Hari Pillai, an engineer by training, recently announced his run for Cambridge City Council. The elections are scheduled for Nov. 7. Twenty six candidates are running for the 9 seats on the City Council, some of them for re-election, according to the City of Cambridge, MA Board of Elections website.

Pillai was born and raised in the Mississippi Delta and has been living in the Cambridge area of Boston for over 17 years.

“My parents were both activist educators, and they imbued in me progressive values, sense of social justice, inclusivity, and civic involvement. I made it a point to move to Boston/Cambridge area over 17 years ago because I knew that my convictions to these values are welcomed,” said Pillai, who has always been extremely interested in politics, volunteering for many campaigns since 1994.

“As an Indian-American, I’m very proud of my dual heritage, and I maintain close ties to India. I want to be the voice for the Indian-American community here, and I will not take any vote for granted,” he added.

Some of the issues on his agenda range from hate crimes to parking space, quality of internet services, local development projects, affordable housing, increasing voter turnout, raising the minimum wage to $15, and dispensaries for marijuana.

Pillai has a BS in Engineering from Mississippi State University, and an MS in Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His father was a physics professor at a historically black college and his mother was a middle-school science teacher in Mississippi.

He has worked at GE Power Systems as a Process and Quality Engineer and has also touched upon other areas including being a tutor and health and wellness coach at the Oak Square YMCA and an Account Manager in the Technology Sector.

According to his profile on the web, Pillai has been involved in many campaigns for local, state and federal elections as well as, volunteering as a Massachusetts Service Alliance grant reviewer where he mentored young kids and at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Shirley, where he promoted the practice of mindfulness.

He is also a member of the African American Business Leaders for Excellence (ABLE), the Asian American Professional Group, and Pride in addition to mentoring and coaching junior employees.

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NEW YORK – An Indian woman, Lata Dass, has earned tens of thousands of dollars by scheming and scamming victims, including forging passports and doctoring birth certificates and was recently charged with first-degree theft and identity theft in Snohomish County in Lynnwood, Washington state.

According to a Herald Net report, Dass’ recent scam started earlier this year at a nail salon in a nearby mall, where she often went for manicures and waxing.

Teresa Cox, the Snohomish County deputy prosecutor, wrote that at the salon, Dass told the staff that she came from a rich family who owned a string of gas stations in California and mentioned that she had a wealthy friend who was moving to California and wanted to sell two houses in Lynnwood and Bothell, without an agent.

She then told the nail salon owner that she could get him a great deal and gave him the addresses of both the houses, hoping he would drive by sometime to take a look and sure enough he did, checked property records and told Dass he was interested.

She told him that her friend didn’t speak English and wanted Dass to help him sell the houses and mentioned that another family members from Canada were also interested in the houses and were willing to pay cash and that if he wanted to buy the houses then he would need to put a $10,000 payment to secure them.

He then gave her the money and she handed him a notarized, handwritten receipt and instructed him to prepare more cash in order to fully purchase the houses and sale contracts. Later, she got another $6,000 from him.

After that, she absconded and gave evasive answers when contacted by the victim, over the phone. After a few weeks, Dass blocked his number on her phone.

She then called him back using a new number and told him that she owed the IRS $400,000 and had to go to California and then she blocked him again and continued to give him excuses for weeks.

Unfortunately, Lynnwood police were unable to find a driver’s license for Dass in the U.S. or Canada but detectives have found out from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that Dass is in the country on a visa and has an Indian passport in her name.

Also, the detective’s search of utility records found that Dass has several addresses from Blaine to Bothell and the most current address was for a rental in Bothell with a P.O. Box in Mill Creek where the clerk recognized Dass from a photo but said she hadn’t been in the store since January, reported Herald Net.

A property manager had contacted Lynnwood police in August after hearing that detectives were looking for Dass and said that she had been renting a property in Bothell since April; when he gave her the keys, she had a young boy with her as well but she hadn’t paid rent since she moved in and owed $16,000.

Detectives later found several passport photographs of different people, birth certificates from various countries and at least two Indian passports which were not Dass’ and inside a child’s ninja turtle backpack, they found financial documents belonging to Dass and other people.

The property owner reported that he’d last exchanged texts with Dass on Sept. 5 and that the phone was registered to someone else.

Detectives then obtained a warrant to track the phone and discovered that data from a cell tower indicated that the phone was at an apartment complex less than two miles from the police station.

They watched the building for a few days and confirmed that Dass was living in an apartment at the same building and arrested her on Sept. 7 as she stepped out of the front door asking for a lawyer.

It was later discovered that Dass’s vehicle was registered to an Everett man. According to court records, Dass supposedly bought the nearly $27,000 Audi using the man’s personal information and also took out insurance policies in his name.

Dass was ordered to be held on a $25,000 bail which she bonded out of right away but was then arrested again by Federal Way police and booked into King County Jail. However, she has since been released.

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Investigators have spent most of this week piecing together the story of Stephen Paddock, who on Sunday opened fire from his Las Vegas hotel suite, gunning down 58 people at a country music festival and injuring hundreds more.

They have explored a web of clues, delving into Paddock’s gun purchases, computers and travel plans and speaking with his relatives and girlfriend. What they lack, however, are answers.

As the investigation entered its fifth full day Friday, the biggest remaining question about the shooting remained unanswered: Why did Paddock, a 64-year-old avid gambler, meticulously plan and carry out the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history?

Unlike many other mass killers who have unleashed bloodshed in America’s churches, colleges, nightclubs, workplaces, college towns or public spaces, Paddock left no clear sign authorities have identified so far. After previous mass shootings, there were bigoted screeds posted online, confessions to police, videotaped rants, histories of violent behavior or worrisome trails of arrest records and mental health consultations.

Here, instead, there is mystery. People who knew Paddock described him as anti-social, someone who went out of his way to avoid other human beings, but his girlfriend said she saw no indication that he was capable of such horror.

Other questions still surrounded the shooting, as Joseph Lombardo, the Las Vegas sheriff, outlined during a news briefing. Did anyone help Paddock or know of his plans? Did Paddock intend to die in his hotel suite – shooting himself before a SWAT team breached the door on Sunday night – or had he hoped to escape? What, if anything, did it mean that he had intensified his gun buying habits in the year before the shooting?

“Stephen Paddock is a man who spent decades acquiring weapons and ammo and living a secret life, much of which will never be fully understood,” Lombardo told reporters. “Anything that would indicate this individual’s trigger point and would cause him to do such harm, we haven’t understood it yet.”

FBI agents are piecing together Paddock’s life in the weeks and months before the massacre, hoping to unearth an explanation. Aaron Rouse, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Las Vegas division, warned that the probe will “take a while,” but he pledged that authorities “will get to the bottom of this no matter how long it takes.”

Details emerging from the investigation have amounted to pieces of a puzzle that has not yet taken shape. Chief among them was the discovery that before ascending to the 32nd floor of a Las Vegas hotel and opening fire on 22,000 concertgoers far below, Paddock had booked space in two other hotels overlooking popular music festivals – one in Las Vegas last month and the other in Chicago a month earlier.

Investigators were still unsure of the significance of the hotel bookings and are trying to determine if they were ominous signs of the horror to come or the meaningless actions of a man with the financial means to fly around the country.

Even as investigators were unsure of the significance, the Chicago reservation was unnerving to contemplate. Two months before he opened fire from the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, targeting a country music festival far below, Paddock had made a reservation at a high-rise hotel overlooking Lollapalooza, a music festival in Chicago’s Grant Park, according to two people familiar with the investigation.

From the Blackstone Hotel, where Paddock had made the reservation, a person with the right room could see clear across Lollapalooza and to Lake Michigan, which runs along the park’s eastern side. Lollapalooza draws an average of about 100,000 people per day, five times the number at the Las Vegas festival Paddock ultimately targeted. In the end, Paddock did not show up.

Instead, Paddock headed toward Las Vegas, home to so many of the casinos where he felt at home. Paddock was known to sit for hours playing video poker and slot machines, gambling with tens of thousands of dollars and earning VIP status.

Paddock arrived at the Mandalay Bay on Sept. 28, three days before the concert shooting, bringing with him 23 guns, a dozen of them equipped with “bump” stocks, which allow for more rapid fire. These bump stocks have become the epicenter of the debate over gun violence after Las Vegas, and the National Rifle Association, which had been silent since the massacre, on Thursday lent its support to the growing effort to restrict the devices.

Paddock also had in his car thousands of rounds of ammunition he never fired, along with explosive material. More guns, ammunition and explosive material were found at his homes, police said.

As Paddock’s background has come into focus, the portrait that emerged was one of a financially well-off man who so disliked being around other people and sought to avoid speaking with them.

Paddock would buy apartments, move into them to keep an eye on his investment, but “still would employ other people to talk to the tenants because he didn’t want to talk to the tenants,” said a real estate broker who helped Paddock sell multiple properties in California more than a decade ago.

