bhushan welcoming Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi on stage.
The Consulate General of India, Chicago hosted the annual Kala Utsav on August 26 at Yellow Box, Naperville IL. Kala Utsav, with its grand history in Chicagoland , did not disappoint the artistically inclined Indian diaspora. Many dance forms from all over India were presented on stage by artists from all over Midwest.
Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi was the Chief Guest of this event. Consul General Neeta Bhushan was accompanied by her husband Anurag Bhushan, Joint Secretary ( ASEAN-ML) , Ministry of External Affairs. The event commenced with the traditional lamp lighting and national anthems, followed by Bhushan’s address. Juan C represented the office of Chicago Mayor, Rahm Emanuel at the event and was honored on stage. Krishnamoorthi said that today we are celebrating what is good and beautiful around us and he congratulated Bhushan, the volunteers and all the participants for putting up a successful celebration of Indian art and culture. Bhushan thanked Krishnamoorthi for taking time out to encourage the participants.
Dance performance at meet.
More than 150 performers from all over the Midwest region participated in the cultural program. Nineteen teams presented various folk dance forms from different states of India.
The performances started with a Chenda Melam performance by Chicago Kalashtera, reverberating the auditorium and concluded with Punjabi Gidda by Bollywood Arts Academy. Colorful and lively dance performances delighted the audience. The program was well coordinated with the grand performances left to the end of the program.
At the conclusion, Consul O P Meena presented vote of thanks to all the guests, the volunteers, participants and the audience. 2017’s Kala utsav did not disappoint in either its substance of the dance forms, nor the exuberance of the crowd who were on their feet encouraging the participants.
The Telugu Association of Greater Chicago (TAGC) conducted its annual tennis tournament on August 20 at Deerfield, IL. The organization started this tournament in early 80’s, to meet and make new friends and attract talented players.
Parents of young tennis players were encouraged to register in the tournament. In this year’s tournament, a total 123 players registered to participate in different categories. TAGC rented an entire club which holds 9 courts to conduct the tournament from morning 8 AM to 6 PM. Different categories competed, including men’s doubles, teens singles girls and boy’s singles and under 10 years boys singles. Each team played 4 games with opposing teams in regular match, Then the top 8 teams played quarter finals, followed by winners playing semis and finals. All the players reported on time, the tournament started as per schedule, and closed on time.
TAGC President Ramachandra R. Ade along with the entire sports committee and sponsor Jagadeesh presented the trophies to the following winners:
Girls Singles: Pooja, Ponneboina
Under 11 Boys: Akshay, Maram
Youth Boys: Tej, Ekkurthi
Men Doubles: Srinivas, Merneedi and Sai, Merneedi
Ade thanked sponsor Jagadeesh and management of Cignus Solutions Inc., for their support in sponsoring and conducting this year’s indoor tennis tournament; and Prasad Maram who helped in coordinating and planning the event with sponsors, tennis courts management and volunteers, the TAGC Board, sports committee chair Sangem Saptagiri and team, and volunteers as well as all the participants.
People are rescued along Tidwell Road near toll road 8 in Houston. Photo: Jabin Botsford, The Washington Post
STAFFORD, Texas – As the murky floodwaters of Hurricane Harvey kept rising, a vast mosque here – like several others across the state – opened its doors to Americans of all faiths. It offered a dry place to sleep, diaper-changing stations, endless coffee and sweet tea, and warm trays of Pakistani and Syrian rice dishes.
There are an estimated 250,000 Muslims who live across the Houston area, one of the most diverse cities in the country. Their mosques and charitable organizations were some of the first to open their doors during the disaster to offer supplies and shelter to their neighbors.
“Look, helping is a total no-brainer. You don’t even have to discuss or debate it,” said M.J. Khan, president of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, who started to load up on fans, towels and bedding last weekend as the rain began to fall. “It’s part of our faith and part of being human. I always feel that this is why God created human beings: for us to help each other.”
Muslim families on Friday were celebrating the Eid al-Adha festival, one of Islam’s holiest days, coinciding with the hajj, or pilgrimage, to the Islamic holy city of Mecca. Part of the holiday’s mission is giving to the poor, and Muslims traditionally slaughter livestock and offer the meat to those less fortunate.
Girls were dressed in puffy and sparkly dresses and boys wore bow-ties they had received as donations from friends and neighbors who had not flooded. Their mothers, surrounded with the smoky, sweet smell of oud, a perfume worn on special occasions, wore dresses and headscarves.
