One week after a gunman’s deadly rampage at a Florida high school, students across the country walked out of their schools Wednesday, amid a mounting call for action.

“The gun laws in this country are broken,” Connor Hartweg, a high school senior who took part in a demonstration in Illinois, told the Pioneer Press. “We really need to update today’s laws. Our government isn’t doing that. If we can’t lean on them to do it, then we’ve got to be that change.”

The demonstrations came in the wake of last week’s massacre in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 people were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine’s Day. Following the mass shooting, grieving students have garnered national attention as they organized and spoke out about stronger gun control laws.

In Florida, about 100 students from Stoneman Douglas High traveled by bus to the state Capitol in Tallahassee bearing homemade signs and messages for state lawmakers, arriving late Tuesday, according to the Miami Herald.

Some students arrived in time to watch lawmakers vote against a bill that would ban assault-style rifles, similar to the one used in last week’s shooting. Some students broke down in tears as the votes were tallied.

Wednesday, they arose and rallied on a hill near the Capitol and set out to meet with 75 lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, the Herald reported.

Before the shooting, “My main concerns were my grades, college acceptance and my social life,” said Delaney Tarr, according to ABC News. “Now, I’m a high school senior worried about which memorial I need to place flowers at. Now, I’m focused on what clothes I can wear so I can run away from gunfire.”

In Pennsylvania, students left the Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Performing Arts for a noontime protest, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. During Wednesday’s demonstration, students locked arms and remained silent for 17 minutes, the newspaper reported.

“Our goal was to show the students in Florida that we care about them, all the way in Pittsburgh,” an organizer of the effort, 18-year-old Nia Arrington, told the Post-Gazette.

In Illinois, several hundred students took part in a protest at Oak Park and River Forest High School on Wednesday, according to Karin Sullivan, a spokeswoman. The students marched as police blocked traffic, and administrators and security staff members accompanied them, Sullivan said in an update sent to families.

“The kids were orderly and peaceful,” Sullivan wrote. “They were out of the building for about a half hour and proceeded to class when they returned. Students at the back of the march were probably a bit late to sixth period, but we didn’t issue tardy passes. As one of the admins walking on the route, I was really impressed with how our students conducted themselves.”

School officials were aware of the student demonstration in advance. In a message sent to faculty and staff, principal Nathaniel Rouse said the goal wasn’t to stop the protest, but rather to make sure students were kept safe.

“If students in your classes walk out, please allow them to exit peacefully,” Rouse wrote. “Administrators and security staff will be monitoring hallways, exits and the outside of the campus to ensure that students remain safe and peaceful.”

The Post-Bulletin, a newspaper in Rochester, Minnesota, reported that high school students there walked out at noon Wednesday. One student, a senior, held a sign that read: “It could have been us,” the Post-Bulletin reported. And according to MLive.com, students in Ann Arbor, Michigan, also briefly left their high school classrooms Wednesday afternoon.

“School shootings have always been something that really bothered me because it’s stupid,” Izzy Yates, a 15-year-old student protester, told MLive.com. “It could have been our school, and I just don’t want that to happen.”

The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that students walked out of Simon Kenton High School, in Kentucky, chanting, “Never again, never again.” Hundreds of students also walked out of Austin-area schools, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

“We are going to make a difference,” Simon Kenton High School junior Katelyn Neuhaus said Wednesday, according to the Enquirer. “Kids are not going to die.”

“We are not a number” chanted the students at Simon Kenton High School.

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WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump pushed his call to arm teachers following last week’s school massacre in Florida, saying on Thursday it would be limited to those with military or special training but “would solve the problem instantly.”

He raised the idea on Wednesday, drawing a mixed reaction in a country where the right to bear arms is constitutionally protected and there are fierce divisions on how to curb mass shootings and everyday gun violence.

The Feb. 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in which 17 students and staff members were killed, was the second-deadliest shooting at a U.S. public school and has spurred unprecedented youth-led protests. Teenagers and their parents marched in rallies in cities across the country and staged classroom walkouts on Wednesday to push for gun control.

Trump, a Republican who has backed gun rights and who has in turn been supported by the National Rifle Association, raised the idea of arming teachers during an emotional, hour-long discussion on Wednesday with people affected by school shootings. The gathering included students who survived the Florida attack and a parent whose child did not.

Trump’s comments at the meeting and in tweets on Thursday showed him seeking a balance between satisfying those who have urged him to press for some gun curbs, and not alienating the powerful NRA gun lobby.

In one of a series of Twitter posts on Thursday he praised the NRA’s leadership and others working at the organization as “Great People and Great American Patriots. They love our Country and will do the right thing.”

The notion of arming teachers at U.S. public schools, which are largely governed by states, local councils and school boards, has been raised by some politicians in the past but has been dismissed by many critics as fraught with danger.

“Highly trained, gun adept, teachers/coaches would solve the problem instantly, before police arrive. GREAT DETERRENT!” Trump tweeted on Thursday.

When he raised the prospect at Wednesday’s meeting at the White House, some people expressed support while others in the room opposed the proposal.

Mark Barden, whose son was killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut, told Trump that his wife, Jackie, a teacher, would say “school teachers have more than enough responsibilities right now than to have to have the awesome responsibility of lethal force to take a life.”

Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who has long opposed gun control measures, and a teacher who had protected more than 60 people in her classroom in the Florida massacre questioned the notion of armed teachers during a CNN discussion program on Wednesday evening.

Trump also reiterated on Thursday he would advocate for tightening background checks for gun buyers, with an emphasis on mental health, and lifting the age limit to buy some kinds of guns.

A 19-year-old former student at Stoneman Douglas, Nikolas Cruz, has been charged with carrying out the shooting in Parkland, Florida. Authorities say he was armed with a semiautomatic AR-15 assault-style rifle that he had purchased legally last year.

Trump also stressed again on Thursday that he would push for an end to the sale on bump stocks, which allow rifles to shoot hundreds of rounds a minute and which were used during another massacre in Las Vegas last year. Such devices were not used in the Florida shooting.

While gun laws vary widely from state to state, most federal gun control measures would require the Republican-controlled Congress to act. Trump suggested on Thursday he wanted some action, tweeting, “Congress is in a mood to finally do something on this issue – I hope!”

The president was due to have a meeting on school safety with 10 state and local officials on Thursday.

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JAIPUR – A narrow street here lined with vegetable, jewellery shops and a few bikes parked on both sides served as one of the sets of Indian-origin British actor Dev Patel-starrer “The Wedding Guest”.

Patel, who rose to fame with Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire” in 2008, was spotted here on Thursday shooting for the Michael Winterbottom’s directorial in a pair of blue jeans, grey shirt with rolled up sleeves and brown shoes.

In one of the images captured by IANS, he is smiling and interacting with a crew member.

Patel was also caught by the camera lens giving an intense look and raising his left hand with the right one holding on to his black and grey backpack and walking on a busy street of the Pink City.

Like at any another film’s location, some of the locals stepped out to check out the shooting as the cameras rolled.

The film’s team, including Indian actress Radhika Apte, started shooting for the movie earlier this month here.

Patel had earlier visited India for his Hollywood projects — “Slumdog Millionaire”, “Lion” and “Hotel Mumbai”.

Earlier in an interview to IANS, he had said that he wanted the world to “embrace stories from India”.

Patel started his journey as an actor by essaying a Muslim teenager Anwar in American TV show “Skins”, after which he bagged the role of Jamal Malik in the Oscar-winning film “Slumdog Millionaire”. He also played Sonny Kapoor in “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”, Saroo Brierley in “Lion” and Arjun in “Hotel Mumbai”.

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NEW DELHI – The practice of illegally issuing Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) and Foreign Letter of Credit (FLCs) and then rolling them over to favour Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi groups started in 2008 and continued till these were discovered in January this year, according to CBI officials.

The illicit activities resulting in fraud of Rs 11,300 crore occurred under the nose of top Punjab National Bank officials but they claimed to be unaware of the scam.

