1. society
2. unrest and war

Buying/Selling1 ?
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
Winzone Realty Inc.
Baldev
Singh
Associate
Broker/Notary
Cell : 917-224-7395
Vol. 12
Issue 42
Wednesday April 1-7, 2015
www.thesouthasianinsider.com
Price $ 1
Published Weekly from New York
So You Got Rejected by Harvard.
Guess What? It Doesn’t Matter.
(Agencies) Rejection is harsh, and elite universities,
unfeeling bureaucracies that they are, just love to dole it
out. This year, Harvard University admitted only 5.3 percent
of its 37,307 applicants, an all-time low. The other Ivies
took in anywhere from 6.1 percent of hopefuls (Columbia
University) to 14.9 percent (Cornell University). Silicon
Valley’s favorite finishing school, Stanford University, had
a rock-bottom acceptance rate of 5 percent.
Somewhere, the student body president of an
affluent suburban high school is weeping into her
prematurely purchased crimson sweatshirt.
But she can take heart. Even if prestigious
colleges are saying thanks but no thanks to more kids
than ever, the majority of top students still have great
odds of getting into at least one very competitive
school. Moreover, the evidence suggests that for the
typical kid with dreams of spending her undergrad
years in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
(Contd on page 21)
“UGADI the
How Reliance is taking over Indian
Story
ON
Telugu New Year Media, now buying Sun TV Network
Manmadha
Celebrated by
Telugu
US States Are Divided by the Lines
Association
Page
32
Story ON
Page 15
(Agencies) After taking over one of India’s
largest media companies in the form of
Network 18 group, now Reliance Industries
Limited (RIL) is eyeing a take over of
Kalanithi Maran’s Sun TV network, another
big media house which was once named
as Asia’s most profitable media corporation
and the largest
TV network,
according to
its Wikipedia
page. (Contd
on page 21)
They Draw on Immigration
Women achievers celebrated
4th Annual Indian American Forum Gala & Awards held
Seen in picture: Honorees with IAF Board members and other Community leaders .
(Agencies) Washington has long allowed immigrants
without legal status to get driver’s licenses. So Ofelia
Rosas Ramos, a Mexican living illegally in Seattle, has
had her license since 2008. “That is one of the big
advantages of this state,” said Ms. Rosas, 31, whose 4year-old daughter, an American citizen, has severe
allergies. “
(Contd on page 20)
USA
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
2
(Agencies) The time and location of
Hillary Clinton’s long-anticipated
campaign kickoff are closely guarded
secrets among her scattered staff — but
what she’ll do immediately after her
announcement is coming into clearer
focus.
Clinton, according to several people
familiar with the still-in-flux planning
process, will embark on a short tour that
will almost certainly include Iowa — and
perhaps other states — to interact with
voters in a series of events, most of them
in low-key settings.
That might be easier said than done,
considering the hundreds of national and
international news media that are likely
to monitor Clinton’s every move. But her
Hillary’s launch plan: Come down to earth
Clinton’s campaign-in-waiting is plotting a series of events to re-introduce her to Real America.
team is keen to speed her transition from
aloof global personality to the kind of
down-to-earth campaigner who emerged
during the latter half of the 2008 primary
season when she barnstormed through
Ohio, West Virginia and Indiana.
“They know that they need to
reintroduce Hillary to America,” said one
Democratic insider familiar with the
Clinton team’s thinking. “They know it
makes no sense to think of this as, ‘Let’s
start where she left off on the national
stage.’ This is not a continuation of the
Hillary we knew as secretary of state.
That’s the focus of their energy.”
Clinton aides want to reintroduce her
with “humility,” the source added. “They
are making sure she understands there
are no guarantees, and I think we’re
going to see that in her posture and her
words. I don’t think people are expecting
that.”
One Clinton insider said, “Everything
is a moving target” when it comes to
planning her rollout. But her scattered
team, working out of coffee shops,
borrowed offices and their apartments are
looking at a variety of events beyond the
set-piece, “traditional” political rallies that
characterized her 2008 kickoff and are
more inclined to schedule smaller voter
roundtables, along with meet-and-greets
that highlight the down-to-earth approach
that characterized her 2008 campaign —
but only after Barack Obama had sewed
up the nomination.
Clinton staffers say the kickoff
announcement is likely to be made
during the first few weeks in April but
stressed that no firm date has been
chosen yet. Most expect that Clinton’s
initial announcement will come via social
media or by mass email, followed by
events. The location of her first in-person
event has yet to be chosen, they say.
The consensus among most
Democrats POLITICO spoke to is that
Clinton’s two most likely kickoff locations
are New Hampshire, site of her stunning
come-from-behind victory in 2008, or
Iowa, a state Obama won handily, setting
the stage for his nomination and
presidency. New Hampshire would be a
more comfortable choice for the Clintons,
who view the state as a friendly bulwark
for their brand of establishment
Democratic politics. But Clinton’s team
wants to convince voters in Iowa — —
the nation’s first to vote in 2016 — that
she values the battleground state, despite
trashing its quirky caucus system eight
years ago.Those locations could make
sense for a candidate who is closely
associated with no clear home base.
