A Harley-Davidson bike is displayed in their office in Singapore October 13, 2016. REUTERS/Edgar Su/File Photo
President Donald Trump is mad about India’s high tariffs on America’s Harley Davidson motorcycles, and he’s been talking about it all week. Experts think that may signal a continuing downturn in trade relations between the two normally friendly democracies.
On Tuesday, during a meeting with congressional leaders on trade, Trump said that “a great man from India” – presumably Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with whom he chatted by telephone Feb. 8 – recently called him to say that India was cutting its steep import tariffs on Harleys to 50 percent – “that’s 5-0,” Trump noted.
These still-steep fees make India the latest in a list of nations such as China that “come into our country and rob us blind,” Trump said.
“I’m not blaming India. I think it’s great that they can get away with it. I don’t know why people allowed them to get away with it. But there’s an example that’s very unfair,” Trump said, saying the United States should impose a “reciprocal tax” on other countries in return.
Trump accused India of selling “thousands of thousands of motorcycles, which a lot of people don’t know, from India into the United States. You know what our tax is? Nothing.”
Problem is, the number of motorcycles imported from India into the United States is minimal. India’s Royal Enfield brand has dealerships in the United States and sells about 1,000 of its high-end bikes a year, according to Cartoq, but “motorcycles” don’t even merit a mention in the Indian Ministry of Commerce and Industry’s most recent data on exports to the United States.
India recently announced that it was cutting the customs duty on imported motorcycles like Harley Davidson, Ducati and Triumph to 50 percent – from earlier charges that varies from 60 to 75 percent based on the power of the engine.
Trump’s unhappiness over India’s high tariffs comes at a time when trade relations between the United States and India are frosty – there’s a $30 billion trade deficit – and India has taken a “dramatic protectionist turn” with its recent budget, according to a recent position paper by Richard Rossow of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
India is increasing customs duties across 49 product groups, including cellphones, perfumes and makeup, and cars, a move that India’s leaders want to boost the country’s “Make in India” manufacturing plan for indigenous manufacturing, Rossow wrote.
“The scale of India’s protectionist leap is surprising and likely to elicit a strong response from the United States and other major trading partners,” Rossow predicted, with U.S. and India trade relations beginning the year with “a longer list of concerns and dim hopes for progress.”
Things are already cool.
A bilateral trade meeting between India and the United States in October degenerated into what one participant described as a “depressing” mess when the trade negotiators from the United States pressed India hard on the trade imbalance. Indian-U.S. trade relations are thorny even in the best of times, analysts say, with the United States pushing for market access and voicing concerns over intellectual property rights while India wants protections for its citizens on foreign worker visas.
But the Trump administration has been newly focused on the goods-related part of the trade deficit, pushing hard on such contentious issues as poultry and pork imports to India and price controls on medical devices.
In the end, the meeting was so unproductive the two sides could not even decide on what a joint statement would say – each side issued its own.
Sanjaya Baru, once media adviser for Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, now the secretary general of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said that discussions with trade staffers were similarly uncomfortable when he accompanied a group of business leaders to Washington in the fall.
“It reminded us of the early 1990s, all the rhetoric about fair trade and reciprocity,” Baru said. “It was a time when India had not opened enough yet and there was a lot of pressure. I guess some of that rhetoric is back in D.C.”
Gurjeet Singh, an Illinois religious leader, says he was attacked by a gunman while driving for Uber. (Courtesy of the Sikh Coalition)
A sheriff’s office in Illinois is investigating an assault on an Uber driver that appears to have been based on the driver’s ethnicity or religion.
The driver, Gurjeet Singh, is a religious leader at a local Sikh temple and wears the traditional turban and long beard of men in the Sikh faith, a monotheistic religion from India.
Sikh men in America, repeatedly mistaken for Muslims because of their appearance, have been the victims of numerous hate crimes — including a man murdered immediately after 9/11 by an assailant who said he thought his victim was Arab, and six members of a Sikh temple in Wisconsin killed in a mass shooting.
In this case, the advocacy organization Sikh Coalition says that the passenger pulled a gun on the driver and said, “I hate turban people. I hate beard people.”
Leaders of the organization expressed frustration Wednesday after meeting with Rock Island County Sheriff Gerry Bustos, that the passenger has not been arrested since the attack, which the driver reported to police on Jan. 29, the day after it occurred. Bustos told The Washington Post that he expects to charge the suspect with aggravated assault and perhaps further charges by week’s end, after he receives information that the sheriff’s office has requested from Uber through a search warrant.
Investigators have interviewed the driver, the suspect and another passenger who was in the car, Bustos said.
He said that the driver picked up the two passengers together in Moline, Ill., about 11 p.m. and began to drive them toward their destination in Milan, Ill. The male passenger and the driver got into an argument, he said.
Bustos said he couldn’t disclose the details of the argument while the investigation is underway. “The argument was about where people’s loyalties lie. There was an argument over where people were from,” he said.
The Sikh Coalition said that the male passenger started asking Singh, the driver, a series of questions: “What is your status here? Which country do you belong to? Do you serve your country or do you serve our country?”
The organization said that Singh, a legal U.S. resident who does not speak fluent English, said he serves the United States and India, because his parents live there. Then, Singh said, the passenger put a gun to his head and said he hated “turban people.”
Singh stopped the car. The organization said that the passenger’s female companion then forced him out of the car, and told Singh to drive away. “She apologized and said, ‘I’m sorry, he shouldn’t have said that to you,’ ” said Amrith Kaur, the Sikh Coalition’s legal director.
Kaur, who said she was a prosecutor for 11 years in Cook County, Ill., said the local Sikh community is ill at ease that Singh’s passenger has not yet been arrested.
“If you say you hate turban people and you say you hate beard people and you put a gun to their head, that is a textbook hate crime,” she said. “The problem of hatred in our communities is outrageous. Since 9/11, the Sikh community has experienced such violence in America. … The fact that in 2018, it’s scary to be brown in America is completely unacceptable. People need to understand, this isn’t just an attack on an individual.”
The sheriff said he’s heard those fears. “We’re hoping to bring this case to resolution, certainly, for the Sikh community as quickly as possible, because I know they’re concerned,” Bustos said. “The moment we are able to file a criminal charge, we absolutely will.”
Bangladeshi-origin chemistry teacher, Syed Ahmed Jamal’s life has faced major ups and downs over the last few weeks since he was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Jan. 24, from his Lawrence, Kansas home.
In the latest twist, a Republican lawmaker has introduced a private member bill in Congress that if passed, would enable Jamal to get permanent residence for himself and his wife. His children are already U.S. citizens. On Feb. 14, Republican Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins of Kansas, introduced H.R. 5010, titled “For the relief of Syed Ahmed Jamal and Zaynaub Jahan Chowdhury.”
Support for Jamal’s remaining in the U.S. appears to be bipartisan. Earlier, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Missouri, went to meet Jamal when he was detained in El Paso, Texas, after being flooded with calls expressing concern over the fate of the Bangladeshi immigrant, a statement by the lawmaker said. Sharma-Crawford’s Facebook page carried a photo of Jamal speaking to the Congressman from behind a glass panel while incarcerated.
On Feb. 8, Cleaver issued a statement that he had written to the Assistant Director of ICE “encouraging him to exercise favorable discretion and grant a stay of deportation” for Jamal. Cleaver has been an advocate for a clear and permanent pathway to citizenship and is opposed to funding for a border wall.
Jamal was brought back to the mainland and is now at a Missouri detention center after being taken off a plane bound for Bangladesh. He was flown back from Honolulu where he had been offloaded because a Judge ordered a second stay on his deportation while he was en route to Bangladesh.
An update and a video of the press conference was posted by his attorney Rekha Sharma-Crawford, on her firm’s website Feb. 14. The message read,”We have confirmed that Syed Jamal is back in KC (Kansas City, Missouri), and being detained at the Platte County Jail.” She also announced the press conference before the jail, attended by among others, the family members of Jamal including his wife and children.
At the press conference, Sharma-Crawford said it was up to ICE to decide whether to send Jamal back home to his family and asked for his release. “He has a valid work authorization till October 2018, has been here with no criminal history whatsoever, and there’s no reason to hold him,” she said. She added that he was in good spirits and that his job is waiting for him. she lauded the campaign by Jamal’s friends who have set up a GoFundMe and Change.org petitions.
The Change.org petition, “Help to stop the deportation of Syed Ahmed Jamal,” started by a family friend, Marci Leuschen, has now garnered 100,566 signatures, by around noon of Feb. 15. The GoFundMe page for Jamal also started by Leuschen, has so far raised $70,110 and hopes to reach its goal of $75,000.