The revelation came to the fore during questioning by CBI officials of Rajesh Jindal, who was holding the charge of Mumbai-based PNB’s Brady House Branch between August 2009 and May 2011, Gokul Nath Shetty, a retired Deputy Manager from the same branch who retired in May 2017, Bechu B. Tiwari (Chief Manager, in charge of Forex Department), Yashwant Joshi (Scale II manager of Forex Department) and Prafful Sawant (Scale I officer, export).

The officials said they merely continued with the practice that started in 2008. It was not immediately clear who was in charge of the Forex Department when the illegal practice began.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials said the alleged multi-crore fraud by issuing LOUs and FLCs for sanction of loan to diamantaire Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi’s group of firms continued during Jindal’s tenure.

Jindal, posted as GM Credit at PNB’s Head Office in New Delhi, was heading the second largest branch of the bank when the practice of issuing the LoUs without sanctioned limits continued.

Arrested on Tuesday night after his day-long questioning in Mumbai, he was the 12th accused to be held in the case so far. The CBI investigators had managed to get his custody till March 5 from the special CBI court on Wednesday.

Tiwari, Joshi and Sawant were also arrested on Monday for their alleged role in the scam and will remain in police custody till March 3.

All five PNB officials arrested so far were part of the forex department at the bank’s Brady House branch at the time of the fraud, said officials, adding these employees, in collaboration with the staff and associates of the firms headed by Nirav Modi and Choksi, committed wrongdoings for personal gains.

The first FIR in the scam registered on January 31 alleged that Shetty and a single window operator Manoj Kharat, during their forex department posting, fraudulently issued eight LoUs (which are a form of bank guarantee) equivalent to Rs 280 crore on February 9, 10 and 14, 2017, favouring the Nirav Modi companies to Allahabad Bank, Hong Kong, and Axis Bank, without following prescribed procedure.

It added that the funds raised for import bills were not utilised for such purposes in many cases.

PNB’s employee Tiwari, in his capacity as Chief Manager, was to monitor Shetty’s transactions. However, Tiwari told the interrogators that during 2015-17, he did not monitor the fraudulent and illegal LoUs issued by Shetty.

An offcial close to the investigation said that Tiwari issued three circulars on February 19, 2016, February 7 and March 14, 2017, purportedly for the sake of keeping a check on the LoUs sent through the SWIFT code of the PNB’s Brady House Branch without any name.

However, he neither followed it up nor took any steps to see why his instructions were not followed by Shetty, Joshi or Sawant.

“Tiwar’s deliberate acts of omissions led to the continuance of concealment and large scale liabilities of PNB to the foreign banks,” said the official.

The CBI filed the first FIR against Diamond R Us, Solar Exports and Stellar Diamond whose partners have been named as Nirav Modi, his brother Nishal, uncle Mehul Choksi and wife Ami– who left the country earlier in early January.

The second FIR was filed on February 15 for an amount of Rs 4,886.72 crore against the Gitanjali group headed by Choksi.

CBI officials said details of additional amounts (of around Rs 6,400 crore) would be added to the first FIR.

The second FIR also names 11 directors of the three Cholksi owned Gitanjali group companies– Gitanjali Gems Ltd, Gili India Ltd and Nakshatra Brands Ltd.

The PNB fraud came to light on January 16 when officials of Nirav Modi companies approached the bank for buyers’ credit without collateral saying they had been getting such facility for years. The bank said that the official who had earlier allowed such illegal facility through LoUs and FLCs had retired by then, and on checking by officials, the whole fraud unravelled.

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NEW DELHI – With questions raised over his silence so far ever since Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s arrival in India on Saturday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday evening welcomed him on his visit and said that he looked forward to meeting him on Friday.

“I look forward to meeting PM @JustinTrudeau tomorrow and holding talks on further strengthening India-Canada relations in all spheres,” Modi tweeted.

“I appreciate his deep commitment to ties between our two countries,” he said.

In a separate tweet, Modi said that he hoped Trudeau had an enjoyable visit to India so far and that he particularly looked forward to meeting Trudeau’s three children Xavier, Ella-Grace and Hadrien.

He also posted a picture of him along with Trudeau and Ella-Grace during his visit to Canada in April 2015.

Modi’s comments came even as a row broke out about an invitation being extended to convicted Khalistan separatist Jaspal Atwal by the Canadian High Commission here for a reception on Thursday night in honour of the visiting dignitary.

The High Commission has since rescinded the invitation and the Indian External Affairs Ministry has said that it is being ascertained how India issued a visa to Atwal.

In 1987, Atwal and three others were found guilty of the attempted assassination of a Punjab state minister who was on a visit to Canada the previous year and were sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The incident was the latest to happen amid wide speculation of Modi and his government cold-shouldering Trudeau during his eight-day state visit to India that started on February 17. The visiting dignitary and his family have since visited Agra, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Amritsar.

While Modi did not accompany Trudeau to Ahmedabad, a meeting with Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh at Amritsar on Wednesday was organised only at the last moment.

Ties between New Delhi and Ottawa have been frosty in recent times as Canada is being seen as offering a platform to separatists demanding an independent Khalistan.

The visit of Trudeau, who assumed office in November 2015, comes after the visit of Modi to Canada in April that year.

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NEW DELHI – In response to a query by a U.S. senator, the U.S. embassy in New Delhi said Thursday that its staff did not advise or assist Donald Trump Jr. on a foreign policy address he is set to give Friday while on a private business trip to India.

The embassy was responding to questions about a letter released Wednesday by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., to the U.S. ambassador in India raising concerns about the embassy’s engagement with Trump Jr., who is in India for the week to promote various Trump real estate projects around the country – a trip that has already netted $15 million in sales on Monday alone, according to one of his local partners.

The embassy only provided routine support to his Secret Service detail, it said.

The president’s eldest son is set to give a foreign policy speech at a global business summit in New Delhi on Friday titled “Reshaping Indo-Pacific Ties: The New Era of Cooperation” alongside India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, and other high-ranking Indian government officials.

“I am concerned that Mr. Trump’s speech will send the mistaken message that he is speaking on behalf of the president, the administration or the United States government, not as a private individual, or that he is communicating official American policy,” Menendez, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote.

“Given the potential to confuse Mr. Trump’s private business visit with having an official governmental purpose, I write to ensure that the U.S. Embassy presence in India will have no role in supporting Mr. Trump or the Trump Organization during his time in India, other than that necessary to provide any security support for the U.S. Secret Service,” Menendez wrote.

A spokesman for U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Juster said that Trump is visiting the country as a “private citizen” and that the embassy had only provided routine support for his Secret Service detail, such as booking hotel rooms.

Juster is in the process of replying to the letter from Menendez, who had asked a series of questions including whether embassy staff had briefed or assisted Trump, what steps the embassy had taken to make it clear that Trump is not speaking on behalf of the government and whether the State Department or Bureau of Diplomatic Security had spent any funds on Trump’s trip.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Tuesday that Trump was in India as a “private citizen” and that she was not familiar with what was going to be in the speech or how it was put together.

The president’s eldest son, 40, is executive vice president of the Trump Organization, the global family real estate business that President Donald Trump still controls. The company has licensed its name to five real estate projects in India, including residential towers in Pune, Mumbai, Gurgaon and Kolkata and a proposed office tower also in Gurgaon, a suburb of India’s capital also known as Gurugram. Some of the Trump Organization’s local business partners have ties to prominent politicians and have been involved in tax and other investigations.

Unlike his sister and brother-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, Trump Jr. has no official role in the administration, although he attended a meeting with a group of Russians at Trump Tower during the 2016 presidential campaign that is the subject of law enforcement and congressional scrutiny.

He has been spending the week in a variety of private lunches and dinners with potential buyers and local business leaders as well as enticing buyers to purchase residences in the latest Trump Towers project in Gurgaon, where luxury flats sell for as much as $1.6 million. Full-page glossy advertisements urged buyers paying a booking fee of about $38,000 by Thursday to “join Mr. Donald Trump Jr. for a conversation and dinner” on Friday. Kalpesh Mehta, one of the local developers, told reporters that they had already sold more than $100 million worth of real estate in the towers – $15 million alone on Monday, after the Trump Jr. dinner offer appeared in newspapers.