In 2007, Springfield, Ill., wasn’t just the
backdrop of Obama’s campaign
announcement: It was a main character
in his speech.
“It was here, in Springfield, where I saw
all that is America converge — farmers
and teachers, businessmen and laborers,
all of them with a story to tell, all of them
seeking a seat at the table, all of them
clamoring to be heard,” Obama said. His
invocation of “a tall, gangly, self-made
Springfield lawyer tells us that a different
future is possible.”
In 1992, Bill Clinton launched himself
from the Old State House in Little Rock,
Ark., where he served as governor. A
running theme of his speech was that
Arkansas had led the way on education
and job creation.
Hillary Clinton was raised in the
suburbs of Chicago, but she hasn’t
lived there since she left home for
college in Massachusetts. Her
formative years were spent on her
husband’s home turf and then in
Washington, D.C. — neither of which
makes for an authentic campaign
backdrop.
How Google, Facebook And Others Pay Their H-1B Employees
(Agencies) L e g i s l a t i v e d e b a t e
regarding expanding the H-1B visa
program is heating up in the U.S.
Senate. H-1B visas allow foreign
workers — specifically those in
technical roles—to legally work in
the United States. In lobbying for
an expansion of the current H-1B
visa program, Google executive
Eric Schmidt said, “We take very,
very smart people, bring them into
the country, give them a diploma and
kick them out where they go on to
create companies that compete with
us.”
Amid this discussion, jobs at
Google, Facebook and other tech
giants have grown increasingly
lucrative for Americans and foreigners
alike.
An analysis of records from
the Office of Foreign Labor
Certification (OFLC) reveals that the
median salary offered to H-1B
applicants b y s o m e o f t h e b i g g e s t
tech companies — Amazon,
Apple, Facebook, Google and
Microsoft — is well over $100K
and continues to rise.Facebook
has been the most lucrative
company for H-1B visa holders
thus far in 2015 (of the five
c o m p a n i e s a b o ve), with a median
salary of $135K across all positions.
But how do the companies stack up
for specific roles?
By examining the most
common professions among H-1B
a p p l i c a n ts f o r A m a z o n , A p p l e ,
Facebook, Google and Microsoft, five
consistent career paths emerged
across each company. Software
engineers, systems software
engineers, financial analysts,
computer systems analysts and
marketing managers make up a large
part of H-1B visa applications.
Salaries for software
engineers largely echo the overall
trends, with Facebook offering the
highest median salary and Amazon
paying the lowest. Meanwhile, median
H-1B salaries for computer systems
analysts cover a much smaller range,
with the most generous company
(Google) paying only $23,100 more
than the least generous (Amazon).
The computer systems analyst role
is also notable for being the only job
for which Facebook is among the
bottom two for foreign worker
pay.Finally, how do these companies
stack up to other H-1B employers?
According to 2014’s salary
distribution, they’re among the
highest-paying, but certainly not the
highest of all. About 7,000 H-1B
applicants last year were offered
salaries upwards of $200K.
You can see the distribution
of H-1B salaries across all U.S.
companies below.
USA
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
3
Google controls what we buy, the
news we read- and Obama’s policies
(Agencies) As Michael Kinsley used
to say, the scandal about corruption in
Washington is not the stuff that’s illegal
but the stuff that’s legal. A former Google
officer is the president’s chief technology
adviser. Google employees contributed
more to President Obama’s re-election
than did employees of any other company
except Microsoft. Google lobbyists met
with Obama White House officials 230
times. By comparison, lobbyists from
rival Comcast have been admitted to the
inner sanctum a mere 20 or so times in
the same period.Oh, and on Election
Night 2012, guess where Google
executive chairman Eric Schmidt was?
Working for the president. In the
president’s campaign office. On a voterturnout system designed to help the
president get re-elected. Obama
lieutenant David Plouffe boasts: “On
Election Night [Schmidt] was in our boiler
room in Chicago,” he told Bloomberg
News, in a story that revealed that for
the campaign Schmidt “helped recruit
talent, choose technology and coach the
campaign manager, Jim Messina, on the
finer points of leading a large
organization.”
Schmidt was especially fond of a
madcap corner of the Obama campaign
office known as “the Cave,” where, at 4:30
every day, staffers would dance madly
under a disco ball to the tune of a mashup
of Psy’s “Gangnam Style” and an
automated campaign phone call made to
prospective voters.
Favors beget favors. And hey, presto,
the FTC, in 2012, ignored the
recommendations of its own staffers,
which accused Google of abusive trade
practices for burying competitors in their
search results and recommended a
lawsuit.Instead, the FTC dropped its
inquiry. Google enjoys 67 percent market
share, 83 percent in mobile. No biggie,
declared the FTC.
Google lobbyists have been pushing
for implementation of “net neutrality”
regulations, particularly a “Title II”
provision that would benefit Google.