Paddock’s aversion to human contact, the real estate broker said, was in part why he preferred playing video poker, a type of gambling that doesn’t require interaction with other players. Paddock’s wardrobe did not bespeak of a man of wealth, said the broker, who asked not to be identified discussing the gunman. When he went to casinos, Paddock often went out unshaven, in sweats and flip flops, even on his thrice-weekly excursions to casinos, where he ate at the buffet.

Paddock had expressed a dislike for taxes and the government, the broker said, even selling off a series of buildings in California to move his money to the low-tax havens of Texas and Nevada. A person familiar with the investigation into the massacre said these anti-government views alone didn’t explain why Paddock targeted a country music concert.

What could have driven Paddock remained central to the investigators who have chased leads around the globe. FBI agents interviewed Marilou Danley, Paddock’s girlfriend, hoping she could provide insight into the shooting, but she has said she knew nothing of his plans or potential for such violence.

Danley was out of the country during the shooting, and she said this was arranged by Paddock, saying that he bought her a plane ticket to the Philippines to visit relatives. Paddock then wired her a substantial sum of money, telling her to use it to buy a home, Danley said in a statement read by her attorney.

“I was grateful, but honestly, I was worried, that first, the unexpected trip home, and then the money, was a way of breaking up with me,” Danley said. “It never occurred to me in any way whatsoever that he was planning violence against anyone.”

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WASHINGTON – Hundreds of government employees file in and out of the U.S. agency for auto safety in Washington every working day, investigating potentially dangerous vehicles and managing a $900 million annual budget.

But an administrator is not among them – nobody has been nominated to the top job since President Donald Trump took office.

Also missing from the roughly 550 people on the payroll of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, are a permanent chief counsel, director for government affairs, chief financial officer and enforcement chief.

While a deputy administrator was appointed last week, slow progress in bringing in senior politically appointed officials has nearly frozen key decision-making at the agency, according to five former NHTSA officials, consumer groups, lawmakers and some business leaders.

They said that without leadership in place NHTSA has either pushed back or failed to act on rules setting new standards for improving how buses fare in rollover crashes, a system to remind passengers in rear seats to wear seat belts, and new tire standards.

Eight months into Trump’s presidency, senior positions in many government agencies across Washington remain vacant, including roles at the State Department, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and throughout the Transportation Department that oversees NHTSA.

Some of the vacancies are the result of Trump’s efforts to slim down the federal bureaucracy. Others are simply waiting to be filled.

The White House blames Democrats for dragging out the confirmation process for its nominees, and says vetting picks has been more complicated than usual because many come from the business world rather than government.

While many companies applaud Trump’s moves to roll back federal bureaucracy, some also complain that delays in bringing aboard political appointees is hindering government decisions that could impact business.

The frustration extends to some U.S. diplomats, private-sector lawyers and others who regularly deal with government agencies, according to interviews.

‘IN A STALL’

In September, the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association urged Trump in a letter to accelerate his efforts to nominate a NHTSA administrator so the agency can comply with a 2015 road safety law passed by Congress.

The law ordered NHTSA to write regulations setting minimum tire standards for fuel efficiency and traction in wet conditions and create an online database for consumers to check for tire recalls.

U.S. manufacturers and consumer groups support the regulations, drawn up in response to vehicle deaths linked to faulty tires, because they will raise standards and make the U.S. market less accessible to poorly made versions.

“We don’t want the U.S. to be kind of the dumping group for the really low technology because there isn’t a standard to meet,” said Dan Zielinski, the association’s senior vice president.

Two former NHTSA leaders and consumer groups say the agency is also moving slowly on other regulatory issues, such as improving side impact standards.

“This agency is in a stall … They are not going to do very much without political leadership,” said Joan Claybrook, a former NHTSA administrator under President Jimmy Carter and a prominent consumer advocate.

NHTSA said in a statement Friday that safety is its top priority. The agency is “committed to meeting all obligations as required” by the 2015 law. NHTSA has an ongoing review of all regulatory actions as part of an administration-wide effort.

A White House spokeswoman declined to comment on NHTSA but said “capable and professional staff” are filling essential positions throughout the government on an acting basis until confirmations go through.

Leadership shortages extend beyond the NHTSA. The White House had by Oct. 4 nominated 387 political appointees for civilian positions in the executive branch and 160 have been confirmed by the U.S. Senate, according to the non-partisan Partnership for Public Service.

Both numbers were well below those in the first eight months under at least the last four presidents. In the same period of Barack Obama’s presidency, 497 candidates were nominated and 337 confirmed.

One senior administration official said it aims to have all top positions – those at the level of assistant secretary and above – nominated by year’s end.

Still, some political appointee jobs are expected to stay empty, the White House spokeswoman said. “The federal government has grown unrestrained for decades because politicians have been too afraid to ‘drain the swamp’,” she said.

Follow Trump’s impact on energy, environment, healthcare, immigration and the economy at The Trump Effect https://www.reuters.com/trump-effect

‘BEHIND THE CURVE’

In many cases, dire warnings from opponents that Trump’s delays in putting forward political nominations for approval would cause chaos have proven overblown.

But there are examples of government slowing down because mid-level employees do not have the authority or are unwilling to make decisions.

At the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which analyzes proposed transactions to ensure they do not harm national security, private-sector lawyers complain of slow decisions on big deals.

“There is an unwillingness for the staff people to make a decision,” said Michael Gershberg, a trade and investment attorney with Fried Frank.

A lobbyist who works on CFIUS deals said some companies have had to refile proposals because CFIUS failed to reach a decision within 75 days. That drives up legal and financing fees and creates uncertainty about the deal. Deals that have been refiled include a bid by Jack Ma’s Ant Financial to buy MoneyGram and Zhongwang USA’s $2.33 billion bid for Aleris Corp.

The Senate last week confirmed Heath Tarbert, who is expected to oversee CFIUS, as an assistant secretary of the Treasury.

At the State Department, only six of the top 40 jobs have been filled, and no confirmed officials are in place to run regional bureaus that handle foreign relations. Instead, they are in the hands of career diplomats with limited authority.

The United States does not have an ambassador in place in such key allied countries as South Korea, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

“We’re pretty much frozen in amber here,” one official said.

A congressional aide said it was hard to determine the precise impact of the vacancies.

But he added that U.S. policy in the North Korea missiles crisis would likely be helped by an ambassador in Seoul, a fully empowered assistant secretary of state for East Asia and an active special envoy for North Korea.

“That’s just one example in the region with the most prominent national security crisis, and really one of the most serious in a long time,” he said.

Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan, testifying in Congress on Sept. 26, addressed the slow pace of filling posts.

“We’re behind the curve. We should be ahead of the curve. And we’re doing all we can to catch up,” he said. “Our work is getting done. It would be better done if we had those positions filled.”

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MUMBAI (Reuters) – Indian oil-to-telecoms conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd has agreed to sell a shale oil and gas block in the United States for $126 million, a third of the price it paid seven years ago, amid a downturn in global oil prices.

BKV Chelsea LLC, an affiliate of energy investment firm Kalnin Ventures LLC, bought the asset, located in the Marcellus shale in northeastern and central Pennsylvania, from Reliance, the Indian company said in a statement, adding it could further receive $11.25 million based on changes in natural gas prices.

Reliance bought the Marcellus asset in 2010 for $392 million. The U.S. shale market has since become highly competitive and companies have cut costs to stay afloat after a slump in crude oil and gas prices.

Houston-based Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc, the operator of the Marcellus asset, also exited its investment, Reliance said.

The deal reduces the number of Reliance-owned U.S. shale assets to two.

Reliance may look at selling its other U.S. shale assets, which have also been losing money, analysts said. It had invested just over $2 billion in 2010 to purchase the three assets, which were operated by its joint-venture partners.

“It is a smart move,” said an analyst with an Indian brokerage, referring to the sale.

“The shale oil and gas market is consolidating in the U.S. and shale gas particularly is not remunerative at current low prices,” said the analyst, who did not want to be identified, citing his company’s policy.

The three shale assets accounted for less than 1 percent of the consolidated revenue of Reliance, which runs the world’s biggest refinery complex in western India. It has also expanded into telecoms in recent years, investing $30 billion in a new fourth-generation network named Jio.

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NEW YORK – Tata Consultancy Services, Asia’s largest software maker and outsourcing firm, is fighting critical court battles in the United States, to avoid forking out hundreds of millions of dollars in a lawsuit, evade being labeled as a ‘cheat’ and worse, tarnished as being anti-American, in their hiring practices. The ruling on these cases will have far reaching repercussions not just on IT companies, like TCS and Infosys, it could impact and influence new laws on foreign workers by the Trump administration.

In what can be termed, albeit ironically, as the best news so far this year for the beleaguered Mumbai-headquartered firm TCS, the Western District Court of Wisconsin issued an order reducing an earlier $940 million awarded to the US healthcare software firm Epic Systems, to $420 million.

