Hasan Minhaj talking on “The Daily Show” (Courtesy: Twitter)
NEW YORK – Netflix has asked Hasan Minhaj to host a weekly comedy show, and the Indian American has agreed to the 32-episode series, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
While the series will premiere later this year, Minhaj has already been in the limelight since his Netflix special “Homecoming King” came out last year and he also headlined the White House Correspondent’s dinner which President Donald Trump decided not to attend.
“I’m thrilled to be joining the Netflix family as the country braces for another election season — and like you, I cannot wait to find out who Putin picks this time,” Minhaj said in a statement.
Minhaj is currently a correspondent for The Daily Show which he joined in November 2014, and he will make his transition to Netflix in the summer.
“I’ve been a big fan of Hasan’s for many years. He’s a phenomenal writer with a distinct point of view [and] he is a brilliant performer, who is hilarious both onstage and off. And more importantly, he isn’t afraid to share his thoughtful voice and unique perspective,” Bela Bajaria, the vice president of Netflix’s content, told the Hollywood Reporter.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Minhaj will be hosting the series as well as serve as an executive producer alongside co-creator Prashanth Venkataramanujam and Art & Industry’s Michelle Caputo and Shannon Hartman.
The move will be a major blow to Comedy Central as they have already lost Michelle Wolf, also of the Daily Show, to Netflix last month.
NEW YORK – Chintan Desai, a teacher in Helena, Arkansas, will be filing nomination for Congress on Thursday, representing Arkansas’s 1st Congressional District.
Chintan, a Democrat, and an Indian American, will vie to take the place of Republican Rep. Rick Crawford who has been representing the district since 2010.
Desai has been upset with Crawford for a while as he played the blame game and dodged questions during the government shutdown, and when he decided to release the Nunes memo in support of President Donald Trump, said reports.
According to his website, Desai will be focusing on many issues, including ending poverty in the next 30 years, healthcare, education, common sense gun legislation, climate change, supporting women and families, legalizing medical marijuana in the state, Veterans’ rights and immigration – specifically helping “dreamers.”
Desai grew up in San Luis Obispo, California and received his undergraduate degree in political science from the University of California, Davis, according to his website.
He then joined Teach For America’s 2010 corps and worked as a fifth grade social studies teacher for two years at KIPP Delta Public Schools in Helena, Arkansas.
He has also worked as the region’s executive assistant along with working for a year and a half on staff for Teach For America Arkansas. He has since returned to KIPP Delta as its regional project manager.
“I moved to Helena to teach, and found a community brimming with promise and potential. I also discovered neighborhoods where the doors of opportunity are closed to far too many. Our jobs may not exist a year from now. Drug addiction is claiming lives and destroying many more. There are parents fighting hard for a high-quality education for their children. And small business owners have seen high speed broadband revolutionize industry in big cities, but have been left watching on the sidelines,” he states on his website.
“This is a moment that requires people who can bridge divides – between old and young, urban and rural, newcomers and natives – the same bridges I have spent my career building,” he added.
Desai had signaled his intention to run For Congress last year.
NEW YORK – An Indian American businessman in the Washington, D.C. area, Yogesh Patel, and his partner Wesley Burnett have pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining nearly $3 million in set-aside contracts, according to a Lexology.com report.
According to the report, Patel owned United Native Technologies, Inc. (UNTI), which was a certified small business and Burnett owned Confederate Group and Total Barrier Works (TBW), which provided security systems services to the government.
Both of them met at a conference in Costa Rica and allegedly conspired to use UNTI’s status to obtain set-aside contracts while Burnett and his company would actually perform the work and allegedly agreed to pay Patel approximately 4.5 percent of the total value of any contract awarded to UNTI.
Although Patel received disability payments from the Social Security Administration, he falsely certified to the SBA that he ran UNTI full-time, according to the report.
He also falsely certified that UNTI was not receiving any outside financial assistance although Burnett and his company were providing financial support.
According to Lexology.com, Patel was sentenced to 21 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release and was ordered to forfeit approximately $550,000, while Burnett was sentenced to 42 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release and was ordered to forfeit approximately $700,000.
Bobby Ghosh, Nitin Nohria, Ambassador Sandeep Chakravorty, at the Indian Consulate in New York, February 26, 2018. Photo: Peter Ferreira.
NEW YORK – India’s banks need to step away from the culture of lending loans on the basis of a ‘parivaar (family) relationship’ they have with businesses, and instead get into the mode of banks in the West, where transactional value with rigid collateral rules triumph, said Nitin Nohria, Dean, Harvard Business School, commenting on the fallout of the Punjab National Bank scam perpetrated by diamond merchants Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi.
“India’s banks need to be cautious,” said Nohria, in comments to News India Times, when asked on his advice for Indian banks’ discretion for loans, and collateral amount, on the sidelines of the second ‘India Lecture Series’ at the Indian Consulate in New York, on February 26.
The monthly lecture series is an initiative of the Consul General of India in New York, Ambassador Sandeep Chakravorty, who had kicked off proceedings last month inviting over Dr. Arvind Panagariya, professor of economics at Columbia University, who earlier served as vice-chairman of the Indian government’s think-tank NITI Aayog.
The Punjab-born Nohria, an alum of IIT Bombay and MIT, said that the scam by Modi and Choksi has had a “chilling effect” on small and medium businesses’ demand for loans in India to further business, and will likely affect FDI too, in the short term.