President Obama helpfully came out in
support of the plan, including Title II, which
was slightly embarrassing because
Obama’s FCC chair, Tom Wheeler, had
favored a different approach. Wheeler
promptly reversed course and backed the
Obama-Google plan. Right before the FCC
report was due, but before it was made
public, the FCC pulled another odd
reversal, removing 15 pages of policy
Google apparently found out about but
didn’t like.CC Commissioner Ajit Pai said
that the changes came about after “a lastminute submission from a major
California based company.” I wonder
which company he’s talking about. In-NOut Burger? It’s not like Google is
ungrateful for all of this special attention.
When the newly launched ObamaCare
website was plagued by evil spirits,
guess which company was sent to fix it?
Google’s proton packs helped kill off
the ObamaCare site’s goblins, but the
country got slimed.
Still, all of this is easily forgiven
compared to what’s coming next:
politically filtered information.Google
says that in the future, its determinations
about what is true and what is untrue will
play a role in how search-engine rankings
are configured.
Google has the power to bump an
article it doesn’t like off the table and
under the rug. Even moving information
off the first page of search results would
effectively neutralize it: According to a
2013 study, 91.5 percent of Google
search users click through on a first-page
result. To put it mildly, your idea of
whether Fox News or MSNBC is a more
reliable purveyor of “truth” might differ
substantially from your neighbor’s.
Google’s idea of ranking results based
on truth is an excellent one that it should
implement just as soon as it comes up
with an absolutely, unbiased and
objective system of determining truth.
I’m not sure the company whose
employees ranked second in all of
corporate America in campaign donations
to Obama can be termed neutral. I’m not
sure the nation’s most impartial arbiter
is a guy who partied to the sounds of an
Obama campaign robocall.
Why I, Shreya Singhal,
Challenged Section 66(A)
I filed the petition challenging
Section 66(A) of the IT Act, 2010, in 2012
after the arrests of the two young girls in
Maharashtra, I was so shocked as to why
they were arrested and even more so
when I read the section 66(A) under which
they were arrested. The continued misuse
of 66A led to arrests in West Bengal and
Pondicherry and it dawned on me that
someone had to do something to stop
this gross injustice and perverse use of
laws. 66(A) was a gag on the internet. It
had the potential to criminalise any and
all content that was uploaded to the
internet, merely because a reader found
something "annoying" or "of menacing
character" amongst other vague and
undefined ingredients to this "crime".
66(A) was violative of our fundamental
right to free speech.
Microsoft Aims To Kill Google Chromebooks With $149 Windows 10 Laptops
(Agencies) Despite a lacklustre start,
Chromebooks are becoming relatively
popular in the super-budget end of the
portable market. This has worried
Microsoft for some time. After all,
with a Google-centric experience, not
to mention an operating system in
the form of Chrome OS, there’s little
if anything to be gained here by
Microsoft and everything to lose.
That’s why it’s targeting the
Chromebook specifically, with a most
likely Windows 10-based $149
laptop.
They’re no MacBook killers
and don’t expect them to play GTA V,
though (when it finally makes a PC
appearance that is). According to tech
rumour site www.Digitimes.com, these
laptops are geared primarily towards
emerging markets, education and the
super-low end market, which includes
users whose tasks are limited to web
browsing, word processing and social
media use. This is an important move
for Microsoft. Google has a habit of
making things work and with
Chromebooks gaining traction,
especially during the hard financial
times of the last few years, it has to
m e e t i t h e a d - o n . Yo u r a v e r a g e
Pentium or Celeron laptop costs far
more than the cheaper Chromebooks
and while AMD-based laptops come
close price-wise, the simplicity of
Google’s offerings are also a worry
for Microsoft, given the huge swathes
of people that ditched their aging laptops
for tablets.
The laptops are reported to use
Intel’s Bay Trail platform – a low power
processor that’s enjoyed much success
in the tablet market with products such
as the Asus Transformer Book and
Lenovo ThinkPad 10. The initial launch
will likely see an 11.6in model released
– the same size as most current
Chromebooks, but with Google already
offering 13in and 15in Chromebooks, it’s
highly likely Microsoft will follow suit. The
PC market has perked up in recent months
with the record-long down turn appearing to
be at an end and tablet sales, including those
of Apple’s iPad, have been in sharp decline.
This could indicate a return to a traditional
keyboard-based device that arguably
allows for more efficient productivity than
a tablet, although Microsofts primary
concern is to deal with the threat of the
Chromebook.
Of course, everything rests on
Windows 10. If it’s a flop then Microsoft
will have lost far more than market share
at the bottom end of the laptop market.
WORLD
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
4
Biggest Sellout
Now that Guinness World Records is
in bed with publicity-seeking
companies, can we trust it?
The Champagne tasting
was over, and things had gotten
tense. On one side of the
discussion were representatives
of the Knot, the wedding-guide
website hosting the tasting. On
the other, polite but firm, was
Philip Robertson, a 41-year-old
Scotland native wearing a green
blazer that announced his
affiliation with the Guinness
World Records company. At
issue was the question of
whether more than 515 humans
had completed all three rounds
of the tasting.
