U.S Attorney Phillip A. Talbert speaks to around 200 interfaith community leaders about his commitment, and that of the U.S. Department of Justice, to prosecuting hate crimes and civil rights violations at a December 7, 2016, community building event hosted by the Sacramento SALAM Center and Interfaith Council of Greater Sacramento.(Photo: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edca/community-outreach)
More than 600 people in Bakersfield, California, including a number of Indian-Americans, gathered Sept. 19, to watch a movie telling the story of one of the deadliest hate crimes in recent U.S. history, the Oak Creek gurdwara massacre in Wisconsin, where a white supremacist shot to death 6 members of the Sikh faith, and seriously injured a police officer Aug. 5, 2012. The screening, which was held at Dore Theater on the CSU Bakersfield campus, was attended by representatives from law enforcement agencies and community leaders. A similar event was held Sept. 14, 2016, which was attended by 500 people, according to the website of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California.
“Waking in Oak Creek,” tells the story of how the community of Oak Creek responded to the tragedy and worked with law enforcement worked to overcome tragedy and stand up to hate. The film was produced in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Justice COPS Office as part of the Not In Our Town: Working Together for Safe, Inclusive Communities Initiative. (It can be watched on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJbbw3b_ogs)
“In the aftermath of the deadly attack on the Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, the entire community rallied together to turn tragedy into an opportunity to unite against hate,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California Phillip A. Talbert is quoted saying in a press release from his office. The community found positive and inclusive ways to commemorate the victims, which included Sikh worshippers as well as law enforcement officers, and to raise awareness about hate crimes, particularly those directed at Sikhs, Talbert noted.
“I am proud that my office could host a screening of the film that documents that community’s inspiring response to hate and facilitate a discussion about how our community can work together to prevent these crimes from happening in our district,” Talbert added. California has seen a spate of attacks on Sikhs over the last year. This despite the fact that Sikhs are among some of the earliest Indians to immigrate to the U.S. more than a hundred years ago.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office organized the event in partnership with the FBI; the Bakersfield Sikh Community; Sikh Riders of America; Islamic Shoura Council of Bakersfield; California State University Bakersfield, including the School of Social Sciences and Education, the Departments of Criminal Justice, Political Science, and Sociology, the University Police Department, and the Kegley Institute of Ethics; Bakersfield Police Department; Kern County Sheriff’s Office; and the Kern County District Attorney’s Office.
After the screening of the 33-minute film, Kirk Sheriff, chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Fresno, moderated a panel discussion where law enforcement officials and Sikh and Muslim community leaders offered their perspectives on identifying opportunities and strategies to collaborate in the fight against hate. The panel members were FBI Special Agent in Charge Sean Ragan, Sikh community representative Mandeep Singh Chahal, President of the Islamic Shoura Council of Bakersfield Ollie Zachary, Bakersfield Police Chief Lyle Martin, Kern County Undersheriff Brian Wheeler, and Kern County District Attorney Lisa Green.
The panel discussion was followed by a question and answer session.
An Indian American University of St. Thomas student, Ria Patel, was killed in a car crash on Sunday, Sept. 17.
The driver of the car, Michael Laurence Campbell, who also happened to be her boyfriend, was arrested two days after and charged with two counts of criminal vehicular homicide.
According to a Twin Cities Pioneer Press report, an acquaintance said that Campbell was “super-drunk” when he left his home around 2 a.m. Sunday and crashed into a traffic pole at the Stinson Boulevard exit ramp off southbound Interstate 35W in Northeast Minneapolis at around 3:40 a.m.
“The entire passenger side of the car was crushed” in which Patel was seated and although Campbell didn’t try to help her out, he did go beck for his phone.
The report included that one witness told police that she saw a man, whom she later identified as Campbell, get out of the car and run to a nearby McDonald’s while she called 911.
Soon after, Campbell came back to the car, knelt down by the driver’s side and rummaged for something while Patel was slumped in the passenger seat.
The woman walked toward Campbell, and Campbell told her to call 911, when she told him that she already did, he ran off toward a Honeywell parking lot where a Honeywell employee told police that she saw a man matching Campbell’s description run through the parking lot holding a phone and he jumped over a fence along the interstate.
Police officers and dogs were unable to find him Sunday night, but they found his wallet at the scene, he was then arrested on Tuesday in Wright County.
According to the charges, Campbell confessed to drinking before crashing the car and fleeing “because he was traumatized by seeing the state of (Patel) after the crash.”
Campbell’s driving record includes five convictions for what the criminal complaint calls “serious speed,” as well as convictions for possession of marijuana in a motor vehicle, careless driving and a January conviction for a hit-and-run for which his license was suspended for six months and revived in May.
Patel was the daughter of Bharat and Devyani Patel of Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
Her uncle, Hitesh Patel, said that she was “probably one of the happiest girls ever” and her cousin Raveena Patel, also a St. Thomas student said that she and Ria were “inseparable” and that her cousin was capable of making friends with anyone.
“I know her beautiful smile and personality will live in us and she will continue to look down at us and bless us from above,” Raveena said.
“She always knew how to light up the room wherever she would go. She brought people together in ways in so many different ways,” said student Jenny Jirsa.
A student-organized prayer vigil for Patel will be kept on Thursday at the university while her funeral is to be held on Saturday, the local BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir also held an Aarti and a Prarthana Sabha on Monday.
Ashley Tellis, Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Photo: Ceip.org)
A leading Indian-American expert on South Asia says the international community’s routine call for continuing an India-Pakistan dialogue “is not only misguided but also counterproductive.”
Ashley Tellis, the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in a book just released, entitled, “Are India-Pakistan Peace Talks Worth A Damn,” firmly places the root of the problem at Pakistan’s door.
Tellis contends the security competition between the two South Asian nations is not driven by any negotiable differences. “Rather, the discord is rooted in long-standing ideological, territorial, and power-political antagonisms that are fueled by Pakistan’s irredentism, its army’s desire to subvert India’s ascendancy as a great power and exact revenge for past Indian military victories, and its aspirations to be treated on par with India despite their huge differences in capabilities, achievements, and prospects.”
Furthermore, the Pakistani army’s political ambitions inside the country, further intensify the problem between India and Pakistan. Added to that, the possession of nuclear weapons has permitted the military and intelligence services in that country, “to underwrite a campaign of jihadi terrorism intended to coerce India—with the expectation that Pakistan will remain fundamentally immune to any meaningful military retaliation,” Tellis says.
“Even worse, the Pakistan Army feels emboldened by the international calls for bilateral engagement, believing that its strategy of nuclear coercion successfully invites foreign pressure on India to make concessions on territory and other issues thus far out of reach,” Tellis notes.
There is a basic asymmetry in the ambitions of the two neighbors, he notes – India is content with functioning with the existing Line of Control in Kashmir and looks globally as it aspires to great power status, seeing Pakistan’s antagonism as a ‘distraction.’
However, for Pakistan in contrast, the status quo is unacceptable even as its army’s powerful position within the country is sustained by that ambition and to pose as a ‘genuine peer” nation equal to New Delhi, where clearly India has a geopolitical, economic, and military superiority.
Great power mediation is not an adequate alternative for peace either, Tellis contends, “since the United States lacks the means to alter Pakistan’s strategic calculus and China lacks the desire.”
While Washington and others in the international community have a role in encouraging a peace settlement between the two nations, the approach “requires subtlety and, first and foremost, must involve pressing the Pakistan Army to cease supporting jihadi terrorism in India,” Tellis concludes.
