Indian American Sejal Davé Sharma, has been selected as this year’s Businesswoman of the Year from BW NICE, Inc. Somerset County Chapter in New Jersey.

BW NICE, Inc., provides women at all stages of business and personal life with support, education, and resources, and believes there is value in the balance of business networking and charitable outreach, the organization says.

Sharma works at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, where she is operations manager for Executive Health and Bloodless Medicine & Surgery Program. According to her LinkedIn profile, she has served in positions of hospital-based outpatient care, wellness and primary care services, as well as in business/nonprofit development; healthcare systems development; healthcare systems management, health policy, programs and project management.

“My strength is growing a healthcare system, through a strategic development program, with markers for financial and structural growth,” Dave says in her profile. She considers her ability to communicate with various stakeholders to identify areas of growth and partnership to meet development goals, as her strongest asset.

“Sejal’s passion and dedication to improving the health and wellness of Somerset County residents is truly inspiring and we are honored to have her as our 2017 recipient,” said Diane Simovich, founder of BW NICE.

“She is a true asset to those she works with as well as a caring friend to one and all. Sejal is a woman dedicated to improving the health and wellness of Somerset County residents. Not only is Sejal passionate about this issue, she is an organized, inspiring and dynamic leader,” said Melissa Nichols, who nominated Sharma for the award.

Sharma will be honored at the BW NICE Inc. Somerset County Chapter’s second annual Red Shoe Luncheon and Fashion Show on Friday, November 17, at the Bridgewater Manor in Bridgewater, New Jersey.

Approximately 200 guests are expected to attend this networking opportunity. All proceeds from the event will go to BW NICE’s charity partner, Safe+Sound Somerset, a not-for-profit agency dedicated to serving domestic violence victims and their children. Each BW NICE, Inc., chapter raises funds and awareness by supporting a local organization in the fight against domestic violence.

For more information, visit www.bwnice.org and select the Somerset County Chapter.

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Netflix, Amazon Heera, Hulu, YouTube and Google Play are just a few ways an Indian movie lover can watch their favorite movies, but with the price so high and waiting for certain films to be put onsite for just limited time, can be frustrating.

Well, not anymore. Reliance Entertainment has launched its largest online movie platform BIGFLIX in the United States after completing eight successful years in India where it started off like a “Blockbuster Video Store.”

The online platform is just like Netflix in that you can create up to five profiles per account and movies can be accessed from TVs, phones, laptops and tablets, but there are no TV shows.

With approximately 3.8 million subscribers thus far, the platform has been available in India as well as elsewhere in the world and is now being brought to the U.S. in efforts to stop piracy.

BIGFLIX has more than 2,000 HD movies in nine languages – Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Punjabi, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Bhojpuri and Bengali.

“Globally the demand for video content has risen steeply and the digital platform is witnessing a wider audience everywhere, including India. BIGFLIX will provide high quality video content from some of the biggest banners including Dharma, Disney, Viacom, Phantom, Telugu One and Rajshri, among others,” said Amit Khanduja, CEO of Reliance Entertainment Digital.

Khanduja also said the actual goal behind releasing the platform in the U.S. is so that those who cannot make it to the theater in time to watch a film, can watch it on BIGFLIX instead of looking for a pirated version online.

So when a movie releases in theaters, it will also be released on BIGFLIX Khanduja said, adding that two to three movies would be released on BIGFLIX each month and this, he contended, will not impact theater attendance.

BIGFLIX will also have critically acclaimed films which are not officially released in the U.S.

“About 100 films are released every year in India and only 10 make it to the U.S., out of which only four or five make it through the first five weeks and since there is no other way to watch films besides piracy,” Khanduja said.

The price of BIGFLIX is only $1.99 a month, the same price as one pirated DVD.

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UNITED NATIONS

UN General Assembly President Miroslav Lajcak discussed reform of the UN during a meeting on Friday with the members of Parliament, who are in the Indian delegation to the current session, according to his Spokesperson Brenden Verma.

They also discussed issues relating to migration, peace and sustainable development, Verma said in a briefing to reporters.

Rajya Sabha members, Swapan Dasgupta (nominated) and Renuka Chowdhury (of Congress from Andhra Pradesh), and Lok Sabha member Santosh Ahlawat (of BJP from Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan) are here to participate in the General Assembly session.

India’s Permanent Representative Syed Akbaruddin accompanied them to the meeting with Lajcak.

“The President of the General Assembly stressed the role of parliamentarians as important channels of communication to the people,” Verma said.

Lajcak also invited them “to actively participate in the Parliamentary Hearing on the global compact for safe, orderly and regularly migration, to be held at the United Nations in February.”

Noting that India is one of the top contributors to UN peacekeeping operations, Lajcak commended India’s strong commitment to multilateralism and the UN, Verma said.

Asked at his briefing about the state of the Security Council reform negotiations, which has been stalled for more than a decade, Verma said Lajcak “will try to use his convening power to bring people, to bring the member states together” so that they can “find areas where there can be some kind of compromise”.

“The world pretty much agrees that the Security Council reform must reflect the current geopolitical realities,” he said. But “there is so much disagreement among the member states on how to make that happen”.

Lajcak has met with a wide range of groups that are interested in Security council reforms to hear their views, Verma said. “He definitely wants to see a meaningful reform that all the member states can believe in.”

He will call on his experiences “as a diplomat, as a foreign minister, as a politician, all of that role he has had” to try to make progress with the reform process, Verma added.

IANS

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A new documentary focuses on a 91-year-old doctor as the unlikely hero who is saving Indians from wrong or poor knowledge about sex.

“Ask the Sexpert” follows Dr Mahinder Watsa as he potters about his Mumbai apartment, peers at his computer and reads emails that tells him, among others, about someone with a compulsive habit of adding urine to his tea.

The film, which will be screened at the Mumbai Film Festival this year, was shot over four years by film-maker Vaishali Sinha and is a wonderful peek into the life of a columnist who has increasingly become part of pop culture in India’s financial capital, where his column is published in the Mumbai Mirror newspaper.

The column, a small strip in the inside pages that is featured every day, has three or four questions, mostly revolving around size, girth and how not to get pregnant. Watsa answers even the most outlandish questions with deadpan humour and in doing so, has found fans all over the city and beyond.

In the film, Sinha captures how young girls and their mothers gush over Watsa’s column, tell him how much they appreciate what he is doing and then line up to click selfies with him.

Sinha set out to make a film on Indians talking about sex because “it is the most universally shared experience.”

“While researching a character for a film idea on urban sexuality, I first met Dr. Watsa in early 2013. I pretty much knew immediately after my first meeting with him that I had found the character for my film,” Sinha told Reuters in an email interview.

The anti-thesis to Watsa in the film emerges in the form of Pratibha Naithani, a professor in a top Mumbai college who says she is on a mission to protect Indian culture. Naithani is mortified by Watsa’s matter-of-fact advice to people on all matters sexual, saying he openly encourages promiscuity.

Sinha said she didn’t start off trying to pit Naithani against Watsa, but added the college professor emerged as the “other camp” quite naturally.