Robertson is an official
Guinness World Records
adjudicator. That afternoon, he
and a staff of 11 “stewards” were
keeping track of the event, at
which Knot staffers and hundreds
of invited guests (including, per
the Knot, engaged couples and
“married couples who have used
The Knot to help plan their
weddings”) were attempting to
set a new world record for “largest
champagne tasting.” Some of
the stewards had informed
Robertson that a group of about
20 people had left an upstairs
area of the event space being
referred to as Section C during
the tasting. (In addition to the
stewards, staffing included at
least three people wearing
headsets and six with clipboards.
It was a big production.) If that
group had left the premises
before the event was over, the
Knot would have fallen short of
the 516 participants required to
set the new record. The Knot’s
representatives said that the
group in question—which was
affiliated with Kleinfeld, the bridal
boutique—had in fact completed
the tasting in Section A
downstairs. But Robertson
needed to confirm that detail with
the stewards, who’d already
left—and weren’t answering their
phones.
It was a particularly
sticky spot for Robertson
because the Knot has a
business relationship with
Guinness World Records. In fact,
it paid Guinness World Records
to help create this very event.
Robertson needed to worry about
maintaining his employer’s sixdecade-old reputation for being
the authority on world records—
an achievement in companyproduct synonymousness on par
with Kleenex, Xerox, and Coke.
But he also had to worry about
the satisfaction of a client that—
like many other companies and
brands these days—had paid his
employer thousands of dollars for
its services as, in effect, a viral
marketing consultant. If
Guinness is both a record keeper
and an advertising firm, can we
still trust it?
The first Guinness Book
of Records was released in 1955.
The company says it’s sold 132
million copies of the annually
updated publication in the 60
years since. The Guinness
World Records business was
affiliated with Guinness beer until
2001 and has since changed
hands a few times, ultimately
landing
in
the
same
conglomerate that owns Ripley’s
Believe It or Not. In 2010 the
business-to-business marketing
division began formally selling its
services to companies and
brands. Guinness World
Records marketing director
Stuart Claxton told me the
creation of a formal “B2B” arm
was a response to the volume of
requests for consultation that
were coming in from for-profit
entities; he says Guinness
World Records now gets
approximately 260 initial inquiries
a month from businesses looking
for help setting or certifying a
record. “We offer creative
consultancy services, and then
the service spirals out from
there. Licensing, [having an]
adjudicator on site, branding,
logo usage, all the kind of stuff
that makes up the marketing
and PR presence,” Claxton
said. In 2013 the company told
Bloomberg it hoped such
efforts would account for half
of its U.S. revenue by 2015,
and a spokeswoman said
projections are still “headed in
that direction,” but did not
share
further
details.
Robertson told me that 60
percent of his work as a judge
is at publicity events hosted
by brands.
Evidence of the B2B
team’s work is easy to find.
On March 16, the Herbalife
company announced that it’d
set the record for “number of
people in a High Intensity
Interval Training Workout in
One location,” and Pyrex
unveiled “the World’s Largest
Measuring Cup.” On March 18,
Fiat Chrysler’s Ram division
announced that it would be
attempting to set a record for
“largest parade of pickup
trucks” when the Academy of
Country Music Awards are
held in Arlington, Texas’ AT&T
Stadium in April. The day after
the Knot event I attended,
Robertson was due in Times
Square to adjudicate as a
puppet version of the Snuggle
fabric softener brand’s Snuggle
Bear attempted to give 5,000
hugs in eight hours.
It isn’t surprising that Guinness
World Records would be looking
for new ways to make money. Its
flagship product is a book, and
the book industry is in permanent
crisis. According to Nielsen
BookScan, which tracks books
sold by certain retailers
(including Amazon), the
paperback edition of Guinness’
2014 records almanac sold
about a fifth as many copies in
the Un i t e d Sta t e s a s t h e
comparable edition in 2001.
Guinness does have a website,
but its traffic of 14 million
unique visitors a year is not
going to pay the bills. The
Internet has enabled other
sources, most obviously
Wikipedia, to move in on
Guinness World Records’
territory as the go-to reference
for the kinds of questions that
pop up at parties and family
gatherings:
OP-ED
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
5
Don’t Blame It on Depression
Because Germanwings
pilot Andreas Lubitz killed himself
when he purposefully drove a
plane carrying 149 other people
into a mountain in the Alps, there
has been an assumption that he
suffered from “depression”—an
assumption strengthened by the
discovery of antidepressants in
his home and reports that he had
been treated in psychiatry and
neurology clinics. Many patients
and other interested parties are
rightly concerned that Lubitz’s
murderous behavior will further
stigmatize the mentally ill.
It is certainly true that
stigma may lead those in need
to avoid treatment. When I was
a psychiatrist at an HIV clinic, I
was baffled by the shame
associated with a visit to see me.
Patients at the clinic had
advanced AIDS, often contracted
through IV drug use or sex work,
and many had unprotected sex
despite their high viral loads.
Some were on parole. Many had
lost custody of their children.
Many lived in notorious singleroom occupancy housing and
used cocaine daily. But these
issues, somehow, were less
embarrassing
than
the
suggestion that they be evaluated
by a psychiatrist.For my clinic
patients, it was shameful to be
mentally ill. But to engage in
antisocial behavior as a way of
life? Not so bad.