Earlier, Jamal was on a plane bound for Dacca Feb. 12, when a judge issued a second stay on the evening of the same day, the Associated Press reported. Jamal’s brother also appealed to ICE “to do the right thing. Do the family thing.”
On Feb. 12, when a federal immigration judge removed the temporary stay order issued a week before, Sharma-Crawford, immediately filed a new motion for a stay with the Virginia Board of Immigration Appeals, Associated Press reported. That court issued a stay while Jamal was on the plane.
The Bangladeshi chemistry instructor came to this country on a student visa more than 30 years ago, getting degrees in molecular biosciences and pharmaceutical engineering, and settling in Lawrence with family. At some point he switched from a student visa to an H-1B visa and then back to a student visa when he enrolled for a Ph.D., according to a Washington Post report. When he was arrested, Jamal had a work authorization permit, teaching chemistry as an adjunct professor at Park University in Kansas City, the Post reported.
People gather to pray in baggage claim during a protest against the travel ban imposed by President Donald Trump’s executive order, at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in Dallas, Texas, January 29, 2017. REUTERS/Laura Buckman/Files
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s travel ban targeting people from six Muslim-majority countries violates the U.S. Constitution by discriminating on the basis of religion, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday in another legal setback for the policy.
The Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, on a 9-4 vote, became the second federal appeals court to rule against the ban, finding that the Republican president’s own words demonstrated that bias against Muslims was the basis of the policy.
The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed the ban, put in place by Trump with a presidential proclamation in September, to go into effect while litigation challenging it continues.
The 4th Circuit ruling went further than the earlier decision by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which found the ban violated federal immigration law but did not address the question of whether it also violated the Constitution. The Supreme Court already has said it will consider both issues in deciding the legality of the ban in the coming months.
The justices are due in April to hear arguments over the ban and issue a ruling by the end of June.
“Examining official statements from President Trump and other executive branch officials, along with the proclamation itself, we conclude that the proclamation is unconstitutionally tainted with animus toward Islam,” 4th Circuit Chief Judge Roger Gregory wrote in the ruling.
The travel ban challengers “offer undisputed evidence of such bias: the words of the President,” Gregory wrote, noting Trump’s “disparaging comments and tweets regarding Muslims.”
As a candidate, Trump promised “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” The court also took note of the fact that Trump in November shared on Twitter anti-Muslim videos posted by a far-right British political figure.
In the main dissenting opinion, Judge Paul Niemeyer said the courts should be deferential to the president on matters of national security. Niemeyer criticized the majority, saying his colleagues applied “a novel legal rule that provides for the use of campaign-trail statements to recast later official acts of the president.”
Trump’s policy, the third version of the ban that he has issued since taking office in January 2017, blocks entry into the United States of most people from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Trump has said the policy is needed to protect the United States from terrorism by Islamic militants.
Thursday’s ruling upheld a Maryland-based district court judge’s decision in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents several advocacy groups including the International Refugee Assistance Project.
“President Trump’s third illegal attempt to denigrate and discriminate against Muslims through an immigration ban has failed in court yet again. It’s no surprise,” ACLU lawyer Cecillia Wang said.
Protesters calling for an immigration bill addressing the so-called Dreamers, young adults who were brought to the United States as children, carry a sign supporting DACA in the office of Senator Chuck Grassley on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 16, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
WASHINGTON – The White House stuck to its hard-line immigration approach on Thursday and said advisers would recommend that President Donald Trump veto a bipartisan U.S. Senate proposal to protect young “Dreamer” immigrants and tighten border security.
The plan, which would protect from deportation 1.8 million young adults who were brought to the United States illegally as children, would weaken border security and undercut existing immigration law, spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement.
“Preventing enforcement with respect to people who entered our country illegally before a date that is in the future would produce a flood of new illegal immigration in the coming months,” she said.
The proposal, which had been considered perhaps the most likely to succeed in the Senate, also includes a $25 billion fund to strengthen border security and possibly even build segments of Trump’s long-promised border wall with Mexico.
White House opposition to the bipartisan plan appeared to focus on a provision that would direct the Department of Homeland Security to focus enforcement efforts on undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of crimes, are a threat to national security or arrived in the United States after June 30, 2018.
The Senate is debating at least four immigration measures as lawmakers race to resolve the status of Dreamers, who were protected under an Obama-era program. Trump has ordered that program to end by March 5, telling Congress it should come up with an alternative plan by then.
The Department of Homeland Security also opposed the bipartisan plan led by Republican Senator Susan Collins, saying it would prevent DHS officers from being able to remove millions of undocumented immigrants from the country, and “is an egregious violation of the four compromise pillars laid out by the President’s immigration reform framework.”
Trump has said any immigration bill must include funds to build the border wall, end the visa lottery program, impose curbs on visas for the families of legal immigrants and protect Dreamers.
The Republican president has backed a measure by Republican Senator Chuck Grassley that embraces his wish list but is unlikely to win support from enough Democrats in the closely divided chamber.
A narrower third bill focusing just on Dreamers and border security, by Republican John McCain and Democrat Chris Coons, has been dismissed by Trump. A fourth measure, which is not expected to pass, focuses on punishing “sanctuary cities” that do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said votes on the four measures would be held possibly on Thursday or at least Friday morning, ahead of a self-imposed Senate deadline of the end of the week.
‘BITTER PILLS’
The bipartisan Collins bill got a slight boost earlier on Thursday when an influential group that advocates for immigrants, America’s Voice, gave its reluctant support to the measure.
The group opposes provisions allowing the construction of a border wall and moves to limit legal immigration, but said in a statement, “We believe the chance to provide a permanent solution for Dreamers calls us to swallow these bitter pills.”
Despite backing from several Republicans for the Collins-led plan, it was unclear whether it would muster the 60 votes needed in the 100-member Senate, controlled 51-49 by Republicans.
A senior Senate Republican aide said the White House veto threat would “scuttle” some Republican support for the bipartisan bill. The prospect of all bills failing could even discourage some Republicans from voting for the Trump-backed plan, the aide said.
Trump is anxious to start on the border wall, which he made a central part of his 2016 election campaign and which Democrats have long opposed. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said the wall would be “an enormous waste of money,” but both parties had to bend.
“We have to rise above our differences, admit that no one will get everything they want and accept painful compromises,” Schumer said.
In September, Trump rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to protect Dreamers from deportation and offer them work permits. Although the protections are due to start expiring on March 5, federal judges have blocked that from taking effect amid ongoing litigation.
Even if one of the Senate measures passes, it must still win over the U.S. House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a larger majority and are pushing a more conservative proposal that is more closely in line with Trump’s framework.
NEW YORK – Real Stories, an original documentary production, will make a film on the Indian American teen sensation Sparsh Shah, the 14-year-old boy who was born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta or Brittle Bone Disorder and has broken 120 bones in his body so far.
Shah is from Iselin, New Jersey, and is also an extraordinarily talented rapper who goes by the name Purhythm and has been inspired by Eminem.
In fact just recently, Eminem’s record label tweeted Shah after one of his videos, in which he was covering an Eminem song, went viral, according to a press release.
Shah gained international fame in 2016 after he uploaded a cover of Eminem’s “Not Afraid” on his YouTube channel with 700,000 views, according to a Huffington Post report.
According to a Huffington Post report, Shah has written at least 10 original songs and several short stories, poems and speeches along with performing at community events in the New York/New Jersey area.
The ‘Brittle Bone Rapper’ is about Shah which showcases his powerful performances and remarkably mature, spiritual perspectives on his life and condition.
The film will revolve around Shah’s journey to the Champions of Hope awards ceremony in Los Angeles where he will be honored and hopes to perform his latest song, a duet with YouTube star Meredith Grace Puckett.
However, before he makes it to Los Angeles, he will have to undergo a critical surgery to straighten his spine which could ultimately save his life.
‘Brittle Bone Rapper’ will go live on Thursday, March 1 on the Real Stories YouTube channel.
This will be the first original production from Real Stories.
NEW YORK – Two Indian Americans have been named among Oakland County’s Elite 40 Under 40: Shantha Kumari Rajendran, 36, and Adi Sathi, 27, according to a Farmington Voice report.
Rajendran is a Staff Engineer-Systems Lead for Panasonic Automotive and has been in the automotive industry for 15 years as an Embedded Systems Engineer.
She specializes in Human Machine Interface and User Experience and has filed 10 automotive patents, two of which were recently approved by USPTO.