It’s of course, a mere coincidence, that that number of 420, or as it’s said in Hindi ‘charsobees’ – which down the road if it stays, despite a likely appeal – has a nefarious connotation in Indian colloquial language. It means a fraudster or trickster. The origin of the word is attributed to the Indian Penal Code, section 420, which denotes offences relating to cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property.

Ironically, the $420 million figure materialized after Epic had, last year, requested for a lower award, to $720 million, from the original $940 million, The quantum of the jury award violated a Wisconsin law which prevents the award of punitive damages of more than twice the compensatory damages, reported the Economic Times. Now, it’s been further trimmed down to $420 million.

Epic had accused TCS of cheating: it claimed that TCS employees were brought on as consultants to a Kaiser Permanente Sunnyside Medical Center in Portland, Oregon, to help implement an Epic system there and took more than 6,000 documents containing Epic’s system development information by creating a fake user account. Epic said TCS used the illegally acquired information to create its own healthcare system, according to a report in Economic Times.

On another front, TCS is battling a far greater worry than having to shell out close to half a billion dollars, which it can take in its stride with only a few hiccups: being labeled anti-American.

Bloomberg reported that TCS is fighting a lawsuit where some individuals claim that TCS put into effect discriminatory hiring practices, and that as much as 79 percent of its U.S. workforce is South Asian, when that group makes up only 12.5 percent of the relevant labor market in the country.

TCS – like Infosys too who are embroiled in a similar lawsuit – contends it’s misleading to include employees on H-1B visa hired in India, and who work temporarily and “legally” in the U.S. It also says more than 40 percent of its job applicants are South Asians and that not everyone is keen on working for an India-based company or willing to relocate to take a job.

Earlier this week, at a hearing in federal court in Oakland, California, on whether to dismiss the case entirely, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said she would take the issue under submission, reported Bloomberg. She indicated that she would deny the motion for summary judgment, at least as far as it involves white U.S. employees who were fired from Tata. She was less impressed by the evidence that Tata discriminates against white job applicants.

The lawsuit against TCS was filed in 2015 by a white IT worker who claimed he was subject to “substantial anti-American sentiment” within the company and was ultimately terminated within 20 months despite having almost 20 years of experience in the field. He was later replaced as the lead plaintiff by two other men.

Bloomberg noted the judge didn’t rule on whether to certify the suit as a class action, which would expand it to include potentially thousands of American workers who either weren’t hired or were fired by TCS and other companies because of their race over the past six years.

That would be a calamitous situation for Indian IT companies with clientele in the US, who rely heavily on foreign workers on H-1B and other work visas, to take on contracts, fulfill work assignments.

The resounding impact would no doubt snake its way to India’s GDP, which has taken a hit of late from falling employment numbers.

Andra Greene, a lawyer with Irell & Manella LLP in Newport Beach, California, who isn’t involved in the TCS suit, told Bloomberg if the TCS case does proceed as a class action suit, it may encourage white Americans to pursue similar suits against other companies with heavily foreign workforce.

Infosys, which employs about 200,000 people around the world, has been scrambling to shore up their base in the US with local labor. It has announced that it would hire 10,000 Americans over the next two years.

As for the broader claim that TCS engages in institutional discrimination against Americans, the plaintiffs claim, reported Bloomberg, the “highly skewed” workforce results from “a corporate directive to favor visa-ready South Asian Indian national candidates to fill U.S. positions and the use of third-party recruiters that forward to Tata a substantial percentage of South Asian Indian national candidates.”

TCS contends there’s a “non-discriminatory” explanation that includes its use of workers with guest visas.

“These individuals are existing employees, were hired in India, and are thus hired from a completely different labor market,” the company said in a filing. “They cannot be used to create a statistical disparity between TCS’ workforce and the United States labor market.”

The protectionist Trump administration, which has faced heavy lobbying by pro and anti-foreign workforce as they brace for an immigration overhaul, is likely watching this case with great interest.

The administration, which has recently stepped up its efforts to implement firmly the concept of hiring domestically, is at present stymied in greater effort to shut the door on legal immigrant workforce because of the brisk economy and shrinking number of qualified labor.

However, there are indications that things could change in a jiffy, because of natural or man-made causes: according to ZeroHedge, the US economy lost 33,000 hurricane distorted jobs last month, the first payrolls decline since September 2010. It noted that the historical revisions were more problematic: total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised down from +189,000 to +138,000,  while August was revised up from +156,000 to +169,000. With these revisions, employment gains in July and August combined were 38,000 less than previously reported. After revisions, job gains have averaged 91,000 over the past three months.

The rhetoric against foreign workers could escalate any given month, if current trends continue.

(Sujeet Rajan is Executive Editor, Parikh Worldwide Media.  Email him: sujeet@newsindiatimes.com Follow him on Twitter @SujeetRajan1)

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NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court on Friday appointed senior counsel Amarendra Sharan as amicus curiae to examine the material produced by a petitioner to ascertain whether there was need for further inquiry into the larger conspiracy behind the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

While asking Sharan to assist the court and examine the material produced by Mumbai-based IT professional Pankaj Kumud Chandra Phadnis, the bench of Justice S.A. Bobde and Justice L.Nageswara Rao however said that prima facie they don’t find the material to be sufficient to order fresh inquiry.

At the outset of the hearing, the bench asked the petitioner why has approached the court at this stage, pointing out that the trial court order convicting accused in Mahatma Gandhi assassination case was upheld by the High Court and convicts were executed in 1949.

The court was told that since the death sentence was executed on November 15, 1949 and Supreme Court came into existence on January 26, 1950, therefore the assassination of Gandhi was never looked at by the top court on merits.

The petitioner appeared in person to argue his case. The court told the petitioner in person that he needed legal assistance to read the documents.

The petition has moved the top court challenging the Bombay High Court’s June 6, 2016 order junking his plea for the fresh inquiry into larger conspiracy behind the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in the wake of fresh evidence that has surfaced now.

Pointing fingers at British Secret Service Force 136, the petitioner has said that the Indian Ambassador to USSR was informed in February 1948 that the British had organized the murder of Mahatma Gandhi.

Having said this he said that he has come across evidence of a sinister British secret service Force 136 that had authorization to murder iconic freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose.

Describing the investigation into the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi as biggest cover-up in Indian history, Phadnis said that “The blame on Marathi people in general and Veer Savarkar in particular for being the cause of the death of Mahatma has no basis in law and facts”.

He said that there was a “compelling need to to uncover the larger conspiracy behind the murder of Mahatma Gandhi by constituting a new Commission of Inquiry.”

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Apple Inc. said on Friday its general counsel, Bruce Sewell, will retire and be succeeded by former Honeywell International Inc executive Katherine Adams, who will take over Apple’s multinational legal battle against Qualcomm Inc.

Adams, who will also be senior vice president of legal and global security, will report to Chief Executive Tim Cook, the company said.

Before joining Honeywell in 2003, Adams was an attorney with Sidley Austin LLP in New York. Earlier, she had served as a clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and for Stephen Breyer, who was then an appeals court judge but later was appointed to the Supreme Court.

Sewell, who has been Apple’s general counsel since 2009, will retire at the end of the year, the company said. Sewell, who came to Apple from Intel Corp., guided Apple through its massive patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung Electronics Co Ltd over design patents for the original iPhone, a case that is still simmering nearly six years after it was filed and eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court. A U.S. appeals court is currently working to decide the final amount of damages Samsung owes Apple.

In taking the legal reins at Apple, Adams will take over a wide-ranging dispute with Qualcomm over how that chipmaker licenses its technology to Apple. At the heart of the dispute is Qualcomm’s long-held practice of charging a percentage of the total price of iPhones and other Apple devices as a licensing fee for its mobile connectivity patent portfolio.

Apple has sued Qualcomm over that practice in U.S. civil courts as well as 11 foreign jurisdictions.

Qualcomm has brought an action against Apple before the U.S. International Trade Commission seeking to ban imports of some iPhones. Qualcomm filed a separate civil lawsuit accusing Apple of infringing the patents at issue in that action.

Qualcomm also faces an antitrust complaint from the U.S.Federal Trade Commission. In addition, four of Apple’s contract manufacturers have sued Qualcomm on antitrust allegations, and Apple has joined that lawsuit.

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NEW DELHI – Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on Friday eased tax rules for small and medium-sized companies, as it rushes to address growing criticism of its stewardship of Asia’s third-largest economy.

Modi, in a rare acknowledgment that economic sentiment had turned negative, this week defended his handling of the economy, which in the June quarter grew at an annual 5.7 percent, its slowest rate in three years.

Small and medium-sized enterprises, crucial to Modi’s plans to create millions of more jobs, have been hurt by a massive tax overhaul launched on July 1 that added layers of bureaucracy for companies and hit exports.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday chaired a meeting of the council for the Goods and Services Tax (GST), a landmark reform which turned India’s 29 states into a single customs union for the first time.