Indian American Baljinder Singh, 43, is to be denaturalized as a citizen for lying to immigration officials about his identity.
Singh arrived to the United States from Hong Kong on Sept. 25, 1991 at San Francisco International Airport with no documentation of his identification and told the immigration officers that he was Davinder Singh.
After he didn’t show up for an immigration hearing, he was ordered a deportation on Jan. 7, 1992 however, four weeks later he filed for asylum under the name Baljinder Singh and claimed to be a native of India who entered the U.S. without inspection.
Singh then abandoned the application after he married a U.S. citizen who filed a visa petition on his behalf and was naturalized under the name Baljinder Singh on July 29, 2006 and in now accused of illegal procurement of naturalization by not being lawfully admitted for permanent residence, illegal procurement of naturalization due to lack of good moral characters and procurement of U.S. citizenship with concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation.
“The Justice Department is committed to preserving the integrity of our nation’s immigration system, and in particular, the asylum and naturalization processes,” acting Assistant Attorney General Chad A. Readler of the Justice Department’s Civil Division told MyCentralJersey.com.
Readler added that two other men were also accused of fraudulently obtaining a U.S. citizenship and exploiting the immigration system along with Singh, one from Florida and one from Connecticut.
“The filing of these cases sends a clear message to immigration fraudsters: If you break our immigration laws, we will prosecute you and denaturalize you,” Readler said.
According to the MyCentralJersey.com report, the cases were referred to the U.S. Department of Justice as part of Operation Janus, a Department of Homeland Security initiative that identified about 315,000 cases where fingerprint data was missing from the central digital fingerprint repository possibly in an effort to circumvent criminal records and other background checks in the naturalization process.
“Naturalization is one of the most sacred honors bestowed by our nation,” said Acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director James W. McCament. “USCIS takes great care and responsibility in determining to refer a case for denaturalization proceedings.
“We do so to send the strong message that individuals who seek to defraud the United States by obtaining naturalization unlawfully will be targeted to have their U.S. citizenship stripped,” he added.
Ali Fazal and Judi Dench at the premiere of ‘Victoria & Abdul’ in Venice Photos: Franco Origlia for Universal
When Shrabani Basu went to visit the Isle of Wright in England, she saw in the corridor, a portrait of an Indian man who was given a lot of importance.
This was the portrait of Abdul Karim; the Munshi, the Queen’s confidant and her best friend for the last 15 years of her life.
“He looked more like a nawab in the portrait rather than a servant,” Basu told News India Times in a phone interview and added that she somehow knew that he was very special to her.
While in England, Basu started researching about the Munshi and continued to when she returned to India, “I collected letters from his house and even went through the Queen’s book where she wrote in Urdu.”
Altogether, it took her four years to gather all of the information and write it into a book called Victoria & Abdul: The True Story of the Queen’s Closest Confidant, and was happy to have it auctioned and made into a film.
“The story is unknown and I thought it was interesting that she actually learned to read and write Urdu,” Basu said.
The film Victoria & Abdul was recently reviewed by News India Times.
“It felt really good to play the role of Abdul Karim in the film,” said Ali Fazal in a phone interview with News India Times, adding that he spent one and a half month researching about the story including studying Abdul Karim’s handwriting and looking at the costumes along with having to gain some weight for the role.
When asked how it felt working with Judy Dench, he said “it was lovely working with her as she is a royalty amongst actors; we became good friends since day one.”
Fazal has starred in several Bollywood films as well but is not to keen on doing any big budget films.
“I don’t believe in big budget films, I don’t need them. I’m just looking for films with good content, good cinema and a good script,” he said, and Victoria & Abdul definitely seems to fit the bill.
The film is about the unique relationship between Queen Victoria and Abdul Karim or more formerly known as the Munshi, a teacher, who taught her how to read and write Urdu and became her personal assistant as well as a member of the royal family despite the disagreement of the rest of the family.
After several attempts to send the Munshi back to India, the family waits for the Queen to pass on before sending him back for good.
Abdul Karim had come to Britain, originally to present a “mohar” or a symbolic coin, thanking her for the praise she gave him for selecting her carpets but ended up staying as the Queen grew fond of him.
Victoria & Abdul is playing at Paris Theatre and Sunshine Cinema in New York City.
Indian American Rajesh Patnaik’s Indianapolis business was vandalized with hate messages all over it.
Neighbors are now helping to clean and cover up the hurtful messages that were doodled onto windows, walls and doors, referencing Hindu gods, traitors and Satanists.
According to a WTHR report, the vandals used spray paint to write the hateful messages, spread grease on the building and set a fire outside a back door.
“It is shocking, it hurts. I’ve never seen anything like this before and I’ve lived in the U.S. for a little over nine years,” Patnaik told WTHR.
“The person probably knows something, maybe something superficially, about Hinduism and they probably don’t like the fact that I am practicing Hinduism,” he added.
Neighboring business owners know Patnaik as a great guy, friendly and helpful and are trying to understand why anyone would do this.
“It’s just hate. People don’t understand his religion. They don’t understand these people. He’s done nothing to hurt anybody,” Steve Carnal told WTHR.
“It makes me sad, how little people can be, that their minds are so small,” said Inna Prikhodko, who owns the business next door and came from Russia 30 years ago.
But Patnaik said he’s not scared, he is just rattled and thinking now.
“It is probably somebody who doesn’t understand that people of different faiths can coexist. That is the only thing I can think of,” he said. “I don’t know of anyone would want to do this.”
Computer Systems Institute (CSI), a private school with six campuses nationwide headquartered in Skokie, Illinois, is supporting South Asian communities in northern Chicago by providing them with student resources for the new school year.
Among those South Asian organizations to receive donations is ZAM’s Hope Community Resource Center, a community center in Little India on Devon Street in northern Chicago. The CSI donated school supplies to ZAM valued at around $5,000, the private school said in a press release.
ZAM’s Hope Community Resource Center specializes in housing, after-school, senior and family emergency programs. The donation from CSI will be used to support low-income families in the Rogers Park, West Ridge and West Roger’s Park communities, by reducing some of their education costs. Amongst other supplies, CSI provided school bags that fit the educational needs of close to 200 students of various ages.
“We would like to express our gratitude to Computer Systems Institute for the generous donation; we are always striving to do more for those in our community and beyond,” Zehra Quadri, executive director of ZAM’s Hope Community Resource Center is quoted saying in the press release.
The CSI has approximately 2,600 international students currently in its six campuses in Illinois and Massachusetts.
Shyam Mani, Aishwarya Chenji, Dhivya Sridar and Archit Baskaran hold a meeting in Norris University Center. I-AM SHAKTI was founded to provide support and education about mental illness primarily in the Indian American community. Allie Goulding/Daily Senior Staffer
College student Dhivya Sridar had an eating disorder last year and unlike many other Indian-Americans, got support from her friends, professors and a therapist.
However, she knew that many Indian-Americans struggled with mental illnesses and felt stigmatized, so she teamed up with five other students; Shyam Mani, Aishwarya Chenji, Archit Baskaran, Ragashree Komandur and Mohan Ravi, to create I-AM SHAKTI, a social justice organization that plans to launch this fall.
I-AM SHAKTI will provide support and education about mental illness primarily in the Indian- American community and plans to create dialogue that provides comfort to those with mental illness while educating communities to become better support groups.