She has also submitted several technical papers to the Society for Automotive Engineers (SAE) where she is an active volunteer and the Society for Information Displays (SID) conferences.
Rajendran holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science engineering, a master’s in management and is also a Stanford Certified Project Manager, and she is currently pursuing her second master’s degree at Harvard University.
“Shantha was the first woman in her family to finish school, university, become an engineer, work in the USA, get a masters degree with honors. She has great balance between her career and family,” her husband Ganapathy Lakshmanaperumal wrote to Farmington Voice.
According to Lakshmanaperumal, Rajendran aspires to become a CEO someday.
“She is a great example of a first time immigrant STEM Woman who works hard to reach her goal,” he said.
Adi Sathi (Courtesy: LinkedIn)
Sathi is the director of Asian Pacific American Engagement and was also the Vice Chair of the Michigan Republican Party in 2015 as well as the Deputy Executive Director of the Republican Hindu Coalition in Washington, D.C., according to apaics.org.
According to apaics.org, as a student, Sathi was elected to serve as the Executive Director of the Association of Big Ten Students, an organization that consists of the 14 Big Ten schools from 11 different states and represents over 540,000 students, for which he was invited to the 2013 White House Youth Summit and recognized by Red Alert Politics on their 2014 ’30 Under 30′ list.
He was also recognized on Newsmax’s list of 30 Most Influential Republicans 30 and Under in January 2016 for his role in the Michigan Republican Party, according to apaics.org.
Sathi is a 2016 Fellow in the Michigan Political Leadership Program through Michigan State University’s Institute of Public Policy and Social Research; he also received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Michigan.
The Oakland County Executive’s Elite 40 Under 40 program is in its seventh year and is an initiative of County Executive L. Brooks Patterson that “recognizes and spotlights dynamic leaders under the age of 40 who are making a difference in Oakland County.”
Students are evacuated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School during a shooting incident in Parkland, Florida, February 14, 2018 in a still image from video. WSVN.com via REUTERS
One cannot imagine what was going through the mind of the sad teen who stood holding up the lighted candle mourning her best friend, with her mother Shweta Kapa by her side. It was only 24 hours since Nikolas Kraus, 19, now charged with premeditated murder, went on a rampage armed with a weapons grade assault rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killed the teen’s friend, leaving 15 students and 2 teachers dead. Hundreds joined the teen and her mother at the somber Feb. 15, sunset vigil in the vast open air Parkland Amphitheatre, where people began collectively shouting, “No more guns.”
An Indian-American child suffered minor injuries in the shooting according to a Press Trust of India report. There were no other known casualties from the community. But Indian-Americans are traumatized with their children undergoing the ordeal at school and their friends and neighbors suffering deaths.
The Kapas were excited about going to the best friend’s birthday party this Saturday, and their daughter had met the friend just half an hour before she was killed, a close friend of the family told News India Times. The Indian-American teen is in shock and unable to talk to reporters. It is understandable, knowing of the 90 minutes of terror as students crouched and hid in closets and classrooms of the school, texting their parents, and some of them witnessing the brutal death of their classmates.
“Her daughter is shaken up. She has lost her best friend,” said the friend who did not wish to be identified because of the trauma. The teen’s “friend’s birthday is this Saturday and they were planning to go. So you can imagine how she is shaken,” she said. “Shweta said her daughter needs time. They are in shock,” she added repeatedly, noting that she did not wish to share the name of the affected Indian-American teen.
The family friend who lives just five minutes from the school where the tragedy unfolded, said, “It was very terrifying. A lot of Indians live in this area and many of our children go to that school. That is the designated school my son will be going to when he is in high school,” she added. Broward County School Superintendent speaking on National Public Radio, said the building where the tragedy occurred would not longer be used and other solutions were being looked into when classes begin again a week after the horrific incident. Several students who experienced the tragedy first hand said in television interviews that they did not wish to return.
Parkland Community
Considered an affluent community with a state of the art school like Stoneman Douglas, the city has attracted more Indian families looking for a good education for their children. (In the entire Broward County, where Parkland is located, the Asian Indian population is 22,600 according to statisticalatlas.com.)
Parkland, population 31,507, was considered the safest city in Florida in 2017 with just 7 violent crimes, a CNN report quoting the National Council for Home Safety and Security, said.
But Feb. 14 changed that image for Bharatnatyam dance teacher Neha Shah’s daughter. She also lost her friend in the shooting and they are going for grief counseling, the family friend, who did not wish to be identified, said.
The Association of Indians in America, South Florida chapter President Kavita Deshpande, told News India Times people are “very badly” affected. In a formal statement AIA said, “The Indian American community, both in Parkland as well as in greater South Florida, grieves along with the parents who have lost their children in yesterday’s horrific shooting. We stand together, now and always.”
The Hindu American Foundation spent the better part of Feb. 14, tracking its members in the Parkland-Coral Springs area to check on them, Suhag Shukla, co-founder and executive director of the organization, told this correspondent.
Minakshi De, an artist from Vero Beach, said she had many friends in the area where Cruz wreaked havoc. “There’s a huge Indian community there and we hold the biggest Durga Puja celebration there. They are scared.”
“One of our member’s business partner’s son went into surgery but has come out okay,” Shukla said with relief. “This sort of violence is not random. And it is avoidable,” she added. “There’s absolutely no reason why ordinary citizens carry assault weapons.”
Shukla has a son in his sophomore year in New Jersey and worries for him as well. Asked if she knew whether active shooter drills were carried out at his school, she said she had not heard of any.
“In New Jersey, a school is completely locked and one cannot get in during school hours without being buzzed in and first seeing a security guard,” Dr. Sudhir Parikh, publisher of News India Times and recipient of India’s Padma Shri award, said. “These incidents have a traumatic impact on school children around the country who feel they might be the next target,” said Dr. Parikh, a resident of New Jersey.
Scope Of Problem
Frequent shootings at schools — almost one gun incident every month — remain a nightmare for children and parents even if most have few fatalities or only injuries. Some recent horrific incidents stand out: Columbine High School, Colorado, where 15 were killed in 1999; Red Lake Senior High School, Minnesota in 2005 with 10 fatalities; and Sandy Hook Elementary School, Connecticut, in 2012 with 28 dead.
That has changed life in schools. Amit Prakash, a high school teacher in an elite school in New York’s Upper Westside said two active-shooter drills were a requirement every year for schools. In fact, the drill scheduled Feb. 15, was cancelled in light of the tragedy in Florida. “Since my time in teaching I’ve seen these drills evolve – previously it was just fire drills,” he told News India Times. When a “lockdown/active-shooter” drill takes place, students have to be prepped beforehand that it is just a drill, to avoid panic. “We turn off lights, secure doors, stay quiet, crouch in a corner so we are not visible through windows, and are told that in the real situation we don’t move till the NYPD comes,” Prakash said.
For Indian-Americans, who come from a country without a gun culture, the contrast between India and the United States in firearms ownership and gun deaths is often shocking. GunPolicy.org that is hosted by the Sydney School of Public Health, the University of Sydney, gathered data that showed that there were 3,655 total gun deaths in 2014 in India which has a population of 1.3 billion, or three gun deaths per million people showing a decline from a total of 12,147 or 12.3 per million in 1999.
In contrast, there were 33,599 gun deaths in the U.S. in 2014, nine times more than in India.
The United States tops the world in the number of guns owned by civilians, with 310 million. That amounts to 101.05 guns for every hundred people in the U.S., giving it the top rank in the rate of gun ownership, while India which ranked next after U.S. in number of guns owned by civilians at 40 million, had just 3.36 guns for every hundred people, because its population is about times bigger than the U.S.
Against this backdrop, the Indian-American community is looking at the gun control issue, which has again risen as a topic of national discussion because of the Parkland shooting .
“Thankfully, we live in New York City where there are strict gun laws,” Prakash said. “As a school teacher, it (threat of school violence) is a new thing,” he added. “Apparently politicians don’t want to deal with it so we have to.” While “you can’t really plan for this kind of violence, what you can do is take the guns away – but that’s political suicide for both parties,” he said.
“This is not about people’s right to protect themselves,” said Shukla referencing the 2nd Amendment in the U.S. Constitution that gives citizens the right to bear arms. “This is about our government looking to our safety.”
In a formal statement, HAF said, “As Hindu Americans, we see the enacting and enforcing legislation that keeps military-grade firearms out of the hands of the general public, as solidly rooted in Hindu dharma.”