The buyers’ dinner has raised conflict-of-interest concerns and charges by watchdog groups. Menendez asked whether the embassy will have any role in this event.

The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to emails and calls requesting comment, but Trump said in a televised interview at the CNBC affiliate in India that his family had not been given enough credit for the business they have lost because of self-imposed restrictions to avoid such perceptions of conflicts of interest.

“It’s sort of a shame. Because we put on all these impositions on ourselves and essentially got no credit for actually doing that,” Trump said in the interview. “For doing the right thing,” he added.

Critics on Capitol Hill and elsewhere have pointed out that Secret Service agents assigned to protect the Trump sons accompany them on these private business trips to promote the family’s brand name, racking up costly hotel bills and draining the agency’s budget.

In 2017, for example, Eric Trump’s business trip to Uruguay cost taxpayers $97,830 for hotel stays for the Secret Service plus embassy staff that supported the agents during the “VIP visit,” according to purchasing orders reviewed by The Washington Post.

Catherine Milhoan, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said in an email: “As a matter of practice, the U.S. Secret Service does not comment on the specifics of protectees’ trips.”

Published U.S. government rates for hotel rooms in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune and Kolkata, the cities Trump is visiting, range from a maximum of $273 per night in Pune to $309 in Mumbai.

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NEW YORK – The 36th Annual Convention & Scientific Assembly of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) will be held at Columbus Convention Center, Columbus, Ohio, July 4-8, 2018.

“The 2018 AAPI Convention offers a rare platform to interact with leading physicians, health professionals, academicians, and scientists of Indian origin,” Dr. Gautam Samadder, President of AAPI, said, in a statement.

Ambassador Nikki Haley, US Ambassador to the United Nations, and Ambassador Navtej Singh Sarna, India’s Ambassador to the US, have agreed to attend the AAPI convention and address the delegates, Dr. Samadder announced.

AAPI’s mission is to provide a forum to facilitate and enable Indian American physicians to excel in patient care, teaching and research, and to pursue their aspirations in professional and community affairs. For 36 years, the AAPI Convention has provided a venue for medical education programs and symposia with world renowned physicians on the cutting edge of medicine, according to a press release.

The annual convention this year is being organized by the Ohio Chapter and is led by Convention Chair, Dr. John A. Johnson, a physician, business executive, private equity/venture capital investor, and philanthropist.

“We have been working hard to put together an attractive program for our annual get together, educational activity and family enjoyment,” Dr. Johnson said.

The 2018 AAPI Annual Convention & Scientific Assembly offers an exciting venue to interact with leading physicians, health professionals, academicians, and scientists of Indian origin. Physicians and healthcare professionals from across the country will convene and participate in the scholarly exchange of medical advances, to develop health policy agendas, and to encourage legislative priorities in the coming year.

The AAPI convention will also offer 8-12 hours of CME credits. Scientific presentations, exhibits, and product theater presentations will highlight the newest advances in patient care, medical technology, and practice management issues across multiple medical specialties.

“AAPI members represent a variety of important medical specialties. Sponsors will be able to take advantage of the many sponsorship packages at the 34th annual convention, creating high-powered exposure to the highly coveted demographic of AAPI’s membership,” Dr. Naresh Parikh, President-Elect, said.

“The preliminary program is in place, the major attractions include 12 hours of cutting-edge CME with renowned speakers, CEO Forum, Innovation Forum, Entrepreneur Forum, Women’s Forum, Men’s Forum, and Product Theaters to highlight the newest advances in patient care and medical  technology. Alumni meetings for networking, also an AAPI-India Strategic Engagement Forum to showcase the AAPI initiatives in India like Trauma Brain Injury Guidelines, MoU on TB Eradication in India and recognition of AAPI Award winners will make this Convention unique,” Dr. Ashok Jain, Chair, Board of Trustees, said.

“Many of the physicians who will attend this convention have excelled in different specialties and subspecialties and occupy high positions as faculty members of medical schools, heads of departments, and executives of hospital staff. The AAPI Convention offers an opportunity to meet directly with these physicians who are leaders in their fields and play an integral part in the decision-making process regarding new products and services,” Dr. Yashwant Reddy, Treasurer of AAPI Convention 2018, said.

In addition to the exhibition hall featuring large exhibit booth spaces in which the healthcare industry will have the opportunity to engage, inform and educate the physicians directly through one on one, hands on product demonstrations and discussions, there will be focused group and specialty Product Theater, Interactive Medical Device Trade Show, and special exhibition area for new innovations by young physicians.

Representing the interests of the over 100,000 physicians of Indian origin, leaders of American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI), the largest ethnic organization of physicians, for 36 years, AAPI Convention has provided a venue for medical education programs and symposia with world renowned physicians on the cutting edge of medicine.

AAPI is an umbrella organization which has nearly 90 local chapters, specialty societies and alumni organizations. Almost 10%-12% of medical students entering US schools are of Indian origin. AAPI represents the interests of over 60,000 physicians and 25,000medical students and residents of Indian heritage in the United States.

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One of the most joyful festivals in the Hindu calendar has become a popular gathering place for Americans of all ethnicities around the country over the last several years. And it stretches for several months through the year, becoming also a business proposition for enterprising individuals and companies.

Holi is such a unique Hindu festival and it has such a powerful message of one-ness, and the victory of good over evil — in the story of the purity of the boy Prahlad, and the burning of Holika, says Suhag Shukla, founder and executive director of Hindu American Foundation.

Around the country, not only do Indian-Americans celebrate Holi through their many community organizations and temples, but with its attractive people-friendly image, the festival has brought businesses eager to hold  events that require an entrance fee.

“I’m busy right now helping organize three Holi-related festivals in New Jersey,” says Ved Chaudhary, founder of Educators Society for Heritage of India – March 18th is Vasant Mahotsav or the Hindu New Year; then his Hindi teaching school has a celebration on April 21, followed one week later on April 28, by Phaag, or color play at another event. “Diwali came early this year (March 1) so it’s hard to hold the playful events out in the cold, which is why it is delayed,” Chaudhary explains.

Barsana Dham, on Barsana Road in Austin, Texas, one of the largest temples in this country, began celebrating Holi in the 1990s. Named after Lord Krishna’s closest, most loving devotee, Radha, it celebrates Holi with the abandon that it was meant to signify — that combination of playfulness along with spirituality. Named after Radha’s birthplace in India, the temple in Austin even sports peacocks strutting around the compound.

“Here in America, at Radha Madhav Dham, Holi is played in the same style as it is in Braj district of India – with the same colorful, playful, family-filled fun and devotion,” says the temple about its scheduled March 3 event. “Each spring the Austin Community looks forward to this joyous celebration of Holi, the festival of colors,” it adds.

Community organizations and temples in Florida, Texas and California are able to celebrate Holi closer to the real date because the weather becomes bearably warm.

There was a time when Holi was not as ubiquitous as it has become now where in almost every university with an Indian students association, Holi has become part of the annual calendar. Shukla and Chaudhary pointed to growing second generation interest and participation in the festival.

But there was a time when even Indians who lived here did not know the dates, because they were not only few and far between, but also did not call their families as often as social media enables them today.

This is the 22nd year that Sri Sri Radha Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork, Utah, is going to be celebrating Holi March 24 and 25, perhaps the largest and among the oldest mainstream-type of celebrations of the festival. Close to 30,000 people attend  over the two days, Charu, the manager of the festival, told News India Times. It started in a modest way in 1998, and the rest is history, he says, but also because the temple changed the way it is celebrated.

“We treat it in our innovative way. We made a few changes so it would arc over to a Western audience,” he said. “That includes 1. introducing the “throw” when people have a countdown from 10 to 1, and throw gulal; 2. we invite everybody en masse to one area, like a concert; and 3. we do have a bit of Bollywood, but only 20 percent. The rest is high-energy kirtan and dance – sort of like a rave with with kirtan. And no drugs or alcohol allowed,” Charu detailed. Many DJs participate and dance beats rule.