“Our goal is to provide a forum for Indian Americans — who are recovering from mental illness, to join together and stand in solidarity with one another in face of these obstacles, in terms of parents not understanding or support systems not being aware,” Sridar is quoted saying in a news report on dailynorthwestern.com.
“And another aspect of it is sensitizing parents and communities in what we’re going through,” she added.
According to Komandur, Indian-Americans must address their distinct culture and continue to embrace it as their identity but also find ways to thrive in this community as Americans.“
Some parents may be insensitive to mental health issues, so there is a need to educate them on the subject while also understanding their cultural background,” she added noting the need to explain to the community how to get the help needed.
I-AM SHAKTI plans to do the following:
Create forums that consist of parental support groups so that parents who have recently found out about their child’s mental illness can ask questions and seek advice.
Create a forum for those with mental illness so they can express themselves creatively through written stories, art, music, videos or dance.
Build a network of culturally competent therapists who understand the additional struggles associated with the stigma surrounding mental health in Indian American communities.
Grow into a national social justice movement, beyond just Northwestern and the University of Wisconsin.
The group hopes to expand beyond the university confines to the wider Indian-American community.
Gabriel Patel, a 7-year-old St. George resident, traveled to Barcelona with the USA’s U-8 national soccer team. (Photo courtesy of Tolstoy Patel)
Indian American soccer star Gabriel Patel, 7, of Staten Island, N.Y. has wowed his coach Sandy Rapaglia, an experienced coach who has worked at many different levels of U.S. soccer.
“I’ve been coaching for 30 years at every level and have coached seven national team players so it takes a lot to excite me,” Rapaglia is quoted saying in silive.com. ”Gabe is extraordinarily talented, more importantly, he is extremely committed,” said the award-winning coach who met Patel when he was only 4-years-old through his father Tolstoy Patel, who is a coach for the Cedar Stars in the grassroots level from ages 3-8.
“I was watching him play and was like ‘where did he learn how to do this,’ the way he was striking the ball, his muscle memory was just much advanced for his age,” Rapaglia added.
A St. George resident, Patel has competed in the Barcelona Easter Tournament for the past two years and was the only soccer player from New York to represent team USA in the under-8 division as he was a hit with his goal-making skills while the U-8 team finished strong with three closing wins and a combination of 12 goals.
“Playing in that tournament made me feel really good. It was surprising but it was a nice tournament,” Patel told silive.com.
“It’s an honor and great representation for Staten Island; he was the first kid from Staten Island to go to Barcelona in this tournament. That’s a huge privilege,” his father added.
Despite being just 8 years old, Patel appears to have shown up his father and other coaches that success comes from hard work.
“He has me out there on the field at seven in the morning in the summer. He knows when I’m off and plans his day around that. He has this tremendous drive and it really impresses me,” his father explains as he recalls a moment when his son was playing on the soccer field on Father Capodanno Boulevard, “I was just sitting there watching him and all I could hear was him kicking the ball, the birds chirping and the waves in the background.”
“It really impressed me that this is a kid who just does things on his own. The kid has such a drive and the fact that he’s out there at seven in the morning in the summer is incredible. I haven’t seen a kid at this age with this commitment,” Rapaglia added.
Patel thinks that going out to practice soccer in the summer is fun, unlike most kids his age who would prefer to go out and play with friends.
“I wake up my dad in the morning and just go out and try to be a better player. I always have more to learn and I want to be the best player I can be. My dad means a lot to me. I get better practicing with him and developing my skills,” said Patel.
A North Korean flag flies on a mast at the Permanent Mission of North Korea in Geneva October 2, 2014. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/Files
NEW YORK – President Trump lashed back Friday at North Korea’s leader, calling Kim Jong Un a “madman” whose regime will be “tested like never before” amid new U. S-imposed financial sanctions.
The latest economic pressures announced Thursday come as the Trump administration seeks to build international support for more aggressively confronting the rogue nation, whose escalating nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities have reached what U.S. officials consider a crisis point.
The new penalties seek to leverage the dominance of the U.S. financial system by forcing nations, foreign companies and individuals to choose whether to do business with the United States or the comparatively tiny economy of North Korea. U.S. officials acknowledged that like other sanctions, these may not deter North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s drive to threaten the United States with a nuclear weapon, but is aimed at slowing him down.
Kim on Thursday reacted angrily to Trump’s remarks and actions this week, calling the president a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard” and Trump’s earlier speech at the U.N. “unprecedented rude nonsense.” Kim said that he was now thinking hard about how to respond.
“I will make the man holding the prerogative of the supreme command in the U.S. pay dearly for his speech,” Kim said in a statement released by the official Korean Central News Agency, which also published a photo of the North Korean leader sitting at his desk holding a piece of paper.
“I am now thinking hard about what response he could have expected when he allowed such eccentric words to trip off his tongue. Whatever Trump might have expected, he will face results beyond his expectation,” Kim said, saying that he would “tame” Trump “with fire.”
On Friday, Trump added the latest barb with a tweet calling Kim a “madman” who brings famine and death on North Koreans.
“Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn’t mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before!” Trump wrote.
South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported Thursday night that the North’s foreign minister, Ri Yong Ho, said in New York that his country may test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean to fulfill Kim’s vow to take the “highest-level” action against the United States. “It could be the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb in the Pacific,” Ri said. “We have no idea about what actions could be taken as it will be ordered by leader Kim Jong Un.” U.S. officials believe the North carried out its first hydrogen bomb test on Sept. 3.
Trump’s executive order grants the Treasury Department additional authority that Trump said would help cut off international trade and financing that Kim’s dictatorship uses to support its banned weapons programs.
“North Korea’s nuclear program is a grave threat to peace and security in our world, and it is unacceptable that others financially support this criminal, rogue regime,” Trump said in brief public remarks during a meeting with the leaders of South Korea and Japan to discuss strategy to confront Pyongyang.
He added that the United States continues to seek a “complete denuclearization of North Korea.”
Significantly, Trump also said that Chinese President Xi Jinping had ordered Chinese banks to cease conducting business with North Korean entities. Trump praised Xi, calling the move “very bold” and “somewhat unexpected.”
China is North Korea’s chief ally and economic lifeline. Some 90 percent of North Korean economic activity involves China, and Chinese entities are the main avenue for North Korea’s very limited financial transactions in the global economy. China is also suspected of turning a blind eye to some of the smuggling and sanctions-busting operations that have allowed Pyongyang to rapidly develop sophisticated long-range missiles despite international prohibitions on parts and technology.
All U.N. sanctions have to be acceptable to China, which holds veto power. China’s recent willingness to punish its fellow communist state signals strong disapproval of North Korea’s international provocations, but China and fellow U.N. Security Council member Russia have also opposed some of the toughest economic measures that could be applied, such as banking restrictions that would affect Chinese and other financial institutions.
“We continue to call on all responsible nations to enforce and implement sanctions,” Trump said.
Trump’s announcement came as he has sought to rally international support for confronting Pyongyang during four days of meetings here at the U.N. General Assembly. In a speech to the world body Tuesday, Trump threatened to “totally destroy” the North if necessary and referred derisively to Kim as “Rocket Man.” But the president and his aides have emphasized that they are continuing to do what they can to put economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea to avoid a military conflict.
“We don’t want war,” U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley told reporters. “At the same time, we’re not going to run scared. If for any reason North Korea attacks the United States or our allies, we’re going to respond.”