President Donald Trump skirted the issue of gun control in his reaction to the shooting, emphasizing mental health – a common factor that runs through many of the school shooting incidents.
Issues of school security, mental health and gun control are again a topic of national debate. “Mental health is one of the critical issues in this kind of incident, but more needs to be done on gun control and the government has to find ways to prevent such guns getting into their hands,” Dr. Parikh said. “One cannot have guns freely available and then blame mental health,” he added. Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former U.S. Surgeon General, regarded gun violence as a public health issue and had campaigned for it even before being appointed as “America’s Doctor.”
“What I’ve said before is what I believe now — which is gun violence is a public health issue,” Murthy told Politico in a November 2016 interview, a few months before he resigned.
Nikolas Cruz appears in a police booking photo after being charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder following a Parkland school shooting, at Broward County Jail in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, U.S. February 15, 2018. Broward County Sheriff/Handout via REUTERS
PARKLAND, Fla. – Grieving families prepared for burials and private memorials Friday even as authorities struggled with questions over whether powerful warning signs were missed before the suspected shooter began his bloodbath in Building 12 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Nearly every investigation into random violence uncovers some past moment or comment that loom large in hindsight. But the backtracking after Wednesday’s massacre in South Florida turned up a potentially stunning harbinger – a YouTube post with the message “Im going to be a professional school shooter” by a user “nikolas cruz,” the same name as the 19-year-old suspect accused of killing 17 students and staff in the South Florida school he once attended.
A tipster in Mississippi alerted the FBI in September to the online post, but the bureau checked public and law enforcement databases for any Nikolas Cruz who might be of concern. The FBI said it turned up nothing.
Still, revelations of the dead-end FBI probe added another element to the now-familiar debates over gun control and assault-style weapons after each grim spectacle of mass violence in America. This time, a sharper light was placed on difficult issues of how far law enforcement should reach in following leads as part of pre-emptive policing.
“Did they do enough in this case? Quite clearly, if you see what happened yesterday, presumably tied to this killer, the easy answer to that is no,” said Ron Hosko, a former FBI assistant director. Hosko, however, said that the bureau receives a flood of tips and must make decisions about which to pursue.
President Trump and others have tried to steer the aftermath of the Parkland shooting away from gun control measures. Yet some Democrats have pushed back – suggesting that issues such as assault-style weapons could become more prominent in this year’s midterm elections.
“Enough is enough,” said Florida Sen. Bill Nelson.
“When is the right time?” asked Nelson, a Democrat. “How many more times do we want to do this? How many more folks have to die?”
Cruz remained held without bond on murder charges Friday. The school campus, meanwhile, was a crime scene with forensic teams scouring the grounds and retracing the steps of the shooter as described by witnesses: first firing an AR-15 assault-style rifle into classroom after classroom before slipping away amid the chaos.
Cruz then went to a Walmart, bought a drink, sat at a McDonald’s, and eventually left on foot before he was captured.
Besides the dead and dying, more than a dozen people were wounded. Some remained in critical condition on Friday.
“This community is hurting right now,” Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said Thursday. “Today’s a day of healing. Today’s a day of mourning.”
The country mourned with Parkland, living through what has become a grim routine. Names slowly emerged on Thursday, revealing that the bullets cut down victims apparently indiscriminately, including a student who had recently gotten into the state’s flagship college, a senior who had just gained U.S. citizenship and a football coach who was working at his alma mater. Those killed ranged in age from 14 to 49, and the dead included nine males and eight females, police said. Most were teenagers, just one of them old enough to vote. Three were staffers.
“President Trump, please do something!” Lori Alhadeff, who lost her daughter Alyssa, said in emotional remarks broadcast on CNN. “Do something. Action! We need it now! These kids need safety now!”
In Florida, Cruz’s past revealed a pattern of disciplinary issues and unnerving behavior. People who knew him said that for years, Cruz had a habit of attacking animals like squirrels and chickens. When he got older, he became isolated, angry and withdrawn, losing his parents and eventually moving into friends’ houses.
At Douglas, his problems began with suspensions. A teacher said administrators had sent out a message suggesting they keep an eye on him. Cruz was expelled last year. On Wednesday, he came back.
New details about the shooting emerged Thursday in court documents and from police officials. Cruz took an Uber to the school, police said in a probable-cause affidavit, wearing a black backpack and carrying a black duffel bag. A staffer recognized him and radioed a co-worker to say that Cruz was approaching. Within a minute, he heard gunshots and called a “Code Red,” which announced an emergency.
Police say Cruz began firing into a series of rooms, returning to two of them as he continued pumping round after round at the huddled, terrified teachers and students. Cruz then went up the stairs, allegedly firing at another room as he traveled through the school building.
As students began to flee the carnage, police say Cruz dumped his rifle and bag of extra ammunition and joined “others who were fleeing and tried to mix in with the group . . . fearing for their lives,” Israel, the sheriff, said Thursday.
Cruz made his first court appearance Thursday, facing 17 counts of premeditated murder. He mostly looked down at his hands and answered the judge in a low voice. His attorneys did not specifically say that he had confessed to the shooting, nor did they explicitly deny his involvement, describing him as a “broken young man ” who is “very saddened” by what happened.
“This is an emotionally broken young man,” Gordon Weekes, the public defender, told reporters, adding that Cruz was on suicide watch. “He has been through a lot of trauma. He has suffered significant mental illness, and significant mental trauma.”
Investigators already have interviewed more than 2,000 people as part of the probe and hope to speak to unnamed others who “might enlighten us as to why he did what he did,” Israel said, though he emphasized that a day into the investigation, police did not believe Cruz had any accomplices.
Cruz bought the AR-15 himself legally in Coral Springs, Florida, officials said. So far, it is the only gun authorities have recovered as part of the investigation, said Peter J. Forcelli, special agent in charge of the Miami field division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The court filing Thursday said Cruz bought the gun about a year before the rampage.
Federal authorities were facing questions about whether they had missed a chance to encounter the gunman before. The FBI was contacted last fall about a comment left on YouTube that mentioned becoming “a professional school shooter.” The YouTube user’s name was Nikolas Cruz. FBI agents spoke to the person who submitted the tip, searched law enforcement databases and were unable to determine who posted the comment, said Robert F. Lasky, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Miami division. Officials now believe Cruz posted that message.
FBI investigators looking into the shooting were pursuing information Thursday suggesting that Cruz might have been associated with a Florida-based white supremacist group, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the probe. But agents were still trying to determine the extent of his involvement with the group, if any, according to the official, who asked not to be identified discussing an ongoing investigation. A spokesman for the group told the Anti-Defamation League that Cruz had participated in some of its training exercises; the group could not be reached for further comment.
FILE PHOTO: Students gather in support of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) at the University of California Irvine Student Center in Irvine, California, U.S., October 11, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
WASHINGTON – Weeks of intense negotiations for a bipartisan deal on immigration collapsed in Congress on Thursday, leaving hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants facing possible deportation.
The rejection of four proposals in the Senate, coupled with a lack of consensus in the House, underscored the immense political pressures on Republicans and Democrats alike.
Immigration has proved intractable for years, vexing lawmakers and presidents of both parties. Breaking the stalemate in an election year seemed even more unlikely.
In a sharp rebuke, the Republican-led Senate blocked an immigration plan backed by President Donald Trump, with the bill mustering just 39 votes. It highlighted the divisions even within GOP ranks, with some wary that granting legal status to undocumented immigrants would amount to amnesty.
The House offered no answers, with conservatives threatening Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., unless he pushes a bill that provides only temporary work permits for dreamers, while also imposing border-security measures and restrictions on legal immigration that go beyond what Trump has proposed.
“I don’t think the president helped very much, but the bottom line is the demagogues won again on the left and the right,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
How the Trump administration and Congress will resolve the fate of dreamers – undocumented immigrants who were brought into the country as children – remained unclear Thursday, but several senators said they hoped a solution could be included in a sweeping spending plan that must be passed by March 23.
Proposals have been floated by senators in both parties to temporarily extend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program – which is set to end on March 5 – and provide some funding to begin border-security construction projects. Courts in California and New York have issued temporary injunctions requiring the administration to extend DACA; those rulings could render Trump’s deadline moot.
In the Senate on Thursday, the atmosphere was corrosive.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., blamed Trump, who had tweeted moments before the votes that the bipartisan plan was a “total catastrophe” that faced the threat of a veto.
“If he would stop torpedoing bipartisan efforts, a good bill would pass,” Schumer said.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a strong proponent of the president’s plan, said there was “broad agreement about how to solve this problem, but we won’t succeed unless the Democrats stop this incessant virtue-signaling and start negotiating in good faith.”