After the day-long meeting, Jaitley said small businesses would be allowed to file tax returns once a quarter instead of every month. He also said duties would be cut on some products and the threshold for lower tax would be raised.

“We are not in a denial mode that there is a problem in the SME (small and medium enterprises) sector,” said a senior lawmaker who has been working with Modi’s office to combat the economic slowdown.

Ajay Sahai, head of the Federation of Indian Export Organisation, said before the Jaitley press conference that its 25,000 small and medium-sized members had found the monthly tax drill “exhausting”.

While a mountain of bad loans has crimped bank lending to India’s bigger companies, smaller firms have been hurt by a government move last November to stamp out “black money” – untaxed cash that oils many industries – and by GST, whose complex structure has baffled companies down the supply chain.

“Informal sources of working capital (for smaller firms) has dried up,” said Anil Bhardwaj at the Federation of Indian Micro and Small and Medium Enterprises.

He predicted that it would be another year before GST began to have a positive impact on smaller companies.

Jaitley has promised steps to boost economic growth back above 7 percent and towards the levels economists say India requires to generate employment for the one million entering the workforce every month.

Modi built a reputation as an economic reformer capable of delivering jobs and wealth for an increasingly aspirational population, but slowing growth will be near the top of voter concerns in upcoming state elections.

Investment remains low. The government has hiked spending on infrastructure, but private investment has remained muted.

“It is not easy because our banking system is in deep trouble and private investment is not picking up,” the lawmaker said. “The government will have to recast all policies that will activate the public sector.”

Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu said in a tweet his department was working with Jaitley to address GST-related issues of exporters.

Jaitley said input tax credit for exporters for July and August, estimated at $10 billion, would be refunded soon.

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WASHINGTON – U.S. traffic deaths jumped 5.6 percent in 2016 to a decade-high of 37,461, and pedestrians killed rose 9 percent to 5,987, the highest number since 1990, the U.S. auto safety agency said on Friday.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said fatalities rose 2.6 percent to 1.18 deaths per 100 million miles driven, outpacing the mileage increase in 2016.

This was the second straight year of a sharp rise in U.S. traffic deaths. In 2015, they rose 8.4 percent, the single highest yearly jump in motor vehicle deaths since 1964.

Before 2015 U.S. traffic deaths had been falling for a decade as automakers added anti-rollover technologies and more air bags, the agency said in a report. Automakers are also adding features to help avoid rear-end crashes and other driver errors.

The last time traffic deaths were higher was in 2007, when 41,259 were killed on U.S. roads.

Bicyclist deaths rose 1.3 percent to the highest number since 1991, the data showed.

Deaths involving distracted drivers fell by 2.2 percent to 3,450 deaths, while drowsy deaths decreased by 3.5 percent. Distractions include talking or texting on the phone, eating, drinking and fiddling with the stereo or navigation system.

Drunk driving deaths rose 1.7 percent to 10,497 and speeding-related deaths increased 4 percent to 10,111. The agency said 2,500 deaths would have been prevented if all occupants wore safety belts.

Senior citizen drivers are accounting for a rising number of traffic deaths, the report showed. Drivers in fatal crashes aged 65 and above rose 8.2 percent last year.

The report may provide more ammunition for automakers and technology companies which are pushing Congress to pass legislation to help speed self-driving cars to market. A Senate committee unanimously passed such legislation earlier this week.

John Bozzella, chief executive of Global Automakers, an industry association whose members include Toyota Motor Corp <7203.T>, Hyundai Motor Co <005380.KS> and Honda Motor Co <7267.T>, said in a statement that the news was disheartening.

“We are on the verge of taking a quantum leap in road safety with the deployment of driver assists, connected vehicles, and automated technologies that will help address and mitigate the main causes of fatalities, human error and impairment,” he said.

Reuters reported on Friday that the Trump administration had not nominated a candidate to head the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which remains without much of its permanent leadership team.

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MUMBAI – Indian authorities withdrew on Friday an amendment that made jewelers subject to anti-money laundering legislation and caused a drop in gold sales.

The Prevention of Money Laundering Act obliges banks and other financial institutions to report all cash transactions above 50,000 rupees ($765) to the government, including customers’ personal identification numbers or tax codes.

Transactions by jewelers in the world’s second-biggest gold consumer were added to the list in August but without specifying a financial threshold.

However, that dented jewelry sales during the gold-buying festival season because customers were wary of providing personal details, industry body the All India Gems and Jewelry Trade Federation said.

“For the time being we have withdrawn the notification and we will be reissuing it with clear cut guidelines,” Hasmukh Adhia, revenue secretary at the Finance Ministry, told reporters.

Demand for gold typically rises in the last three months of the year as consumer buy more for the wedding season and for festivals such as Diwali and Dussehra.

“It is a big relief. The timing is right – just before Diwali,” said Ishu Datwani, owner of Mumbai-based Anmol Jewelers.

Indians will celebrate Diwali in the third week of October, a holiday period in which the buying of gold is considered auspicious.

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Ironic as it may be, it was a mere coincidence that the Las Vegas massacre that killed 58 people and injured more than 500 at a country-music concert, happened on the day the globally known father of nonviolence, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, was born – Oct. 2. Which may explain why Indian-Americans have the 2nd Amendment and gun rights on their minds days after the dust settled and as the investigation continues into the motives of the killer, and questions surface on whether he was a lone gunman like the one who killed Gandhi on Jan. 30, 1948, or massacred the 6 Indian-Americans at a Wisconsin gurdwara in 2012.

News India Times spoke to a number of Indian-Americans who agreed it was time the community actively and visibly entered the grassroots debate over gun ownership despite its small size but legitimate stakeholder status affected by policy choices at the national level.

“We have always hotly debated on India and immigration issues, but not on issues that impact American lives,” one of them told News India Times not wanting to be identified, but echoing the general sentiment. While they have pronounced on this issue in the past, both as victims and as a member of the general public, the enormity of Las Vegas engendered emotional reactions, but nevertheless reactions that called for common sense to prevail.

Puneet Ahluwalia, the 10th District representative on the Virginia Republican State Central Committee, says the issue of gun ownership and gun regulations is a common-sense debate that cannot derail the right to bear arms guaranteed under the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution.

Ahluwalia owns a gun and he believes people should own one to protect themselves. “Guns are an important part of our lives and we should have them. But regulations should be there,” he told News IndiaTimes. “Things like Las Vegas disturb our American way of life,” he says, describing the killer Stephen Paddock, 64, as an “insane” man. People have described Las Vegas differently depending on their political beliefs, as domestic terrorism or the act of a mentally ill man.

“Its a common sense debate, and that includes background checks, and restricting semi-automatic or automatic guns to the armed forces,” says Ahluwalia. “We may say ‘we’re gonna take guns away …’ but how? What about the guns on the streets of Chicago or Washington, D.C.?” he questions, his voice rising with emotion.

Indian-American retail shop-owners and convenience store-owners would agree with the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms. They keep guns to protect themselves and their stores around the country, and are among the folk that daily face dangers merely from their choice of livelihood.

Suhag Shukla, legal counsel and co-founder of Hindu American Foundation found that out back in 2013 after the Sandy Hook massacre when 26 children and teachers were killed by a single shooter in Connecticut, and the faith community came together to urge President Obama to push for gun control legislation.

“It’s an emotional issue in the mainstream and also within the Indian-American community there are differences of opinion,” said Shukla. When HAF was involved in developing a response, Shukla remembers,”Retail store-owners said to us, ‘Listen, you don’t know what its like to be in the line of fire,’.”

At the other end of the spectrum is Dr. Vivek Murthy, who years before he became the U.S. Surgeon General, described gun violence as an epidemic and a “health issue.” It almost lost him the nomination for Surgeon General of the United States. After he was confirmed as Surgeon General, Murthy doubled down calling gun violence a “public health epidemic.”

“The statements I’ve made in the past about gun violence being a public health issue, I stand by those comments because they’re  a fact,” he told The Washington Post after taking office in December 2014. “They’re a fact that nearly every medical professional who’s ever cared for a patient can attest to.”

Scope of Issue

According to a Pew Research Center study, findings of which were released June 22, about 33 percent of Americans say they own guns; four-in-ten Americans say they either own a gun themselves or live in a household with guns; and 48% say they grew up in a household with guns, and at least two-thirds of adults say they’ve lived in a household with a gun at some point in their lives. Roughly seven-in-ten – including 55% of those who have never personally owned a gun – say they have fired a gun at some point.

From all accounts, this is a mainstream issue not easily shoved to the backburner, especially for Indian-Americans who have been victims of mass violence like the Aug. 5, 2012, attack on the Oak Creek gurdwara in Wisconsin; or even this Feb. 22 killing of a techie in Olathe, Kansas. Or going further back to Sept. 15, 2001, when an Indian-American in Arizona became the first victim of post-9/11 backlash.