I think my patients were on to
something. Bad behavior—even
suicidal behavior—is not the
same as depression. It is a
truism in psychiatry that
depression is underdiagnosed.
But as a psychiatrist confronted
daily with “problem” patients in
the general hospital where I work,
I find that depression is also
overdiagnosed. Even doctors
invoke “depression” to explain
anything a reasonable adult
wouldn’t do.
For instance: Act
completely blasé, then lock the
pilot out of the cockpit, and
deliberately crash a plane full of
people.
I don’t know what that
is, but it’s not depression.
In the hospital where I
practice, a small but regular
population of patients are young
men who sustained gunshot
wounds during or in proximity to
gang-related activities. Now
paralyzed, they are admitted for
pressure ulcers or urinary tract
infections. These men were
accustomed to getting their
needs met through intimidation
and even murder. Now they are
dependent on nurses and aides
for intimate care, and it hasn’t
made them any nicer. They
terrorize staff by throwing urinals
and food and sexually harassing
them. When I am asked to
evaluate for “depression,” I see
hopelessness, entitlement, and
rage.
And it’s not just
antisocial behavior that is
explained away by calling it
“depression.” I’m often asked to
see patients with poorly
managed chronic diseases; for
example, diabetics who neglect
to do fingersticks to draw blood
and test their blood sugar.
Recently I did a consultation for
a patient who is on dialysis and
ignores the low-salt “renal diet”
prescribed by her doctor. Her
insistence on eating chips led her
nephrologist to wonder if she
were depressed; after all,
wouldn’t a mentally healthy
person give up junk food to save
her own life?
We all know the answer
to that.
On a daily basis in the
hospital, I see sad, lonely, elderly
widows. Many live in walk-up
apartments, but can no longer
walk, and neither can their
friends. Their children live in
another country. When I ask
what they enjoy doing, they say
they enjoy knitting or dancing or
visiting their grandchildren. But
nudged a little, they admit that
they haven’t been able to do any
of those things for years. They
spend their whole lives watching
television. Are they depressed?
Or “depressed”?
“Depression” seems to
signify social ills for which we
have no solution, from violent,
homicidal behavior, to health
illiteracy, to our culture’s neglect
of the elderly. Constructing
societal deficits as a medical
problem does everyone a
disservice—because
treatment
specific
for
depression won’t work for
people who don’t really have
depression. People who need
social support can be
expected to benefit most from
programs that provide social
support—not
from
psychiatrists.
The patient with bona
fide depression will benefit
from
treatment
with
antidepressants or proven
psychotherapies. For the
lonely great-grandmothers,
the junk food addicts, and the
violent paraplegics, there has
t o b e a n o t h e r form of
intervention. We must turn from
the inappropriate use of the
disease model of emotional
distress and understand that
individuals’ psychological pain
arises within social systems
as well as within their own
brains.Was Andreas Lubitz
depressed? We don’t know; a
torn-up doctor’s note and
bottles of pills don’t tell us
much. Most people who commit
suicide suffer from a mental
illness, most commonly
depression. But calling his
actions suicidal is misleading.
Lubitz did not die quietly at home.
He maliciously engineered a
spectacular plane crash and
killed 150 people. Suicidal
thoughts can be a hallmark of
depression, but mass murder is
another beast entirely. Using the
word “depression” to describe
inexplicable or violent behavior
sends two false signals: First,
that society has no obligations
with regard to our happiness—
because misery is a medical
problem—and second, that a
depressed person is in danger of
committing abhorrent acts.
Depressed people need help.
“Depressed” people do, too—but
not the same kind.
Marijuana Is Changing the Workplace.
Here’s How Employers Should Deal With It.
With
medical
marijuana legal in 23 states and
Washington, D.C., there are
now millions of card-carrying
cannabis users working at
companies across the U.S.
While four states and the
District have legalized
recreational marijuana use, pot
is still illegal under federal law,
and many business owners still
subscribe to the plant’s Reefer
Madness stigma and don’t want
to allow people to smoke on the
job. For some of those owners,
that can mean getting sued for
failing to accommodate an
employee who has a medical
condition.
Regardless of how you
feel about marijuana, there are
certain rules employees and
employers need to follow when
it comes to drugs in the
workplace. If you make a
mistake, you could find yourself
in court. Todd Wulffson, a
partner at California-based
employment and labor law firm
Carothers
DiSante
&
Freudenberger, is one of the
many lawyers who have been
busy defending employers in
these types of cases. Wulffson
says that to protect your
business you need to update
your employment policies and
human resources programs, and
train all managers.
First, employers need to
be familiar with the laws that have
been passed in their states and
consider a drug policy that
doesn’t prohibit employees from
using cannabis on their own time.
With 86 percent of Americans
supporting medical marijuana, an
overly restrictive policy may chase
some of your workers to another
employer. Marijuana, while still
classified as a Schedule I drug
without medical use, does have
medical benefits, and a bipartisan
bill to make medical marijuana
legal on the federal level has been
introduced in the Senate.