The new executive order signals the U.S. willingness to take a more aggressive approach to cutting off world trade with North Korea, even if other countries such as China aren’t willing partners in sanctions, because it would allow the United States to economically punish businesses anywhere in the world.
The executive order “opens the door for the U.S. to unilaterally enforce a trade embargo against North Korea,” said Joseph DeThomas, a former State Department official who focused on North Korea and Iran and is now a professor of international affairs at Pennsylvania State University. “It gives us the power to play that game if we wish to.”
In the past, Chinese officials have objected to suggestions that the United States could punish foreign companies trading with North Korea, but there are signs that China and the United States are becoming more agreeable on North Korea.
“The positive comments about China when [Trump] made the announcement indicates that there’s some good cooperation rather than confrontation,” DeThomas said.
DeThomas warned, however, that even if sanctions are adopted and enforced, the way ahead will be difficult, because North Korea may feel it has little choice, given the president’s bellicosity at the United Nations, but to proceed with its weapons program despite the pain of an embargo.
“If we stick with sanctions, it’s going to be a long ugly haul with lots of humanitarian costs,” DeThomas said.
A White House fact sheet said that under the executive order, airplanes or ships that have visited North Korea will be banned for 180 days from visiting the United States, a move to crack down on illicit trade.
“This significantly expands Treasury’s authority to target those who enable this regime . . . wherever they are located,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said.
U.S. officials say there is still time and room for diplomacy if North Korea shows that talking could be productive. Other countries, including China and Russia, are pressing Washington to make a greater effort toward talks and an eventual bargain that could buy Kim out of his weapons without toppling his regime.
The shape of a possible deal has been evident for years, but Kim has raised the stakes, and perhaps the price, with his rapid development toward the capability to launch a nuclear-equipped intercontinental ballistic missile at U.S. territory.
Asked why North Korea might entertain such an international deal when Trump appears poised to undermine a similar one with Iran, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said a North Korea deal would be designed very differently.
“While the threat is the same – it’s nuclear weapons – the issues surrounding North Korea are very different than the issues surrounding Iran,” Tillerson said Wednesday. “Iran is a large nation, 60 million people; North Korea is a smaller nation, the hermit kingdom, living in isolation. Very different set of circumstances that would be the context and also the contours of an agreement with North Korea, many aspects of which don’t apply between the two.”
In recent weeks, the Security Council has approved two rounds of economic sanctions but also left room for further penalties. For example, the sanctions put limits on the nation’s oil imports but did not impose a full embargo, as the United States has suggested it supports. The Trump administration has signaled it also wants a full ban on the practice of sending North Korean workers abroad for payments that largely go to the government in Pyongyang.
“We are witnessing a very dangerous confrontation spiral,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a speech to the United Nations, filling in for President Vladimir Putin, who skipped the forum. “We resolutely condemn the nuclear missile adventures of Pyongyang in violation of Security Council resolutions. But military hysteria is not just an impasse; it’s disaster . . . There is no alternative to political and diplomatic ways of settling the nuclear situation on the Korean Peninsula.”
Mnuchin emphasized that “this action is in no way specifically directed at China,” and he said he called Chinese officials to inform them ahead of the U.S. announcement.
Mnuchin also said the unilateral U.S. action is not a rejection of separate Security Council sanctions and the international diplomacy they require. Similar to unilateral U.S. sanctions on Iran applied during the Obama administration, the new U.S. restrictions seek to leverage the power of the U.S. financial system.
“Foreign financial institutions are now on notice that, going forward, they can choose to do business with the United States or with North Korea, but not both,” Mnuchin said.
Sitting down with South Korean President Moon Jae-in before the trilateral discussion with Japan, Trump said the nations are “making a lot of progress.”
Moon praised Trump’s speech to the United Nations, saying through a translator that “North Korea has continued to make provocations and this is extremely deplorable and this has angered both me and our people, but the U.S. has responded firmly and in a very good way.”
The Security Council had also applied tough new export penalties in August, and Tillerson said Wednesday that there are signs those restrictions are having an economic effect.
“We have some indications that there are beginning to appear evidence of fuel shortages,” Tillerson said in a briefing for reporters. “And look, we knew that these sanctions were going to take some time to be felt because we knew the North Koreans . . . had basically stockpiled a lot of inventory early in the year when they saw the new administration coming in, in anticipation of things perhaps changing. So I think what we’re seeing is a combined effect of these inventories are now being exhausted and the supply coming in has been reduced.”
There is no sign, however, that economic penalties are having any effect on the behavior of the Kim regime and its calculation that nuclear tests and other provocations will ensure its protection or raise the price of any eventual settlement with the United States and other nations.
Trump said the United States had been working on the North Korea problem for 25 years, but he asserted that previous administrations had “done nothing, which is why we are in the problem we are in today.”
Mumbai: Actor Karan Kundra during the interview of Web-series “Stupid Man Smart Phone” in Mumbai on Sept 13, 2017. (Photo: IANS)
MUMBAI
Popular television actor Karan Kundra, who shot for digital survival series “Stupid Man Smart Phone” — wherein a smartphone and a super network was the only means of survival — says the show was life threatening sometimes.
“This show was life threatening at times, but the beauty of Arunachal Pradesh took my breath away. I’ve done travel reality shows in the past as well, but this show was like none other, especially given that we had a chance to interact with our fans through social media, where we would ask them for assistance, directions and even the most basic survival tips,” Karan said in a statement.
A VOOT Original, the show will go live on Viacom 18’s video-on-demand streaming service from Wednesday.
It features Karan, as well as celebrities like Sumeet Vyas, Evelyn Sharma and funnyman Sahil Khattar scaling a treacherous mountain pass, battling wildlife and river rapids in the forests and beating the gruelling desert sun. Their social media followers aid in their survival choices.
Produced by BBC Worldwide Productions, the show is hosted by Sumeet, who said: “Travel, adventure, survival and reality coupled with the idea of a smartphone coming to your rescue – ‘Stupid Man Smart Phone’ as a format to me was extremely exciting”.
“The show challenged me to push my personal boundaries, be it physical or mental to perform stunts that I would never have thought possible. This journey, along with my three co-contestants has been an enriching experiment and one that I will cherish throughout my lifetime,” he added.
Recounting her experience in the lush forests of the Tamil Nadu and Kerala border, Evelyn said: “I am a passionate traveller and the show allowed me to explore a terrain that I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing otherwise. I don’t think any amount of training could truly prepare us for what we faced whilst on the journey but it was a fun experience nonetheless.”
Khattar, who accompanied Sumeet on the second leg of the trip to Rajasthan, said: “It was one crazy ride. I found myself uprooted from my comfort zone and facing trials like drinking camel milk, eating cacti and surviving a hot desert which was both difficult and fascinating.”
The show is unique with today’s social media madness at the heart of it, commented Monika Shergill, Head of Content, VOOT.
New Delhi: Director Farah Khan during a press conference regarding Star Plus’ show “Lip Sing Battle” in New Delhi on Sept 8, 2017. (Photo: Amlan Paliwal/IANS)
NEW DELHI
Filmmaker-choreographer Farah Khan says that she may turn the film she was planning to make on girl power into a web-series.
Farah, 52, in an interview to IANS previously had said she is planning to make a movie on “girl power”, which would be more “real” than her past films.
Asked for details, Farah told IANS here: “No. May turn that into a web-series. I don’t know but I’ll start writing a script now as soon as ‘Lip Sing Battle’ shoot is done.”