The concept of a ‘parivaar relationship’ playing a huge role in the Indian corporate world was one of the four factors that Nohria had earlier talked about in his lecture, titled, ‘Doing Business in India: the Good and the Bad,’ moderated by journalist Bobby Ghosh, the former Editor-in-Chief of The Hindustan Times, who has had stints with various other groups, including Time magazine.
Nohria also cited the concepts of ‘jugaad’ – the art form of improvisation on the fly popular in India, and prevalent in several other developing countries; smart tactics to create value propositions, and business as an instrument for the good of society.
While praising all these inherent qualities in Indian business, terming it as “this is the good, the virtue,” Nohria cautioned that foreign investors also found that each of these tactics had a “bad side” to it, detrimental to doing business confidently.
“If you are a US company that wants to operate in India, your experience of jugaad is that everything is chalta hai. So people find it very difficult to operate in a system where there is no time commitment. Just in time means there is time! It’s almost like you don’t want to have processes, and only want to rely on jugaad even when that job could have been done in the normal course,” said Nohria.
“…my comments on jugaad culture should not be misunderstood as pessimism. But then, jugaad cannot take the place of established systems and processes either,” said Nohria, who didn’t hold back any punches in picking out the cons and flaws in doing business in India.
Indians have “extraordinary gifts” (at doing business), said Nohria, but there is “a dark side, and that makes doing business in India frustrating”, he added.
“In the US, the relationship between employers and employees is very transactional. In India, so many family businesses dominate the Indian landscape that the employer- employee relationship becomes one of familiarity. They (employer) begin to think of the business itself as their parivaar,” he said.
“The quality of top 7-8 people (in a corporate business) in India is the same as in the US,” said Nohria. “If you go two levels down, the quality drop-off is precipitous,” he surmised.
Nohria blamed the deep-embedded culture in India of procrastinating work till the “last minute” and lamented that workers put in work only when given orders by their supervisors.
“(It’s) very difficult to operate in an environment without time commitment,” he said, of the delaying and procrastination.
On the concept that Indian businesses tend to see themselves as being ‘good’ for society, Nohria opined: “For many Indian business owners…these are people whose mission for the company is more than just to create shareholder value. American leaders are preoccupied with creating shareholder value. In India, the firm is seen by most people as an instrument for society.”
Nohria also touched upon subjects like bilateral trade with the US in an interactive exchange with the select audience at the evening meet at the Consulate, which he advocates for India, as he feels that soft trade would give its IT industry some amount of protection, and the need to reform quality education in India, by winnowing teachers who are not productive or up to the mark, and the need for worker training.
“Indian IT companies did well because of extraordinary training programs,” he said. “Infosys and Wipro have extraordinary training programs which then puts backward pressure for the supply chain to deliver the goods that are pegged to some benchmark at the very least. If you have nothing that is process oriented, then what do you train people to do?”
Institutional investors at the meet perked up when Nohria gave his bets for some companies who would flourish in India.
According to Nohria, the company that would create an enormous amount of wealth is Paytm.
“If there’s a company that has the opportunity to be the next Infosys and the next TCS, Paytm has the ability to be that. Look at China, people have begun to use all forms of electronic cash payment,” he said.
Nohria also placed his bet on Jio, Inmobi and Ola, and said they are among India’s most “exciting” companies today.
(This post was updated on March 2, 2018, correcting the name of Ambassador Sandeep Chakravorty)
NEW YORK – Netflix will later this month release a documentary series about the late, self-exiled Indian guru Bhagwan Shree ‘Osho’ Rajneesh who came to Wasco County, Oregon, in 1981 and founded Rajneeshpuram, an ashram based on harmony, free love and the crafting of the New Man, according to a Den of Geek report.
The series ‘Wild Wild Country’, will consist of six episodes that will show how the controversial cult leader built “a utopian city in the Oregon desert, resulting in conflict with the locals that escalates into a national scandal,” according to its synopsis on YouTube.
According to the Den of Geek report, Shree Rajneesh, whose real name is Chandra Mohan Jain, allegedly poisoned hundreds of people in 1984 with Salmonella bacteria to rig local elections throughout restaurants in Dalles, Oregon but said that he was in meditation, blaming his secretary Ma Anand Sheela (Sheela Silverman).
But he had already destroyed the image of the Hindu guru with his fleet of Rolls Royces as well as his allegations of prostitution and drug running in India before finding the Rajneesh Foundation International and was deported from Oregon in 1981.
The Rajneesh cult came in conflict with its neighbors in the town of Antelope and the residents there ended up attacking the ashram compound, causing the cult to arm itself.
This then attracted the attention of the FBI, who also found other evidence against Rajneesh including immigration fraud, election rigging, smuggling and a planned assassination attempt on the presidentially appointed U.S. Attorney Charles Turner.
Except that did not stop Rajneesh and he went on to gathering more followers under the names of Osho and Acharya Rajneesh.
He died on January 19, 1990.
The series is executive produced by Mark and Jay Duplass and directed by Chapman Way and Maclain Way, according to scroll.in.
According to scroll.in, the six-hour long documentary was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and will be streamed on Netflix from March 16.
NEW YORK – After the ban of firecrackers this past Diwali, it’s now the turn of the festival of Holi to be stripped away of its key revelry by authorities in Delhi: a news report on March 2 said cops in Delhi would hold responsible the parents of children who perpetrate the ‘egregious’ act of throwing a water-filled balloon. Imagine that: a 5-year-old child throws a balloon. Complaint lodged. Parents get charged with assault.
The Times of India reported prohibitory orders were issued to dissuade motorcyclists riding with balloons and pichkaris; people making a din on roads despite objections of local residents will be booked.