“I didn’t choose Pratibha, her work chose me. A lot around the story lines I was exploring had ties to her or led to her and so her name would crop up to a point I couldn’t ignore. The petition for the banning of the 2009 nationwide sex education curriculum was one example. And it felt necessary that I reach out to her,” Sinha said.

The documentary features interviews with Watsa’s friends and family, but the camera mostly follows him as he goes about his day. He peers at his computer with a magnifying glass, attends seminars on sex education and counsels patients who come to him after having read his column.

Sinha said making the film made her aware that Indians are willing to talk about sex even if it was to reveal their lack of experience and knowledge, something that is evident from the kind of questions Watsa gets on a daily basis.

“I found out that for all the paranoia around ‘too much sex’, there are many, many people in between, living within a spectrum of sexual experiences and highs and lows. With that comes questions that are necessary to be talked about and discussed to alleviate stress and anxiety in society,” she said.

To many readers, Watsa is that person –who listens to their deepest, darkest problems without judging; and providing the answers that come without the baggage of all the taboos that still surround sexual behavior in India.

REUTERS

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Jon Favreau’s 2014 “Chef” was a middling film about a portly chef who finds his real goals in life after a disastrous social media showdown with a noted critic. Despite well-lit shots of steak and dessert, and with a father-son bonding story thrown in, it was never sweet enough to work.

But given new India’s obsession with food and eating out, this might have been a good remake, if only director Raja Krishna Menon hadn’t forgotten to add the spice. The Hindi “Chef” is as one-toned and as predictable as the original. For a film that purports to be about food, there is little more than a passing interest demonstrated.

Instead, the focus is on Roshan Kalra, a chef who is fired from his job in an Indian restaurant after he punches a customer (something Saif Ali Khan was accused of doing in real life). Roshan returns home to India from New York to see his pre-teen son Armaan (Svar Kamble) and ex-wife Radha (Padmapriya), who live in a picturesque, old-world bungalow in Kochi. There, Roshan re-discovers his relationship with his son and with food.

When Biju (Milind Soman), Radha’s friend, offers him a chance to overhaul an old double-decker bus and start running a restaurant, he reluctantly takes up the offer. A former colleague from New York joins him, and it turns into one merry road trip across India, serving “fusion” Indian food along the way. Alas, this fusion food, like much else in the film, is boring. Take, for example, the “rotzaa”, or a pizza fashioned out of that staple Indian flatbread, the roti – something a thousand Indian restaurants have on their menus.

This “rotzaa” is symptomatic of the approach “Chef” takes – it makes no attempt transcend or improve on the original film. For someone with a Michelin star, Roshan seems to have just one kind of pasta dish and the “rotzaa” in his repertoire. The film is full of food clichés like “chhole bhature” from Delhi and “puttu” (steamed rice noodles) from Kerala, and full of relationship clichés like the father bonding with the son.

To their credit, Saif Ali Khan and debutant Svar Kamble are comfortable in their characters. But Roshan’s relationship with his ex-wife is handled haphazardly. Biju is first shown as a threat, then disappears completely, and Radha flits in and out of the screenplay like she isn’t sure how she fits.

The end plays out as you thought it would. The original “Chef” at least made a comment on the food cart phenomenon in the United States, but there is no such phenomenon in India. Neither the food nor the emotions in this remake satisfy.

REUTERS

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NEW YORK – It’s vastly less complicated for me to walk through a book store and browse through books, before I decide to buy something I take a liking to, than to meander through a street full of food stalls, with exotic fare from around the world. While the eye can take in a lot, there is only so much a tiny stomach can intake, in a certain span of time – however big a gourmand one can tout himself or herself to be, or just a plain, old-fashioned glutton.

The number of eateries and restaurants in New York City vary, but some estimate it to be around 24,000 just in Manhattan; and more than 30,000 in the New York City tristate area, including the other boroughs. A fun fact terms the mind boggling variety as giving the choice to eat out every night for 54 years, and not have to visit that same place twice. Perhaps, that’s an understatement. One can add lunch too to that figure.

For most ordinary mortals, who have to bear (or suffer) in stoic silence, fake appreciation, or rejoice heartily, as the case may be, dishes served at home by one’s better half, or others, a biannual Broadway Bites pop-up food market, that’s currently doing duty in Greeley Square – a pocket park on Broadway between 32nd and 33rd streets – is a good choice to savor some tasty treats. Run by Urbanspace, the market, which began earlier this month, is open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. through November 10th.

The first day I wandered into Broadway Bites, last week, I had also read that an unsung restaurant called The Black Swan at Oldstead, in England, had won the TripAdvisor Travelers’ Choice Restaurants awards in the fine dining category.

A Bloomberg report said that the only option in that favorite of the locals in Oldstead, which since the report came out has been booked solid for a year by traveling gourmands, is a tasting menu for £95 ($126) that focuses on local produce. A sample fare: snacks of langoustine on a spruce skewer, with caramelized whey and fermented strawberry; a dumpling of confit chicken legs wrapped in brioche; and raw Dexter beef fed on beer, with grated chestnuts and smoked bone marrow; cod topped with grated roasted cauliflower, served on a parsley sauce; Crapaudine beetroot slowly cooked in beef fat, topped with pickled beetroot, smoked roe, goat’s curd and linseed.

Closer to home, there is tasting menu restaurant Eleven Madison Park, in Manhattan, which made its debut last week. There’s a choice of $295 per person, 8-to 10-course meal and a $155 per person, 5-course bar menu. The place is booked solid through November.

It’s not as fancy at Broadway Bites, which serves street food, but if one is dexterous enough, one can make quite a delicious combination from some of the stalls. For example, savory Japanese vegetable pancakes from Oconomi; empanadas with a Latin-French twist from Empanada Papa or instead substitute it with the Bolivian version of empanadas from the Bolivian Llama party – Beni or Chimba baked meat pastries with a juicy, stew-like filling. If vegan, go for the Cliza – smoked portobellos, stuffed with quinoa and squash.

The Bolivian Llama Party’s meat sliders are really a terrific option too, if one has gotten used to what’s dished out by Qdoba, as also their specialty papitas. If one is tired of eating the same Chinese baked or fried pork dumplings, try out the Daa! Dumplings – the Russian variety. The lamb and feta dumpling doused in sour cream, stuffed into a cone which allows one to walk and eat at the same time, is what can keep one energized strolling to the next stall, to savor another delight.

If you have had enough appetizers and entrees, along with some wine or beer to go with it, and are ready for something sweet to tuck into, try out a Caramel Green Apple or Pumpkin Ginger Snap ice cream from Mochidoki. My personal favorite: the Matcha Pistachio.

Now, for those who cannot do without good Indian food, a saunter through Broadway Bites would be excruciating. There are no Indians stalls.

But, don’t despair. Not too far away is Pondicheri, on 27^th Street, between Broadway and 5^th Avenue, started by Anita Jaisinghani, which is serving some traditional fare gourmet style. One favorite is a coconut enriched sweet-tasting dosa stuffed with a pumpkinseed chutney, sautéed greens, curry leaves and mustard seeds. There are also appetizers like pomegranate-filled paani puris.