Showing appreciation for the festival and sharing a culture is a positive thing, says Shukla, though she worries Holi, like yoga, is being appropriated without acknowledging its Hindu roots.

“Our celebration (of Holi) increases the meaning of intimacy of relationships rather than things. The day is dedicated to loving people. And it all comes from Krishna, from God,” says Charu. It also signifies that “Spiritual life is not sour and dour, but rather – full of life. We introduce the spirit of Krishna with yogurt fights, peacocks … . It’s an antidote to the divisiveness in America today,” Charu adds.

Considered one of the most multicultural cities in the world, the Big Apple almost routinely holds numerous celebrations. Apart from numerous community events in the tri-state area, and including Pennsylvania, one has paid events. For example, on March 11 and 17, In New York City, “Holi In The City” will be held on West 48th Street in Manhattan. One has to pay more than $30, to attend it. There’s another one on March 31. And NYCholi.com is holding its extravaganza May 18, at Governor’s Island, on New York Harbor.  The organizers say that, “With its universal inclusivity and the message of love, Holi has become a widespread phenomenon across the world,” words that Indian-Americans echo.

The breadth of its spread is evident from a calendar on nycholi.com — Riverside, California on March 3; Los Angeles — March 10 and 11; Spanish Fork, Utah– March 24 and 25; Las Vegas- April 14; San Francisco Valley – April 28; Oceanside – May 12; Ogden, Utah – May 26; Salt Lake City, Utah- June 9; and way later on Oct. 6 in Reno, Nevada.

Since Holi is falling on a cold March 1 and even otherwise at a colder time of the year, Indian-Americans sometimes pick a day in Summer to celebrate it. “When we lived in Minnesota, we would pick a date in May,” recalls Shukla.

“Holi (and Diwali) are festivals that will only grow in this country,” according to Chaudhary, and more than Diwali, Holi is becoming a community event not restricted to the community.

“Now our children bring their friends to celebrate,” and second generation youth have taken up organizing, say Chaudhary and Shukla. “Holi is becoming a popular event where the general public participates in the fun and frolic – an Indian version of the Mardi Gras – and Americans of every color love that,” Chaudhary said.

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NYC Council Member Daniel Dromm celebrated the Tibetan New Year called Losar (= at the United Sherpa Association in Elmhurst, Queens on Thursday, Feb. 22, according to a press release.

The Tibetan Buddhist festival is celebrated on the first day of the Tibetan calendar, which corresponds to a date in either February or March in the Gregorian calendar.

Losar is celebrated for 15 days with the main celebrations occurring within the first three days.

Families prepare for Losar several days in advance by cleaning and decorating their homes with fragrant flowers and signs painted in flour.

They also prepare cedar, rhododendron, and juniper branches for burning as incense.

During this time of preparation, families settle their debts and put an end to interpersonal conflict.

In addition, they purchase new clothes for the celebration and make special food such as kapse (fried twists) and chang (barley beer).

It is customary to craft a sheep’s head from colored butter as a decoration, because the words “sheep’s head” and “beginning of the year” sound similar in Tibetan.

“It is a pleasure to celebrate Losar with the United Sherpa Association. It is an honor to participate in such a noble ancient tradition with my Tibetan constituents and their families.  I wish them all a peaceful and prosperous Year of the Dog,” said Dromm.

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NEW YORK – Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan graced the first ever Magic Bus Gala in New Jersey on February 15, which attracted about 400 members of the Indian American community and raised almost $300,000.

According to a press release, Magic Bus is an award winning, non-profit organization that reaches nearly 400,000 marginalized children across 22 states in India and provides essential life-skills training, learning enhancement programs, counseling, workforce readiness training and job placement to help children and youth take control of their future and move out of poverty.

The main purpose of Magic Bus though, is to leverage the love of play in children to instill key messages about education, gender equality, mentorship and leadership by partnering with parents, local community, schools and training partners to build an ecosystem of collaboration and a positive environment to encourage children to attain their education and job-related goals, according to a press release.

“In India where 30 percent of all girls get married under the legal age, one of the key impacts that Magic Bus delivers is that 99 percent of all girls in Magic Bus programs are able to avoid child marriage and its negative consequences. Magic Bus programs show extremely positive impact in areas relating to school participation, adolescent girls in secondary school, youth in college, and youth in formal sector employment,” the release stated.

Utkarsha Mahadeshwar, a 17-year old girl from Dharavi, Mumbai who has been in Magic Bus programs since she was 8, was also present at the gala and spoke about growing up in Asia’s largest slum as well as her journey with Magic Bus.

Along with a welcome address by Amit Bhandari, the head of BioUrja Trading, a global energy and agricultural commodities and trading supply group and the chairman of Magic Bus USA, a special performance was given by Chintan Bakiwala, the winner of the TV show K for Kishore.

Other speakers included the founder of Magic Bus Matthew Spacie, the director of International Programs Geetanjali Singh and the president of Magic Bus Harvard Chapter Neeraj Salhotra.

The New Jersey gala was hosted by Padma Shri Sudhir Parikh, founder and chairman of Parikh Worldwide Media, Padma Shri H.R. Shah of TV Asia, Srujal Parikh, president of FIA NJ-NY-CT, Albert Jasani, Jignesh Pandya, Mani Kamboj, Parag Amin, Vikram Uppal and Jayesh Patel.

According to Bhandari, the fourth Annual Magic Bus Gala was held in Houston on Feb. 10, where they raised $1 million.

Magic Bus is supported by several corporations including Mondelez International, Tata Trusts, Google, Vodafone, BMW, Nestle, HDFC, Bloomberg, Boeing, TOMS, Oracle and others.

The post Magic Bus raises $300,000 at inaugural gala in New Jersey appeared first on News India Times.

The Somerset County High School Democrats (SC HSD) called on county, state and federal leaders to take common sense action on gun violence in the United States, particularly regarding school violence.

“The school shooting in Parkland, Florida that killed 17 teachers and students is the 18^th this year alone. Any high school student can see that guns are a serious threat to our safety, and it’s shocking that our government is unable to take action,” said Jason Lam, president of the Somerset NJ High School Democrats.

The SC HSD supports the national movement that was generated by the response to the Parkland, Florida shooting and will have members participating in the National School Walkout on March 14 as well as attend the national March for Our Lives on March 24 in Washington D.C.

“Too many times after a mass shooting there is a lot of talk for a week or two, and then the country moves on to other issues. Nothing changes. This time we students aren’t going to let that happen, and we are going to make sure gun and school safety stay in the public’s eye until we get some action,” Lam added.

In addition to the Washington D.C. rally, the SC HSD plans to progress fun and school safety by electing more Democrats in Somerset County, including two Freeholders, defeating Representative Leonard Lance, and reelecting Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman as well as Senator Bob Menendez.

“The Republican Party has blocked common sense gun regulation for decades, and the only way to ensure there is action is to elect Democratic majorities. We’re proud to have worked hard to elect Governor Phil Murphy and expand New Jersey’s Democratic majority and will continue to work to build Democratic majorities at every level to ensure action is taken,” Lam said.

For students and supporters who are unable to travel to D.C. for the march, the Somerset County High School Democrats and the Somerset County Democratic Committee will be recreating the march on March 24 during the Somerset County March for Our Lives rally, more information will be available in the coming weeks.

“We’re so proud of these young people taking a stand against gun violence, and not letting the adults pass the buck again. Now it’s up to the adults to actually do something more than offer thoughts and prayers,” said Peg Schaffer, the Somerset County Democratic Chair.

The Somerset County High School Democrats have more than 200 members in X Somerset County schools, including Bridgewater High School, Watchung Hills High School, Ridge High School and the Pingry School.