Until then, employers
need to take steps to avoid
becoming a target of an employee
lawsuit (whether the employee
would have a strong case or not).
“There are four scenarios that play
out in these types of lawsuits that
I see over and over again,”
Wulffson says.
1. Innocent inquiry
The first scenario is when
an employee or an applicant
innocently asks the question “‘I
just wanted to know, would you
accommodate my use of medical
marijuana?’” “That’s a loaded
question because you have to
accommodate the underlying
disability of the medical
condition,” Wulffson says. “But
you don’t have to accommodate
being stoned at work.”
If the query is put to the
human resources department,
the HR person should tell the
employee that the company will
accommodate his condition. At
the same time, the employee
should explain his condition, the
treatment, and exactly what kind
of accommodation he needs so
you can have a dialogue about
it.
Where
most
companies falter is when a
manager doesn’t know the
company policy and speaks
out of turn. “If an employee
asks a line manager, they
could easily say, ‘Hell no! We
don’t accommodate stoners!
You can’t be stoned at work!’
“ Then the employee says, “Gee,
I got glaucoma and I was hoping
you’d accommodate my
condition.” If the manager doesn’t
tell the employee to go talk to
HR and fires them, Wulffson
warns, the result may be a
lawsuit.
2. An ill employee stoned at work
The second scenario,
Wulffson says,
(Contd on page 23)
EDITORIAL
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
6
The West and its flawed anti-IS strategy Towards safer skies
If there are any doubts about a global double standard when it comes to West
Asia, then the reaction to the bombing of Yemen by Saudi Arabia and its partners
will put them to rest. Here is a situation, where fighter jets of a Saudi-led coalition
are pounding the capital of another country, Sana'a, without seeking any
international mandate, and there is absolute silence from those who should object.
Leaders in Washington, London, Paris and Berlin have not appealed to
the United Nations nor have they asked for an end to the bombing of civilians in
an effort to stop the advance of rebels. Despite the question of sovereignty — of
more than 100 air raids in which dozens of civilians have died in the capital,
human rights violations and even the basic worry of these raids helping al-Qaeda
and the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) in Yemen — there has been not one
word of censure from them. In fact, Washington is backing the strikes, France
and the United Kingdom are giving them “all possible” technical help, and Egypt,
Turkey and even Pakistan plan to help with the “ground offensive” to back the
Yemeni President, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, against Houthi rebels.
For Western introspection
For those who say this is a justified attack to support a legitimate ruler, stop,
think and rewind to 2012-2013, when the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad,
faced the most difficult pressure from armed Free Syrian Army fighters and Jabhat
Al-Nasrah rebels (IS took control later). What would have been the Western
reaction had Iran sent jets into Aleppo, Homs and Hama to back its ally, Mr.
Assad? Wouldn’t these countries have set up a counter-attack within 24 hours,
or at least convened the UN Security Council for a Right to Protect (R2P) mandate
to do so?
The rank duality in dealing with the situation in Yemen is not just the subject of
some hand-wringing; it is the single largest reason why the war against IS and
even its successor organisations will be unwinnable for these countries. Despite
3,000 air strikes by a United States-led coalition of 62 countries that began
operations last August to counter IS, IS continues to control more than an
estimated 55,000 square kilometres of area in Iraq and Syria. That IS is an evil
terror group displaying unprecedented brutality is undoubtable. That it is a threat
to every country in the world should be obvious from the way the group has
targeted every nationality: beheading American, British, Japanese and Egyptian
citizens alike, burning alive a Jordanian national, and broadcasting its terror
worldwide in the most bestial way. It poses the biggest threat to the next generation
as well, recruiting a record number of child soldiers, and training children as
young as five to kill. If the coalition, which represents nearly a third of the world,
which has the resolve, the firepower, and the experience of fighting terror groups
in every part of the world, is unable to counter such a group, deep and searching
questions must be asked about why that is.
Down to logistics
To begin with, there is a basic problem of logistics. Despite the most sophisticated
drones and surveillance of the region, an air strike on an IS target is ineffective
without an accompanying ground force in place. Even if the U.S. and its coalition
are able to strengthen Iraqi armed forces to conduct ground operations, it is
meaningless until they are also able to enlist Syrian armed forces to launch a
pincer-like action on the group that straddles both countries. Without the ground
forces, all victories over IS territory are, essentially, pyrrhic. This was evident in
the Syrian town of Kobane along the Turkish border where the U.S. Alliance
drove IS out in September 2014 after two weeks of sustained bombing and 600
strikes. As journalists were allowed into the city, their cameras bore out the
tragic truth: all that was left of IS-controlled areas was a vast wasteland. The
reason that the U.S. coalition has been unable to engage the Syrian regime for
help on the ground is of course the reason why it ignored the rise of IS in the first
place. The West’s preoccupation with the removal of Mr. Assad and the funding
and arming of the groups that opposed him since 2011 led to complete surprise
at the rapidity with which IS fighters have taken over Syrian and Iraqi towns. In
October last year, U.S. President Barack Obama finally conceded that
underestimating IS’s rise had been a major “intelligence failure.” But it was more
than that. It was the determined effort to ensure that “Assad must go” that led the
Western and West Asian countries ranged against Mr. Assad to ignore his
warnings about the nature of the fighters his army was battling. As a result, and
in another example of the double standard, the 62-member coalition now routinely
bombs areas that it wanted to stop Mr. Assad’s forces from bombing.