To take away the fun, excitement of lighting firecrackers on Diwali; joy of tossing a water-filled balloon, drench a stranger, on Holi, is akin to praising a lotus flower after stripping it of its petals.
Hindu festivals in India are slowly being sanitized beyond redemption. Diminished of vitality. Shorn of joy and camaraderie. Misgivings, anger, confusion and confrontations are coloring Holi, become new, heinous avatars of gulal.
The red, blue, yellow, and green colors of gulal, with its connotations of love and fertility, devotion to Lord Krishna, turmeric, and the onset of Spring, also ushered in this year barbaric violence, filthy ways to debase and humiliate women, in the capital of India.
The significance of the mythology of the child Prahlad surviving the murderous attempt by the demoness Holika, the triumph of good over evil, was twisted in macabre fashion on the streets of Delhi. Evil triumphed over good, innocence brutally trampled over.
Scroll reported a group of 20 men stabbed and beat up a young man with iron rods in Delhi’s Khanpur locality, for saving a boy from being punished for throwing water balloons at two of the culprits. The victim was admitted to hospital in critical condition with at least 50 stab wounds.
If that courageous young man with a conscience, who tried to save the boy from harm, was the avatar of Lord Vishnu, he did succeed in his mission: he saved the boy, perhaps an avatar of Prahlad.
Young women and girls in Delhi were mortified this year after reports surfaced of water balloons mixed with body fluids, like semen and urine, being hurled by some miscreants. The spirit of Holi vanished for them. Instead, protests emanated on college campuses against harassment.
To top it all, Holi celebrations were called off at Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s residence, reported India Today, to protest the on-going sealing drive, which he claimed has hurt businesses and workers.
CNN noted in a report on Holi that the festival is “the bold image of India most often seen in ad campaigns, films and music videos,” adding, “people coming together from all walks of life to sing, dance and splash their friends and family with colored powder and water.”
What, perhaps, all the glamorous, colorful photos and videos from Holi in India gloss over is the increasing insecurity of revelry in society, heightened element of risk. The threat to peace, perception of harmony turning into chaos at a moment’s notice, takes away the sheen of festivities.
Not to talk of the loss of intrinsic value of festivals like Diwali and Holi which is fading away for young children in Delhi, who will perhaps, never get the thrill of lighting a firecracker, or play with friends hurling water balloons at each other.
Growing up in Delhi, one of my greatest joys was during the festival days: getting up early in the morning to fill water balloons, to celebrate Holi; buy firecrackers and light them with friends, on Diwali. They form some of my strongest, indelible memories of Delhi.
I’ve heard many NRIs complain that it’s not quite the same to celebrate Diwali in New York, days or even a month after it’s done with in India, or to go to a Holi mela, in New Jersey, or Texas, at a ‘convenient’ date (read weekend). I too thought the same.
Perhaps, it’s time to recognize that to really reminisce about Diwali – especially for those NRIs who grew up in Delhi – it might be best to watch fireworks light up the sky at the South Street Seaport, in Manhattan, or buy fireworks from Costco and light it up with children in one’s backyard.
Or, to celebrate Holi like in the good old days – play with water balloons and gulal, see the burst of laughter and joy on a child’s face, at a Holi mela in New Jersey.
It’s fun. And importantly, safer.
(Sujeet Rajan is Executive Editor, Parikh Worldwide Media. Email him: sujeet@newsindiatimes.com Follow him on Twitter @SujeetRajan1)
NEW YORK – Indian American Hirsh Singh announced on Tuesday, Feb. 27 that he will be running for Congress in New Jersey’s 2nd Congressional District, according to the Press of Atlantic City.
Sing will be seeking to replace Republican Frank LoBiondo, who is not seeking re-election.
In his statement Singh said that he plans to go against President Donald Trump’s agenda and protect his district from its effects.
“South Jersey deserves a conservative champion in Congress — someone who will defend the president’s agenda, fight to bring our fair share of tax dollars back to South Jersey, and stand up to Nancy Pelosi and the radical left,” Singh told the Press of Atlantic City.
“The president’s agenda of slashing regulations, cutting taxes and returning decision-making to state and local governments is working to grow the economy and must be supported,” he added.
According to an earlier News India Times report, Singh had previously run for governor of New Jersey last year. However, he ended up losing the primary to Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno.
According to the Press of Atlantic City, Singh earned his engineering degree from the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and has worked with NASA, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Pentagon and the United States military where he worked on missile defense systems, satellite navigation, drones, electronic warfare and aircraft safety.
“In the coming weeks, I look forward to meeting with the residents of the 2nd Congressional District, listening to their concerns and sharing my vision for a stronger and more prosperous South Jersey. We need a new voice in Washington who will fight for all of the residents of South Jersey,” Singh said in a statement.
On International Women’s Day March 8, Indian-American women can celebrate their achievements and step up efforts to end gender inequality
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Randhawa Haley (Photo: Twitter)
They have soared above the heavens into space; they advise a president and lead the nation on international affairs. For their beliefs, they also stand up to a president. They lead a multi-billion dollar iconic U.S. company. They work for the rights of the exploited and the discriminated.
They are the Indian-American women who have shattered glass ceilings, all within a generation, and as the world celebrates the International Women’s Day on March 8 they show the power and capabilities of women in a nation where #MeToo highlights anew the struggles women face daily.