Students and supporters interested in joining the Organizing Committee for the Somerset County March for Our Lives rally, or in starting a High School Democrats organization in their high school, can contact Jason Lam atjlam@hsdems.org or Executive Director Nathan Rudy at somersetdemsed@gmail.com or (908) 552-1923.

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On the Ground in India: Perspectives from American India Foundation’s Clinton Fellows*

“Namaste! Mein Indus Action ki EWS helpline se baat kar rahi hoon.” / “Hello! I am calling from Indus Action’s EWS (Economically Weaker Section) helpline.”

This is how a Shiksha Sahyogi (community-based women entrepreneur) introduces herself when calling up parents to find out whether their children are eligible to apply under the Section 12 (1)(c) of the Right to Education Act. What does this mean? The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE), enacted by the Government of India in 2009, mandates that ‘every child of the age of six to fourteen years shall have a right to free and compulsory education in a neighborhood school till completion of elementary education’. One of the crucial features of the Act is Section 12(1)(c). This section is a powerful tool to ensure that children belonging to socially and economically disadvantaged communities get an opportunity to study in a private school, thus ensuring inclusion. Section 12 (1)(c) mandates a minimum of 25% free seats for children belonging to economically weaker sections (EWS) and disadvantaged groups (DG) in private schools.

My host organization, Indus Action, is currently working to ensure efficient implementation of Section 12 (1)(c). This involves intense awareness generation especially at the community level, among the parents of children belonging to the disadvantaged and weaker groups. This outreach is largely done through community calling banks and missed call helpline services. Our goals are big: Indus Action, through its helpline team, is striving to ensure access to information, with the aspiration ‘to enroll 1 million underprivileged students in high-quality private schools by 2020’. The helpline team is the backbone of this mission. Here women entrepreneurs play a crucial role.

The community calling banks are led by Shiksha Sahyogis, the women entrepreneurs, from the community who are trained by Indus Action to constitute a task force to efficiently share the necessary information with the families who have children in the age group of 3-6 years, and to guide and support them through the application process. The Shiksha Sahyogis identified by Indus Action from resource-poor communities not just manage the calling banks during the campaign, but also run the help desks during the application cycle.

Moreover, the organization is preparing to expand its School Readiness Program (SRP), to help bridge the learning gap a child from disadvantaged family experiences in private schools, by training the mother to prepare the child with basic literacy, numeracy, socio-developmental skills through school readiness kit. And the Shiksha Sahyogis would be the main actors in marketing, selling and imparting training to the mothers, thus embarking on their entrepreneurial journey, and generating income for themselves.

The spirit behind identifying women from the community for this role is to pave their way towards financial and social empowerment. The Shiksha Sahyogis are to take over the ownership of running the calling banks sustainably without Indus Action and are the future leaders who will advocate for the changes in their community and society which they aspire for. ‘Involvement of marginalised groups, be they women, ethnic-minority groups (or both), are associated with greater levels of change’, writes Dr. Humbert (2012) in her working paper on ‘Women as Social Entrepreneurs’.

Those women who have some basic formal education (minimum up to 8th standard for SRP facilitators), were self-motivated, willing to take up the opportunity to earn money to improve their financial opportunity, committed to make 80-120 calls 3 hours/6 days/month and wanted to do something for themselves, were selected for the role. They had to undergo intense training on the RTE and the 12 (1) (c) provision, communication skills, and usage of the application to record the data. Those women who did not own a smart-phone were given one by the organization on an EMI. The Shiksha Sahyogis get a monthly stipend of INR 1500 per month, and this amount will increase when they help families in filling online applications after the commencement of the application process.

There are around 150 Shiksha Sahyogis involved in the campaign in areas of Badarpur, Garhi, Kardampuri, Kirari, Kondli, Mukundpur, Naraina, Nawada, Sarai Kale Khan, Shastri Park, Uttam Nagar, Vasant Vihar, and Vikaspuri in Delhi.

With a lot of discussion on social entrepreneurs, women social entrepreneurs are still not in focus. Gender impacts the traits generally associated with entrepreneurs such as ‘drive, ambition, leadership’ etc. Women entrepreneurs are more often than not motivated by their own personal history to become entrepreneurs. The attainment of their social objectives, to be able to make a difference is crucial for them to take up this role along with independence and income security (Humbert, 2012).

During my visit to the Delhi office of Indus Action, I got an opportunity to visit one of the community calling banks. The Shiksha Sahyogis are ideally supposed to make about 80 calls per day out of which at least 40-45 should be successful. The feedback captured by them on the app after every call is the source of data for Indus Action’s back-end team which can be used for further advocacy with the relevant stakeholders. As I entered the room, I saw about 12 women holding their smart-phones and sheet of papers with lots of numbers on them. I could notice that they had scribbled something on the sheets next to the numbers. These sheets had the mobile numbers to which calls were to be made by the Shiksha Sahyogis and the scribbling was their way of recording which calls went through and which did not. This information is then later updated on the app which they are trained to use. I was supposed to shadow them while they worked.

Here I met Krishna-ji, one of the inspirational Shiksha Sahyogi, who had been a housewife for 35 years. Now her children were working and she had a grand-daughter who was now 4 years old. She shared that as her grand-daughter is growing up and learning English words, she fears that one day the little girl will come to her and say ‘dadi, aapko kuch ni pata hai’ (grandmother, you don’t know anything), like her children sometimes tell her. She decided to become a Shiksha Sahyogi to help others but also to help herself.

Krishna-ji described that when she first started to make calls, she was nervous and unsure of herself. She even skipped the first day of training, because she was not sure whether she was good enough. But as she completed her training she became more confident. Now, she beamed as she spoke that she competently handles even those calls where people become aggressive. She says, this is necessary as she is helping people through her work, so she needs to be calm and persistent. As I was given the task of making calls to better understand the work Shiksha Sahyogis did, I was anxious and hesitant about making mistakes. This is when she asked me not to be nervous and said that I’ll learn better after I’ve made more calls, while teaching me how to record the call feedback on the mobile app. Krishna-ji today, is a proud woman with confidence, self-identity and independence.

As I said my goodbyes to the Shiksha Sahyogis that day, I hoped to take from Krishna-ji, some of her courage to be vulnerable and proud of one’s own achievements.

References:

Government of India. Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE). 26th Aug. 2009. Retrieved from https://archive.india.gov.in/citizen/education.php?id=38 on 1st January, 2018.

Humbert, D. L. (2012, February). ‘Women as Social Entrepreneurs’. Retrieved from https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/generic/tsrc/documents/tsrc/working-papers/working-paper-72.pdf on 1st January, 2018.

—

About the Author:

Deepika, born and brought up in New Delhi, graduated from University of Delhi and then pursued M.A. in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) Mumbai. After the completion of her post-graduation, she worked in the development sector, which has helped her gain an understanding of various dimensions of her interest areas which are mainly health, disability, advocacy, and women’s rights. Before becoming an AIF Clinton Fellow, she was associated with a start-up working to provide accessible travel solutions to persons with disabilities, where some of her responsibilities included exploring and pursuing advocacy and collaboration opportunities with government and non-government agencies, curation of international and national alliances and media interfacing and communications. She was also a participant at the Summer School for Future International Development Leaders 2017, a program organized by the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Udaipur and Duke University. Deepika believes that her education in social work has guided her to understand that service to others is not just charity. She believes service is about by pushing forward the agenda for inclusion and rights of people. Her professional experience has further strengthened this philosophy. Her motivation is the hope and belief that we can bring about changes irrespective of how huge or small they are.

*A previous version of this article was originally published on 02/19/2018 at American India Foundation.

AIF’s William J. Clinton Fellowship for Service in India builds the next generation of leaders committed to lasting change for underprivileged communities across India, while strengthening the civil sector.

The post On the Path to Enroll 1 Million Children in School: My Encounter with Women Social Entrepreneurs appeared first on News India Times.

The Chicago Tribune, Illinois’ leading paper, has endorsed an Indian-American candidate running for Illinois State Senate.