Misreading the Arab Spring
The other flaw with the West’s strategy is the pursuance of regime change,
focussed on one leader as the single purpose of its wars in West Asia. Recent
history should have taught the U.S., the U.K. and others that the removal of
Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qadhafi haven’t been the end of the conflict;
they have merely marked the beginning of a more diabolical and deadly version of
the conflict. Hanging Saddam and lynching Qadhafi hasn’t led to peace in Iraq
and Libya, nor would the possible ouster of Mr. Assad do that. Instead, it has led
to an erosion of what were once “secular” regimes, where minorities and women
enjoyed a higher position than they do in other countries of the Arab world.
The Germanwings Airbus A320 crash in the French Alps that killed
150 people including the co-pilot who was responsible for it, raises a
difficult question for the aviation industry: can it determine with finality
that a pilot is fit in all respects before a flight? Despite the rigorous
physical and psychological testing processes in place, that may not be
possible. Civil aviation is among the most regulated sectors because of
the risks that flying entails for everyone — the passengers, crew and
people on the ground. The revelation that Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot of
the Germanwings aircraft, had mental health issues that he concealed
from his employer raises disturbing questions. It underscores the fragility
of the human factor which is truly the critical element in the rigorous
processes required for aviation. The Lubitz issue showed that the annual
medical examination of pilots done under strict European Union
regulations can fail to identify psychological problems such as depression.
Significantly, last year ’s mysterious Malaysia Airlines MH 370
disappearance also involved a captain who may have been disturbed.
Had the EU a ‘two-person’ cockpit rule such as in the U.S., which requires
two crew members to be present in the cockpit always, this act of mass
murder could have been stopped. The EU and the European Aviation
Safety Agency are now considering the introduction of a similar rule.
Flight safety has so far focussed on threats from the passenger
side, and the 9/11 terror episode led to fortification of the cockpit. In
exceptional circumstances, such as an emergency affecting the pilot
and the cockpit area, the crew can use a code that opens the cockpit
door briefly, or it even opens automatically if the pilots are immobilised
due to depressurisation. But if they are in a position to act, pilots can
override this mechanism. The crash in the Alps has launched the search
for a solution to this problem, of accessing the cockpit from outside, if
the plane has been commandeered from within. The quest now includes
a technological solution — one that enhances ground control of aircraft
features, including the cabin door, remotely. On the human factor aspect
that cannot be overemphasised, the solution lies partly in destigmatising
mental health issues. This is particularly relevant to the present-day
workplace, where the emphasis is on productivity. Stress and aviation do
not go together, and pilot recruitment tests are designed to exclude those
who crack under pressure. Preliminary evidence shows that Andreas
Lubitz was indeed stressed, and that in spite of medical advice pursued
his deadly course. It is tragic that a failure to factor in the possibility of
human errors has led to tragedies of this proportion in the skies.
ISSN No. 1554 06X
Chairman: Karam Singh Thind (Honorary)
Editor in Chief: Sharanjit Singh Thind
Editor: Aruna Singh :(Political Affairs-India)
President : Bhupinder Kaur Thind
Associate Editor: Bidisha Roy
Director : Anupam Nagpal
Editorial Intern: Max
TV Partner: Ajay Batra (IVS TV)
Special Correspondent :
Web Coordinator : Jatinder Kumar
Gagandeep Singh (INDIA)
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OPINION
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
7
What ISIS Achieves With Its Images Of Destruction
Last month, the “press office of
the province of Nineveh” released a video
that showed Daesh (ISIS) militants
destroying statues and other historic
objects in Mosul’s central museum.
Anyone who loves art will find it painful to
watch the images of destruction, although
the images are tame by the standards of
ISIS videos.
The militants, making no attempt
to conceal their faces, apply
sledgehammers and electric drills to
ancient statues. Even after the statues
have been toppled and broken into smaller
fragments, the men in the video continue
to hammer away, smashing at fragments
of heads and torsos.
The video also shows the
defacement of a lamassu, or winged bull,
which appears to come from Nineveh. Few
outsiders can assess the extent of the
damage in the area of Mosul, which has
been under ISIS control for some months,
and perhaps both replicas and originals
have been attacked. But evidently, many
beautiful works have been assaulted, and
their loss is horrendous.
History’s sigh rises over ruins, as
the poet Derek Walcott once said. Iraq is
rich in its past, and its sites and museums
contains artefacts that come from a
seemingly bewildering variety of periods
and cultures. The people who have left a
mark on the area of modern Iraq are known
to us as Sumerian, Assyrian, Akkadian,
Jewish, Persian, Seleucid, Roman, and
Christian. Every time a conqueror ravages
the land, the aftershocks can be felt in
the history of a dozen cultures and more.
Some of these old cultures and
peoples are still a part of the fabric of Iraq
and feel the heat of ISIS on a daily basis.