For those who like their dosas plain or masala style, or just white rice with some good curry, one need only walk a few more blocks to Saravanna Bhavan, on Lexington Avenue. For me, on a day when I’ve skipped breakfast, nothing better there than the lunch thali, which comes with a generous portion of rice, chapatti, and pappadam, all to be downed with myriad small bowls of curry and fried and stewed vegetables, with curd and a sweet dish.

Now, like me, if you are hungry by evening after that humungous thali, just walk then to Broadway Bites, where you can drink, eat and mingle, in the open.

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

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NEW YORK – A majority of Indians favor military rule or prefer the country being run by a strongman, and an overwhelming majority of Indians support the Bharatiya Janata Party-run government, helmed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, says a new Pew Research Center survey.

The survey was conducted among 41,953 respondents in 38 countries from February 16 to May 8, 2017.

The survey, published earlier this week, indicated a deepening anxiety about the future of democracy around the world has spread over the past few years.

However, democracy is the most favored method of government worldwide. More than half in each of the nations polled consider representative democracy a very or somewhat good way to govern their country. In all countries, pro-democracy attitudes coexist, to varying degrees, with openness to nondemocratic forms of governance, including rule by experts, a strong leader or the military, said a Pew report based on the survey.

Majorities in nearly all nations also embrace another form of democracy that places less emphasis on elected representatives. A global median of 66% say direct democracy – in which citizens, rather than elected officials, vote on major issues – would be a good way to govern. This idea is especially popular among Western European populists.

Satisfaction with democracy is considerably lower, the report said. In North America, 70% of Canadians say they think their political system is working well, but Americans are divided, and right so, considering the partisan, stalling methods on Capitol Hill. Just under half in the U.S. (46%) are happy with their democracy and 51% are unhappy.

The survey reveals that large numbers in many nations would entertain political systems that are inconsistent with liberal democracy. For instance, when asked about a system in which experts, not elected representatives, make key decisions based on what they think is best for the country, a median of 49% across these 38 countries say this would be a good way to run their nation, the Pew report said.

Asian-Pacific publics generally back rule by experts, particularly people in Vietnam (67%), India (65%) and the Philippines (62%). Only Australians are notably wary: 57% say it would be a bad way to govern, and only 41% support governance by experts.

While military rule is the least popular political system tested on the survey, even this finds some support across the globe, and half or more express this view in India, Vietnam, Indonesia, and South Africa.

People with less education are more likely than those with more education to say a military government would be a good thing in 23 countries. In 18 of these countries, the gap is at least 10 percentage points. For example, in the U.S., 24% of people with a secondary education or less say rule by the military would be good for their country, compared with 7% of those with more than a secondary education.

Notably, roughly half of both Indians (53%) and South Africans (52%), say military rule would be a good thing for their countries. But in these societies, older people (those ages 50 and older) are the least supportive of the army running the country, and they are the ones who either personally experienced the struggle to establish democratic rule or are the immediate descendants of those democratic pioneers. In South Africa, blacks (55%) more than whites (38%) also favor the military making governance decisions.

Only one-in-10 Europeans back military rule. But some on the populist right of the political spectrum voice such support. Nearly a third of those who hold a favorable view of the National Front in France (31%) say a governing system in which the military rules the country would be a good thing, as do nearly a quarter of those who favor UKIP in the United Kingdom (23%).

In Asia, 55% of Indians, 52% of Indonesians and 50% of Filipinos favor autocracy. Such support is particularly intense in India, where 27% very strongly back a strong leader.

However, public views of rule by a strong leader are relevant in countries that have experienced degrees of authoritarianism in recent years. Roughly eight-in-ten Venezuelans (81%) and 71% of Hungarians oppose a strong leader who makes decisions without interference of parliament or the courts.

Unconstrained executive power also has its supporters. In 20 countries, a quarter or more of those polled think a system in which a strong leader can make decisions without interference from parliament or the courts is a good form of government. This type of regime is particularly popular in several nations where executives have extended or consolidated their power in recent years, such as the Philippines, Russia and Turkey.

In addition to politics, the status of the economy is strongly related to people’s trust in their government. Publics that have experienced a higher level of economic growth over the past five years tend to have more confidence in their national government to do the right thing for their country.

For example, in India, where the economy has grown on average by 6.9% since 2012, 85% trust their national government. In comparison, just 26% of Italians have confidence in their government; their economy has contracted over the past five years (-0.5% average GDP growth).

In 29 of the 37 countries asked the question, the trust gap between those who are happy with the economy and those who are unhappy is at least 20 percentage points.

The survey makes one thing clear: Indians, though they support the BJP government, are also aching for substantial change in society, make it more progressive, as majority for military rule suggests. Although Pew doesn’t give the reasons, it’s likely Indians want the nation to become more modern, safe for women and minorities; expand and strengthen the rule of law and order, curb and punish disruptive extremist elements.

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

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11-year-old Gitanjali Rao from Lone Tree, Colo. was declared the winner Oct. 18, of the 2017 Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge, considered the premier national middle-school science competition.

The competition which is administered by 3M (@3M) and Discovery Education (@DiscoveryEd) chose the Indian-American girl for her work to develop Tethys, a sensor-based device that can detect lead in water faster than other current techniques.

Following the Flint water pollution tragedy, Gitanjali began working on this project which, rather than using expensive equipment for testing, uses a cost-effective approach to water safety using a mobile app that populates the water’s status almost immediately, a press release from organizers said. The portability of the devise makes it easy to carry and used whenever needed. Gitanjali hopes to solve the water contamination crisis and decrease long-term health effects from lead exposure.

A seventh-grader at STEM School and Academy, Gitanjali competed alongside nine other finalists during a live competition at the 3M Innovation Center in St. Paul, Minn. She was awarded the title of “America’s Top Young Scientist” as well as a $25,000 prize. There were five other Indian-Americans/South Asian Americans among the top 9 finalists –
Rithvik Ganesh, an eighth-grader at C.M. Rice Middle School from Plano, Texas, received second place; Laalitya Acharya, a ninth-grader at William Mason High School in Mason, Ohio; Anika Bhagavatula, a ninth-grader at Wilton High School in Wilton, Conn.; and Samu Shreshtha, a ninth-grader from Highlands Ranch High School in Highlands Ranch, Colo.

During the past three months, Gitanjali and the other finalists worked directly with a 3M scientist to develop their innovations as part of a unique summer mentorship program. Gitanjali was paired with Dr. Kathleen Shafer, a 3M research specialist who develops new plastics technologies that have real-world applications in dentistry and other fields.

Each of the students collaborated with some of 3M’s leading scientists, who provided guidance as they worked through the scientific method to advance their ideas from a theoretical concept into a physical prototype.

During the final competition, the finalists presented their inventions to a panel of 3M scientists, school superintendents and administrators from across the country.

Rithvik built upon existing research to conduct tests and identify one lead molecule from Apigenin, a compound found in fruits and vegetables, that could potentially be used to treat Alzheimer’s disease. Looking forward, Rithvik hopes to take his findings through in vitro and in vivo testing and improve thousands of lives affected by Alzheimer’s disease.