The “Happy New Year” director is currently hosting “Lip Sing Battle”, an Indian adaptation of the successful international show “Lip Sync Battle” and will feature a string of A-listers not only from Bollywood but also television actors and sports personalities.
Rahul Gandhi talking at the Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square, Sep. 20.
NEW YORK – It was an appropriate pit stop at the end of a two-week long trip to the United States, giving talks, taking questions at liberal leaning universities and institutes, from the West coast to the East coast, apart from an off-the-record interaction with the editorial board of The Washington Post; and the timing was impeccable, too, before the Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi flew back to India: New York City – the de facto headquarters of the overseas wing of the Congress, and venue for the ongoing General Assembly of the United Nations, when media from around the world converge.
Gandhi’s well-planned, coordinated and smooth visit was remarkable for several reasons: it was an unusually long, dogged and determined visit by the 47-year-old man likely to take over as head of the Congress party later this year, become the face of the opposition for the prime minister’s post in the 2019 general elections in India.
Gandhi’s voice and message – when he goes on campaigns, rallies and outreach in India – is usually drowned in a cacophony of backlash and derision from mouthpieces of the ruling party, and right wing media in India.
At the Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square, on Wednesday, where he addressed some 400 plus members of the Indian Diaspora, Gandhi’s unscripted speech was far from perfect, his timing not great, punchlines meandered at times. However, for brief moments he seemed to be on a roll, too, philosophical, shaping up a cohesive argument to condemn policies, take a powerful jab like an agile fencer. Oftentimes, though, he seemed to exhale, withdraw, toned it down, almost reticent at attacking the BJP government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Gandhi, however, did lash out and condemn Hindutva, without naming the BJP government.
“I had lots of conversations in my trip. I met lot of people from the administration, I met people from both democratic and republican parties, I met many friends, NRI friends. And I must tell you, I was very surprised because before I could even tell them what I was feeling, before I could even tell them what I was worried about, they told me exactly the same thing. And the single biggest thing most people told me, What has happened to the tolerance that used to prevail in India?” he said, before adding rhetorically, “what has happened to the harmony in India?”
However, Gandhi’s message of India falling behind due to unemployment, jobs creation, was memorable; it may well become the mantra for the Congress party going forward the next two years.
Section of the crowd at the meet for Rahul Gandhi, in New York City.
There was rapt attention, plenty of nodding of heads in the room at the Marriott, as Gandhi talked about the paucity of jobs, a reality check for India which has been gloating the last few years of its robust economic growth, even in the face of a global recession.
“The single biggest challenge (for India) and I’ll give it to you in numbers. 30,000 youngsters come into the job market every single day. Today, only 450 of them are getting a job. I’m not even talking about the unemployed,” he said. “This is the biggest challenge in front of our country. And, this challenge is going to be addressed by building a unified approach by bringing people together.”
Those numbers are staggering, to say the least. It was a subject he dwelt on during his first stop at Berkeley, drove the point home.
“No amount of growth is enough for India if it’s not accompanied by the creation of jobs. It doesn’t matter how fast you grow. If you are not creating jobs, you are not actually solving the problem. So the central challenge of India is jobs. Roughly 12 million young people, 12 million, enter the Indian job market every year. Nearly 90 per cent of them have a high school education or less. India is a democratic country and unlike China, it has to create jobs in a democratic environment,” Gandhi said, at Berkeley.
The issue of unemployment and jobs is precisely the reason why Rahul Gandhi has a chance to emulate Donald Trump-like rise, in the general elections in India.
For one, Trump, despite his flirtation with politics for a number of years, seemed wary of jumping into the presidential race, before he contested the primaries. Gandhi, in similar vein, has been a bystander with his mother Sonia Gandhi helming the party, and he seemed to be only an apprentice (no pun, intended). Now, it’s certain that his elevation in the Congress party – almost like a win in India’s party primaries – will elevate him to a direct contest with Modi, some 20 months before the polling, roughly the same time as when Trump got into the fray.
Secondly, Trump came to the forefront of the Republican pack with his rhetoric about limiting illegal immigration and creating jobs, to Make America Great Again, despite the fact that America was doing not too bad on the economic front when the November, 2016, elections came by. Trump, however, latched on to the growing unrest and unemployment in the blue collar industry, and rural areas, conservatives who wanted good paying jobs once again not only for their own generation, but for their children, and subsequent generations.
Gandhi, similarly, has a set platform to carry the same message in India, as the middle class in India yearn to climb up the social ladder, see their children do better than them, watch dreams dissipate as unemployment grows. India has been among the top economic nations in the world, but growth estimates have of late been pared down, manufacturing, small businesses and agriculture hit, stagnant – albeit temporarily as the government assures. Unemployment has become a headache.
Gandhi was adept at drawing this out in his speech, when he talked about how to go about creating more jobs.
“India simply cannot give its youngsters a vision if it is unable to give them a job. The Congress party has a vision to solve this problem. And I will tell you little bit about this vision. Currently, the entire focus is on 50 or 60 really large companies. We believe that if you are to create millions and millions of jobs in India, it has to be done by empowering small and medium businesses and entrepreneurs,” he said.
Gandhi didn’t miss out on shaping the agriculture sector, too.
“Forty percent of India’s vegetables rot. Agriculture can simply not be ignored. There are people from Punjab here, you will understand exactly what I am saying,” he said with a nod to the crowd, adding, “Agriculture is a strategic asset. We need to build agriculture, we need to develop a cold chain, we need to put food processing units close to farms, and we need to empower Indian agriculture. We need to empower our farmers.”
Like Trump, Gandhi too is an elitist, born in luxury. Defending the dynastic rule for Gandhi, as he did at Berkeley, is not so much talking of lineage, as it’s for him a matter-of-fact of privilege granted by birth, a way of life, inculcated also through education in the West. For both Trump and Gandhi, a jump into politics is more about sacrificing to a large extent those perks of luxury, commit to a grueling work schedule for the sake of the country.
Just like Trump, when he decided to jump into the presidential race and was immediately ridiculed for his ambitions, Gandhi too is considered a political novice, a rank outsider and total mismatch in a race against the powerful Modi and the well-oiled NDA alliance. It remains to be seen how much of a disruptor Gandhi is going to be once he takes over the reins of the Congress party, shapes his legacy forward.
In his New York speech, Gandhi talked about the inclusiveness of the Congress party; but as the example of Narayan Rane and others like him before, who quit the party in disgust, suggest, it’s going to be an uphill task to cohesive unity in Congress.
Gandhi, however, showed that he has learnt some tricks from the consummate orator Modi himself, when he addressed the diaspora, in New York. He termed the Indian diaspora “the backbone of our country.” He also called the original Congress party movement “an NRI movement.”
“Mahatma Gandhi was an NRI, Jawaharlal Nehru came back from England, Ambedkar, Azad, Patel, these were all NRIs. Every single one of them went to the outside world, saw the outside world, returned back to India and used some the ideas they got and transformed India,” said Gandhi.
It was the closest Gandhi came all evening to talking in Trumpesque language, giving himself a pat on his back, albeit letting the audience read between the lines; that he too, was one among them: Rahul Gandhi was like them, an NRI, having studied and worked in the United Kingdom, before he returned back to India.
(Sujeet Rajan is Executive Editor, Parikh Worldwide Media. Email him: sujeet@newsindiatimes.com Follow him on Twitter @SujeetRajan1).