At the national level today, one of President Donald Trump’s closest advisors is Indian-American Nikki Haley, the nation’s ambassador to the United Nations, and the first person from the community to be appointed to a cabinet-level position in the history of this country. She is considered future presidential material as is Senator Kamala Harris, D-California, former attorney general of California, and now a leader in the #MeToo movement. Seema Verma, administrator of the national Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is on the frontlines of bringing about change in the healthcare system.
U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, D-California, gestures while addressing tens of thousands of people at the Women’s March on Washington Feb. 21, 2017. (Photo: Facebook)
Some of the loudest voices for change on Capitol Hill, emanate from Indian-American lawmakers like Representative Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington, the first Indian-American woman to be elected to the House, and Sen. Harris, the first from the community to be in the U.S. Senate.
At the local and grassroots level, we have Bhairavi Desai, who founded and leads the New York City Taxi Workers Alliance (NYCTWA); and Saru Jayaraman, founder of ROCUnited, the organization for restaurant workers gained national status bringing the plight of blue-collar women to the fore in the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements against sexual harassment at the Golden Globes film awards event; And in a class of her own is astronaut Sunita Williams, a veteran of two space missions, who formerly held the records for most spacewalks by a woman (seven) and most amount of time spent by a woman on walking in space. She is in training to fly the first test-flights of commercially built spacecraft that Boeing is building.
Bhairavi Desai, founder of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, speaking at a Feb. 6, vigil in New York City, held to honor a taxi worker who committed suicide. She is surrounded by members of NYTWA. (Photo courtesy Bhairavi Desai, NYTWA)
Indian-American women sit shoulder-to-shoulder with men in boardrooms and multinational corporations – PepsiCo’s Indra Nooyi, or U.S.-India Business Council’s president Nisha Desai Biswal, or Vanita Gupta, president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the largest civil rights organization in the country; and Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code, which is expanding by leaps and bounds around the country; and not least of all, those who make America laugh as stand-up comics and entertainers, like Mindy Kaling of The Mindy Project.
Seema Verma – administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Kamala Harris, Senator from California
Pramila Jayapal, Congresswoman from Washington State
Kshama Sawant – Socialist city council member, Seattle, Washington
Harmeet Dhillon — former vice chairman of the California Republican Party, and the National Committeewoman of the Republican National Committee for California.
Activists/Civil Rights
Bhairavi Desai – New York Taxi Workers Alliance
Vanita Gupta – Biggest civil rights organization, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
Saru Jayaraman – RocUnited, workers in the fast-food industry
Science/Academic/Think Tank
Sunita Williams, astronaut
Renu Khator – Chancellor of Houston University system
Neera Tanden – head of think tank- Center for American Progress
Nisha Desai-Biswal – president of the U.S.-India Business Council
Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code
Entertainment Industry
Mindy Kaling – The Mindy Project, movies
Padma Lakshmi, Top Chef, and author
Radhika Jones — Editor-in-Chief, Vanity Fair
Aparna Nancherla – standup comedian
Alington Mitra – Harvard grad who decided to become a stand up comedian
Dhaya Lakshminarayanan – former venture capitalist turned standup comedian
It’s “a unique combination of access to higher education and a long history of gender activism has made it possible for certain groups of Indian women to use immigration as a way to negotiate and challenge entrenched expectations about women’s careers and life choices,” according to two professors who have studied the change. In their book, Indian Immigrant Women and Work: The American Experience, Ramya M. Vijaya, professor of economics at Stockton University, New Jersey, and Bidisha Biswas, professor of political science at Western Washington University, say they see Indian women in America as “agents of change through everyday choices.”
NextGen
Today’s young Indian-American women stand on the shoulders of those who helped build a family and social networks in which they could thrive. Just as an earlier generation of women negotiated in the workplace, and took on the workload at home, so the generation they helped bring up stands on the base they built.
Indian-origin women in America cover a vast canvas – those who came alone and those who came with husbands, noted Biswas in an interview with News India Times. Her book’s focus is on professional, independent women who came to this country to further their careers. “Most of them were from upper castes, well educated, and we acknowledge that bias – but they did push the boundaries of expectations,” Biswas says.
Harmeet Dhillon, National Committeewoman representing California on the Republican National Committee, points to the complexity of lives led by Indian women in America. “I can’t generalize about them,” Dhillon told News India Times, in terms of their achievements and problems. But overall, Indian women who have come to this country “have been able to participate in a broad range of opportunities, certainly more than in India,” Dhillon said. While she has faced some discrimination for instance, Dhillon says, “It is more because I am a woman than that I am Indian-American. I feel like any other American woman.”
“One of the amazing things about these women leading today — they are leading much broader types of groups,” says Seema Nanda, executive vice president and COO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “This generation is seeing the interconnect – whether it is through the lens of workers, women, or LGBTQ community,” Nanda told News India Times. “What’s really amazing about the #MeToo movement is that there were things that weren’t even acknowledged, were private and accepted. And in a very short period a hashtag has turned into a movement,” said Nanda. “Having this movement where women can tell their stories is very important, but also how many are not able to – such as farm workers, janitors … It is incumbent upon us to bring those voices out,” Nanda said.
“We are facing an unprecedented attack on our civil and human rights,” Nanda contends, but at the same time broad coalitions are being formed where Indian-American organizations like Hindu American Foundation and South Asian Americans Leading Together, are joining with women, labor and African American groups.
That engagement with the mainstream is a result of benefiting from movements in both India and the U.S., over the last 50 to 100 years, according to Suhag Shukla, executive director of the Hindu American Foundation. “We have benefited from the Indian freedom struggle and the Suffrage movement in the U.S.,” including the feminist movement, Shukla told News India Times.