Families at the Brand Lane Islamic Center, which includes cricket fields, a playground and elementary and middle schools, handed out Syrian pastries and cookies to a multifaith gathering. Islamic leaders said that despite large crowds arriving for prayer, it was important to them that hurricane evacuees feel welcome to stay.
“They’re No. 1. They will not be disturbed, they will not be displaced, they will not be moved,” said Khan, who operates the Champions mosque and several others that are providing shelter to Muslims and people of other faiths. He said the evacuees took precedence over his congregants. “If they have to pray in the parking lot, they’ll pray in the parking lot.”
The Islamic Society of Triplex, a Beaumont mosque, has donated hundreds of meals – as well as volunteer medical care – to their neighbors displaced by floods, even though many of the mosque’s members also had to evacuate their homes south of Houston, said Amna Ahmed, a member of the mosque.
Mosque members on Thursday night delivered meals to an estimated 500 people at the city’s two emergency shelters. One mosque member, who is a physician, also visited the shelters offering his services free of charge, Ahmed said.
This weekend, the mosque plans to bring another large supply of meals to a base where first responders were launching in Port Arthur.
The relationship between Muslims and their surrounding communities in Texas, as in other parts of the country, has been strained at times in an atmosphere of rising anti-Muslim sentiments and hate crimes.
At the Stafford mosque, dozens of neighbors of all faiths brought in cases of bottled water and canned goods this week.
Mountasser Kadrie, a professor of medicine who is Syrian-American, was staying at the mosque’s makeshift shelter during Harvey’s relentless rain when he saw “a few big white guys with tattoos coming to the mosque in a huge truck.”
They got ready to offer them shelter, he said.
“But he was bringing us cases of water – I mean in bad flooding – raining like hell,” he said. “I mean, I just sat down and I cried. I was so mentally exhausted after the flooding, and this just really choked me up.”
He showed pictures of the three young men and said perceptions on all sides were changed.
“This,” he said, “is America, our truest selves.”
Muslims here said they were simply trying to help neighbors. But in the process, members of different communities got to know each other better.
Sitting inside the Champions mosque’s gym, one non-Muslim woman told the Associated Press that she was very grateful to make it to the mosque.
“Muslims are just like any other type of person. They’re caring, loving, giving people,” Katherine McCusker said. “I feel very fortunate that they were open and willing to come and have this space.”
Non-Muslims who were being housed in mosques have taken to social media and said they really enjoyed the Muslim tradition of hospitality. Many also didn’t mind that women and men are separated at night because women said they felt as though they were getting their privacy, among strangers.
Many in the Muslim activist community were also busy helping, including Saira Siddiqui, who writes a popular blog and is a PhD student in social justice.
She was connecting people’s distress messages with volunteer boaters and the Coast Guard. She helped them find pregnant women, young children and people with disabilities of all faiths.
Siddiqui also said she was going to offer assistance to anyone who needs help filling out federal emergency assistance forms.
“Tomorrow there’s going to be a volunteer training session at someone’s home where we’ll be led and instructed by professionals on home cleanup postflood,” she said.
She also drove to an Indian restaurant because she got a call that they were preparing food for 500 people. A group of Muslims went to pick it up and drop it off at a temple close by. She said that people’s hearts “aren’t changed by facts and figures. They’re changed by stories.”
By getting to know one another, “this disaster shed all artificial boundaries,” she said. “We were one. One community. One city. For a brief moment, we stopped caring about any differences and distinctions. It was simply: Do you need my help? What can I do for you?”
Does she think it’ll stay this way?
“No, of course not,” she said. “But I think this was an opportunity for us to simply get to know one another. And that is what will bring about long-term change. ”
Washington, Sep 2 (IANS) An Indian origin political consultant from Illinois has been sentenced to 15 months in prison for his role in funneling illegal campaign contributions to candidates in San Diego’s 2012 mayoral race.
Ravneet Singh, former ElectionMall Technologies CEO, was sentenced on Aug. 31, in California and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine on charges that he helped launder money from a wealthy Mexican citizen trying to gain political influence in San Diego, according to federal prosecutors.
Singh, 45, of Naperville, Illinois, was ordered to report to prison on October 12, the Chicago Tribune reported on Friday.
By law, foreign citizens are not allowed to contribute to US political campaigns.
“American elections are not for sale,” Executive US Attorney Blair Perez said in a statement.