Mumbai:Actress Kareena Kapoor Khan along with her son Taimur spotted at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International airport in Mumbai. (Photo: IANS)
NEW DELHI
From taking up films like “Chameli” at the start of her career, going on a size-zero spree, talking her heart out in chat shows and working till the last trimester of her pregnancy — Kareena Kapoor Khan has always chosen her own personal or professional path. Now that she has become a mother, she says work is her priority, but family is very important too.
As her son Taimur Ali Khan will witness his first Diwali this year, she was asked about how she plans not to miss the occasion keeping in mind her shooting schedule for “Veere Di Wedding”. Kareena told IANS in an exclusive interview over email: “We will be finishing our Delhi schedule a few days before Diwali, so I will be spending time with my family. Work is a priority but family is very important to me.”
Taimur was born to Kareena and her actor husband Saif Ali Khan in December last year.
The Lakme brand ambassador, who considers Taimur as the most amazing and cutest child, says he loves hanging out with the family.
“I’m sure (he) will enjoy the family gatherings. Apart from getting him goodies and gifts for the season, I would love to play dress-up with him and get him into the most adorable traditional outfits,” the fashionista said.
“Also, he is a fan of Indian sweets. So, I am sure he would have a fun time trying the very many festive specialties,” said Kareena, who comes from a family of foodies.
Festive season tends to be a time for over-indulging insweets and savouries. So, what’s the plan for coping with all the extra calories?
“All of us are big foodies. So, I eat everything and enjoy them, but then I make it a point to not miss my workout. I drink lots of water and eat in moderation. Also, I think everyone has become conscious of changing times and has inculcated a responsible sense in us,” said the actress.
Kareena, who has many successful films to her credit including “Jab We Met”, “Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham”, “Talaash: The Hunt Begins…”, “Yuva”, “Omkara” and “Udta Punjab”, is also considered one of the flawless beauties in Bollywood.
So what’s her make-up and skincare regime for the festive season?
“Festivals come around a confused season when it’s still hot and humid, but also dry and scaly. So, prepping my skin and giving it the moisturisation and nourishment it needs is very important.
“Also, I am a big foodie, but the aftermath of the yummy, oily delicacies just scares me. So, I follow a three-step prep regime to prevent my skin from breaking — hydrate, nurture and exercise. And the new Lakme Argan Night Serum is an added bonus to this regime, as it gives all the TLC (tender, love and care) and rejuvenation my skin craves for,” she said.
She also says she is a huge fan of dark, smokey eyes.
“For make-up, I always try to keep it simple, clean and fun. Smokey eyes, bold bright lips and dewy skin are my favourite go-to looks,” she added.
“Kohl is my all-time favourite. I absolutely love sporting a bold, red lip. Lastly, the new Lakme Argan Foundation has gotten me hooked for the nourished, dewy finish it gives,” she said.
Mumbai: Actress Kangana Ranaut and Director Hansal Mehta during the special screening of their film “Simran” in Mumbai on Sept 14, 2017. (Photo: IANS)
MUMBAI
Filmmaker Hansal Mehta salutes the fearlessness of his “Simran” actress Kangana Ranaut, and says he would love to work with the “one-of-a-kind” artiste again.
Mehta opened up about the controversies surrounding his reported ‘stormy’ collaboration with Kangana and about “Simran”.
Excerpts from the interview:
Q. While muck has been flying all around you, you’ve been very quiet. How do you look back on all the controversies surrounding “Simran”? Do you regret not speaking out when writer Apurva Asrani raised a stink about his credit quotient in “Simran”?
I said whatever I had to then and there is nothing more that I will say in the public domain. I was definitely saddened but I will continue to remain silent.
Q. A lot has been said about how Kangana “took over” the project “Simran” from you and virtually ghost-directed the film. Please clarify once and for all about the extent of Kangana’s contribution?
Kangana has collaborated closely on the film and I have always seen that with a lot of positivity. There is a lot her contribution has lent to the final film and I would rather celebrate that than respond to insinuations and hearsay. After having spent 20 years making many different kinds of films, I feel I don’t need to clarify this matter any further as it gives unnecessary attention to people who thrive on spreading malice.
Q. Tell us very frankly, what was it like working with Kangana Ranaut. Would you work with her again?
Kangana is a very fine artiste and one of the best actors we have today. If I have a subject that both of us agree upon, I would love to work with her. We know each other and our respective working styles well enough and there is no reason to not continue making films together whenever the opportunity arises.
Q. Do you approve of her speaking on her personal life and the men she loved at events meant to promote “Simran”?
I’ve said before that she answered the questions that were asked of her. She answered those questions unflinchingly and I salute her fearlessness. She is one of a kind and we should celebrate that. I wish the wise persons who raised these questions about her personal life would also be asked the same thing – did they have nothing else to ask her?
Q. What was it like shooting a film so far removed from your normal reflective brooding style?
As a filmmaker, I wanted to challenge myself, do something that pulled me out of my comfort zone. I try doing that with every film. Hence, “Aligarh” was very different from “Shahid” in terms of tone, pace and treatment. Similarly, “Simran” had to be a departure from “Aligarh”. What is common in each of my past films is their focus on the characters and their spaces.
That focus remains in “Simran”. I’m proud of the fact that a migrant Indian girl’s life and space are explored with authenticity. “Simran” remains an intimate portrayal of the Indian diaspora living in the US. Hence the claustrophobic spaces, the blue-collared jobs, the reconditioned cars and distant suburbs.
Q. The censor board asked for 10 cuts in “Simran”. Did that surprise you considering the Pahlaj Nihalani factor had been replaced by the Prasoon Joshi element?
I’ve always maintained that we have to rise above individuals if the CBFC (Central Board of Film Certification) has to be effective. That will only be possible if the outdated guidelines that govern censorship in India are changed keeping in mind the times we live in and the digitized world we inhabit. Until that happens, we will keep lamenting cuts ordered by CBFC and nothing will really change.
As for the cuts ordered in “Simran”, they were minor cuts that did not hamper the film’s narrative in any way. I carried them out because I did not see the point of fighting what was essentially the result of the dated guidelines and their ambiguous interpretation by members of the examining committee. What surprised me was that this news was all over the place the moment I left the CBFC screening of “Simran”. Obviously, somebody within the board was gleeful that they had got me by the b**ls and had already informed all and sundry about the cuts. I’m actually glad that whoever ‘spilled the beans’ had his/her moment in the sun.
A Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle sits parked at a charging station at the General Motors China headquarters in Shanghai, China, on Sept. 15, 2017. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Qilai Shen.
It’s 10 years since Apple unleashed a surge of innovation that upended the mobile phone industry. Electric cars, with a little help from ride-hailing and self-driving technology, could be about to pull the same trick on Big Oil.
The rise of Tesla and its rivals could be turbo-harged by complementary services from Uber Technologies and Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo unit, just as the iPhone rode the app economy and fast mobile internet to decimate mobile phone giants like Nokia.
The culmination of these technologies – autonomous electric cars available on demand – could transform how people travel and confound predictions that battery-powered vehicles will have a limited impact on oil demand in the coming decades.
“Electric cars on their own may not add up to much,” David Eyton, head of technology at London-based oil giant BP, said in an interview. “But when you add in car sharing, ride pooling, the numbers can get significantly greater.”