The Pew study also revealed that Americans see many factors as playing a role in gun violence. Among all adults, 86% say the ease with which people can illegally obtain guns contributes a great deal or a fair amount to gun violence; 60% point to the ease with which people can legally obtain guns. On the other side of the coin, a significant share of Americans (44%) say they personally know someone who has been shot, either accidentally or intentionally.

In the face of such numbers, Indian-Americans, being among the most highly educated, and among the highest-earning group in the country, could contribute to the debate. Virtually all those that News India Times spoke to dwelt on the daily gun violence that happens in the streets of Chicago and Washington, D.C., even as they are horrified by the Las Vegas massacre.

Common Sense

Their views mirror those of Americans for Responsible Solutions, an organization co-founded by Capt. Mark Kelly, husband of former Congresswoman Garry Giffords who survived a brain injury caused by a mass murderer while holding a public meeting.

The ARS in a survey released this April, found that 80 percent of gun owners support requiring a background check on all gun sales, including those sold online or at gun shows, while just 16 percent oppose them. 86 percent of gun owners support prohibiting anyone convicted of stalking or domestic abuse from buying a gun, and 85 percent of gun owners support prohibiting those on the federal terror watch list or no-fly lists from buying a gun. Furthermore, the survey found 73 percent of gun owners are more likely to support a candidate who supports background checks for all gun purchases, and 66 percent are more likely to support a candidate who supports gun violence prevention policies.

That puts the five Indian-Americans in Congress on the side of gun regulation, and mirroring the views most of the community holds. While gun-regulation is a highly divisive and politically partisan issue, it could be surmised that an overwhelming majority of Indian-Americans who happen to be Democrats, are for stricter gun-ownership regulations.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington, the first Indian-American woman elected to the House of Representatives, said “Gun violence in this country is a public health crisis and we must do everything we can to address it,” mirroring the views of Dr. Murthy. ” “With rights come responsibilities: the responsibility to close the loopholes in who sells and gets guns,” Jayapal said, adding other protections for children and lowe-income families.

“Guns are the third-leading cause of death for children in America. Our kids and communities deserve better,” tweeted Rep. Ro Khanna, D-California. “No community should have to fear going to the movies, a concert, or dropping their child off at school,” said Rep. Ami Bera. ” In the wake of this tragedy, I hope we’ll all be able to take the time to look for the helpers and that each of us, in our own way, will seek to help our nation heal, move forward, and work to prevent similar tragedies.”In the wake of this tragedy, I hope we’ll all be able to take the time to look for the helpers and that each of us, in our own way, will seek to help our nation heal, move forward, and work to prevent similar tragedies,” Illinois Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi said in a statement.

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, joined Sen. Dianne Feinstein Oct. 5, on legislation that would ban gun bump stocks, which were used by the gunman in Las Vegas, to turn his rifle into a quick-firing assault weapon. “Banning bump stocks is just common sense,” Harris said in a Facebook post. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle may favor this resolution as a stop-gap measure after Las Vegas and to bring around more constituents to their side.

Himsa & Ahimsa

The various faith groups that make up the Indian-American community are also for “common-sense” regulations on gun selling and ownership.

Following the 2013 Sandy Hook tragedy, the Hindu American Foundation outlined wrote to President Obama in a Jan. 9 2013 “Hindus affirm the inherent divinity of all beings and recognize that for the welfare of society, a balance is required between one’s individual rights, such as the desire to own a gun, and one’s responsibility to society, which may suffer as a result of gun violence,” HAF said. It talked of the ahimsa and himsa as part of every-day life and recommended some measures to counter gun violence.

Shukla put the onus on Congress to stop partisan politics and truly represent their constituents, a majority of whom she said, wanted stricter gun ownership laws. “There’s no question guns amplify the ability to do violence. Why would a civilian need a military-style weapon,” she questioned in her interview with News India Times. “If they are not able to come together for reasonable gun control, then Democracy on that front seems dead,” Shukla asserted.

“We have taken a stand since Oak Creek and Sandy Hook and every tragedy that has hit — that gun ownership and control has to be revisited,” Rajwant Singh, chairman of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education, and co-founder of the National Sikh Campaign told News India Times. “You can have 2nd Amendment rights, but in a common sense way,” he said, such as background checks, adequate resources for mental health services. As a faith community, we have a responsibility to speak on this. We feel it is our moral duty to be the voice of conscience and the rights of those affected,” he added.

It is not clear however, if the Las Vegas massacre is the “tipping point” for getting those common sense regulations, Singh said. “It’s like the smoking issue,” in some ways, where there was a point at which people began to see the dangers. “Advocacy groups have to step up their game,” Singh opined, asserting, “It’s no longer a recreation (to own and use guns), but an epidemic.”

“Las Vegas is an incident of domestic terrorism,” said Anju Bhargava, who said she was speaking in her personal capacity and not as a representative of the community service group Hindu Seva Communities, or her present occupation.  Bhargava was on the White House Inaugural Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (2009 – 2010) during the Obama presidency. Her views on guns, Bhargava said, were shaped by growing up in India despite having lived longer in the U.S. “I can’t get my head around owning guns. But in this country we have to come to terms that there will be guns. But one has to make enough change to moderate the harm,” Bhargava said. “Just like when Hindus get stuck with ‘parampara’, we have to re-evaluate tradition in the U.S. and re-evaluate and see the Constitution as a living document,” Bhargava contended, referring to the 2nd Amendment.

However, Judge R.K. Sandill of the 127th District Court in Harris County, Texas, says the 2nd Amendment is an integral part of American life, as one of the 20 amendments to the Bill of Rights. “It is one of those rights we will forever have. The question is how to deal with that right,” Sandill told News India Times. “Just as you are not allowed to yell “fire” in a crowded place to cause harm to others.” Living in Texas has made him relatively immune to the gun-owning culture and he understands if people from some other states that do not allow open-carrying may feel threatened or concerned.  But he knows several Indian-Americans who own guns and use them for recreational purposes. People coming from India, he said, quickly acclimatize to this different culture, he believes.

The 2nd Amendment “is reflective of our history and was meant to protect us against government tyranny,” Sandill said, “But the issue is with assault rifles etc. I don’t see a reason to have assault rifles.” Like Shukla, he believes the issue has to be left to legislators. First elected in 2008, Judge Sandill launched his campaign this August, for a seat on the Texas Supreme Court come November 2018.

“We have always worried about the tyranny of the majority, but is this a tyranny of the minority?” Sandill asks metaphorically.

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Ria Gulati, 22, a student at Rutgers, won the Miss Ramapo Valley Pageant held recently, the first-ever pageant she entered. She told judges volunteering had helped her realize the problems and struggles of others. She will be competing in the June 2018 Miss New Jersey pageant.

According to the Fair Lawn, N.J. Daily Voice, Gulati decided to enter her hometown pageant because she wanted to “venture outside her comfort zone.”

Apparently, Gulati was perfectly comfortable and the pageant was her ‘zone.’ Once she decided to take part in it, she continued a regimen of exercize and was crowned Miss Ramapo Valley in the pageant which was held end of August, beating the competition from young women representing Bergen, Passaic and Essex Counties, the fairlawn.dailyvoice.com reported.

Gulati told the Daily Voice she had no idea what was expected but prepared as best she could for the competition.

For the talent round, the young Indian-American had been singing Indian songs for many years, and a YouTube video shows her performing at a local community event as far back as 2012. She brushed up her singing and used it to her advantage at the pageant.

The current Miss Ramapo Valley, Lauren Staub, complimented Gulati on her Facebook page with a shout-out – “Love you Ria!”

To that Gulati replied, ” Love you too ❤️ You did an amazing job for the entire year and I hope to live up to it .”

In her interview round, Gulati spoke about discovering the best in yourself through volunteerism. That is a platform, benefits of volunteerism, is what she will be talking about for the year that she occupies the position of Miss Ramapo Valley.

She discovered the benefits personally when she gave of her time to the St. Peter’s University Hospital to overcome her own pressures and tensions as a student at the New Brunswick campus, the Daily Voice revealed.

At the pageant, Gulati told judges, “I had no idea the impact it would make on me. I started volunteering and realized it was way more than just getting my mind off of something,” Gulati is quoted saying. “It was something that had helped me discover what other people were going through, meet people of all ages, find out their stories,” she said. In finding out the stories of others, Gulati said, she was able to put things in perspective.

“Even though our struggle may be the biggest thing in our life, when we put it in the bigger perspective, maybe it can help us realize the importance of looking at the positivity in life,” she is quoted saying.