“We will not allow our sacred electoral process to be compromised. This prison sentence underscores an important message: Anyone who tries to manipulate the American electorate will pay a high price,” Perez said.
Last year, a jury convicted Singh, Mexican citizen Jose Susumo Azano Matsura and Matsura’s son Edward Susumo on felony counts involving illegal contributions to the mayoral campaigns of then-District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and Bob Filner.
Matsura was seeking to buy political influence, including support for a San Diego waterfront development that would have included a yacht marina, hotel and luxury condominiums, authorities said.
Filner, eventually was elected mayor, but later resigned under a cloud of sexual harassment claims.
Neither candidate was charged in connection with the illegal contributions.
ElectionMall, Singh’s consulting company, had also done work for former US Representative Aaron Schock, a Republican who resigned his Peoria-area seat in Congress before he was indicted last year on charges that he misused campaign funds to support a lavish lifestyle.
According to records, Schock paid Singh’s company about $60,000 over a five-year period, and ElectionMall contributed $5,000 to Schock’s campaign in 2014.
Before he was sentenced, Singh told the judge, “I’m a very different person than I was five years ago. … I’ve always wanted to serve my country, now I can’t even vote.”
He said the case has taught him to be “more careful” in his business, to “slow things down and think things through” and to take advice from mentors.
Kenneth Juster, President Trump’s nominee for Ambassador to India. (Photo: Facebook)
New York, Sep 2 (IANS) Kenneth Juster, who had played a key role in laying the foundations of the India-US nuclear cooperation agreement, has been nominated as the new U.S. ambassador to India.
President Donald Trump’s decision to appoint Juster was announced by the White House on Friday evening. It will have to be approved by the Senate. His nomination is a mark of importance that Trump places on building closer economic, trade and strategic relations with India.
Juster, 62, had served as the Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs from January to June under President Donald Trump. He was also the Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security from 2001 to 2005 under former President George.w. Bush.
Juster still holds the position of Acting Counselor of the Department of State. The diplomat represented Trump for the advance work and negotiations for the May G7 summit in Italy.
The New Delhi position has been vacant since January when Richard Varma resigned along with most political appointees of former President Barack Obama’s administration.
The nomination of the new envoy follows Trump’s announcement in his Afghanistan policy speech last week that “another critical part of the South Asia strategy for America is to further develop its strategic partnership with India”.
He simultaneously delivered Pakistan the sternest warning by a US leader saying that it has “much to lose” if it continues to harbor terrorists.
As the Under Secretary for Commerce, Juster played a key role in developing the civilian nuclear cooperation agreement between US and India.
During his tenure, he founded and chaired the US-India High Technology Cooperation Group, and played an important role in developing the Next Steps in Strategic Partnership (NSSP) initiative.
The NSSP laid the foundation for increased civilian nuclear and space cooperation, and high-technology trade and expanded dialogue on missile defense.
For these contributions, the US-India Business Council honored him with the Blackwill Award in 2004.
Between leaving the Bush administration in 2005 and joining the Trump administration this year, Juster had served as the executive vice president of the technology company Salesforce.com and as managing director at the global investment firm Walter Pincus.
Juster is a graduate of Harvard University. He has served as the chairman of Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and as a vice chairman of the Asia Foundation.
Ravinder Bansal of Buffalo, N.Y,, who flew solo around the world, to spread awareness about cancer and to raise money for a hospital in Ambala. (Photo: courtesy Bansal’s blog https://raviworldflight.wordpress.com/)
For Ravinder Bansal, 68, the highlight of his round-the-world solo flight in a Cessna 400, was when he landed in his hometown of Ambala on the tarmac of the Indian Air Force base, a rare moment for a civilian pilot.
Back in Buffalo, N.Y. on Aug. 20, Bansal called it a “dream fulfilled” and thanked many who had helped him, in his quest to raise awareness about cancer since his sister-in-law died in 2012 from breast cancer, which he told News India Times, could possibly have been averted with early detection and treatment as 90 percent of breast cancer cases are.
“No more flying for me for a while, got to catch up on drumming, golfing and drinking!” Bansal said in his last blog entry after his return. When he spoke to News India Times he was at his wife niece’s wedding in California.