Most forecasters see the shift away from oil in transportation as an incremental process guided by slow improvements in the cost and capacity of batteries and progressive tightening of emissions standards. But big economic shifts are rarely that straightforward, said Tim Harford, the economist behind a book and BBC radio series on historic innovations that disrupted the economy.
“These things are a lot more complicated,” he said. Rather than electric motors gradually replacing internal combustion engines within the existing model, there’s probably going to be “some degree of systemic change.”
That’s what happened 10 years ago. The iPhone didn’t just offer people a new way to make phone calls; it created an entirely new economy for multibillion-dollar companies like Angry Birds maker Rovio Entertainment or WhatsApp. The fundamental nature of the mobile phone business changed and incumbents like Nokia and BlackBerry were replaced by Apple and makers of Android handsets like Samsung.
Today, as Elon Musk’s Tesla and established automakers like General Motors are striving to make their electric cars desirable consumer products, companies like Uber and Lyft Inc. are turning transport into an on-demand service and Waymo is testing fully autonomous vehicles on the streets of California and Arizona.
Combine all three, for example through an Alphabet investment in Lyft, and you have a new model of transport as a service that would be a cheap compelling alternative to traditional car ownership, according to RethinkX, a think tank that analyzes technology-driven disruption.
One key advantage of electric cars is the lack of mechanical complexity, which makes them more suitable for the heavy use allowed by driverless technology, Francesco Starace, chief executive officer of Enel, Italy’s largest utility, said in an interview.
After disassembling General Motors’s Chevrolet Bolt, UBS Group concluded it required almost no maintenance, with the electric motor having just three moving parts compared with 133 in a four-cylinder internal combustion engine.
“Competitiveness very much depends on the utilization of the car,” Laszlo Varro, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said in an interview. The average Uber vehicle covers a third more distance than the typical middle-class family car in Europe, amplifying the benefit of lower running costs to the point that “the oil price at which it makes sense to switch to electric is $30 per barrel lower,” he said.
The total cost of ownership of electric and oil-fueled vehicles will reach parity in 2020 for shared-mobility fleets, five years earlier than for individually-owned vehicles, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Already in London, Uber plans for its UberX service to be hybrid or fully electric by the end of 2019. Its rival Lyft aims to provide at least 1 billion rides a year in autonomous electric vehicles by 2025, saying they can be used much more efficiently than gasoline-powered cars.
This combination would be “the Uber model on steroids,” Steven Martin, chief digital officer and vice president of General Electric Co.’s Energy Connections unit, said in an interview. “Once you have complete autonomous operation of a vehicle, then my desire to own one is going to go down and I’ll be more willing to sign up to a subscription service.”
The transition to fully autonomous fleets may not match the speed of the smartphone revolution because of the many regulatory, legal, ethical and behavioral hurdles. Self-driving technology should become available in the 2020s, but won’t be widely adopted until 2030, BNEF says.
Even so, the shift to electric cars could displace about 8 million barrels a day of oil demand by 2040, more than the 7 million barrels a day Saudi Arabia exports today, the London-based researcher says. That could have a significant impact on oil prices-a drop of 1.7 million barrels a day in global consumption during the 2008-2009 financial crisis caused prices to slump from $146 a barrel to $36.
That doesn’t mean oil giants like BP or ExxonMobil are heading for an inevitable Nokia-style downfall. While transport fuels account for the majority of their sales, they also have huge businesses turning crude into chemicals used for everything from plastics to fertilizer. They also pump large volumes of natural gas and generate renewable energy, both of which could benefit from increased electricity demand.
Even if electric vehicles do grow as rapidly as BNEF forecasts, the world currently consumes 95 million barrels a day and other sources of demand will keep growing, said Spencer Dale, BP’s chief economist. The London-based energy giant expects battery-powered cars to reduce oil demand by just 1 million barrels a day by 2035, while also acknowledging the potential for a much larger impact if the industry has an iPhone moment.
The sheer breadth of the potential disruption makes it hard to predict what will happen. When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, few people anticipated that it meant trouble for makers of everything from cameras to chewing gum.
“The smartphone and its apps made new business models possible,” said Tony Seba, a Stanford University economist and one of the founders of RethinkX. “The mix of sharing, electric and driverless cars could disrupt everything from parking to insurance, oil demand and retail.”
Prominent business leaders, dignitaries and members of the local Indian-American community gathered in downtown Chicago for the annual Pratham Gala on September 9. Held at the elegant Winter Garden of the Harold Washington Center, the event was attended by 300 guests and raised $260,000 for Pratham’s award-winning education programs.
“A small amount will make big difference in a child’s life forever,” said Allstate Executive and Chapter President Suren Gupta. “Many people are astounded to learn that Pratham can educate a child with a mere $25 because its low-cost programs provide scalable and effective solutions for improving children’s reading and math skills in just six to eight weeks.”
It is estimated that 100 million Indian children cannot read or write.
Guest of honor Martin Radvan President, Mars Wrigley Confectionery and President, Wrigley Company Foundation shared their “sustainable in a generation” plan and was honored for the impact of the Foundation’s partnership with Pratham in educating 100,000 children in Uttar Pradesh’s mint farming villages.
In his keynote speech, Genpact Presdient and CEO N V “Tiger” Tyagarajan stressed the importance of educating girls: “It’s my firm belief that when you educate girls and women in society, the society changes. Women have this tremendous power of actually changing the sociocultural fabric of countries.” Pratham’s Second Chance program gives women who have dropped out of school an opportunity to finish their education and stand on their own feet.
A distinct multicultural flavor was reflected in the evening’s program, which included comedian Anish Shah and tantalizing food from India Garden, and in the fashion, a mix of ethic Indian and Western formal.
Gala co-chairs Alwar Narayanan and Smruti Rajagopalan delivered a memorable night with the support of the chapter Board, local volunteers and the following sponsors: Allstate Insurance Company, Ernst & Young LLP, General Electric, Genpact, Infosys, McKinsey & Company, Mondeléz International, Salesforce Inc., Vinakom Inc., United Airlines, and Mars Wrigley Confectionery.
Established in the slums of Mumbai in 1995, Pratham is now one of India’s largest non-governmental education organizations, having affected the lives of more than 50 million underprivileged children in the past two decades.
UNITED NATIONS – For the second year in a row, Pakistan foolishly, futilely tried to rake up the issue of Kashmir, self-determination for the people of Kashmir, lied about India being the troublemaker with cross-border incursions at the United Nations General Assembly. For their efforts, they got a cutting and stunning reply from India when it came to rebutting the hostile and vile allegations.
Pakistan’s standing in the world has seen a sharp dip since the onset of the Trump presidency. They are on a slippery slope in bilateral relations with the US, with the Trump administration seeing eye-to-eye with India on cross-border terrorism perpetrated by Pakistan and agreeing with its long, nefarious history of launching and funding disruptive organizations in India.
Funding for Pakistan has taken a hit. Trump’s new policy to ease Obama-era norms on surreptitious military attacks, including drone strikes, at terrorists holed up in safe havens, spells more trouble for beleaguered rogue nations like Pakistan who are wilting domestically because of their nexus with terrorist organizations.
On Thursday, after the new Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s Kashmir-laden speech at the United Nations General Assembly, India had her First Secretary Eenam Gambhir give a befitting reply, after exercising its right to rebuttal.
Gambhir described Pakistan as “Terroristan” with a penchant to export jihadis worldwide. That word ‘Terroristan’ is brilliant; sums up the country Pakistan.