A senior White House official said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., wants to move on from immigration, and the White House is inclined to agree. The individual, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the conversations, said McConnell has told White House officials that there is little appetite in his conference for continuing an immigration fight.
McConnell has told others that any bill he could pass in the Senate would be unlikely to earn Trump’s support.
The week began with the hope of a freewheeling debate on immigration policy, but robust exchanges never materialized. Instead – as is the modern-day custom – most of the action played out behind closed doors as a self-described “Common Sense Coalition” put the finishing touches on its plans and top party leaders discussed which amendments might earn votes.
Over the course of 90 minutes Thursday, the debate ended with no breakthrough.
Senators rejected a watered-down bipartisan plan by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Christopher Coons, D-Del., to grant legal status to dreamers and provide billions of dollars to boost border security – but not immediately as Trump requested. The plan failed 52 to 47, short of the 60 votes needed.
Senators also rejected a bill by Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., to punish so-called “sanctuary” municipalities that refuse to help enforce immigration laws. That bill failed 54 to 45.
Much of the Senate’s attention was on the third option, a bipartisan plan to legalize the same number of undocumented immigrants and appropriate $25 billion for southern-border-security construction projects over the next decade – not immediately as Trump wants. That bill also would curb family-based immigration programs but not to the extent Trump is seeking, and it said nothing about the diversity visa lottery program.
The bipartisan proposal laid bare how difficult it can be for members of both parties to try striking a deal. United We Dream – a dreamer-advocacy group that works closely with Democrats – and the White House had aggressively lobbied against the measure.
The frustration of bipartisan negotiators was evident. Before the vote, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who had helped broker the deal, was heard in the well of the chamber chastising Laura Dove, the top Republican parliamentary expert, over the names of senators listed as being involved in the legislation.
The Democratic leader had not been part of writing the bill, but his name was included in official notices because of the complex rules regarding how amendments are considered.
As the two clashed, Collins brandished her cellphone to show Dove the messages proving that copies of the legislation did not include Schumer’s name.
“You’re supposed to be a fair broker,” Collins said as she walked away from Dove. “It was wrong. It was really wrong.”
The bipartisan plan failed 54 to 45.
Finally, senators rejected the Trump plan, which would have granted legal status to 1.8 million young immigrants, spent at least $25 billion to bolster security along the U.S.-Mexico border, revamped family-based legal migration programs and ended a diversity lottery system used by immigrants from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.
The vote was 39 to 60, well short of the 60 yes votes needed to move ahead. Three moderate Democrats voted for the proposal, but 14 GOP senators voted against it, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who had blasted the proposal as “to the left from President Obama’s position.”
Ahead of the votes, the White House mobilized a full-fledged effort to scuttle the bipartisan immigration plan that was emerging as the best hope for a legislative deal.
Administration officials said they strenuously lobbied individual Republican senators, as well as House leadership, to oppose the bill. The Department of Homeland Security also issued a lengthy “fact-sheet” that said the plan “destroys the ability” of the agency to enforce immigration laws and represents an “egregious violation” of the immigration framework Trump sent to Capitol Hill.
Responding to the DHS’s statement at a news conference, Graham said he thought, ” ‘Who the hell wrote this?’ Because it sounded like something that came from a political hack, not DHS.”
On a conference call, a White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss strategy, lambasted Graham, noting that he was at the center of past immigration debates that ultimately fizzled and suggesting that he has been “part of the problem.”
On Capitol Hill, attention is likely to shift to the House, which could take up the issue after next week’s Presidents’ Day recess.
A bill sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, has the backing of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus and other conservatives who want to stake out a position further to the right of the White House proposal to guard against future concessions.
The bill includes new resources for immigration enforcement away from the border; a crackdown on “sanctuary cities” – jurisdictions that do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement authorities; and a requirement that employers use “E-Verify,” a federal database, to check whether their employees are authorized to work in the United States.
“We have the bill that’s consistent with what the American people elected us to do,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a co-founder of the Freedom Caucus.
But it is not at all clear that the bill, which has no Democratic support, can win enough Republican votes to pass the House.
When Bimla Nayyar dislocated her jaw in January 2012, her family took her to a Dearborn, Michigan, hospital for what was supposed to be a routine surgery. But things went horribly awry after doctors wheeled the 81-year-old grandmother into the operating room.
At some point during their preparations, staff at Oakwood Hospital and Medical Center mixed up Nayyar’s x-ray records with another patient’s, as the hospital’s lawyers would later concede in court. Instead of operating on her jaw, surgeons bored into her skull in search of brain bleeding that wasn’t there. She died of complications related to the surgery two months later.
In 2015, a jury awarded Nayyar’s family a staggering $20 million. But Michigan’s highest court says they can’t collect a penny – all because of an apparently bad legal gamble.
In a short, sharply-worded order last week, the Michigan Supreme Court faulted the family’s lawyers for arguing that Nayyar’s death was the result of ordinary negligence, a claim that places no limits on the amount of money plaintiffs can be awarded.
An earlier ruling in the case had effectively barred the lawyers from pursuing an ordinary negligence claim, the justices wrote. Instead, they should have argued medical malpractice, under which financial awards are capped. They didn’t, so the award had to be voided, according to the order.
It was a colossal blunder, wrote Chief Justice Stephen J. Markman.
“This case involves a remarkable confluence of what appears to be both medical and legal dereliction,” he wrote, “resulting in an extraordinary miscarriage of justice.”
The order leaves in place a lower court ruling that overturned the $20 million award.
The lead attorney for Nayyar’s family, Geoffrey Fieger, pleaded with the court to restore the award, noting that the hospital had admitted negligence during the proceedings.
“This court would have to suspend all concepts of fair play, justice and truth to ignore the gross injustice that has occurred here,” Fieger and co-counsel said in a filing, according to the Associated Press. “For God’s sake, do something about it.”
But Markman said the attorneys poisoned their case when they “repeatedly asserted” during trial that the claim being litigated was ordinary negligence, even though that claim was already off the table.
“To summarize,” the justice wrote, “plaintiff now has no negligence claim and no medical malpractice claim, all despite the fact that (a) defendant-hospital openly admitted negligence, (b) a jury determined that this negligence constituted the proximate cause of plaintiff’s death, and (c) a jury awarded plaintiff a $20 million verdict.”
Oakwood’s attorneys said the family’s counsel erred by making an “all or nothing . . . bad bet” on a negligence claim, according to the Associated Press.
Fieger was not immediately available to discuss the case on Thursday.
One of Michigan’s most prominent trial attorneys, Fieger is known for taking on high-stakes, headline-grabbing lawsuits and criminal cases.
He gained national attention in the 1990s when he won acquittals for Jack Kevorkian in several doctor-assisted suicide trials, and was portrayed by actor Danny Huston in HBO’s Kevorkian biopic. More recently, he filed civil rights and wrongful death lawsuits on behalf of the family of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, a 7-year-old Detroit girl who was shot and killed during a police raid in 2010. He is also litigating a $100 million class-action case against the state on behalf of people who contracted Legionnaires’ disease during the Flint water crisis.
Fieger has made numerous national television appearances over the years to discuss his cases, and was the Democratic nominee in Michigan’s 1998 gubernatorial race – an election he lost. Last year, he told WXYZ he wanted to run against President Donald Trump in 2020.
When Bimla Nayyar’s family retained him after her death in 2012, Fieger called her case “the most shocking abuse I have ever seen” in nearly four decades of practice, according to the Detroit Free Press.
Nayyar was supposed to receive surgery to treat bilateral jaw replacement. But the family’s lawsuit alleged that hospital staff inadvertently placed her name on the medical records of a patient who needed immediate brain surgery.
In a 2015 interview with Fox 2, Fieger offered a gory description of what he said surgeons did to her.
“They drilled five holes into her skull with a drill,” he said. “They sawed the right side of her skull out of her head and poked her on her brain, realized she’s not the patient they thought that she was. And after that she couldn’t breathe on her own.”
Nayyar, who had suffered a heart attack several months earlier, never recovered from the operation. She died after spending 60 days on life support.
“She died a horrible, horrible death,” Fieger said.
Hospital officials contended at the time that they had followed the proper standard of care and that the mix-up was not the result of flawed procedures at the facility.
The family’s lawsuit initially alleged ordinary negligence, but a trial court dismissed that claim, according to the Michigan Supreme Court’s order. In turn, the family refiled the lawsuit as a medical malpractice action, and the hospital “conceded negligence so that the case proceeded to a jury only on the issues of causation of death and damages,” the order noted.