Laalitya invented ELIE – or “Environmentally Low Impact Energy” device – that generates energy from multiple sources to increase alternative energy use in the U.S. and across the world. Her prototype uses a low-flow low-head, portable water turbine, piezos and solar panels to generate electricity in multiple environments.

Anika invented EcoBoom, a natural solution to clean up oil spills using pomegranate husks and orange peels. Anika’s research on major oil spills in the U.S. led her to develop a protoype that can absorb oil four-to-five times its weight. Major oil spill incidents, which can cause approximately 1.3 million gallons of petroleum to spill into U.S. waters each year, inspired Anika to explore cost-effective, biodegradable options that can remedy this national and global issue.

Samu developed a mobile app that provides individuals with disabilities control of computer or mobile devices by using head movements, facial expressions and hand gestures. He was inspired to help a classmate with disabilities manipulate mobile devices like the rest of his classmates. Samu’s innovation could unlock interaction with the digital world for individuals with disabilities and bridge the interaction gap for internet users worldwide.

The remaining nine finalists received $1,000 and a variety of prizes from Discovery Education and 3M. The second, third and fourth runners-up also received a trip to a taping of a show on Discovery’s family of networks. In addition to presenting their prototypes, the ten finalists paired up to compete in two additional challenges through which they combined multiple 3M technologies to solve real-world problems.

Since its inception, the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge has awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in student prizes, paired students with world-renowned scientists to give them real-world insights and delivered much-needed science resources to millions of students, teachers and families across the country, the company said in its press release.

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The title of Rohit Shetty’s latest film is prescient. He’s made so many “Golmaal” films that it is impossible to tell them apart. So you stop bothering with numbers, because you know it is going to run with the same formula all over again and engineered towards making that elusive thing Bollywood likes to call a “commercial blockbuster”.

Ajay Devgn, Arshad Warsi, Kunal Khemu, Shreyas Talpade and Tusshar Kapoor reprise their roles from the earlier films. The women, of course, are dispensable and easily replaced. This time, the setting is an orphanage in the hill town of Ooty. Gopal (Devgn), an orphan with anger issues and an irrational fear of ghosts, decides to leave town with friend Laxman (Talpade) after an altercation with three other orphans. Many years later, all of them meet at the last rites of the founder of the orphanage, and discover that all is not well.

An evil builder is out to destroy the orphanage, a spirit seems to haunt the house where the men are staying, and the mysterious Damini (Parineeti Chopra) seems to have a secret that only puzzles people in the film. Audiences can see it coming a mile away.

But for all its predictability, “Golmaal Again” is funny. The first half of the film is full of good slapstick comedy, combined with an inspired running joke on Nana Patekar. Warsi and Kemmu display excellent comic timing, while Johnny Lever brings his dependable comedic genius to the screen to deliver some truly rollicking moments. Tabu as the benevolent librarian who guides the men on their mission is understated and efficient.

But it is too good to last. As the second half rolls in, things get sluggish, the jokes get rarer and the mission to save the orphanage seems to be taking a tad too long. Shetty’s story doesn’t have the emotional heft or enough jokes to entertain us for 151 minutes – the film’s runtime.

But for what it is worth, this film stays clear of sexist jokes, toilet humour and making fun of the disabled. For that alone, “Golmaal Again” is one up on its earlier iterations.

REUTERS

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The internet offers heroine Insiya an escape route from a stifling life. The shadow of an abusive father and the domestic violence she sees every day loom over her. What keeps her going is her love for music – and her mother Najma. For all her submissive behaviour in front of her husband, Najma is a feisty woman – she fights for her daughter to have the freedom she herself never had. She lets Insiya go out with boys, pursue her music, and buys her a laptop with an internet connection.

Insiya might live in Vadodara, not one of India’s biggest cities, but the internet is a great leveller. She records a few videos on YouTube wearing a burqa – fearing her father will find out – and in the magical ways of Bollywood, turns into an internet sensation overnight. She has millions of page views, fan pages waiting for her posts, but at home, none of that matters because her father can wreak havoc at any time.

To his credit, director Chandan doesn’t shy away from depicting domestic violence. There are scenes that are difficult to watch and the reality of domestic abuse and its effects on children are portrayed with more sensitivity and realism than usual for a Bollywood film. The bond between Najma and Insiya is also one of the film’s highlights, as is the track between Insiya and Chintan (Tirth Sharma), her classmate who harbours a very obvious crush on her.

The problem with “Secret Superstar” is that it starts out with a good idea, but the film unravels because it wants to say too many things at once. Chandan seems determined that audiences should cry at every turn. Insiya and her journey to stardom are full of contrivances. Chandan isn’t bothered about authenticity or logic – he just wants to make sure those tears are flowing.

Aamir Khan appears as Shakti Kumarr, the rather obnoxious and self-obsessed music director who turns into an unlikely saviour for Insiya, but this film is not about him. It is about Insiya, and Zaira Wasim puts in an inspired performance that rides over the several bumps in the script. She shares a wonderful chemistry with Meher Vij, who plays Najma, and the two of them are the life of “Secret Superstar”. If only the film had shown as much restraint as they do, it might have been more deserving of “superstar” status.

REUTERS

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On Eve Of New Delhi Visit, Secretary Of State Rex Tillerson Unveiled A New Global Role For India

Declaring, “We share a vision of the future,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has unveiled a centennial roadmap marking a “profound transformation” in United States-India cooperation “in defense of a rules-based order” with New Delhi “fully embracing its potential as a leading player in the international security arena.”

The Secretary pointed to what he considered a “more profound transformation that’s taking place, one that will have far-reaching implications for the next 100 years: The United States and India are increasingly global partners with growing strategic convergence.”

Tillerson was speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington Oct. 18 as he prepared for his first visit to India next week as a cabinet official.

“Our nations are two bookends of stability – on either side of the globe – standing for greater security and prosperity for our citizens and people around the world,” he said.

“President (Donald) Trump and Prime  Minister  (Narendra) Modi are committed, more than any other leaders before them, to building an ambitious partnership that benefits not only our two great democracies, but other sovereign nations working toward greater peace and stability,” he said.

Form & Substance

The speech gave form and substance to the administration’s policy towards India and not just South Asia, but the broader Indo-Pacific region stretching from the vulnerable western flank of the U.S.

It touched on a wide range of areas of cooperation ranging from military and defense to  economics and trade, and from promotion of democracy to freedom of navigation.

“Tillerson’s speech was one of the most thoughtful and forward leaning speeches from this administration,” asserted Jeff M. Smith, research fellow on South Asia at The Heritage Foundation.

The core of the cooperation between the U.S. and India and New Delhi’s enhanced role that Tillerson outlined lies in the Indo-Pacific region where the “world’s center of gravity is shifting” — an area where the Washington and its allies confront China, which he said “subverts the sovereignty of neighboring countries and disadvantages the U.S. and our friends.”