Last year, at the Same venue, Gambhir had humiliated the former disgraced Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif, by refuting all his ridiculous assertions of India as a hostile nation. It was the turn of Abbasi to feel the heat, and for the people of Pakistan to feel the shame of being a nation known more for killing innocent people than being the ‘land of the pure’, as the work “Pakistan’ means, in Urdu.
Here’s the full text of Eenam’s excellent speech:
“I take the floor to exercise the right of reply in response to Pakistan’s defense of terrorism. It is extraordinary that the state which protected Osama Bin Laden and sheltered Mullah Omar should have the gumption to play the victim.
By now, all Pakistan’s neighbors are painfully familiar with these tactics to create a narrative based on distortions, deception and deceit. This august Assembly and the world beyond know that efforts at creating alternative facts do not change reality.
Mr President,
In its short history, Pakistan has become a geography synonymous with terror. The quest for a land of pure has actually produced “the land of pure terror”. Pakistan is now ”Terroristan’, with a flourishing industry producing and exporting global terrorism.
Its current state can be gauged from the fact that Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, a leader of the UN designated terrorist organization Lashkar-i-Taiba, is now sought to be legitimized as a leader of a political party.
This is a country whose counter terrorism policy is to mainstream and upstream terrorists by either providing safe havens to global terror leaders in its military town, or protecting them with political careers.
None of this can justify Pakistan’s avaricious efforts to covet the territories of its neighbours. In so far as India is concerned, Pakistan must understand that the State of Jammu and Kashmir is and will always remain an integral part of India. However much its scales up cross-border terrorism, it will never succeed in undermining India’s territorial integrity.
Mr President,
We also heard Pakistan complain about the consequences of its supposed counter terrorism efforts. Having diverted billions of dollars in international military and development aid towards creating a dangerous infrastructure of terror on its own territory, Pakistan is now speaking of the high cost of its terror industry. The polluter, in this case, is paying the price.
Mr President,
Even as terrorists thrive in Pakistan and roam its streets with impunity, we have heard it lecture about the protection of human rights in India. The world does not need lessons on democracy and human rights from a country whose own situation is charitably described as a failed state.
Mr President,
Terroristan is in fact a territory whose contribution to the globalisation of terror is unparalleled.
Pakistan can only be counseled to abandon a destructive worldview that has caused grief to the entire world. If it could be persuaded to demonstrate any commitment to civilization, order, and to peace, it may still find some acceptance in the comity of nations.”
It’s not known if Eenam was set to work on her speech for one full year, with India knowing fully well that Pakistan will bring up the issue of Kashmir again at the UN, and lie to the world.
One thing’s for sure: the world has found a new word for Pakistan: Terroristan.
(Sujeet Rajan is Executive Editor, Parikh Worldwide Media. Email him: sujeet@newsindiatimes.com Follow him on Twitter @SujeetRajan1).
Save 50 percent on a stay at the Landings Resort & Spa in St. Lucia. A one-night stay starts at $297 a night, plus $30 tax, and includes luxury accommodations, unlimited nonmotorized water sports and daily breakfast for the entire family. In addition, kids stay free. The normal rate is from $613. The Caribbean island was not affected by Hurricane Irma. Book by Sept 30; travel by Dec. 16. Info: 844-886-3762, landingsstlucia.com
Book at least 14 days in advance at the Ritz-Carlton New York, Westchester hotel in White Plains, N.Y., and save more than $100 per night. The Autumn Escape Advance Purchase offer starts at $299, plus $43 taxes; rate typically starts at $399, plus $57 taxes. Promo applies to stays through Dec. 29; payment is nonrefundable. Info: 914-946-5500, ritzcarlton.com/en/hotels/new-york/westchester/offers
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American Queen Steamboat Company has launched a sale on holiday river cruises. Save up to $1,400 per stateroom on select cruises departing Oct. 29 until Dec. 25. For example, a Vineyards, Vintages and Varietals cruise departing Vancouver, Wash., on Nov. 12 now starts at $1,999 per person double, a $700 savings; the trip includes one night of hotel lodging in Vancouver, a seven-night cruise on the Columbia River aboard the American Empress, several shore excursions and transfers (port charges are an extra $169 per person). Promo must be booked by Sept. 30. Info: 888-749-5280, americanqueensteamboatcompany.com
Air
Turkish Airlines has sale fares from Washington Dulles to cities throughout Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. For example, round-trip fare to Athens is $629; other airlines are matching, but fare typically starts at about $900. Depart by May 15; restrictions include a three-month maximum stay. Sale is not available for travel Dec. 9-27. Buy by Oct. 11 at turkishairlines.com
Package
Goway Travel is offering special rates on last-minute departures of its Romance Thailand trip. Price now starts at $1,599 per person double for Oct. 11-31 departures. Trip includes round-trip airfare from New York to Bangkok; round-trip airfare from Bangkok to Phuket; three nights at the Continental Hotel Bangkok; five nights at Novotel Phuket Kata Avista Resort & Spa; daily breakfasts; two sightseeing tours in Bangkok; airport transfers; and taxes. Priced separately, the trip would cost about $2,180 per person. Info: 888-329-1544, goway.com
Dr. Vemuri S. Murthy, appointed president of the Cook County Medical Organization. (Photo: Chicago Medical Society website)
Chicago IL: A Chicago-based Indian-American anesthesiologist and resuscitation expert, Dr. Vemuri S. Murthy has been appointed as the 169th president of the prestigious Cook County Medical Organization. In his honor, the Chicago Medical Society held a welcoming ceremony at Maggiano’s Banquets in Chicago on September 12. The Chicago Medical Society (CMS), is one of the largest medical societies in the nation, representing approximately 17,000 physicians.
Hundreds of colleagues and dignitaries attended the event, according to a press release from the CMS. Among them were Dr. Tapas Dasgupta, president of the Indian American Medical Association; Illinois State Medical Society President Dr. Nestor Ramirez, and Board Chair Dr. Adrienne Fregia; Pakistani Descent Physicians Society, represented by Dr. Tariq Butt, the Consul Birbal Anand from the Indian Consulate in Chicago; and educator Paul Vallas, chief administrative officer at Chicago State University, a press release posted on the CMS website said.
The evening’s festivities included music and a powerful rendition of the American National Anthem, sung by a medical resident Dr. Radhika Chimata, the press release added.
Dr. Murthy is an alumnus of Guntur Medical College, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (New Delhi) in India and Rush Medical Center in Chicago and has served CMS in different capacities since 1983. He is the founder of the CMS community CPR project SMILE (Saving More Illinois Lives through Education) in raising awareness of sudden cardiac arrests with CPR education throughout the greater Chicago communities for several years.
In his first speech as the CMS president, Dr. Murthy explained how important it is to have a more active physician participation in organized medicine through the medical societies in this age of rapidly changing healthcare arena affecting physician practices and patient care, a press release said. He also encouraged the younger physicians including medical students and residents to become members of a medical society right from them time they start their medical education. He mentioned the advantages of CMS membership such as advocacy, education, informational exchange and networking.
A past Chairman of the anesthesiology department at West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, Illinois and past president of the Indian American Medical Association, Illinois (IAMAIL), Dr. Murthy has been a veteran volunteer of the American Heart Association for many years and is a member of the International Committee. A “Champion of Global Health” and recipient of several national and international awards for his contributions involving resuscitation and public health education, he is leading a national hands-only community CPR project in India involving the University of Illinois at Chicago, IAMAIL and Share India.