But during trial, the family’s attorneys continued to present the case as ordinary negligence in an attempt to win a judgment that was, in the high court’s words, “unmoored” from the cap on financial damages. That was the move that ultimately cost the family its $20 million award. Under Michigan law, the family could have received an award of several hundred thousand dollars if lawyers had successfully argued medical malpractice.
Nayyar left behind a husband, two daughters, a son and several grandchildren, according to the Detroit Free Press. Relatives spread her ashes in the River Ganges in India, her home country.
At the end of his order, Markman, the chief justice, signaled again that he sympathized with Nayyar’s family: “The decedent’s husband’s plaintive inquiry nonetheless resonates loudly: ‘How is [this] possible in a just and fair world . . . ?’ There is no satisfactory answer, in my judgment, only that further review of this matter might well be pursued in an appropriate action.”
NEW YORK – The Governor of Florida Rick Scott has appointed Indian American Digvijay “Danny” Gaekwad to the University of Central Florida Board of Trustees, along with announcing 11 other appointments.
Gaekwad’s term started on February 2, 2018. It will end on January 6, 2023.
Gaekwad, a businessman based in Ocala, Florida, has more than three decades of experience in setting up successful businesses.
Gaekwad has founded businesses in several fields, including convenience stores, real estate, hospitality and information technology and is the founder and CEO of the IT firm, NDS USA Information Technology as well as Danny G Management which runs a chain of restaurants and hotels across Florida.
He has also served on several boards, including Enterprise Florida, Inc., Visit Florida, Florida Chamber of Commerce, Marion County Visitor and Convention Bureau, Marion County Tourism Development Council, Marion County Planning and Zoning Commissioner, Space Florida, Independence National Bank and Taylor, Bean & Whitaker.
Gaekwad was born in Baroda, Gujarat, and graduated with a political science degree from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in India and then moved to the United States in 1987.
Gaekwad has been honored with many awards, including the Asian American Hotel Owners Association Chairman’s Award, a ‘One Million Jobs’ certificate, the Lion of the Year Award, the Leaders Leader Award and the Glorious India Chairman’s Award.
News India Times had recently reported that Gaekwad had bought the Church Street Exchange Building, along with Orlando businessman Robert Yeager of Sullivan Properties for $14.2 million.
Gaekwad lives in Ocala with his wife Manisha Gaekwad, and two sons Karan Gaekwad and Kunal Gaekwad.
NYPD Police car with flashing lights (Dreamstime.com)
NEW YORK – Neal Patel, owner of Amherst Wines & Spirits in Massachusetts, recently wrote on the Hadley Police Department’s Facebook page that he had been “pulled over quarterly for highly questionable reasons just because (I) drive a nice car,” according to a MassLive.com report.
Patel, 29, an Indian American, told MassLive.com that he drives a blue BMW, which is readily identifiable to police and thinks he has been a victim to racial profiling.
“I am a law abiding citizen born and raised in the US but a person of color who works every day and provides jobs in the local community through my small business. I have nice things because I work hard. Dont single me out because of this. I remember getting pulled over years ago and being asked by the Hadley PD if I had weapons of mass destruction in the car… WTF is that even a real question that needs to be asked in Hadley?” Patel wrote.
According to MassLive.com, Sgt. Mitchell Kuc responded publicly to Patel’s post, saying the department takes racial profiling allegations seriously and that he should email the department.
“While Mr. Patel’s comment is obviously public, we feel it would be unprofessional of us as an agency to get in to the specifics of Mr. Patel’s police interactions in a public forum,” Kuc wrote, adding that the department did “go ahead and conduct our own review of the matter to ensure legal/policy compliance, and we found that there were no indications that stops were other than for legally justified reasons. We hope that Mr. Patel does reach out to us so that we can speak with him directly of his concerns.”
Patel told MassLive.com that he has been pulled over three times in Hadley this past year and since he doesn’t want “to stir the pot,” he has not contacted Kuc because he is fearful.
Patel was fine the first two times he was pulled over but grew frustrated when he was pulled over the third time for what he told MassLive.com was a minor traffic violation, something he has not encountered in any other community.
Patel told MassLive.com that he wants the police to know that getting pulled over for no reason three times has been frustrating being “young person of color.”
According to MassLive.com, Patel was pulled over the first time for not using his signal when he was trying to avoid hitting a car in front of him and the second time for not using his signal when he said he did as well as another time for not having a front license plate.
Ankur Patel for State Assembly (Courtesy: Facebook)
NEW YORK – Ankur Patel is running for the 45th state assembly in California, according to the California State University Northridge website.
Patel, the 32-year-old LAUSD Community Coordinator, and an Indian American, who graduated from California State University Northridge with his master’s degree in 2014, has had his hands in politics for nearly a decade now as he ran for Los Angeles City Controller in 2013 and was a candidate for the LAUSD board the year after.
Although he lost both races, Patel was keen to run for the 45th state assembly.
“When I was eleven years old my father ran for Congress. While he cherished the opportunities America provided our family, he knew there was a clear imbalance between the people with power and those of us without,” Patel states on his website.
“My father didn’t win when he ran for Congress, but the experience taught me a lot. A candidate shouldn’t run for office because they believe they have a few good ideas, the backing of big dollars, or they see a political opportunity. A candidate should run for office when they believe they can represent the vision of their community,” he adds.
According to Balletopedia, Patel received his bachelor’s degree in ecology behavior and evolution from the University of California at Los Angeles and as well as his master’s degree from California State University at Northridge.
After earning his bachelor’s, Patel spent a year teaching English to young children in South Korea and then spent another six months teaching English to professionals and university students in China, according to Balletopedia.
When he studied at UCLA, Patel learned about the impact that human activities had on the local and global environment and began getting involved in environmental and political campaigns, according to his website.
“I remember being out on campus or on the street, clipboard in hand, asking people, ‘Do you have a minute for the environment?’ It was an innocent start, much like my father’s, but where beliefs turned to action was during the Aliso Canyon Gas blowout in 2015,” he states on his website.
“As the School and Community Coordinator for LAUSD Board Member Scott Schmerelson, I spent day after night listening to parents, teachers, and community members about the ongoing blowout, and the health symptoms experienced by people across the area. Students and teachers were getting sick, and for the first month not many government agencies were responding to the scale of the crisis. It was not a quick or easy task, but we relocated two schools over the winter break to ensure the safety of the faculty and students. I’m proud of the work we did to protect people and the integrity of our public schools, and I will bring that same ethic of listening and acting to the Assembly,” he adds.
If elected, along with focusing on healthcare and the environment, Patel wants to do something about education.
“One of the things that my father and my family have always emphasized is the importance of education. We need people who are going to prioritize education at the state level. CSU’s are the engine for the growth and the capacity and the building of the state of California,” Patel told California State University Northridge.
On his website Patel talks about his experience in China stating how “this experience was transformative, and gave me a direct perspective on the important work teachers do, and the requirements for student success in the classroom,” and also served as treasurer of the Northridge East Neighborhood Council, representing his community to the City of Los Angeles, while he was working on his master’s degree.
According to the Los Angeles Daily News, Patel will be running along with Justin Clark (R), Tricia Robbins Kasson (D), Jesse Gabriel (D), Daniel Brin (D), Jeff Bornstein (D), Ray Bishop (D) and former City Council member and officer Dennis Zine.
The April 3 election will determine who will replace Matt Dababneh, who resigned in December after being accused of sexual misconduct, according to the Los Angeles Daily News.
Mourners leave the funeral for Alyssa Aldaheff, 14, one of the victims of the school shooting, in North Fort Lauderdale, Florida, February 16, 2018. REUTERS/Joe Skipper
NEW YORK – There’s no respite from the grim horrors of 2017, a year which saw two of the worst mass shootings in the history of the US: 58 people killed in October at a concert in Las Vegas by Stephen Paddock, who injured almost 500 others; and a month later, came the shooting in a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, which saw 25 innocent people die, along with an unborn child, by shooter Devin Patrick Kelley.
Now, in the aftermath of the devastating murder of 17 students and adults at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, an affluent suburb about an hour northwest of Miami, by a teenager, Nikolaz Cruz, a pall of gloom has shrouded the country.
Shakespeare’s opening lines for his play Richard III, “now is the winter of our discontent”, has a different connotation in today’s unpredictable world. Obliterated are waning memories of cheerful revelers in Times Square braving a frigid winter night, only a little over a month ago – fireworks mushrooming across the dark sky in vivid colors. It’s ironical to imagine laughter and glee spreading across the world.