In effect, President Donald Trump’s point-man for foreign policy, just dramatically ratcheted up U.S. support for India’s role in the Indo-Pacific region vis-a-vis Beijing, delivering a clear message of preference for the democracy just as the Chinese Communist Party Congress was getting underway in Beijing, and days before Trump’ was scheduled to visit China.

India, Tillerson said in no uncertain terms, weighed heavier on the scale of strategic security and economic cooperation in Asia.

“We’ll never have the same relationship with China, a nondemocratic society, that we have with India,” asserted Tillerson during questions and answers after a speech. Tillerson outlined the game-plan for an Indo-Pacific region where Washington was already engaged with India and Japan, and hopes to rope in Australia to make a quartet countering China’s aggressive stance in the South China Sea.

In a wide-ranging speech that dwelt on defense and counterterrorism cooperation, and trade to cyberspace and the contributions of Indian-Americans, Tillerson committed Washington to “dramatically deepening” the bilateral relationship.

Noting the Indo-Pacific region which was home to more than 3 billion people, and several emerging economies, Tillerson predicted a “global shift” in the area’s marketshare and contended it was going to be the most consequential part of the globe over the next century.

Not mincing any words, Tillerson said, “We need to collaborate with India to ensure that the Indo-Pacific is increasingly a place of peace, stability, and growing prosperity – so that it does not become a region of disorder, conflict, and predatory economics,” clearly pointing at China.

“The emerging Delhi-Washington strategic partnership stands upon a shared commitment upholding the rule of law, freedom of navigation, universal values, and free trade,” he said, asserting further that, “Our nations are two bookends of stability – on either side of the globe – standing for greater security and prosperity for our citizens and people around the world.” Experts see this as the clearest statement of U.S. objectives vis-a-vis Asia and India, coming from this or previous administrations.

“The speech gave precedence to India over China – without qualifications,” asserted Smith.

Tillerson called the current challenges and dangers in the Indo-Pacific region, substantial, including terrorism, North Korea’s nuclear weapons, cyber attacks etc., all of which threaten India’s rise. “In this period of uncertainty and somewhat angst, India needs a reliable partner on the world stage.  I want to make clear:  with our shared values and vision for global stability, peace, and prosperity, the United States is that partner,” Tillerson said.

Doubling Down on Democracy

“China, while rising alongside India, has done so less responsibly, at times undermining the international, rules-based order even as countries like India operate within a framework that protects other nations’ sovereignty,” Tillerson maintained.  He accused China of “subverting the sovereignty of neighboring countries, thus disadvantaging the U.S. and our it’s friends.” Fighting words.

“It is indeed time to double down on a democratic partner that is still rising – and rising responsibly – for the next 100 years,” Tillerson said referring to India, and called for the two countries to “foster greater prosperity and security with the aim of a free and open Indo-Pacific.” The U.S.-India coordination in East Asia, Tillerson said, complimented India’s “Act East” policy.

“It was a very frank speech and sent a message as the Chinese party congress was meeting and Xi Jinping was talking about Beijing’s stature on the world stage,” said Walter Andersen, head of the South Asia Studies department at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

On one issue of concern to India, One Belt, One Road (OBOR, Tillerson appeared to move closer to India’s position expressing skepticsm.

Tillerson’s message showed Washington has evolved from a position of cautious acceptance of OBOR initiative to one of skepticism, Smith said. It “more clearly articulated U.S. opposition to China’s One Belt One Road policy than any in this or previous administration.”

The OBOR initiative, considered the keystone of President Xi Jinping’s foreign and domestic policy,  includes roads and rail lines, oil pipelines, potential currency integration etc., along the old Silk Route going from central China all the way to Europe. While India critiqued the plan and refused to send a representative to the OBOR meeting held in China earlier this year, Washington sent an observer to the summit.

The changed position on OBOR evident from Tillerson’s speech was not least because of New Delhi, especially when such a shift was articulated at a meeting on foreign policy toward India, Smith contended. “So India has been lobbying U.S. on its opposition to OBOR,” Smith said, a Chinese initiative that is arguably the largest and most expensive economic and geo-strategic initiative, in his view.

This administration and those before it have made it clear that India is the pillar of stability. But calling the U.S. and India, “bookends” of stability on the global stage, shows there’s no sense of parity between China and India, analysts say.

The speech also included the usual tongue-lashing for Pakistan that this administration has been administering over the last couple of months, going so far as to threaten aid cuts if Islamabad does not act against internal terror groups that also threaten India, not just U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

No Hand Holding

While Pakistan is also a partner of the U.S. Tillerson said “We expect Pakistan to take decisive action against terror groups within its borders,” to improve not just security in South Asia, but to improve its international standing.

“It was a tough message, and no hand-holding,” Andersen said.

Experts took note of Tillerson’s definition of Afghanistan as a “regional” issue. If the threat of terror groups is removed in Afghanistan, “the greatest beneficiary would be Pakistan and Afghanistan,” he said answering a question on future U.S. policy. “So our message to the Taliban is ‘we’re not going anywhere. We’re going to be here as long as it takes’.”

Tillerson said Washington wished to be helpful in reducing tensions on the India-Pakistan border and pointed to the recent State Department declaration of the Hizb-ul Mujahideen which operates in Indian Kashmir, as a terror group. The U.S. and India, he said, are “leading the effort against terrorism” in the region.

Just as Tillerson was speaking at the CSIS, Vice President Mike Pence engaged in a call with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, and conveyed a qualified message of thanks to Islamabad.

According to a readout of the call provided by the White House, Pence thanked Abbasi for his government’s assistance in recovering U.S. and Canadian hostages that were being held captive by the Haqqani Taliban Network in the tribal areas of Pakistan. “Vice President Pence noted this effort as an important development in Pakistan’s support to the U.S. strategy against terrorism in the region, but highlighted that cooperation against militant groups must be continued and sustained.”

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Former journalist Devashish Makhija makes short films, writes children’s books and has written the script for several movies. His latest full-length feature, “Ajji” (Grandmother), is the dark tale of an old woman who sets out to avenge the rape of her granddaughter.

Makhija tells Reuters why “Ajji” is about urban privilege and how the making of the film took a toll on his health.

Q: One of the big themes that emerge out of “Ajji” is urban privilege. Why was that important?

A: I don’t know if you have seen my short films, but I do this in all my stories. Not only because I feel guilty being born into a middle-class family and having three meals a day, but because I have actively travelled in tribal areas. When I came to Mumbai, I stayed in a slum for the first two years. I have actively tried to understand inequality, because inequality manifests in injustice. The law, though it says it is equal for all, everyone cannot access it. In all my stories, I try to remind those who have a little privilege that you are having it easy and there is someone out there who is not.

Q: How did you end up living in a slum?

A: I am from Calcutta. I was a journalist for a bit, in advertising for a bit, and I just couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do. I had a few friends who knew videography and they said, “Come here”. I came to Mumbai and lived in a slum rehabilitation colony. I didn’t have a choice – I didn’t have too much money. My mum had just passed and I had walked away from life as I knew it. Living there, I started questioning my life as it had been up until then.