“My trip went pretty smoothly with some minor glitches,” Bansal said. He accomplished much of what he had set out to do with his four goals, he said. He succeeded in a round-the-world solo flight as he had been wanting to for many years; He was able to raise awareness about cancer in rural India from where he came – north of Ambala from the town of Kasauli on the foothills of the Himalayas; raising awareness about the Rotary Ambala Cancer and General Hospital which serves the city and rural areas, and is located in the Ambala Cantonment. Founded in 2005, with the goal of bringing free healthcare to a very poor and underserved community, the hospital began with just a nurse going door-to-door to raise awareness of cancer among the poor. Since then with the help of the Rotarians and citizens of Ambala it has grown into a 100 bed hospital.
“Building a hospital is one thing but continuing its operations is another,” Bansal noted. And those operating funds are crucial he said.
Ravinder Bansal on solo round the world flight to raise cancer awareness, lands at Ambala Air Force Base July 21. (Photo: Bansal Blog at https://raviworldflight.wordpress.com/)
“The Indian media covered my trip extensively; even at the grassroots level. My nephew, for example, is going from school to school to talk about cancer. So there was a lot of discussion about early detection and treatment,” Bansal said. The Ambala hospital also got well-deserved publicity he said, through his campaign. “In Italy I was able to collect $7,000, for instance,” he recalls.
His fourth goal, of helping the hospital buy an MRI machine is however, only partly met. So far, $147,992 of $750,000 goal has been met through donations from 238 people. “Much has been accomplished but a lot more needs to be done!” Bansal says to procure the $750,000 machine, the very basic tool needed for diagnosing cancer. The hospital runs a Sneh-Sparsh (Touch of Love) program to raise awareness for early self-detection, treatment, and after-care regarding cancer in the local community.
Bansal is hoping to start touring Rotary clubs around the country and any other organizations that may invite him in coming months, he said, and hopes to raise the remainder. He also wants to link up with other Indian-American non-profits interested in health care delivery and improving health care services in India.
“It is a lofty goal to raise $750,000, but I do want the hospital to be able to buy a new machine with all the guarantees and technical help available in the purchase,” he told News India Times. “The campaign is not done yet. I will carry on for next two or three months. I would like to approach any organization that will help,” he said.
Bansal is a retired entrepreneur who founded a company, Airsep Corporation, in 1987, manufacturing medical devices, particularly ‘oxygen concentrators’ that help people with emphysema and COPD. From just 3 employees, the company grew to employ 650 people when he sold it in January 2013. He is married to Pratibha Bansal, who runs a pain management clinic for the last 20 years in Buffalo. His older son Rohan Bansal is a mechanical engineer with his own company manufacturing audiology products; his other son Nitin graduated from Northwestern University, Illinois, and is doing his residency at Cornell University Medical Center in New York.
Apart from his passion for flying, Bansal also describes himself as a wannabe drummer. His blog https://raviworldflight.wordpress.com/ with pictures, documents the details of his trip and his website http://raviworldflight.com/ gives details on how to donate for those interested in doing so.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. : Washington Post photo by Jabin Botsford
Good afternoon. This morning, faced with the very real possibility of a potential immediate shutdown of the entire DACA program by a federal court, President Trump took the responsible and constitutional step of announcing that the administration will be phasing out the program over the next two years.
Today’s September 5th deadline was set by the plaintiffs presenting the administration with two, and only two, real options to choose from: the likely sudden cancellation of the program by a judge or an orderly wind-down that preserves the rule of law and returns the question to the legislative branch where it belongs. The President chose the latter of the two options.
The President made the best decision in light of the fact that the system was set up by the Obama administration, in clear violation of federal law. President Obama even admitted this himself when announcing the program, calling it a “temporary stopgap measure” and calling on Congress to act.
DACA was initiated after Congress explicitly rejected the same proposal in legislative form. In other words, President Obama didn’t just suspend federal law, but implemented a policy Congress had explicitly rejected.
There is a misconception that DACA primarily serves as a shield from deportation. This is misleading. DACA grants work authorization to nearly 800,000 individuals who are not legally authorized to work. DACA recipients, whose average age is in their 20s, were not an enforcement priority before, and they certainly won’t become a priority now. The priorities remain the same: criminals, security threats, and those who repeatedly violate our immigration laws.
The main effect of today’s announcement is that work permits and other government benefits are being gradually phased out. But rather than leave DACA recipients and men and women of immigration enforcement in confusing limbo, while the DACA program was challenged by states in the same court that struck down another of the previous administration’s unlawful immigration orders earlier this year, President Obama [sic] is laying out a responsible 24-month phase-out — sorry, President Trump.