Asked how she felt as an Indian-American woman, Nanda said, “I feel passionate about 2018. We have a lot of fights on our hands. But I’m an optimist that we will keep fighting and that this country will create an America as good as our ideals.”
“It’s a largely positive moment for Indian-American women,” said Shukla. “More and more of us are getting educated, topping our class in schools and colleges. Indian women are part of a larger demographic shift,” she said, adding, “This is a good time to be an Indian woman because we bring a unique approach to pressing issues of our time and to society as a whole.”
(Also see related story at http://www.newsindiatimes.com/indian-american-women-tackling-problems/34047)
FILE PHOTO: Harvey Weinstein poses on the Red Carpet after arriving at the 89th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California, U.S., February 26, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo
NEW YORK – A federal court dismissed the case of film mogul Harvey Weinstein’s Indian American assistant Sandeep Rehal, 31, who accused him of sexual harassment back in January, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
According to an earlier News India Times report, Rehal “was required to be involved in and aware of the preparation for, and clean up after, Harvey Weinstein’s extremely prolific sexual encounters” and “was forced to do to aid Harvey Weinstein’s sexual encounters was to clean up the semen on the couch in Harvey Weinstein’s office… on a regular basis,” her lawsuit stated.
She also had to manage “the stock of Caverject shots for his erectile dysfunction” which were stored in a cabinet behind her desk and when Weinstein’s doctor stopped prescribing it to him, he paid Rehal a $500 bonus to find him a replacement supply.
Rehal further stated in her lawsuit that Weinstein groped her relentlessly and even dictated emails while he was naked in front of her.
According to the New York Daily News, Rehal started working for Weinstein in early 2013 and took the abuse but when she an “emotional breaking point” she had “no choice but to resign” in February 2015.
Weinstein, 65, has been accused by nearly 100 women of sexual harassment, bullying or rape, however his representatives have denied these accusations.
After U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman dismissed Rehal’s case on Monday, Feb. 26 on jurisdictional grounds, Rehal will now try in a state court however being a resident of California who is working for a company in Delaware that is primarily based in New York, it is unclear as to where she can file her case again, according to the Hollywood reporter.
However, Rehal’s attorneys Laura Schnell and Genie Harrison did re-file her case in New York state court the day after it was dismissed in federal court.
Manavi, a women’s support organization established in 1985, to help Indian and South Asian victims of domestic violence, sports this symbol on its website. (Photo: Manavi.org)
Despite the signal achievements of some Indian-American women and gains secured within the community and in the mainstream, some problems persist.
“There are unfortunate sectors of the (Indian-origin) people who bring their caste, dowry and other practices here,” says attorney Harmeet Dhillon, National Committeewoman from California on the Republican National Committee. As a lawyer who has done pro-bono work, Dhillon says she has handled cases of asylum for Indian women who were oppressed by dowry, sex trafficking, or other crimes.
“As a lawyer, I am not unaware of the fact that Indian women suffer because of domestic violence,” says Suhag Shukla, founder and executive director of the Hindu American Foundation. “But more and more women are stepping up and more men are willing to acknowledge the problem exists,” Shukla added.
“We’ve come a long way,” since the late 1980s when organizations like Manavi, Sakhi, Asha, and myriad others around the country, were formed to deal with domestic violence,” says Sujata Warrier, one of the early women’s activists with Manavi in New Jersey.
Today, many more women take steps to get out of abusive relationships and many call existing services for help. But the constraint to save even an abusive relationship persists, not just among earlier or more conservative women, but also among the 2nd generation, says Warrier, who is the training and technical assistance director at the Battered Women’s Justice Program in Minneapolis, Minnesota..
That such organizations continue to exist, means the need for them continues, however. Warrier is most critical of “progressive women” because “they have not done enough about sexual violence and child sexual abuse,” in the community, she asserts. “There is a tremendous denial that these problems exist,” Warrier contends, adding, “For progressives this is a big issue and we have not gone far enough as we have with domestic violence.” And this is the time to do it with the momentum created by the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.
Suhag Shukla, founder of the Hindu American Foundation, also points to an inequality in gender roles. “Like in the general public, the bulk of the domestic responsibility falls on Indian women and the 50-50 split that the society is striving for in workplaces, is not achieved inside the four walls of the home,” Shukla noted.
Whether it is a highly qualified Indian-American physician, or a woman working in a blue collar job, – they continue to negotiate the balance, often second-guessing whether they are doing the right thing by their children and the elderly, or feeling the need to inculcate family values and traditions in their offspring. “That adds another layer of responsibility on Indian-American women,” Shukla says.
(Also read related story at http://www.newsindiatimes.com/indian-american-women-break/34035)
Subra Suresh, described as a “trailblazer in engineering” by Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, which is going to award him an honorary degree at its commencement ceremonies June 22. (Photo: northwestern.edu)
Four distinguished individuals, including an Indian-American engineer will be awarded honorary degrees at Northwestern University’s commencement day in Evanston, Illinois.
Subra Suresh, “a trailblazer in engineering,” particularly how it intersects with biotechnology is one of the four people who will be honored June 22, the university said in a press release. The other three include renowned opera singer, soprano Renee Fleming, who will be giving the commencement address; Sheldon Harnick, a Tony Award-winning lyricist and NU alumnus whose musical work spanned six decades; and William A. Osborn, chair of Northwestern University’s Board of Trustees.
Suresh is one of the world’s top researchers in materials science and engineering and its intersection with biotechnology. President and Distinguished University Professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University since January, he was previously president of Carnegie Mellon University, director of the National Science Foundation during the Obama administration, and dean of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s School of Engineering, where he is the Vannevar Bush Professor of Engineering Emeritus.
A BTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Suresh received an MS from Iowa State University and an ScD from MIT. He also taught at Brown University. Among his many honors are the Benjamin Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute, the European Materials Medal, the ASME Timoshenko Medal and the Nadai Medal.
He was presented the National Materials Advancement Award, and the Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society’s Hardy Gold Medal. He also has been awarded the Mathewson Gold Medal and the Robert Mehl Medal.
Elected to the National Academy of Inventors and American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Suresh is part of an elite group elected to all three of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, the press release said.
A 2-year-old Indian American girl died on Friday night after a mirror fell on top of her at a Payless ShoeSource store in Riverdale, Georgia, according to a Yahoo News report.
Ifrah Siddique and her mother had gone shoe shopping for her when an unsecured mirror fell on her.
Siddique’s family is now devastated that their little girl is no more and questioning how just a simple shopping trip ended on being the last day of her life.
“You wouldn’t really expect it. We are all in the state of shock,” Aqib Iftkhar, a cousin of Siddique’s, told WSB-TV.
La Tisha Tultaick, who works next door to the Payless store, told WSB-TV that she heard screams and tried to help but emergency personnel asked her to step back.
“I just saw blood and the little girl, but she was just laying there lifeless,” she said.
The little girl was then taken to a local hospital where she later died of internal bleeding and blood loss.
The company released a statement saying, “Our deepest sympathies go out to the family of Ifrah Siddique during this time of incredible loss. We are devastated by this tragic event and are fully cooperating with authorities to research and understand the nature of this accident.”
Iftkhar responded “at least they are fixing it, but still the question is: Why wasn’t it secured in the first place?”
Photograph of a U.S. Department of Homeland Security logo.
The Department of Homeland Security’s repeal of an Obama-era rule which allows spouses of H-1B visa holders to work in the U.S. on an H-4 visa in February, will now be extended to June, according to a court filing from the Department of Homeland Security.
According to a CNN report, the spouses of H-1B holders who are waiting for green cards are eligible to work in the U.S. on H-4 visas, a rule which was introduced by President Barack Obama’s administration in 2015.
However, the Department of Homeland Security stated in a court filing this week that in January the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services had determined that “significant revisions to the draft proposal were necessary that required a new economic analysis” which would take several more weeks to perform.
According to a CNN report, the update on the repeal is in response to a lawsuit filed in April 2015 by a group called Save Jobs USA who argued that the repeal threatens American jobs.
The delay will provide temporarily relief to a lot of H-4 visa holders who are currently working in the U.S.
The CNN report states that the number of overall H-4 visas has been steadily increasing in recent years, with the majority being issued to Indian Americans.
131,051 new H-4 visas were given out in 2016 whereas only 80,015 were given out in 2012.
Before the Obama-era rule, H-4 visa holders weren’t allowed to earn an income or have a Social Security Number.
Hoboken, N.J. Mayor Ravinder Bhalla, with supporters at a rally relating to use of the waterfront. (Photo: Twitter)
The Hoboken police say Indian-American Mayor Ravinder Bhalla’s measures let to reduced violence and misdemeanors during the famous Hoboken LepreCon 2018 festival celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, which fell this year on Saturday March 3.
“In my 25 years of policing in Hoboken, this was the calmest I have ever seen the first Saturday of March,” said Police Chief Ken Ferrante in a statement sent out by the City. “I am glad that no officers were injured during the event, and I thank Mayor Bhalla for supporting our officers and taking steps to ensure everyone’s safety,” Ferrante added, also thanking the city’s police officers for handling long day and long hours of work. Bhalla is the first Indian-American and first Sikh to be mayor of this city across the Hudson River from the Big Apple.
“After receiving a final report from Police Chief Ferrante and based on my observations during the day, I am pleased that there was a clear improvement in quality of life and safety throughout the city,” said Mayor Ravi S. Bhalla in a statement. “I thank the bar owners and hospitality industry for working to make this a dramatically safer event and look forward to a collaborative relationship moving forward,” said the Mayor. Bhalla also thanked the Public Safety Task Force, law enforcement, and the hospitality industry, with whose help, he said, “We have delivered on the promise I made to improve public safety and quality of life during these ‘con’ events.”
Bhalla also thanked a host of other agencies not just in Hoboken but elsewhere for their help, including the Hoboken Police Department, Fire Department, Office of Emergency Management, Volunteer Ambulance Corps, Parking Utility, and Environmental Services, and the police departments from North Bergen, Union City, Secaucus, Stevens, NJ Transit, Port Authority, and Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office.
According to data provided by the City of Hoboken, compared to 2017, arrests during LepreCon decreased by 64 percent (from 11 to 4), ambulance calls decreased by 18 percent (from 28 to 23), and calls for service decreased by 21 percent (from 488 to 386). City ordinance summons increased from 31 to 37.
There were 3 tavern reports on Saturday, compared to 24 during SantaCon in December, 2017. New Jersey and Hoboken ABC Inspectors reported no violations in any of the bars that were inspected, and the Hoboken Fire Department reported 100% compliance with code inspections, the City said.
Mayor Bhalla encouraged taking pre-emptive action in February as a result of which five popular bars were from the weekend’s pub crawl and some were even shut down after evaluations by the state Alcohol Beverage Control agency, a Feb. 23 press release from the Mayor’s office said. About a dozen ABC agents also patrolled the bars, cbslocal.com and other news outlets reported.