The first film I worked on was “Black Friday”. Even during the research of that film, we worked in the ghettos like Behrampada, Navpada. We lived in those areas for days and that just set me on a journey I couldn’t turn back from.

I have taken it upon myself to put these people in all my stories – to tell stories about them because they are not represented in the mainstream.

I could have made “Ajji” more arthouse than it actually is. But somewhere in its story-telling, I tried to make it accessible. I tried to keep the thrill and drama going because I want the mainstream to watch it so that they will think about the other sections of society.

Q: What have you learned about the “other sections”?

A: There’s nothing that I learned from them. The more time I spend in strata and milieus that I don’t belong to, the more I learn about us. The fact that we take too much for granted. We feel wronged about being shortchanged while buying a pair of shoes. And over there is a grandmother whose granddaughter had her life taken from her as she knew it. She will never be the same again. That level of shortchange doesn’t compare to this. There is such a dichotomy and we understand life at such a different level… we operate at such a different frequency.

Q: Does it frustrate you as a film-maker that we don’t see too many of these subjects in the mainstream?

A: No, it doesn’t. And I try and not be arrogant about it. This film, even though it was made at a frighteningly low budget of 1.2 crores (12 million rupees), is still one point two crores, the kind of money I will never see at one go in my lifetime. And I am using someone else’s money to make my film. If someone is giving you money, they don’t want you to hold a mirror to them. They want to escape somewhere else. I get that and I have no sour grapes about that.

Q: How did you come up with the character of Ajji, the protagonist in your film?

A: Ajji was a response to a lot of things, (like) the constant reportage of rape after Nirbhaya. After a point, the film goes beyond rape and revenge. It is about all these inequalities. I had an idea about the most unlikely candidate in a family who would go out and do something about this. And the answer was the grandmother. And we made it even harder for her – we gave her arthritis, we made her live in a milieu where the patriarchy is so systemic that you don’t even realise it’s there until something gets out of hand. The truth of rape-revenge is so universal that I knew that if I make it dramatic enough, I’ll have the audience. The question was – how do I throw in all the other things that I wanted to talk about. That is how Ajji emerged.

Q: Your villain is completely despicable. Did he have to be that way for the film to work?

A: That’s a fair question. But like I said, in that milieu, the patriarchy is 5,000 years old. I was trying to distill that thought process into a person. Dhawale is not a person, but a thought process, and because it is so powerful, he had to be that way.

Q: You said that the making of the film affected your health.

A: (Pauses). I finally feel ready to talk about it. All of last year, during the making of the film, I started hating on my own masculinity. I was in prep in September last year when I started urinating blood. I was in severe pain and thought I wouldn’t be able to shoot. A doctor at the Hinduja Hospital thought it was prostate cancer. I shot on medication and as I went into post-production, I started healing myself. I met a few alternate healers who told me that I was hating on my own masculinity and the prostate gland is really the seat of the male hormone. In retrospect, I think in the making of the film, I sort of went through what Manda (the granddaughter) did. I could feel what Manda was feeling, what Ajji was feeling, because I was in so much pain, and it probably manifested on screen.

REUTERS

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Police in Texas say they have “most likely” found the body of Sherin Mathews, the missing 3-year-old girl whose father claims he sent her alone into an alley when she wouldn’t drink her milk.

Officers and search dogs on Sunday morning discovered a small child’s body in a culvert near Spring Valley and Bowser roads, less than a mile from the Mathews’ home. Sherin disappeared Oct. 7.

A police spokesman told reporters that investigators have no reason to believe that the body belongs to another missing child. They are awaiting positive identification and for an autopsy to determine what killed the child. Investigators have notified Sherin’s parents.

Sherin’s father, Wesley Mathews, was arrested on child abandonment and endangerment charges the same day that Sherin went missing but has since been released on bail. He has stopped cooperating with detectives, according to CBS 11. He had not been charged with an additional crime Sunday afternoon.

As part of his bail condition, Mathews was required to surrender his passport and wear an electronic monitoring bracelet so authorities could track him at all times, according to the Dallas Morning News. Sherin’s 4-year-old sister has been taken into custody by child protective services and placed in foster care.

Sherin’s disappearance has transfixed the Dallas area. Her father told investigators that he looked outside 15 minutes after he sent Sherin into the alley but she was gone, according to police affidavits.

Not yet too worried, the father said, he then did a load of laundry, according to the affidavit. He waited until after sunrise before he reported the disappearance to police.

Detectives and FBI agents searched Mathews’s house midweek and subsequently announced that someone left in the family’s SUV about 4 a.m. the day she disappeared and returned home within the hour.

Police said Sherin’s mother was asleep during the incident and has not been charged, but the station reported that she also has stopped cooperating.

Meanwhile, police scoured Richardson, a suburb of 100,000 about 15 miles north of Dallas. They brought in search dogs, flew over Sherin’s neighborhood in helicopters and canvassed door to door for the 22-pound girl last seen wearing a pink top, black pajama bottoms and pink flip flops.

Mathews and his wife, Sini, 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.”

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Khizr Khan, the Gold Star father who lambasted Donald Trump at last year’s Democratic National Convention, on Sunday criticized the now-president’s chief of staff for his handling of the controversy over Trump’s military condolence calls.

Khan said John F. Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, had “made the situation even worse” by defending Trump and joining him in attacking Rep. Frederica S. Wilson, D-Fla., after she criticized Trump’s call to the widow of one of four service members killed in an ambush in Niger.

“Instead of advising the president that restraint and dignity is the call of the moment, former general Kelly indulged in defending (the) behavior of the president and made the situation even worse,” Khan said during an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “Our political leaders, elected by the people, are deserving of equal dignity and equal respect instead of being maligned on misstated facts. And that was beyond the call of the moment.”

During an appearance before reporters Thursday, Kelly called Wilson an “empty barrel” and falsely claimed that she had taken credit for securing funding of a federal building in a 2015 speech.

Khan, who is promoting a new book, also criticized Kelly’s handling of Trump’s response to a deadly melee in Charlottesville at a gathering organized by white supremacists in August.

“I was shocked – I was shocked -to see citizen Kelly standing next to the president when … the president could not have the proper words to condemn the attack on the blessed city of Charlottesville, Virginia, by neo-Nazis,” said Khan, a resident of Charlottesville.

Khan’s son Humayun Khan was killed in Iraq in 2004. While speaking at the Democratic convention last year, the elder Khan challenged Trump, at one point saying, “You have sacrificed nothing and no one.” He also held up a pocket-size copy of the U.S. Constitution, asking whether Trump had read it.

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Air pollution levels in India’s capital soared off the charts once again as millions of Indians burst fire crackers to celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, despite a Supreme Court ban on the sale of fireworks in the region.

Already one of the world’s most notoriously polluted mega cities, the capital saw its air quality index (AQI) gradually worsen until it reached a level of 1,031 around 9 a.m. on Friday, according to the United States embassy in New Delhi. A reading of 0-50 is considered good, while levels between 300 and 500 are considered “hazardous.” Anything above 500 is considered “Beyond Index.”