Ram Villivalam, who was born and raised on the Northwest side of Chicago, got a real boost to his campaign for the State Senate from District 8, when the Tribune endorsed him Feb. 22. He threw his hat into the ring following sexual harassment charges against fellow Democrat, incumbent Ira Silverstein, last November. If elected he will become the first Indian-American in the Illinois State Senate. If Villivalam wins the March 20 primary, he will be a shoe-in for the November elections in this Democratic leaning district. Illinois has one Indian-American legislator, Raja Krishnamoorthi, also a Democrat, on Capitol Hill.

The former legislative coordinator for Service Employees International Union, “is policy proficient, engaged and prepared to push back against the Democrat establishment,” the Chicago Tribune said in its endorsement Feb. 22. His Democratic rivals for the March 20 primary —  Caroline McAteer-Fournier, a community activist; and David Zulkey, an attorney — the paper said, “are both strong contenders, but Villivalam’s policy chops give him the edge.” The Tribune does not mention another Indian-American Democrat, Zehra Quadri, running for the same seat. And obviously, it does not consider Silverstein as a serious contender.

“We need a new generation in government, and more diversity,” Villivalam told News India Times. “Ram knows It is far past time we reform Springfield culture and the culture of workplaces in our community.Ram fully supports a zero tolerance policy for sexual harassment. Women need to be believed, and men need to be held accountable,” his website says.

Though Silverstein was cleared of charges, the report that came out described his conduct as “unbecoming of a legislator,” and the Chicago Tribune in at least two editorials, slammed the State Senator and demanded why he was still in office.

The Tribune is the 2nd major paper after Chicago Sun Times to recognize the Indian-American’s potential as a leader.

Villivalam said he expects to raise the $200,000 needed to run his campaign. His District 8 he told News India Times, has the largest concentration of Asian Americans (25 percent) in the state, and a majority of those are of South Asian origin.

Leading Democrats at the federal and state level, have already endorsed Villivalam. They include U.S. Representatives Jan Schakowsky, Brad Schneider, Mike Quigley, Danny K. Davis, and Krishnamoorthi; Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle; State Senators Laura Murphy and Omar Aquino; and State Rep. Theresa Mah as well as a host of labor organizations, Planned Parenthood, Sierra Club, Citizens Action, as well as the Indo-American Democratic Organization.

The post Indian-American candidate gets boost in run for Illinois State Senate appeared first on News India Times.

MAYWOOD, Ill. – Rosa Aramburo sailed into her final year of medical school with stellar test scores and high marks from professors. Her advisers predicted she’d easily land a spot in a coveted residency program.

Then President Donald Trump announced the end of the Obama-era program that has issued work permits to Aramburo and nearly 700,000 other undocumented immigrants raised in the United States.

“Don’t be surprised if you get zero interviews,” an adviser told her.

She got 10, after sending 65 applications.

But as she prepared to rank her top three choices last week, Congress rejected bills that would have allowed her and other “dreamers” to remain in the United States, casting new doubt on a career path that seemed so certain a year ago.

Employers and universities that have embraced DACA recipients over the past six years are scrambling for a way to preserve the program. They are lobbying a deeply divided Congress, covering fees for employees and students to renew their permits, and searching for other legal options – perhaps a work visa or residency through spouses or relatives who are citizens. Some companies have considered sending employees abroad.

They are also awaiting the outcome of a court challenge to the Trump administration’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has granted the young recipients a temporary reprieve and allowed them to continue renewing work permits for the time being. The Supreme Court could decide as soon as Friday whether to intervene in the case.

Nationwide, more than 160 DACA recipients are teaching in low-income schools through Teach For America. Thirty-nine work at Microsoft, 250 at Apple and 84 at Starbucks. To employers, the young immigrants are skilled workers who speak multiple languages and often are outsize achievers. Polls show strong American support for allowing them to stay.

Based in part on that data, many DACA recipients say they believe that the United States will continue to protect them, even as a senior White House official has indicated that Trump and key GOP lawmakers are ready to move on to other issues.

Human-resources experts warn that employers could be fined or go to jail if they knowingly keep workers on the payroll after their permits have expired. And while the White House has said that young immigrants who lose DACA protections would not become immediate targets for deportation, Immigration and Customs Enforcement says anyone here illegally can be detained and, possibly, deported.

“I’ve gotten emails saying, ‘Oh, we loved you,’ ” Aramburo, 28, said one recent morning as she hurried to predawn rounds at a neurology intensive-care unit. “But in the back of my mind, I’m thinking, ‘What if I can’t finish?’ ”

Nearly 100 DACA recipients are medical students enrolled at schools such as Harvard, Georgetown and the Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University Chicago, which this May will graduate its first five dreamers, including Aramburo.

Loyola, a Catholic school, changed its admissions policies to allow DACA recipients to apply soon after President Barack Obama – frustrated by Congress’ failure to pass an immigration bill – declared in 2012 that he would issue the young immigrants work permits. Trump and other immigration hard-liners criticized the program as executive overreach.

Thirty-two students with DACA are enrolled at Stritch, the most of any medical school in the country, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. Most are from Mexico, but there are also students brought to the United States as children from 18 other countries, including Pakistan, India and South Korea.

The school helped the students obtain more than $200,000 apiece in loans to pay for their education. Some agreed to work in poor and rural areas with acute physician shortages to borrow the money without interest.

Mark Kuczewski, a professor of medical ethics at Loyola, said the school was inspired to launch the effort after hearing about Aramburo, a high school valedictorian who earned college degrees in biology and Spanish and yearned to study medicine but could find work only as a babysitter because she was undocumented.

He said it is unthinkable that Congress may derail the chance for her and the other DACA recipients at Loyola to become doctors and work legally throughout the United States.

“We just can’t believe that that will happen,” Kuczewski said. “Can something that irrational happen in America?”

Teach For America said its lawyers have pored over immigration laws to find ways to sponsor workers who lose their DACA protections. But the process often requires workers to leave the United States and return legally, a risk many young teachers are unwilling to take. The organization also offered to relocate teachers close to their families in the United States.

“They’re desperate. They’re stressed,” said Viridiana Carrizales, managing director of DACA Corps Member Support at Teach For America. “They don’t know if they’re going to have a job in the next few months.”

A spokesman for a major tech company who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of political negotiations, said it asked DACA employees whether they would like to be transferred to another country where their work status would not be in jeopardy.

“It fell completely flat,” he said. “The employees were polled, and with virtual unanimity, the resounding answer was a ‘No, thank you.’ They considered it giving up.”

The Society for Human Resource Management said companies can defend workers and lobby Congress on behalf of DACA recipients. But the group, which has 240 member organizations, is also urging employers to consider what might happen if their employees’ work permits expire.

“The bottom line is, if people don’t have documents that allow them to work in the United States, they have to be taken off the payroll,” said Justin Storch, a federal liaison for the society.

On the snow-covered campus at Loyola University Chicago, medical students with DACA permits say they are continuing with their studies and renewing their work permits even as they keep one eye on Washington.

Cesar Montelongo, 28, a third-year medical student who attended the State of the Union address last month, spent part of one recent day examining bacteria in petri dishes in a school laboratory. His family fled a violent border city in Mexico when he was 10.

He is earning a medical degree and a PhD in microbiology, a high-level combination that could land him plenty of jobs in other countries. But he said he prefers the United States, one of “very few places in this planet you can actually achieve that kind of dream.”

Less than a mile away, Alejandra Duran, a 27-year-old second-year medical student who came to the United States from Mexico at 14, translated for patients at a local clinic for people with little or no insurance.

With help from teachers in Georgia, she graduated from high school with honors. She wants to return to the state as a doctor and work to help lower the rate of women dying in childbirth.

“A lot of things have been said about how illegal, how bad we are; that’s not the full story,” Duran said. “We’re not just farmworkers or housekeepers. We’re their doctors. We’re their nurses, their teachers, their paramedics.”

During rounds at the Loyola University Medical Center, Aramburo studied computer records, then examined stroke victims and patients with spinal and head injuries. Some may never regain consciousness, but she always speaks to them in the hope that they will wake up.