It’s replaced by fear of grim, evil killers coming out of nowhere to kill innocent children, create mayhem, wreak destruction, pour sadness into the lives of countless Americans, with their unhinged, devilish acts.
Gone is the relish over a burgeoning economy, winning the war against terror and ISIS – hounding those unnamed terrorists in the deserts and mountains of unheard places in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Declaring victory.
All those foolproof checkpoints and surveillance at domestic airports seem futile, puny, if, as Debby Miller, a teacher in Broward County, Florida, who writing in The Washington Post, queries: “How does a young man, who’s too young to buy a beer, buy guns?”
What good is all of that, if there is no security against domestic terrorism that rears up its menacing head all too frequently now, kills randomly almost as if keeping a weekly appointment with the devil?
Today, helpless parents, who have gone through agony over several nights to help a child ward off the dangers of flu, or another debilitating sickness, treat that child back to health, are wary to send that healthy child back to school.
If the whole meaning of ’15 minutes of fame’ has been warped to include acts of infamy and notoriety, then the developed nation status of the US is no better than places where there’s poverty, but less violence.
Like Parkland, considered the safest city in Florida in 2017, Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, was one of the safest places on Earth. An hour away from New York City, before the deadly shooting by Adam Lanza in December, 2012, which took the lives of 27 adults, including 20 children below the age of 7 and his suicide – there was only one homicide in the town in the previous 10 years. Lanza, 20, shot his mother dead too at home that morning, before he mercilessly killed those children in classrooms he himself studied in, grew up.
Today, the first funerals begin in Parkland, of Alyssa Alhadeff, 14, and Meadow Pollack, 18. The staggered funerals, like at Sandy Hook five years ago, will, no doubt, be shown on a loop on national television, detailed by the hour on websites, and in print. It will prolong the misery of a town, state, and country, which is learning it’s impossible to heal, because the wound is festering, will remain open for perpetuity.
The candlelight vigil on Thursday night at Pine Trails Park in Parkland, saw 17 plastic angel statues lit the park’s amphitheater, in place of the 17 people who died, reported the Sun Sentinel. Parents might be wishing now they had sent that statue to school that fateful day, not their child.
There are at least 239 school shootings nationwide, since Sandy Hook. In those episodes, 438 people were shot, 138 of whom were killed, according to a nonprofit Gun Violence Archive. That’s an average of 5 school shootings a month.
There’s no respite from it.
As if on cue, an 11-year-old girl, Jamie Powell, was arrested after allegedly threatening to shoot up Nova Middle School, a day after the killings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Surveillance video showed her place a note under the assistant principal’s door that read: “I will bring a gun to school to kill all of you ugly ass kids and teachers bitch. I will bring the gun Feb, 16, 18. BE prepared bitch!”
The debate is no more if guns kill people. Or people kill people. It’s the depraved mentality that has set into the conscience of many in the US, from young to old, that’s the real culprit. While politicians dilly-dally on whom to give guns to, or to not give to, or to give to all, the unfortunate truth is that right now somebody, an adult or a youngter, must be in possession of a weapon, thinking to emulate the act of a Adam Lanza or Nikolaz Cruz.
“This stuff happens, and we don’t know why,” Mia Veliz, a senior at Calvary Christian Academy in nearby Fort Lauderdale, who attended the vigil in parkland, told the Chicago Tribune. “There is nothing we can do to stop it.”
A study by the Pew Research Center revealed that 54 percent of gun owners with children under 18 living at home say they keep all of their guns locked away. The RAND Corporation, in a study estimated that more than 22 million children live in homes with a firearm.
Well, go figure, if those children know where the key to those guns are kept.
(Sujeet Rajan is Executive Editor, Parikh Worldwide Media. Email him: sujeet@newsindiatimes.com Follow him on Twitter @SujeetRajan1)
Getaway Adventures, an adventure-tour company, is offering 25 percent off its guided biking, hiking and kayaking day tours in California Wine Country through 2018. For example, the Healdsburg Sip ’n Cycle winery bike tour costs $111 per person (down from $148) and the sunset bioluminescence kayak tour along the Jenner coast costs $89 (was $119). Price includes equipment and gear, gourmet picnic lunch (depending on the trip) and bottled water. Wine-tasting fees and 6 percent tax are extra. The deal applies to groups of at least four travelers who book March 1 through 17. Info: 800-499-2453, getawayadventures.com
To bring back visitors after Hurricane Irma, the BVI Tourist Board is offering a free hotel night on the Caribbean island of Anegada, plus a transportation credit. Book three nights and receive a free fourth night at any of three participating properties: Anegada Beach Club, Four Diamonds Park Villas and Anegada Reef Hotel. Rates vary. For example, a four-night stay at Anegada Beach Club starts at $810, including taxes — a savings of $225. In addition, guests who arrive in Tortola or Virgin Gorda receive a $50 credit for a round-trip transfer by ferry or air. Book by Feb. 28 using promo code ANGW18. Stay through April 15. Info: bvitourism.com/i-love-anegada
With Briggs & Riley’s A Case for Giving program, earn a credit for a new piece of luggage, plus the warm feelings associated with doing a good deed. Return your gently used Briggs & Riley rolling bag to a participating luggage store (choose from more than 300 retailers) by Feb. 28 and receive a $100 credit toward a new bag. Or return a bag made by another manufacturer and receive a $50 credit. The program benefits more than 100 charity partners in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, local foster homes and more. Info: briggs-riley.com/a-case-for-giving-2018
Ti Kaye Resort & Spa, on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, is offering 50 percent off stays in April. A night in a ocean-view cottage, with continental breakfast, starts at $220 per couple, plus $44 taxes and fees. The 33 cottages overlook Anse Cochon beach. Book by March 31. Info: 758-456-8101, tikaye.com
Sea
MSC Cruises is offering discounts of $900 per stateroom on select Caribbean sailings aboard the new MSC Seaside. For example, eight departures from Miami in September and October start at $439 per person double, plus $108 taxes and fees. The seven-night cruise embarks on Western Caribbean and Eastern Caribbean itineraries. Book the Save & Sail promo by May 31. Info: 877-665-4655, msccruisesusa.com
Air
Primera Air is offering new nonstop service between Washington Dulles and London Stansted, with fares from $475 round trip, with taxes. The flights begin on Aug. 22 and run through Dec. 8. A checked bag, food, seat assignment and payment by any method other than direct bank transfer costs extra; one personal item weighing no more than 22 pounds is permitted. Fare on other airlines starts at about $710. Info: primeraair.com
Package
Contiki, a tour operator for travelers ages 18 to 35, has savings of up to 20 percent on select Europe trips, plus $250 airfare discounts on trips lasting nine nights or longer. For example, the 10-night European Horizon tour departing April 6 starts at $1,816 per person based on quad occupancy (Contiki will match travelers), a savings of $517. Price includes airfare from Washington to London, with return from Paris; 10 nights’ lodging in seven countries; 15 meals; motorcoach transport; trip manager; and taxes. Book by Feb. 28. Info: 866-266-8454, contiki.com
Consul General Sandeep Chakravorty speaks a the seminar.
The Association of Indians in America, NY Chapter (AIA-NY) held a Free Seminar on Tax Reform on February 6, at the Mint Restaurant in Long Island, which was attended by over 175 people including Consul General Ambassador Sandeep Chakravorty.
Since the U.S. Tax Reform was recently passed and left everybody wondering about its implications on individuals, corporations and international taxation, AIA NY Chapter wanted to bring to the Indian American Community together to inform them.
Those who spoke at the seminar included Gobind Munjal, the President of AIA NY Chapter, Cecil Nazareth Aca, an expert on national and international taxation who has addressed many seminars all over the world and Michael Markhoff, an attorney from Connecticut.
Ambassador Chakravorty described the event as “a wonderful event and it was truly rewarding.”
Munjal listed the upcoming events that AIA NY Chapter will be hosting:
Fundraiser Event for their Project India Charity Program on June 9, 2018 in Manhattan.
Benefit Gala on Sept 15, 2018 for the 31st Diwali Festival.
31st Diwali Festival Celebrations on Oct 7, 2018 at South Street Seaport in Manhattan, culminating with a spectacular display of Fireworks.
Children Diwali in Libraries around end of October 2018.
Desi Next event for the younger generation somewhere in November 2018.