By Friday around 1 p.m., the U.S. embassy showed New Delhi’s pollution had nearly halved with AQI at 548, which still appeared to be the worst of any major city in the world.

India’s Supreme Court had banned the sale of firecrackers throughout the national capital region in the days leading up to Diwali, which fell on Oct. 19, after celebrations last year ushered in weeks of poisonous smog. The ban prompted some hand-wringing in the city of more than 20 million people because it targeted a Hindu religious festival.

Although pollution spiked on Diwali last year, firecrackers are not the main cause of air pollution in New Delhi. Air quality generally deteriorates as winter sets in because of a combination of agricultural crop burning in the nearby states of Punjab and Haryana, dust from roads and construction sites, industry, coal power plants and vehicular emissions.

A recent report from the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health found that air contamination kills roughly 6.5 million people each year and that all forms of pollution cost the global economy an annual $4.6 trillion. The authors said deaths from pollution associated with industrial development are on the rise and that low-income countries, such as India, suffer the worse effects. For poor countries, pollution related deaths and disease cost the equivalent of 1.3 percent of gross domestic product, according to the report.

In India’s vibrant democracy, coordinated action on complex problems such as air pollution is difficult. The issue crosses political jurisdictions, and farmers — who are a key political constituency in India — continue to light fires despite a Delhi High Court directive.

– Bloomberg

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Shares in Indian wireless operators rose sharply on Monday after Reliance Industries Ltd’s Jio telecom unit increased mobile data tariffs, raising hopes of an easing in the cut-throat competition that has eroded profits in the sector.

Top-ranked Bharti Airtel Ltd rose to a more than eight-year high and Reliance hit a record on the first day of trading since Jio’s announcement last week of new high-end data tariffs that effectively raise prices by as much as 20 percent.

Jio, backed by India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, has up-ended the world’s second-biggest mobile services market by users with aggressive marketing and by slashing prices for its 4G data, forcing established players including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone’s local unit to match the offerings.

As a result, Bharti Airtel posted a 75 percent drop in its April-June profit while Idea Cellular Ltd reported a third consecutive quarterly loss.

Analysts said Jio’s prices remain low, although they welcomed the hikes as a good initial signal of more pricing discipline.

“Jio’s announcement last week was a huge relief for all incumbent players as there is a feeling that the worst of pricing is behind them,” said Satish Betadpur, director of research at William O’Neil & Co.

“Reliance is looking at making sure Jio is profitable. My guess is that from now on, they will focus on quality of network to get more customers,” he added.

The energy conglomerate said on Oct. 13 that Jio would turn profitable “shortly” after the telecom unit posted a loss of 2.71 billion rupees.

Reliance shares jumped as much as 3.8 percent on Monday to hit a fresh all-time high, before closing 3.3 percent higher.

Bharti Airtel led gains on the broader NSE index, climbing as much as 5.8 percent to hit its highest level since May 2009.

Idea Cellular Ltd surged as much as 8.8 percent to touch its highest since July 25, while Reliance Communications Ltd rose as much as 9.5 percent.

Jio’s tariff plans included a mix of price hikes or reduced benefits, such as charging 15 percent more for an 84-day plan that offers users up to 1 gigabyte of 4G data per day, and reducing the validity for its 399 rupee pack to 70 days from 84 days.

– Reuters

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GENEVA – Nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees have fled violence in Myanmar, an “untenable situation” for neighbor Bangladesh, the country’s U.N. envoy said on Monday, calling on Myanmar to let them return.

About 600,000 people have crossed the border since Aug. 25, when insurgent attacks on security posts were met by a ferocious counter-offensive by the Myanmar army in Rakhine state which the United Nations has called ethnic cleansing.

“This is the biggest exodus from a single country since the Rwandan genocide in 1994,” Shameem Ahsan, Bangladesh’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, told a U.N. pledging conference.

“Despite claims to the contrary, violence in Rakhine state has not stopped. Thousands still enter on a daily basis,” he said.

Bangladesh’s interior minister was in Yangon on Monday for talks to find a “durable solution”, Ahsan said.

But Myanmar continued to issue “propaganda projecting Rohingyas as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh”, Ahsan said, adding: “This blatant denial of the ethnic identity of Rohingyas remains a stumbling block.”

Myanmar considers the Rohingya to be stateless, although they trace their families’ presence in the country for generations.

Jordan’s Queen Rania visited Rohingya refugee camps on Monday and called for a stronger response from the international community to the plight of the Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh to escape “systematic persecution” in Myanmar.

“One has to ask, why is the plight of this Muslim minority group being ignored? Why has the systematic prosecution been allowed to play out for so long?” she asked after touring the camps.

The United Nations has appealed for $434 million to provide life-saving aid to 1.2 million people for six months.

“We need more money to keep pace with intensifying needs. This is not an isolated crisis, it is the latest round in a decades-long cycle of persecution, violence and displacement,” U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock told the talks.

“Children, women and men fleeing Myanmar are streaming into Bangladesh traumatized and destitute,” he added.

“We assess we have pledges of around $340 million,” Lowcock said before the mid-day break in the meeting.

New pledges included 30 million euros announced by the European Union, $15 million by Kuwait, 10 million Australian dollars by Australia and 12 million pounds from Britain.

He reiterated the U.N. call on Myanmar to allow “full humanitarian access across Rakhine” where aid agencies have been denied entry.

Myanmar must “guarantee the right to safe, voluntary and dignified return so that the Rohingya can live in peace with their human rights upheld in Rakhine”, Lowcock said.

– Reuters

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The most popular parlor game in Washington right now is speculating who will replace Rex Tillerson as President Donald Trump’s next secretary of state, a thankless job in an administration that has downgraded the role of the State Department and diplomacy overall. But two qualified and apparently willing candidates have emerged.

When confronted last week with pervasive rumors that he is on the way out, Tillerson pleaded ignorance. “Who in the world is telling you that stuff?” he asked reporters from the Wall Street Journal. He promised to stay in the job “as long as the president thinks I’m useful.” Early this month, he held a news conference to deny reports that he had considered quitting. Publicly, Trump has expressed confidence in his top diplomat, despite reports that Tillerson had called the president a “moron.”

Inside the White House, officials say privately that Tillerson’s repeated disputes with various parts of the Trump inner circle have made his long-term survival untenable. The leading speculation is that he may depart after he has served one full year, to save face and complete the State Department reorganization he has publicly claimed as his primary mission.

As several excruciating profiles have detailed, Tillerson’s main legacy will likely be a State Department depleted of talent, with the lowest morale in decades and playing a reduced role in the crafting and implementation of U.S. foreign policy. His successor’s primary mission will be to reverse that trend. The top two contenders, Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, offer different paths for recovery.

Haley has been praised both externally and within the Trump team during her short tenure in New York City. She’s credited with “getting it done” on matters such as North Korea sanctions and toughening up the U.S. stance at the United Nations. Unlike Tillerson, she was quick to get a top-notch staff in place, which has allowed her to be effective inside the interagency process.