“That’s my dream: to make a difference in people’s lives,” she said. “I hope I can do it.”

In the glass-walled neurology intensive care unit, she and two physicians stood before a 45-year-old stroke victim who spoke only Spanish. The woman struggled to grasp what the two doctors were saying.

Aramburo stepped forward.

“You’ve had a small stroke,” she explained in Spanish, as the woman listened. “It could have been a lot worse. Now we’re going to figure out why.”

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An Indian-American attorney is running for a judgeship in Harris County, Texas. Shampa Mukerji says she is running because she could make a “great contribution” to the civil courts, uphold the laws of the state and be fair and equitable to all parties.

The primary is scheduled for March 10, and on Facebook, Mukerji urged residents of Harris County to go to the polls to support her first attempt at elective office.

Mukerji says her immigrant parents instilled her with a strong work ethic, a thirst for knowledge and a tradition of excellence. A native Houstonian, Mukherji’s parents immigrated to the United States in the late 1960s. Her father was an engineer who spent his career in the Oil and Gas industry and earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy after he retired. Her mother, a college graduate, dedicated her time to raising their three children.

The Houston Chronicle has endorsed Mukerji’s opponent Cory Sepolio, a civil defense attorney. About Mukerji, the paper says, she “has an impressive and diverse background that includes growing up in Saudi Arabia, attending Northwestern University as an undergrad and working for the Mostyn Law Firm. However, she cannot match Sepolio’s trial experience.”

The winner of the Democratic primary will face off against incumbent Republican Judge Dan Hinde.

Mukerji has a Bachelor’s degree in Communications  from Northwestern University in Illinois. Mukerji got her law degree from the University of Houston Law Center where she served on the Houston Journal of Health Law & Policy as an Editor and as Chief Justice of the Honor Court.

She has a decade of experience in multiple areas of civil litigation according to the profile posted on her website. She formed the eponymous Mukerji Law Firm where she manages more than 500 personal injury cases, and believes her experience, and dedication fits the bill for Harris County Judge. ‘Over eight years of my legal career have been in civil litigation, often handling high-dollar cases. Throughout that time, I have only represented individuals and small businesses – first in family law, then first-party insurance litigation, and most recently in third-party insurance litigation,” Mukerji says on Facebook.

Her husband Sam Mukerji is a trial attorney and the couple has three children.

Born in Houston, Mukerji spent most of her childhood in California and abroad, and says she is a “true believer — that the Constitutions of the United States and Texas create an equal playing field for all individuals and entities, regardless of economic status, race, ethnicity, color, creed, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender,” noting that she has represented “thousands of impoverished individuals who never had to pay myself or my firm until I was able to first recover financial restitution for the wrongs committed against them.”

The post Indian-American Shampa Mukerji running for Civil District Court in Texas appeared first on News India Times.

An Indian-American judge in Harris County, is running for the Texas Supreme Court on grounds that the high court is “out of touch with the needs of everyday Texans.”

Judge Ravi K. Sandill, a Democrat who describes himself briefly as “a Texan, husband, dad and cancer survivor,” says he is running “to restore balance to the Texas Supreme Court.” There are 9 Supreme Court justices and all of them are Republican. If he defeats his Republican opponent who was first elected in 2012,  Sandill will become the first Indian-American on the state’s highest court.

He has served as Judge of the 127th Civil District Court in Harris County since 2009 and is the first ever district court judge in Texas of Indian-American or South Asian descent. He was re-elected in 2016, and if he loses this November, he will continue to serve in his current position.

Sandill is pitted against incumbent Judge John Devine who occupies ‘Place 4’ on the bench. Both candidates are unopposed in their parties, and will go on after the March 6 primary, to battle each other into the Nov. 6 elections.

Sandill grew up on military bases throughout Texas, attended college in Austin, and graduated from law school in Houston. His father, Retired Lt. Col. Brij Sandill, served in the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force for a combined 28 years, according to his Facebook page.

“The Texas Constitution tells us that all political power is inherent in the people. Yet, the Supreme Court of Texas is increasingly out of touch with the needs of everyday Texans,” Sandill says on his.

Democrats winning a judgeship appears a “long shot” the Houston Chronicle reported in November, but that party hopes that “demographic shifts to a younger and more diverse population and an opposition to Republicans who control the state and the White House could make way for higher Democratic turnout to give the justices a chance.”

“We’ve got a bully in the White House. We have a governor that’s a bully,” Sandill is quoted saying in the Nov. 28 article in the Chronicle, adding, “Texans stand up to bullies.”

Sandill contends on his website that after nearly a quarter century of one-party rule, “our state Supreme Court increasingly caters to an extreme, special interest agenda and is ignoring its duty to the nearly 28 million Texans it is elected to serve,” and this applies on issues from public school finance to equal protection under the law, where “the Court has failed to do its job.”

He wants to be the “independent voice” on the bench, he said.

Sandill graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1998 and did law at the University of Houston Law Center. He also worked in the private sector.

“Although I don’t have an opponent in the #primary, please go out there and #vote. There are many candidates that care about our country and state. Please vote for them. It is time that re-election stop being the main goal of our elected officials. #tx2018,” Sandill tweeted Feb. 22.

Sandill has been touring his constituency visiting Austin, El Paso, Lubbock and the Rio Grande Valley, speaking to voters about the importance of the 2018 election, and says he sees an “energy and desire for change in our state government.”

The post Indian-American judge Ravi Sandill running for Texas Supreme Court appeared first on News India Times.

NEW YORK – A popular ‘joke’ proliferating on WhatsApp mocks Lalit Modi, Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi, say they are going to start an ashram in London called the ‘Art of Leaving’ – a riff on Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living Foundation.

Let’s not forget the likes of Jatin Mehta, the founder of Winsome Diamonds, a diamond merchant like Modi from Palanpur, Gujarat, who now lives in the St. Kitts and Nevis Island, in the Caribbean – a country with whom India doesn’t have an extradition treaty.

Mehta is an alleged defaulter of around Rs. 7,000 crores taken as loans from 15 Indian banks, over several years, till 2012, before he left the country. The shocking part is that till date the Indian government has yet to file a charge sheet against Mehta. He has used legal loopholes to get away scot free.

It remains to be seen what happens in Modi’s case.

Or Vikram Kothari, the owner of Rotomac Pens, who, along with his son, have been arrested this week, in an alleged Rs. 3,700 crore loan default case.

The Wire website detailed how diamantaires Modi and Mehta are linked, by marriage, to two of India’s wealthiest and most influential business families. Mehta’s son Suraj is married to Krupa, industrialist Gautam Adani’s niece. Modi’s brother, Neeshal, is married to the Isheta, niece of industrialist Mukesh Ambani.

Zee News reported this week that Adani Group owes Rs. 72,000 crore to Indian banks. A PTI report said Pawan Verma, member of JD (U), talking about debt to state-controlled banks, in the Rajya Sabha, alleged that corporate houses in India owe about Rs. 5 lakh crore to PSU banks, including the Adani Group.

Forget the technicalities of how these loans are disbursed in the first place, without matching collateral. The fact is all these debt numbers, which run into billions of dollars, beat the imagination of the middle class. It’s confounded the Indian media and public consciousness.

Most people cannot fathom – apart from the theory of political collusion – how these huge amounts, which could transform the lives of millions of poor Indians if put to use judiciously by the government, is allowed to be looted at will from banks run on tax payers’ hard earned money.

It’s a disgrace for India, a country swamped by systemic corruption and horrific exploitation of the poor and middle class. Scams like this make it hard to imagine how India can ever become a civilized country.

Irony and humor that run amok on social media targeting wealthy fugitives who continue to lead an extravagant, lavish lifestyle camouflage the sad, bitter truth of India’s massive divide between the rich and poor, destitute citizens.