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Land

Book by Nov. 1 and save $100 on any International Culinary Tours trip. The deal applies to food-centric tours in Bali, Italy, Portugal, Burma (also known as Myanmar), Spain and France. For example, with the discount, the 10-day Bali trip costs $1,895 per person double and includes three-star hotel accommodations in Ubud and Seminyak; daily breakfast, seven lunches and six dinners; three cooking classes with market visits; yoga class; several excursions, such as a visit to a coffee and tea plantation, an artisan chocolate factory and the Ubud Monkey Forest; transportation; and taxes. Depart March 31 or April 14. Info: 800-341-8687, internationalculinarytours.com

The four-star Hotel Husafell, near the Langjokull Glacier, has a Northern Lights special in Iceland. The Northern Lights & Krauma Baths deal costs $225 per person double and includes two nights’ lodging, with a free Northern Lights wake-up call; daily breakfast; access to the Husafell thermal swimming pool and the new Krauma geothermal nature baths; WiFi; parking; and taxes. Valid through March 1. By comparison, a two-night stay alone starts at nearly $600. Info: hotelhusafell.com/tilbod/northern-lights-krauma-nature-spa

Receive a free fourth night at the Red Frog Beach Island Resort & Spa in Bocas del Toro, Panama. Rates vary by season and accommodations. For example, through Dec. 18, four nights in a one-bedroom villa with a private pool starts at $897, plus $90 in taxes — a savings of $329. The Island Nights package also includes airport transfers, one 60-minute massage, two canopy zip line passes, access to the new beach club, two cocktails and WiFi, an added value of about $235. Book at 970-367-4811. Info: www.redfrogbeach.com/island-nights

Sea

With John Hall’s Alaska, save $500 on Denali Explorer land-and-cruise trips in 2018. The 13-day Alaskan adventure starts at $4,999 per person double (was $5,499) and includes six nights on Alaskan Dream Cruises’s Baranof Dream, Celebrity’s Millennium or Royal Caribbean’s Radiance of the Seas; accommodations in Anchorage, Denali National Park, Talkeetna and Seward; 35 meals; Alaskan land guides; land transportation, including the Alaska Railroad; airport transfers; most gratuities; daily excursions, such as a visit to Wolf’s Den Kennel and a Kenai Fjords National Park cruise; and taxes. Book by Jan. 1. Select departures June through September. Info: 800-325-2270, www.kissalaska.com/denali-explorer.html

Book by Oct. 8 and receive cabin upgrades and a $50 shipboard credit per cabin on select Carnival cruises departing through December 2018. For example, an oceanview cabin on the six-night Eastern Caribbean cruise departing Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Dec. 3 starts at $632 per person double, including tax; upgrade is valued at about $40. Request the Plan a Cruise Month sale. Info: 800-764-7419, www.carnival.com

Air

Alaska Airlines is offering sale fares of $138 round trip from Reagan National to Dallas Love Field for travel through Nov. 15. Other airlines are matching, but fare typically starts at $175. Virgin America, which Alaska Airlines acquired last year, operates the flights. Restrictions include a 21-day advance purchase. Book by Monday at www.alaskaair.com

Package

Troy Tours is offering a six-night tour of Israel starting at $1,299 per person double. The trip includes round-trip air from Washington Dulles to Tel Aviv; three nights’ hotel in Jerusalem, two nights in Acre and one night in Netanya; 12 meals; land transport; guided tours; airport transfers; and taxes. For lowest price, depart Jan. 20 or 27. Priced separately, hotel and airfare alone start at about $1,100. Info: 310-417-3460, www.troytours.com

THE WASHINGTON POST

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Every year, people from around the world gather at Times Square for New Year’s Eve. For the last four years, they have also gathered though in somewhat smaller numbers for the Indian New Year or Diwali, the Hindu new year, popularly known as the Festival of Lights, which is observed by several faiths in India, and is a regular event at the White House for many years.

This year’s Diwali at the “Crossroads of the World” was celebrated Oct. 7, and Indian-Americans came from around the Tristate area and elsewhere to enjoy the music and lighting. This year Diwali falls on Oct. 19.

“Diwali at Times Square” this year was organized by Neeta Bhasin and Sankara Eye Foundation, a non-profit which has performed more than 1.6 million free eye care surgeries in India, and will soon be opening hospitals in Jaipur, Telangana and Indore.

The event kicked off with a diya lighting ceremony at 2 p.m. where dignitaries, including Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, D-New York, and sponsors joined in and wished the crowds well.

“Happy Diwali to everyone and Happy New Year to my Gujarati brothers and sisters; this is a great initiative by Neeta and Harish, there is nothing like Times Square and Diwali on Times Square is really an ultimate celebration,” said Dr. Sudhir Parikh, publisher of Desi Talk and recipient of India’s Padma Shri award.

India’s Consul General in New York Sandeep Chakravorty, who was also present, thanked Congresswoman Maloney for joining the initiative for the Diwali Stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service a year ago. “There is another request from the Indian community, for a school holiday on Diwali,” Chakravorty said to Maloney and the enthusiastic crowd.

Maloney noted the symbolism of celebrating the festival of lights in the City of Lights and in the most lit up area of the city – Times Square.

Performances were given by local college dance teams, local dance groups and SHIAMAK USA along with celebrities Aamir Ali and Sanjeeda Sheikh of Nach Baliye 3 Fame, as well as Bollywood dancer, choreographer and Judge Terence Lewis who claims that his soul belongs in New York City from the time he first saw Times Square 17 years ago in boy-like wonder.

“New York has that vibe, that spirit, that aliveness, that creativity, and that really, really kind of shines through it and for me I connect with that energy and the openness of New York, it’s a city where dreams are made of and you dream with your eyes open,” explained Lewis at a press conference. He dedicated his performance to the Big Apple.

Hamsika Iyer, who sang her famous song “1, 2, 3, 4 Get on the Dance Floor” from the film Chennai Express along with her favorite A.R. Rahman song “Pataka Guddi” from the film Highway. She also sang “Chikni Chameli” from the film Agneepath and many others. This was her first time in the U.S. and Iyer said she was thankful that God put her in Times Square– “Every artist’s dream venue.”

“Since last couple of years, most of my friends spoke about Diwali at Times Square and I was silently hoping and praying that one day I will get to stand here and perform for the beautiful audience that usually shows up every year and it came like a dream come true,” she said.

“It’s a beautiful feeling; I am just so overwhelmed with the positivity. Every person who is involved with Diwali at Times Square is here for a unique reason and I am happy to be a part of this celebration,” Iyer added.

Raman Mahadevan also performed at the event and sang his songs “Kholo Kholo” from the film Taare Zameen Par, “Heyy Babyy” from the film Heyy Babyy and “Rock On” from the film Rock On, along with A.R. Rahman’s famous song “Chaiyya Chaiyya” from the film Dil Se. Sparsh Shah, the 13-year-old boy who has brittle bone disease and has won millions of hearts already with his voice, sang “Not Afraid” by Eminem and “Bezubaan” from the film ABCD as well as a Ganesha Vandana at the beginning of the show.

The event ended with digital fireworks which were projected on the same screen as the diya lighting countdown.

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NEW DELHI – Imagine Christmas without Christmas trees – that’s how some in India are describing a Supreme Court order banning the sale of fireworks in New Delhi, ahead of Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.

The ruling is an effort to prevent a repeat of last year’s post-Diwali toxic smog in the Indian capital, which plunged the city into an air pollution emergency, forcing authorities to temporarily shut down construction sites, a power plant and close schools for three days.

According to The Hindu, a panel of Supreme Court judges said, “Let’s try out at least one Diwali without firecrackers.”

The test-run this year, if successful, could result in restricted Diwali fireworks around the country in the future. To many, that signals a radical change in how Diwali has been celebrated for years and threatens the country’s Hindu traditions.

During Diwali, fireworks light up Indian skies, as families stock up on the latest combustive craze – from fiery spinning wheels to colorful rocket showers. In many parts of India, the festivities celebrate the homecoming of the Hindu god Ram after defeating a ten-headed demon king, symbolic of the triumph of good over evil.

The celebrations bring communities together, but can cause huge environmental damage. Think America’s Fourth of July – but lasting for days.

Some said the Supreme Court’s ruling was unfair to India’s Hindu majority and went way to far. “Banning crackers on Diwali is like banning Christmas trees on Christmas and goats on Bakr-Eid. Regulate. Don’t ban. Respect traditions,” Chetan Bhagat wrote on Twitter.

In 2016, post-Diwali pollution levels were so high that many air quality instruments could not even measure them. PM 2.5 particles, which are harmful to human health, spiked to over 16 times their safe limit. Air quality declines rapidly around Diwali time partly as well because farmers in surrounding regions burn crop stubble illegally.

Fireworks sales were already curbed after Diwali last year. Those who have bought fireworks already can still set them off, the court said.

Still, some welcomed a the idea of a “Green Diwali,” arguing that festivities could continue without fireworks. “Ban on firecrackers may just be the best thing to happen to Diwali. Let us reinvent Diwali with lights without sound and smoke,” Shivam Vij wrote on Twitter.

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At Bannerghatta zoological park, near Bangalore, India, keepers feed the white tigers around 5 p.m., after the last safari vehicle has turned off its engine and all the tourists are gone.

On Saturday night, the task of feeding the park’s white tiger cubs fell to a new employee media reports identified as Anjaneya, who had his caretaker job for just a week.