NEW YORK – Goutam Jois, an Indian American from New Jersey will run for Congress in this year’s midterm elections to challenge Rep. Leonard Lance (R-7).
“Forty years ago, my parents came to the U.S. for that ‘Promise of America’ which is at risk in so many different ways today. We need to do a lot of work for that,” Jois told News India Times, in a phone interview.
Jois said that he has had “10 years of experience as an organizer for getting millennials into politics” while he also successfully litigated police brutality at the Supreme Court on cases such as LGBT asylum, First Amendment free speech issues and other civil rights cases and would like to offer his experience and expertise to a term in Congress.
The main issues that Jois would like to emphasize when he is elected are the tax bill, state infrastructure and “something I like to call Democracy 2.0.”
Jois said that the tax bill which was recently passed by the GOP needs to be “repealed and replaced.”
“The 7th District are the number one victims of the tax bill and it is setting all the wrong priorities,” he said.
The state infrastructure is also on his list as the statewide transportation system “NJTransit is not in shape and multiple proposals are needed for its efficiency.”
Jois mentioned that the state also doesn’t have broadband Internet access everywhere and that President Donald Trump’s plan to improve infrastructure in New Jersey “is not a plan” as it is “leading to cuts in other areas.”
“The Constitution needs to catch up to our democracy,” Jois explained about his idea of Democracy 2.0.
“In this information age, corporations and the government control huge amounts of information about individuals and their private lives and data breaches are a near-daily occurrence,” Jois stated on his website.
Therefore, he wants to introduce “a campaign finance reform amendment that overturns Citizens United and makes clear that corporations aren’t people and money isn’t speech, a privacy amendment that guarantees every individual a right to privacy in their personal information and private lives and a new voting rights amendment that guarantees every citizen has the right to vote, without interference from partisan gerrymandering or voter suppression tactics,” according to his website.
Jois has been living in New Jersey all his life and has been an activist and advocate for the last 20 years.
He was the Youth Governor of New Jersey when he was in high school, where he organized national youth political conventions and helped start a youth and government program for high school students in Washington D.C.
Today, he works with Atlas Corps, an organization that brings nonprofit leaders from around the world to the U.S.
According to his website, Jois also knows what it is like to create jobs as he helped his father start a construction management consulting company in their garage, which now employs nearly 75 people.
Jois has an undergraduate degree in government and a Master of Public Policy degree from Georgetown University in Washington D.C. and a law degree from Harvard.
He is also a stand-up comedian who has been coaching semi-pro football since 2009.
When asked if he has been using his comedy throughout the campaign, he said, “it’s always useful to have a sense of humor which is used to break the ice and tension.”
Jois lives in Summit, New Jersey with his wife, Elizabeth, who works for a nonprofit organization; they have two children, Anjali (6) and Vikram (4).
From left, Prakash M Swamy, A. Aboobucker, Dr. VG Santhosam, Dr Rajadas and Vijayaraghavan at March 1 event in Chennai. (Photo courtesy Prakash Swamy)
A life-size statue of Tamil poet and savant Thiruvalluvar will be installed in Tamil Christian Church in Middle Village, Queens, New York in May this year.
The statue is donated by VGP World Tamil Sangam headed by businessman and Chairman of VGP Group of Companies and VGP Golden Beech Resorts in Chennai VG Santhosam, according to a press release from Prakash M. Swamy, president of America Tamil Sangam. To date, Santhosam has installed 31 statues of Thiruvalluvar in India and in different countries including Australia, Malaysia, South Africa, France, and Sri Lanka.
Thiruvalluvar was a Tamil poet and philosopher, best known as the author of the Tirukkural (Sacred Couplets) – a collection of couplets on ethics, political and economical matters and love, considered masterpieces in Tamil literature. “It is compared in India and abroad to the Holy Bible, John Milton’s Paradise Lost and the works of Plato,” the press release said. Thiruvalluvar is thought to have lived sometime between the 3rd century BC and the 1st century BC.
At a function held in Dr MGR Janaki College of Arts and Science in Chennai on March1, the statue was formally handed over to Swamy who is assisting with the installation of the statue in New York and is co-sponsor of the event to be held in May by Dr VG Santosam, the press release said. A similar statue will be unveiled in Toronto in May, according to Swamy, and the statues are being shipped to New York and Toronto from Chennai.
The idea of installing Thiruvalluvar statue in New York was conceived when America Tamil Sangam honored Dr Santhosam at an event held in Tamil Christian Church in New York, where the statue is to be installed.
At the event in Chennai, Santhosam was felicitated by Swamy, A Aboobucker, chairman of the Haj Association of Government of India, Dr VGP Rajadas, Vijayaraghavan, director of Tamil Nadu Government Tamil Development Department, Dr Apitha Sabapathy, dean of Dr MGR Janaki College of Arts and Science, Karpoora Sundara Pandian, former secretary to MGR and Jayalalitha, Satchidanandam, a Tamil scholar from Sri Lanka and Dr. Moses Michael Faraday, former dean of Madras Christian College and representative of Tamil Christian Church in Chennai.
ISELIN, New Jersey – Hab Bank (HAB), an Indian American bank with branches in New York, New Jersey and California, hosted a Customer Appreciation Gala Dinner for customers of its Iselin, NJ, branch, on Friday, February 16, at The Marigold, in Somerset, according to a press release.
Over 300 guests, including entrepreneurs and professionals, attended the gala dinner.
Girish Vazirani, the vice president and branch manager of the Iselin Branch, welcomed the guests and expressed HAB’s gratitude for their presence at the dinner.