TV anchor Barkha Dutt, writing in The Washington Post, pointed out: “In a country where nearly 270,000 farmers have been driven to suicide since 2000, and nearly 80 percent because of an inability to repay small loans (the average value of most of these outstanding loans is about $3,000), it is criminal that millionaires and billionaires live it up as their unpaid loans suck dry the banking sector, and then simply take the next flight to London or Antwerp or Dubai, never to return.”

Dutt added: “An Indiaspend report estimated that, in 2016 and 2017, more than 5,200 “willful defaulters” owed public-sector banks about $8.65 billion, much more than the government allocation for agriculture and farmer welfare. Yet, because these men make up India’s power elite and are embedded deep within the political system, their violations are handled with kid gloves — until it blows up in our faces.”

The Indian Express reported this month that Indian banks have reported willful defaults of over Rs. 111,738 crore, involving 9,339 borrowers, who have the capacity to pay up but refuse to repay loans. Astonishingly, there has been a 340 percent surge in less than five years as total willful defaults were just Rs. 25,410 crore in 2013.

The rot is set deep. The only way to cleanse it – if one can imagine that to happen at all – would be to like uproot all the trees in the forest, plant fresh saplings.

It’s also a double edged sword for the Indian government, fraught with political hazard. If they vigorously go after thousands of willful defaulters, they also risk shutting down many small and big companies, jeopardizing hundreds of thousands of jobs. At a time when the Narendra Modi government is trying hard to bolster and create jobs in India, it could amount to political hara-kiri in the general election, a little over a year away.

The Financial Express reported in October, 2017, that according to the RBI, just 12 companies, who were identified, are estimated to account for 25% of the gross Non Performing Assets in public sector banks in India. There are 488 others who were given six months’ time to restructure their debt or be dragged to National Company Law Tribunal.

Those 12 companies include, Bhushan Steel Ltd., the largest manufacturer of auto-grade steel in India, with a loan default of Rs. 44,478 crore; their sister company Bhushan Power & Steel Ltd. with another mind boggling loan default of Rs. 37,248 crore; Lanco Infratech Ltd., once listed among the fastest growing in the world, with a loan default of Rs. 44,364 crore; Essar Steel Ltd., one of the biggest steel manufacturers globally, with a loan default of Rs. 37,284 crore; the Mumbai-based textile manufacturing company Alok Industries, who has a loan default of Rs 22,075 crore; and Amtek Auto Ltd., one of the largest integrated component manufacturers in India, with a loan default of Rs. 14,074 crore.

Nirav Modi’s business has been dismantled by Indian law enforcement agencies, his assets confiscated. Question is: how many more Nirav Modis will the Indian government go after?

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

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NEW YORK – Indian American Mayur Ramgir has won his second “Best First Time Director” award at the New York Film Festival, after receiving it from Festigious International Film Festival earlier, for his music video “MeTheForce.”

Ramgir, an entrepreneur, directed and starred in the video through which he introduces the #MeTheForce campaign, a movement that is intended to end domestic violence and child abuse, spreading the message of compassion.

According to a press release, the video has become widely popular among music lovers and even IMDB has also listed it in their database.

While the video will release in Spring, the one-minute trailer captures the pain and injustice that women have to go through in such situations of domestic violence and encourages them to stand tall and say “enough is enough.”

Ramgir has attended various institutions, including Georgia Tech, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Oxford, University of Sussex and University of Mumbai, according to his resume.

Ramgir’s main focus though, is advising people on leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship through his talk shows and blog as well as his companies Clintra, Zonopact, Inc. and Zonopact Innovation Lab.

He has also been a finalist in the World Technology Awards alongside top leaders such as Elon Musk, French president Emmanuel Macron, founder of Internet Tim Berners-Lee, President of China Xi Jinping and former director of white house office of science and technology policy during the Obama administration, John P. Holdren.

Through the music video, Ramgir aims to urge everyone to be a part of the #MeTheForce movement, which is launched by ZForce, so they can make a difference in the lives of the women and children who face the evils of our society.

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NEW YORK – “The Remix,” India’s third original Amazon Prime show will be starting on March 9 and will feature 10 episodes.

The show will focus on a blend of Indian and western music as singers and DJs. Contestants will team up with each other to re-create Bollywood favorites in a grand spin-off battle judged by Sunidhi Chauhan, Amit Trivedi and Nucleya with host Karan Tacker.

The trailer of the show was released on February 21 on Amazon Prime Video India and it looks very entertaining especially if you are a music lover or even a dancer.

Vijay Subramaniam, the director of “The Remix”, stated that the show brings together two elements that Indians love; Bollywood music and reality TV, hoping to reach family audiences.

The show is meant to introduce 10 musical duos and give them a chance to present their talent to the world.

The competition will feature the fusion of many genres of music, including rap mixed in with bhangra, future bass mixed in with East Asian sounds, the blues mixed with Desi beats and much more.

In each episode, the contestants will get to explore different themes of music such as ambient sounds, retro remixes, live instrumentation, the sounds of India and other global beats as each performance will be enhanced with unique acts, choreography and visual designs.

Nucleya told DNA India that Bollywood, especially its remixed music, “is not given enough creative freedom” and “The Remix” allows that freedom.

While speaking to the Indian Express, Chauhan added that many shows focus on the contestants back-story rather than their talent pointing out the fact that those who haven’t been winners are the ones who end up with better careers.

Chauhan told the Indian Express that since there is no audience voting in “The Remix,” there will be no drama and the show will only focus on presenting “pure music and entertainment.”

“The Remix” will be aired weekly on Amazon Prime Video starting on March 9.

The winners will win Rs. 5 million.

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“I wanted Bobby Jindal to win for like two minutes,” Nimesh Patel joked at New York’s Comedy Cellar during the 2016 election season. “Not because I believe in his politics, but because I want a career on (‘Saturday Night Live’) and that’s the only way that was going to happen.”

Turns out he was wrong. The presidential aspirations for the former Louisiana governor faded, but Patel made it on “SNL” anyway – as its first Indian-American writer.

“It’s funny how that worked out,” says Patel, who has written for the Oscars and last year’s president-less White House correspondents’ dinner.

With “SNL” on break for the Winter Olympics, Patel, 32, has been on the road doing stand-up.

“On off-weeks, I can go out to do shows,” says Patel, who started touring more last year. “But during the on-weeks, usually I’ll just stay local.”

Patel describes his comedy as half “political-social and the other half personal. I love performing in D.C. because the crowds tend to be smarter and cognizant of what’s going on in the world as it is,” he says. “Because they’re smart, they’re willing to laugh at a lot more stuff, because they’re open to ideas.”

Patel’s parents, however, weren’t so open to his idea of ditching a finance career for stand-up comedy eight years ago.

“The stereotype of Indian parents wanting their kid to be a doctor or finance person was true, for me at least,” says Patel, who grew up in Parsippany, New Jersey. “Comedy wasn’t even a thing they thought could be a real job.”

Patel graduated with a finance degree in 2008 but then quickly got bored at work. “I’ve never had a fear of being onstage, so in August 2009 I started stand-up and caught the bug.”

He found jobs in the city that allowed him to gig at night. After Chris Rock caught a set in 2015, the comedian hired Patel to help write jokes for Rock’s Oscar-hosting gig in 2016 – Patel’s first writing job.

“Once I got the Oscars job, my parents were like, ‘OK, this could be something that’s real,'” Patel says.

Looking back, he understands why his folks were initially so resistant: “There wasn’t a lot of visibility for brown comics for my parents’ generation when they got here, or even now.” Now, he says, “People like Hari Kondabolu, Aziz (Ansari), Hasan Minhaj, Mindy Kaling, Akaash Singh – and probably tons more that I don’t know about – are making inroads, and becoming visible faces and names for future comedy writers below us.

“If some little Nimesh or somebody else in Parsippany, New Jersey, is having an argument with his mom and says, ‘Mom, I don’t want to be a doctor, I want to be a writer!’ and his mom is like, ‘No Indian comic has ever been a writer,’ he can say, ‘What are you talking about?’ ” Patel says. “I think it’s very cool to be part of that gang.”

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