The tiger cubs pounced as the man collected discarded bones from their meal.

The one-and-a-half year old cubs – Vanya and Jhansi Rani – were resting inside with their mother, Soorya, at the same time the new hire was cleaning up.

One of the cubs swiped at the keeper and then bit him on the neck, according to the Times of India, then the second cub joined in.

Anjaneya’s screams attracted more tigers, dragging him back into the safari enclosure.

Zookeepers responding to the mauling were unable to get to Anjaneya because of the tigers, which appeared to be acting protectively over what they saw as their prey, officials said.

“Caretaker dies after being attacked by White Tigers in Bannerghatta

– Bangalore News (@Karnataka_News) October 7, 2017”

Anjaneya, who the Times said lived in Hakki Pikki colony, died a short time later of his wounds, sparking a police investigation and outcry from his family, who claim that the park had been negligent.

Their chief question: Why was one of the park’s newest employees tasked with one of its most dangerous jobs?

Compounding the concern, Anjaneya’s killing was the second tiger-related incident in as many months at the zoo.

Last month, staffers who manage the safari enclosures left the wrong gate open, leading “to a ferocious fight between Royal Bengal tigers and white tigers,” according to NDTV.

“It is basically a mishap,” forestry official C. Jayaram told the broadcaster, faulting “people who are lethargic” with the error. “While closing the gates there was some lack of coordination. They have entered into the same enclosure, there was a fight.”

One white tiger, a nine-year-old named Shreyas, died four days after the attack at the park that bills itself as a sanctuary for endangered lions and tigers.

The zoo that would become Bannerghatta National Park was carved out of the surrounding national forest in the 1970s to provide a place to preserve endangered species such as tigers and elephants.

It is also a tourist destination for people who live in Bangalore, one of India’s most populous cities, just a few miles away.

The zoo also serves as a rescue center for lions and tigers that have been saved from European circuses, according to its website.

In total, the park houses nearly 2,000 animals, including collections of Bengal tigers, leopards and lions.

Director Santosh Kumar said police are conducting an investigation into the keeper’s death, but he defended the zoo’s practices.

He said a senior staffer was around at the time: “In fact, the tigers chased him too. But he was lucky to get to a safe place. We’re conducting an inquiry.”

Kumar said it appears that Anjaneya didn’t operate the holding gates properly.

At 18 months old, the tiger cubs aren’t fully grown, but they are sizable. Tiger cubs mature quickly, according to Live Science, and begin learning to hunt when they are eight weeks old. In the wild, they set off on their own after two years.

Kumar said zoo rules only allow experienced staffers to work in the tiger enclosure.

Such incidents raise questions about individual facilities, but also about the dangers of caging apex predators.

In May, a British zookeeper was mauled after being trapped in the Hamerton Park Zoo’s tiger enclosure with at least one of the big cats.

The zoo called Rosa King’s death a “freak accident” involving a zookeeper who had been employed there for 14 years.

Horrified witnesses said they could see zookeepers sprinting to the edge of the tiger enclosure, throwing pieces of meat at the tigers as a distraction.

In 2016, 38-year-old zookeeper Stacey Konwiser was killed while preparing the “night house” at the Palm Beach Zoo. The house is where the animals are cleaned and fed, then boarded overnight.

And last summer at Beijing Safari World, a woman was injured and her mother killed after the younger woman got out of their car and was dragged off by a tiger.

The mother was attacked and killed by a second tiger.

The incidents illustrate that captive big cats are dangerous animals that can’t turn off their predatory instincts, experts say.

“These accidents happen, you know, on some kind of a recurring basis around the world,” Doug Cress, CEO of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, told The Post after King’s death. “And it’s because you’re dealing with animals that, at their genetic core, are built differently than we might like them to be. They are designed to be wild animals.”

Tigers are dangerous even to people who’ve been dealing with them for years, said Susan Bass, director of public relations at Big Cat Rescue, a sanctuary for more than 80 tigers, lions, bobcats and cougars.

“They’re the ultimate predator, and they’re hard-wired to go after and eat meat. People are meat,” Bass told The Post in May. “And they’re bored silly in zoos. They’re supposed to be roaming hundreds of miles, so they’re constantly looking for ways to get out.”

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A 3-year-old from Texas has been missing for three days since her father sent her out alone to an alley at 3 a.m. — her punishment, police say he told officers, for not drinking her milk.

Sherin Mathews, a special-needs toddler last seen early Saturday morning in her family’s back yard in Richardson, a northern Dallas suburb, is thought to be in grave and immediate danger. Her father, Wesley Mathews, was arrested and charged Saturday evening with abandoning or endangering the girl. He was released Sunday night on a $250,000 bond.

Mathews told police detectives that he told Sherin to go stand by a tree near the family’s house in the 900 block of Sunningdale at 3 a.m. Saturday because she wouldn’t drink her milk, according to his arrest affidavit. The tree was behind the fence, about 100 feet south of the house and across an alley.

Mathews checked on Sherin about 3:15 a.m. and she was gone, according to the affidavit. Police said they weren’t alerted to her disappearance until several hours later, about 8 a.m. Mathews told police he thought she’d come back on her own so he did a load of laundry while he waited, hoping he could locate her once the sun rose.

Mathews and his wife, Sini, reportedly adopted Sherin about two years ago from an orphanage in India, said Sgt. Kevin Perlich, a spokesman for the Richardson Police Department. Mathews told police that Sherin was malnourished and had to be on a special diet to gain weight. She had to be fed whenever she was awake, Perlich said, and wasn’t cooperating when her father tried to feed her.

“So that was the frustration [Mathews] was experiencing that night,” Perlich said. “But of course we’re working to verify all of that.”

It’s a narrative that has the community buzzing with questions. In Dallas-area coffee shops, in nearby workplaces and on social media, people mull over the details of Sherin’s disappearance — such as why Mathews waited so long to call the police, or why there are so few clues as to where she might have gone.

“It’s just a very sad thing, and there’s still so much question. A lot of the story doesn’t make sense,” said Bob Morse, 66, who lives a few houses away from Sherin’s parents.

He happened to be awake and outside at 4 a.m. Saturday, less than an hour after she reportedly disappeared, lighting his grill so that he could cook a brisket later in the day.

“At 4 a.m. in the morning, it was quiet. If a child four houses away cried out, I would hear it,” Morse said. “If a car drove by, I would know.”

The quiet neighborhood is home to mostly South Asian families, neighbors say. Most houses have garages behind their homes, so families often enter from the back. But rarely does anyone walk around or spend time behind the homes, near the area where Sherin was reportedly sent to stand, Morse said.

But plenty of people are spending time in the neighborhood since Sherin’s disappearance, Morse said. While speaking to a contractor in his front yard recently, he saw 10 cars drive down the street in five minutes — a rare occurrence.

“People wanna know, somebody’s gotta get the story out,” he said. “But they’re not getting much story, that’s for sure.”

Sherin is described as about 3 feet tall and 22 pounds. She has developmental issues and limited verbal communication skills, unlike a typical 3-year-old, Richardson police said. She was last seen wearing a pink top, black pajama bottoms and pink flip-flops.

Because of the lack of information and tips, officials discontinued the Amber Alert they had issued for Sherin after her disappearance. Police said they need a specific vehicle or a suspect to continue the alert. The alert could be reissued if authorities develop new leads, he said.

Meanwhile, police are searching with canine experts and helicopters. Neighbors and volunteers are canvassing door-to-door, posting fliers and conducting their own search parties.

Neighbors are particularly curious about a detail Mathews gave to police in his arrest affidavit — that he knew coyotes had been seen in the alley. But investigators and volunteers agree that nothing indicates a coyote dragged the girl away.

“There’s definitely some holes in [Mathews’] story,” said Shanna Poteet, who helped lead a search party over the weekend and has volunteered previously on local missing persons and runaway cases. She doesn’t know Mathews. “Coyotes don’t attack people. I’ve come in contact with a coyote, and they don’t really bother you.”

Neighbors say coyote sightings are common in the neighborhood. But many say that if they spotted a coyote on their porch or in their back yard, it would disappear almost instantly upon being noticed.

“I talked to police three times [about coyotes] this weekend,” said Morse, Mathews’ neighbor. “A lot of news reports, a lot of people here are talking about coyotes. But there would have been blood, and there was none of that. There was no pickup of scent.”

Sherin is described as about 3 feet tall and 22 pounds. She has developmental issues and limited verbal communication skills, unlike a typical 3-year-old, Richardson police said. She was last seen wearing a pink top, black pajama bottoms and pink flip-flops.

On Monday, Child Protective Services took custody of Sherin’s 4-year-old sister and put her into foster care, said Marissa Gonzales, a spokeswoman for the agency. She said the agency had contacted the family in the past but could not elaborate. Neither Sherin or her sister had been in foster care before Sherin’s disappearance.