In his welcome speech, Saleem Iqbal, the bank’s president and CEO, talked about the history of the Indian American community and their presence in the United States, which dates back to 1820.
Saleem Iqbal with Girish Vazirani
Iqbal also pointed out that “early migrants from India paved the way to whole new generation of successful Indian Americans playing pivotal roles in a number of disciplines and industries, from software pioneers in Silicon Valley, mainstream politics and academia to successful artists in TV, films and business leaders.”
The dinner coincided with HAB’s year-long celebration of its 35 years of service to the community.
Since its charter in 1983, HAB claims it is now the largest Indian American bank in the United States.
“HAB’s success and progress is primarily because of its dedicated employees and customers at each and every branch,” Iqbal said.
HAB’s Imran Habib, Rizwan Qureshi, and Zilay Wahidy, along with several other staff members and senior executives, attended the event.
GOPIO officials met with the Consul General of India in New York Sandeep Chakravorty, in New York.
NEW YORK – GOPIO officials and some chapter representatives met with the Consul General of India in New York Sandeep Chakravorty and other consulate officials in New York, on Tuesday, February 20, 2018.
In September, a GOPIO delegation met India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and appealed to launch Know India Program (KIP) during the summer for the second and third generation PIOs in the US who have not visited India.
The ministry in principal accepted this proposal and the Indian Consulate in New York as a follow-up invited a GOPIO delegation to the consulate for discussion to launch Know India Program (KIP) during the summer for PIO youth, said GOPIO, in a press release.
The Indian Consulate officials included some other Consuls too. The GOPIO officials included Chairman Dr. Thomas Abraham, Vice President Ram Gadhavi, Secretary Dr. Rajeev Mehta, Chapter Review Committee Chair Dinesh Mittal, GICC Co-Chair Prakash Shah, GOPIO Media Council Chair Nami Kaur and GOPIO Council on Seniors Chair Sudha Acharya.
GOPIO discussed several other issues, including providing assistance to NRIs/PIOs in need and joint programs with the consulate.
The consulate on its part updated activities and services provided for the community. These include joint efforts with the community organizations as well as organized directly by the Consulate such as the India Lecture series.
The GOPIO delegation brought also the following issues to the attention of the consulate: need for social services for the NRI/PIO community in the US; growing need to address the mental health conditions within the Diaspora; PIOs being charged 10 times fees for off campus enrollment in universities; NRI/PIO Seniors experiencing hunger, loneliness and depression; and limited Consulate resources to attend NRI/PIO events, including Independence Day.
“The biggest outcome of this meeting was the plan to launch Govt. of India’s Know Indian Program (KIP) for the 3rd and above generation US PIOs of age 18-30 who have not visited India before. More details of the selection process will come later,” said GOPIO< in a statement.
Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan speaks during an interview with Reuters in Mumbai, January 18, 2017. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui
NEW YORK – Three Indian actors are among the top 20 highest-paid actors in the world last year, in 2017: Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar, according to CNBC.com.
Shah Rukh Khan earned the most of the three Indian actors, with $38 million; Salman Khan made $37 million and Akshay Kumar earned $35.5 million. The three were ranked 8, 9, and 10th, respectively, on the list of the top 20 highest paid actors.
Others who earned more than them are: Tom Cruise ($43 million), Robert Downey Jr. ($48 million), Jackie Chan ($49 million), Adam Sandler ($50.5 million), Vin Diesel ($54.5 million), Dwayne Johnson ($65 million), and Mark Wahlberg, who earned $68 million.
Other actors among the top 20 highest-paid are, with respective rank:
Mumbai: Veteran actor-producer Shashi Kapoor who died at a Mumbai hospital in Dec 4, 2017. He was 79. (Photo: IANS)
NEW YORK – Bollywood actors Shashi Kapoor and Sridevi were honored at the 90th Academy Awards ceremony in the ‘Memoriam’ montage, which pays tribute to those who the film industry has lost in the past year, according to an NDTV report.
Along with Kapoor and Sridevi, others who were included in the montage were former James Bond Sir Roger Moore, French star Jeanne Moreau, actors Martin Landau and Harry Dean Stanton, actor and playwright Sam Shepard, and directors George Romero and Jonathan Demme.
Kapoor passed away in December at the age of 79, due to a long illness and though he was not too familiar with international movie-goers, he starred in several Merchant-Ivory films in the 60s, 70s and 80s, among them The Householder, Shakespeare Wallah and Heat And Dust.
Sridevi just recently passed away at the age of 54 from accidental drowning in her hotel bathtub while she was attending a family wedding in Dubai.
She was considered the first female superstar of Indian cinema and in her 50-year career, starred in 300 films across five languages.
Veteran actress Sridevi, who passed away after suffering a cardiac arrest, she was in Dubai for a family function. She was 54. (File Photo: IANS )
Some of her finest performances include Sadma, Mr. India, Lamhe, Chandni and English Vinglish.
“Oscars. Thank you for remembering Shashi Kapoor and Sridevi. Thrilled to see the name Raj Kapoor as the executive producer of the show. We are on the threshold of world cinema!” tweeted Rishi Kapoor, nephew of Kapoor and one of Sridevi’s co-stars.
Varun Dhawan was also amazed to see the ‘Memoriam’ montage this year.
“So amazing to see the #oscars pay respect to #shashikapoor and #sridevi #Oscar90,” he tweeted.
This year, the ‘Memoriam’ montage was set to Eddie Vedder performing a Tom Petty song live, reported NDTV.com.