Her appointment would foretell a State Department that hews toward traditionally hawkish GOP positions, including forceful advocacy for freedom and human rights abroad. It could also mean a shift in the current drive to mend relations with Russia. Last week, Haley told the George W. Bush Institute that Russian interference in U.S. elections amounted to “warfare.” Haley also defended funding for diplomacy and free trade.

“We’re not going to see [diplomacy and development funding] gutted, that’s just the reality of it, because we can’t and the president doesn’t want to,” Haley said. “I don’t see us tearing up any [trade] deals. If that was the case, we would have done it already.”

Haley took a middle-of-the-road approach in deliberations on the new Iran strategy, which ended up winning the day. She has met with refugees in the Middle East and is continuing her world tour this week, heading to Ethiopia, South Sudan and Congo. She looks like someone campaigning for a promotion.

But the Haley choice is risky for Haley. She already has amassed the foreign policy bona fides required for a future run for president. Her physical distance from the White House has allowed her to avoid internal conflicts and act independently. It’s not clear what she gains politically from moving up to secretary of state. Taking the job would be a huge gamble.

Should Haley move to Foggy Bottom, her most likely replacement in Turtle Bay would be deputy national security adviser Dina Powell, according to reports. Powell has been shrewd in staying out of the spotlight while demonstrating her value and effectiveness to Trump.

Pompeo would be a secretary of state with deeper ties to Trump and views that align more with those of the White House. He is more hawkish on Iran than Haley is. As he demonstrated in remarks last week, he is willing to play down Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Pompeo briefs the president personally several times a week, and the White House likes his willingness to push the administration’s narrative. While his tendency to be overtly political makes some uncomfortable at the CIA, it would be an asset at the State Department.

Some reports suggest that if Pompeo gets the State Department job, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., is in line for CIA director. Cotton is the rare senator who has good relations with Trump and the White House team. His move to CIA could be a stepping stone in his ambition for higher office.

The State Department professional corps would welcome either Haley or Pompeo with open arms, but neither would have an easy task. Unless they clearly break with Tillerson’s approach and stand up for diplomats and the work they do, Washington will find itself speculating about yet another secretary of state soon enough.

– Washington Post

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ISLAMABAD – As U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson heads to Pakistan on Tuesday to pressure Islamabad to act over militants targeting Afghanistan from its soil, anxious Pakistanis may be equally interested in dissuading Washington’s deepening ties with India.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan, a staunch U.S. Cold War ally and key player in the U.S.-backed invasion of Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, has watched warily as Washington has in recent years pivoted towards its arch-foe.

Islamabad views its much-bigger neighbour as an existential threat and the two nations have fought three wars since their violent separation at the end of colonial rule in 1947.

Tillerson, due to meet Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Pakistan’s powerful military chiefs in a one-day visit, is expected to urge Pakistan to do more to root out Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network militants operating on its soil.

But he is also expected to hear Pakistani officials warn him that drawing nuclear-armed India deeper into Afghanistan would destabilise the region and do little to end the 16-year war that is now America’s longest military conflict.

“Bringing India into the mix is like adding kerosene to fire,” said Miftah Ismail, a state minister and close ally of Prime Minister Abbasi.

“It’s a complete red line. India has no political role to play in Afghanistan as far as we are concerned.”

Many Pakistanis feel betrayed that its traditional ally is now cosying up to India over Afghanistan.

But the anger runs both ways.

The United States accuses Pakistan of playing a double game since 2001, offering public backing to Washington while turning a blind eye, or even at times assisting, the Afghan Taliban and other militants who carry out deadly attacks against U.S. forces and their allies in Afghanistan.

LAST CHANCE

Pakistan supported the Afghan Taliban in the 1990s as a hedge to Indian influence in Afghanistan, and analysts say its military and security services maintained ties long after the Taliban regime was toppled in 2001.

Pakistan denies providing a safe haven for Afghan Taliban and other militant fighters.

Tillerson, during a visit to Afghanistan on Monday, said Washington has made some “very specific requests of Pakistan in order for them to take action to undermine the support the Taliban receives and other terrorist organizations receive”.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis earlier this month said the United States would try “one more time” to work with Pakistan in Afghanistan, before opting for more punitive measures. President Donald Trump has vowed to be tougher on Pakistan than his predecessors.

The United States has threatened further military aid cuts and U.S. officials have mooted targeted sanctions against Pakistani military figures, but in the past two weeks there have been hints of a slight thawing in ties.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Tillerson last week called Abbasi to thank Pakistan after its army rescued a U.S.-Canadian couple who were held hostage by the Taliban-allied Haqqani network for nearly five years, along with their three children born in captivity.

Relations were further boosted when Omar Khalid Khorasani, leader of the lethal Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA) group who Islamabad had been trying to catch for years, was killed by a U.S. drone strike last week.

HOSTILE NEIGHBOURS

India has increased aid to Afghanistan in recent years and last year promised to ship more arms. Such moves have aggravating fears in Pakistan that it will find itself wedged between two hostile neighbours.

Islamabad bristles at the idea that India holds the key to ending the Afghanistan conflict, and fears U.S. meddling could unsettle a delicate balance of power in South Asia.

“Promoting a higher involvement of India in Afghanistan will only worsen the historic strategic rivalries playing out in the region,” said Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s former ambassador to United States and a senior member of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party.

Pakistan points to the 3.5 million Afghan refugees it hosts as proof that it has more than anyone else to lose from chaos in Afghanistan, and has emphasised the need for greater cooperation and intelligence sharing with United States and Afghanistan.

But while Pakistan may not like it, India looks set to continue playing a role in Afghanistan, according to Sushant Sareen, a foreign policy analyst at the Vivekananda International Foundation, a think-tank with ties to the government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“The message is very clear that India is an important player when it comes to coordinating policies between Afghanistan and Washington,” said Sareen.

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Aasha Shaik, a sophomore at the Rutgers Business School, recently graduated from the Working Group on Girls, a United Nations-affiliated coalition of more than 75 organizations dedicated to promoting girls’ rights around the world.

The program helps high school-age girls become leaders, with a focus on empowering and protecting the rights of girls globally and Shaik discovered her passion for girls’ rights while she was living and studying in India for a year, during her middle school years, according to Rutgers Today.

“Truly absorbing life there opened my eyes to injustices that summer visits with my family while I was growing up never did. Turning on the TV and hearing about acid attacks and rape was striking – to say the very, very least,” she said on Rutgers’ website.

Shaik and two other Rutgers students spent a part of their high school career moderating UN panels; conducting research on child marriage, education for girls and the impact of poverty on them along with writing policy proposals based on that research, presenting it at high-profile U.N. events.

Shaik wants to take her experience from the Working Group on Girls and continue advocating for gender equality at a more grassroots level at Rutgers-New Brunswick and beyond, by potentially becoming lawmakers themselves, reported Rutgers Today.

“When you have some of the most powerful people in the world genuinely considering your suggestions and opinions, it reminds you of just how important speaking up is. It reminds you that nothing can silence you – not your gender, not your race, not your age. We may have “only” been high school girls, but what we had to say was just as deserving as anyone else,” she added.

The post Indian-American student’s passion for empowering women and girls appeared first on News India Times.