Sherin’s parents are no longer speaking with police and have retained attorneys, Perlich said. Sherin’s mother was asleep when Mathews told Sherin to go stand outside, but wasn’t aware that he’d given her daughter those instructions, Perlich said.

Members of the Emmanuel Bible Chapel, the church Mathews and his family attend, have helped search several areas near the family’s home since Saturday. One member, Jose Cherian, told NBC 5 Dallas – Fort Worth that Mathews and his wife are good parents.

“The parents are also loving, they loved Sherin very much,” he said. “They take care of her very much.”

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NEW YORK – India’s finance minister Arun Jaitley was his usual suave, smooth and assured self, addressing two separate meets in New York City, this week. He also had the buoyant air of a satisfied man who has accomplished a few tricky missions in a relatively short period of time; is now on a steady, confident path to achieve further long-term goals, to develop India and enhance FDI.

Jaitley’s message at both meets in New York was crisp and clear: the Indian government was leaving no stone unturned to turn the country into a modern, digitized, corruption-free state.

The endeavor was to turn India into a haven for foreign investors, with ease of doing business, especially in the manufacturing and infrastructure sectors; make the country tax compliant – increase the number of people who file individual tax returns, expand the umbrella of businesses under the Goods and Services Tax; and importantly, bring transparency in political funding – a vexatious issue, the finance minister acknowledged, which remain one of the biggest obstacles the length and breadth of India.

After speaking at a meet entitled ‘India’s Market Reforms: The Way Forward’, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry, in association with the US Chambers of Commerce, at the New York Palace Hotel, on Monday, Jaitley reiterated some of the issues addressing a gathering at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, on Tuesday.

Jaitley was introduced by Columbia University professor and former Niti Ayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya, who praised the minister for the implementation of the “bankruptcy act” and “Goods and Services Tax” in India, the latter further reformed last week to help small businesses, prior to Jaitley’s visit to the US. He is here primarily to attend the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

Jaitley paid kudos to Panagariya, thanked him for his stellar contribution during his stint at Niti Ayog, saying that he received one of the “warmest farewells’ when he left, from Prime Minister Narendra Modi down to all who worked with him.

Jaitley hammered home the point of erasing corruption in India and to make it easy for FDI to flow in.

“We have to create environment in India where investors find India a friendly place to invest in,” he said, pointing to the vast red tape that existed prior to the NDA government taking up the reins of governing. “Between decision of doing business in India and commencement of business, years could pass. To restore back the credibility, in sector after sector where there was scope of opening up, we opened up,” he added.

India has made big strides to rope in FDI; measures include: 95% of the investments are through automatic route; Foreign Investment Promotion Board, which was like a middleman between an investor and a ministry, was abolished by Jaitley to further ease doing business; 99% of tax queries are addressed online; and states in India are being ranked on ease of doing business.

“Corruption was a great disincentive,” he said, and then went on to talk of efforts to wipe out political corruption, and to bring in transparency in political funding, an avowed goal of the NDA government.

“The world’s largest democracy is lacking transparency in political funding – it is still there,” Jaitley admitted.

Answering questions on the effect and implementation of demonetization and GST, Jaitley said that the measures were necessary in a country like India where it was a cash-dominated economy. He pointed out, how earlier, all property deals were done partly by unaccounted for cash, and corruption was rampant.

Defending demonetization and GST, Jaitley said there was no unrest during the former which turned out to be the largest currency replacement move in the world in world, and the people of India recognized it as a good move.

“You ask people if you are feeling harassed (by demonetization), they said, yes, I’m feeling harassed, but they also said it’s a good move,” explained Jaitley, adding that post-demonetization, India has doubled digital transactions, and the number of private individuals filing taxes, have gone up substantially.

“GST has been the smoothest possible transfer from one system to the other,” he said, of the move which some critics said had slowed down the Indian economy.

“Many attempts have been made by political groups to derail the GST, but I am glad that their own state governments are not listening to them because they know 80 per cent of the money is going to come to them so they don’t have to appease an ill-informed central leader of the party and let the revenues of their own state suffer,” Jaitley said in his Monday talk, at the Palace Hotel. “So, the state governments are being wiser.”

The Monday meet also had Dan Schulman, president and CEO of Paypal and Chandrajit Banerjee of the CII, in attendance, as well as India’s Ambassador to the US Navtej Sarna, among others.

Jaitley said that the GST Council is India’s first genuine federal institution, which meets every month, reviews the monthly situation, takes the decisions, reviews the rates and changes of rates which will take place in the times to come itself, agencies reported.

“So the lowest slab in India is five per cent, which doesn’t exist anywhere in the world. That is because of the non-compliant tax character of the Indian society. You make it easy for people to enter the taxation system that you are able to expand. In the GST, for up to 10 million turnover, we now have a scheme for them,” he said.

“We are trying to bring them into the tax net because the first two months data has shown that over 40% business entities make zero GST payment. Therefore, it’s very top heavy in terms of payment. And there’s a need to continue to expand the tax base at the bottom itself,” he said, informing that 95% of GST was being paid by 400,000 assesses.

“Only the organized sector is paying, the bottom sector has to expand,” he reiterated, at Columbia University. The people of India now realize that “paying taxes is in national interest, is in personal interest,” he added.

Jaitley admitted that the FDI in infrastructure was “relatively less”, and that is why the government has been taking lead on it. At present, India has allocated funds for new 250 highways, 30-35 regional airports, and given the nod for 400 railroad stations to be developed by private companies.

In his week-long trip, Jaitley is also expected to address students of Harvard University and interact with members of the business community in Boston, and hold a bilateral meeting with US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. He is also scheduled to participate in a seminar organized by FICCI and attend the G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors’ Working Dinner on October 12.

(Sujeet Rajan is Executive Editor, Parikh Worldwide Media. Email him: sujeet@newsindiatimes.com Follow him on Twitter @SujeetRajan1)

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Imagine if you couldn’t see a doctor when you spiked a fever or noticed a lump or when your mother was having trouble breathing. Imagine you had to travel long distances or suffer through long waiting periods to get appointments for the care you need. For many, this is already an unfortunate reality, due to growing doctor shortages in certain specialties and particular regions of the country. Those of us who are all right for now may not be for long. Studies show we are trending dangerously toward a nationwide shortage over the next decade when we will be as many as 100,000 doctors short of those necessary for our health-care system to work effectively and efficiently.

Unfortunately, the doctor shortage will get worse quickly if the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program is ended, as President Trump announced in early September, and appears to be pursuing apace, dashing Democrats’ hopes for a compromise.

DACA is a program that allows undocumented immigrants who arrived in this country as children to register with the government and work legally without fear of deportation. These young people know only one home – the United States. On its own, the decision to end DACA is morally deplorable. It would wrench apart families and inflict years of trauma and instability. But the move could also be debilitating for our health-care system. DACA recipients are nurses, physician assistants, medical technicians, respiratory therapists and yes, doctors. In fact, more than 25 percent of America’s doctors are immigrants, and if DACA continues, the program will add roughly 5,400 physicians who would otherwise be ineligible to work in the United States over the next few decades.

As a doctor who was born in India and came to the United States as a child, this is a matter of personal concern to me, not just professional. My family immigrated to America via my father’s student visa when he came over in 1996 to earn a master’s degree, and we struggled to make ends meet.

After my father graduated and found a job, we moved to a new home and new community, but we still lacked permanent residency. As a high school freshman, I can still remember watching in horror as the twin towers came down on 9/11, not far from my school and my home in Long Island. Among the many impacts that this had on my community, my family faced further scrutiny, which delayed our application for permanent residency by years.

While I was in college, our application for a green card was approved, and we finally breathed a sigh of relief. No longer would we have to worry about applying for and renewing visas and paying expensive legal fees. My desire to become a doctor crystallized during these years; I hoped to become the kind of physician who could care for not only the medical problems but also the spiritual and psychosocial needs of immigrants, minorities and underserved patients.

In 2015, almost 20 years after I came to the United States, I officially became a citizen, and I’m proud to call America my home. Dreamers deserve the same chance I and so many other immigrant doctors have had. In thinking back on these days, I can say now that my family’s plight pales in comparison to the stress that DACA recipients must be feeling today.

And their loss isn’t just an issue for them. It should matter to all of us, especially if we are concerned about widespread access to quality medical care. This is particularly important with more and more doctors leaving the profession. As that trend continues, it will only exacerbate the doctor shortage, which is most acute in underserved communities – places where DACA recipients who go into the medical profession are also more likely to work.

Trump might think he’s scoring political points with his base by ending DACA. But he’s threatening to sabotage our health-care system and jeopardizing care for thousands, if not millions, in the process. If the president won’t protect them (and us), Congress must take action before this move destroys families, exiles thousands and exacerbates the growing doctor shortage threatening the American people. Ending DACA is un-American, unconscionable, and unhealthy for all of us.

– Rao is an Internal Medicine-Pediatrics physician practicing in Baltimore, Maryland.

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