No permits will be expiring for another six months, and permits will remain active for up to two full years. The President was elected partly on his promise to deliver meaningful immigration reform that puts the jobs, wages, and security of the American people first. He is delivering on that promise every day, and he has put forward serious proposals to Congress that would responsibly end illegal immigration, prevent visa overstays, remove dangerous criminals, protect American jobs and wages, and create a merit-based system that grows our middle class.
These are not just President Trump’s priorities; they are the American people’s priorities. For decades now, the American people, immigrant and U.S.-born, have asked Congress to establish a lawful immigration system that protects our country. They’ve asked for strong, secure borders, they’ve asked us to protect American security and American jobs, and they’ve asked us to have compassion, not only for those who are here illegally, but for unemployed American citizens, including millions of unemployed African American and Hispanic citizens who continue to suffer under a broken system.
The President’s DACA decision today brings us closer to a safer, fairer, and legal immigration system. Now that he has ended this unsustainable and unconstitutional program imposed by the previous administration, the President is calling on the men and women in Congress to fulfill their duty to the American people by truly reforming our immigration system for the good of all people.
The Association of Indians in America, New York Chapter (AIA-NY) held its Benefit Gala in support for its 30th Annual Deepavali Festival at the Hilton Hotel in Long Island on Aug. 26.
The Gala was attended by numerous respected individuals, past presidents of AIA, Community Leaders and dignitaries including members of the media and sponsors that have showcased their continued commitment and support for the Deepavali Festival.
Among the individuals honored at the Gala were Vaijinath Chakote, MD, a physician and entrepreneur at Empire Medical Services; Aditya Mattoo, MD, a nephrologist at NYU Langone Medical Center; Mr. Chintu Patel and Falguni Patel, co-founder and co-chairman and chief executive officer of Amneal Pharmaceuticals and Ashutosh Tewari, MD, chairman of the Urology department at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital.
The evening was blessed by the presence of Padma Vibhushan Legendary Pandit Jasraj Ji and special performances from Miss Teen Bollywood USA 2017, Manjari Parekh.
The 30th Annual Deepavali Festival will take place at the South Street Seaport on Sunday, Oct. 1 from noon to 7 p.m. ending with a spectacular display of fireworks.
The event is one of the largest in the tri-state area, attracting anywhere from 75,000 to 100,000 people each year.
The festival will feature numerous corporate booths, food stalls, clothing vendors, performances and activities for the whole family including a live grand display of fireworks at the end of it all.
Naach Inferno, a dance competition featuring college and university teams from around the Tri-State area who will showcase dances with Eastern and Western fusion and will be broadcasted globally on Star Plus.
The celebrity guest will be announced by AIA soon, for more information, find them on Facebook or visit their website at www.theaiany.org.
The internationally acclaimed performing arts troupe Viva Kultura, will be presenting their “Discover India” show for the first time on Monday, Sept. 11 at 6 p.m. at the NYU Skirball Center.
Over 40 artists from 15 countries will come together for this three hour show that expresses Indian culture and will feature a fusion of classical dance, live music, aerial acrobatics, theatre and martial arts.
The proceeds from the show will be donated to the Feal Good Foundation, an organization that supports and advocates for those injured in the 9/11 terrorist attacks and are facing catastrophic health issues.
“We, as the Consulate General of India, support this very noble initiative of promoting Indian culture and bringing Indian culture to America in a very comprehensive manner. We support this venture, and we urge all of you to come forward and support this group in this endeavor,” said Paramita Tripathi, the Deputy Consul General of India in New York City.
Viva Kultura has been performing for audiences of up to 500,000 people in Poland for the past 30 years and has also toured and performed in India, Australia, Brazil and Moldova and were dubbed the “Indian Cirque du Soleil” while in Australia.
Their innovative act uses contemporary theatre techniques to present wisdom from the Bhagavata Purana, starting from the tale of King Parikshit who has been cursed by a king and only has seven days to live.
With this sense of urgency, the audience is taken deeper into several stories within a story that look into the meaning of life through the emotions of love, fear, hope and tragedy.
The tour is being organized by Indian-Americans, Hari and Brinda Raval.
“We want to help create understanding between our two worlds, and the arts are a powerful way to help people connect across cultures. As our world becomes smaller and more connected, we have to actively work to help people understand each other better,” said Brinda.
The troupe will also be visiting and performing at over 11 cities through the Northeast in September including New York University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, Pennsylvania State University, Rochester Fringe Festival, SUNY Buffalo, University of Maryland, Ohio State University and more.