The Federal Communications Commission’s internal watchdog is probing whether the agency’s chairman improperly pushed for rule changes that helped clear the way for Sinclair Broadcast Group’s proposed purchase of Tribune Media Co.’s television stations, a lawmaker said.
The role of Chairman Ajit Pai, a Republican, has drawn scrutiny in part for his meetings with Sinclair executives since the election of President Donald Trump, who selected Pai to lead the agency. Democrats have said FCC policy this year has seemed to be crafted to benefit the Maryland-based broadcaster, as he pushes to ease barriers to media consolidation.
“For months I have been trying to get to the bottom of the allegations about Chairman Pai’s relationship with Sinclair Broadcasting,” Rep. Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat who requested the probe, said in a tweet Thursday.
“I am particularly concerned about reports that Chairman Pai may have coordinated with Sinclair to time a series of commission actions to benefit the company,” Pallone said. “I am grateful to the FCC’s inspector general that he has decided to take up this important investigation.”
The inspector general, David Hunt, in a December meeting with congressional staff, confirmed that he was investigating questions lawmakers had raised, said a person who spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the probe are private.
Pallone, of New Jersey, and Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat, in a Nov. 13 letter said Pai’s regulatory moves “when taken in context with reported meetings between the Trump Administration, Sinclair, and Chairman Pai’s office — have raised serious concerns.”
Sinclair has proposed buying 42 Tribune stations in 33 markets in a $3.9 billion deal that would give the conservative-leaning broadcaster a presence in major markets including New York and Chicago. The merger proposed in May is being reviewed by the FCC and the Justice Department.
The investigation shouldn’t derail or slow the agency’s review of its acquisition of Tribune, Bloomberg Intelligence Analyst Matthew Schettenhelm said in a note Thursday.
“It’s doubtful the review will lead to a public report in the short term that would move the FCC’s three Republicans to block the deal,” Schettenhelm said. The agency is waiting for Sinclair to propose divestitures that could resolve concerns about whether the enlarged company would exceed ownership caps, he said.
Brian Hart, an FCC spokesman, declined to comment. Hunt, the inspector general, didn’t immediately return an emailed query. Rebecca Hanson, a Sinclair spokeswoman, declined to comment.
The Free Press policy group that opposes media consolidation called for Pai to recuse himself from deliberations on the merger. Pai’s absence would leave merger approval to be decided by the agency’s remaining members — two Republicans and two Democrats — raising the prospect of a deadlock, and lack of approval.
The first cohort of students selected for Stanford’s new Knight-Hennessy Scholars, includes 5 youth of Indian origin from United States and India. They are among 49 students from 20 countries pursuing degrees in 28 Stanford graduate departments.
According to the website, Knight-Hennessy Scholars “develops a community of future global leaders to address complex challenges through collaboration and innovation.”
Starting this year, up to 100 high-achieving students from around the world will receive full funding to pursue any graduate degree at Stanford, including the JD, MA, MBA, MD, MFA, MS, and PhD programs, as well as all joint- and dual-degrees. Knight-Hennessy Scholars is the largest fully endowed scholars program in the world.
The Indian-origin scholars for this year include two Indian-Americans and three Indian citizens. The achievements of each scholars and their plans for the future, are available on the Knight-Hennessy website. (All photos are from the Knight-Hennessy website)
Nitisha Baronia
Nitisha Baronia of San Ramon, California, will be pursuing a JD at Stanford Law School. Baronia graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with bachelor’s degrees in political science and business administration, earning highest honors and the Haas Business School Department Citation. Currently she is researching gender-based violence for the United Nations High Commisioner for Refugees in Mexico and Guatemala. She has also worked at the American Civil Liberties Union as an intake coordinator. At UC Berkeley, she was editor-in-chief of the Berkeley Political Review, served as UC Berkeley’s 2016 Travers Scholar, was named a Regents’ and Chancellor’s Scholar, and received the European Union Ambassadors Conference Prize, and American Foreign Service Association Award.
Aadith Moorthy
Aadith Moorthy from Palm Harbor, Florida, will be doing a PhD in materials science and engineering at Stanford School of Engineering. At the California Institute of Technology, he is a double major in materials science and computer science. Moorthy wants to become a university professor researching basic materials science that could efficiently translate into products to solve humanity’s materials shortcomings. He is also the founder and CEO of ConserWater Technologies, an artificial intelligence start-up helping farmers conserve water by using NASA satellite data, weather data, and geospatial deep learning techniques to predict irrigation water needs. He has been named a Barry Goldwater Scholar, a Henry Ford II Scholar, and an American Society of Metals Scholar. He also performs regularly as a professional South Indian Classical (Carnatic) vocalist.
Anoma Bhat
Anoma Bhat is from New Delhi, and was raised in China, Singapore, Vietnam, and the U.S. She will pursue a master’s degree in international policy studies at Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences. She graduated magna cum laude from Claremont McKenna College with a bachelor’s degree in religious studies and a gender studies minor. She is proficient in several languages, including Arabic, Hindi, Spanish, and Urdu, and aspires to work in the non-profit and public sectors as a leader in international aid policy. As a program officer in the Civil Society and Peacebuilding department of FHI 360, Anoma coordinated peacebuilding workshops for USAID in Morocco, managed research trips to Morocco, El Salvador, and Jordan, and worked on proposals to implement USAID projects in Nepal, Mali, and Djibouti. She also spent six months in Jordan on the U.S. government’s Boren Scholarship, studying Arabic and working with Iraqi and Syrian refugees.
Suhani Jalota
Suhani Jalota, from Mumbai, plans to earn a PhD in health policy at Stanford School of Medicine. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics and global health from Duke University, North Carolina, where she was a Baldwin Scholar and a Melissa & Doug Entrepreneurship fellow. She aspires to become a social health entrepreneur, creating self-sustaining health-related organizations managed entirely by the low-income communities for which they exist. She worked as an associate at IDinsight in the Philippines, and interned at the Naandi Foundation in India, Dalberg Global Development Advisors in India, and Economic Policy Research Institute in South Africa. As an entrepreneur, she is the founder and CEO of the Myna Mahila Foundation in Mumbai, which produces affordable menstrual hygiene products. She received the Queen’s Young Leader award from Queen Elizabeth II, was selected as the grand prize winner of Glamour magazine’s College Women of the Year, and won a Woman Center Global Impact Award.
Aditya Vishwanath
Aditya Vishwanath of Chennai, will be pursuing a PhD in learning sciences and technology design at Stanford Graduate School of Education. He is a senior at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), earning a bachelor’s degree in computer science. His desire is to have a career designing and building educational technology for use in underserved communities around the world. As the founder and CEO of inspirit Consulting, a design firm focused on the instructional value of virtual reality, he has worked on projects in the U.S. and India. He has also collaborated on a study with Google, exploring strategies to integrate low-cost virtual reality toolkits into a Mumbai school’s curriculum, and raised seed funding for OrchestrAI, a machine learning music startup. At Georgia Tech, he received the College of Computing Outstanding Junior award, and is a three-time recipient of the President’s Undergraduate Research award.
FILE PHOTO: The display model of a AM-RB 001 ahead of the 2017 Canadian International Autoshow where Aston Martin and Red Bull Racing reveal the $3 million Aston Martin AM-RB 001 hypercar in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, February 15, 2017. REUTERS/Peter Power
Kris Singh’s Aston Martin Valkyrie, the most anticipated and upcoming hypercar, will have Moon Dust embedded into its paint, according to a report from The Drive.
Developed with the help of companies like Red Bull Racing and Michelin, the Valkyrie is inspired by Formula One cars and will be tailored to each customer’s needs.
According to The Drive, Instagram user Lamborghiniks has bought a genuine moon rock, which he will ground up and embed in the Karosserie Lunar Red exterior paint for Singh’s Valkyrie. Si
Singh told The Drive that he got the idea from Miles Nurnberger, the creative director of exterior design at Aston Martin, who mentioned that the upcoming hypercar reminded him of a spaceship.
Singh did not mention how much the paint job will be worth.
According to The Drive, Singh is very much well-known in the car community for his impressive collection of rare hypercars as he already has five of them; three ultra-rare Paganis, a Koenigsegg Agera XS and a Lamborghini Venenos.
Though Singh’s Valkyrie might not be ready yet, the car itself is nearing production form as Aston Martin plans to build 150 of them at 25 track-ready AMR Pros, with 1,130-horsepower and a near 1-1 power-to-weight ratio.
The Drive said that they “won’t be surprised if the Valkyrie has the chops to dethrone the mighty Koenigsegg Agera RS.”