The militants have targeted Yazidi shrines,
Christian churches, and Shi’a mosques,
as we learned last summer, and the fate
of these people and their places of worship
should matter to us no less than the wellbeing of more ancient monuments.
Of course, the loss of statues
pales into insignificance beside the many
deaths caused by ISIS, the violent attacks
on women, the horrifying treatment of
homosexuals, and a hundred other acts
that ISIS has committed in the last year.
We express our outrage over antiquities
or statues partly because we feel helpless
in the face of the other atrocities carried
out by the militants. In the vocabulary of
psychoanalysis, the displacement of our
Afghanistan’s Next Chapter
Now that President Obama has decided
to slow the withdrawal of troops from
Afghanistan, he and the new Afghan
president, Ashraf Ghani, have an obligation
to prove that the additional American
investment will be worth it. It will not be
easy, and it may not be possible. For more
than a decade, the Afghan government has
stubbornly resisted taking most of the
political, economic and military steps
needed to put the country on a firm footing.
Mr. Obama’s decision to keep
9,800 troops in Afghanistan at least
through 2015 is a change from his previous
plan to cut that force in half by the end of
the year. Administration officials said it was
a response to the expected resurgence of
the Taliban in the spring fighting season
and the need to continue training and
assisting the struggling Afghan security
forces.
President Ashraf Ghani of
Afghanistan with President Obama on
Tuesday. American officials say keeping
troop levels is partly designed to aid
counterterrorism.U.S. to Delay Pullout of
Troops From Afghanistan to Aid
StrikesMARCH 24, 2015
The decision means that two
military bases from which the Central
Intelligence Agency and military special
forces conduct secret drone strikes and
other operations — in Kandahar, in
southern Afghanistan, and in Jalalabad,
in the east — will stay open.After the first
White House meeting between the two
presidents on Tuesday, Mr. Obama said
at a news conference that he still planned
to honor his commitment to reduce the
force to about 1,000 when he leaves office
in 2017. With America headed into a
presidential election campaign in which
Republicans are already taking a tougher
line on security issues in general, Mr.
Obama’s decision to slow the pace of the
withdrawal should not be an excuse for
keeping troops in Afghanistan
indefinitely.Mr. Ghani, an Americaneducated, former World Bank official who
is widely perceived as more serious and
responsible than his erratic predecessor,
Hamid Karzai, made a convincing
argument that delaying the withdrawal
would give him security support while he
pursued economic, political and military
goals.His thanks to American troops who
served in his country and to American
taxpayers, who are still footing a hefty bill,
was especially well received during a
speech to Congress. During a visit to The
Times, he said the result of his Washington
meetings was that “we have been given
space and time to demonstrate that what
we’re saying can actually be
implemented.”The challenges cannot be
overstated. One is an Afghan Army that
will be unable to defend the country if it
continues to lose personnel through
desertions, discharges and an
unsustainable level of combat deaths.
Although authorized to employ 195,000
people, the force lost 17,000 troops and
civilian employees last year.
Another challenge is endemic
corruption. Over the years, the United
States has poured billions of dollars into
Afghanistan to underwrite the government,
the military and scores of other programs,
with untold millions siphoned off by
Afghans to buy homes in Dubai and
millions more wasted. To get at these
problems, Mr. Ghani has fired 62 generals
and centralized billions of dollars in
procurement deals under his purview, but
he still confronts huge obstacles in
cleaning up the bureaucracy. All through
the war years, it was apparent that military
action alone would never bring peace.
Afghanistan needs a government that can
bring jobs, education, health care and
justice to its people and undercut the lure
of the Taliban. Mr. Ghani has made a more
serious, coherent effort than Mr. Karzai in
pursuing political reconciliation with the
Taliban, which even American generals
agree is the only way to end the conflict.
Although there is little sign
that talks with the militants could make
progress anytime soon, Mr. Ghani has
taken an important step by trying to
improve relations with Pakistan,
whose lawless border region has long
provided a sanctuary for militants who
have targeted Afghan and American
forces. He described the stakes in
remarkably blunt terms, saying the
problem was not making peace with
t h e Ta l i b a n s o m u c h a s “ p e a c e
between Pakistan and Afghanistan.”
Mr. Ghani has big visions. He
told Congress he aims for the country to
be self-sustaining, and weaned of
international assistance that now is central
to the economy, within this decade. He
talked of Afghanistan’s being an Asian hub
crossed by pipelines, rail lines and modern
telecom and banking services. Those are
worthy goals, but they are still based
mostly on hope.
attention onto these objects is a form of
cathexis. Yet, this is a false choice: we
should not have to choose between saving
an art work and saving a life, and we resent
ISIS all the more for forcing us to pose the
problem in such terms.
The uproar over the damage seen
in the recent video has been mainly about
the harm caused to objects from the
Assyrian empire, the major cities of which
were located along the Tigris River. When
the excavation of Assyrian sites such as
Nimrud and Nineveh was undertaken, the
French and British colonial powers had a
long history of meddling in the region. The
area of modern Iraq lay along one of the
overland routes between Britain and India,
and was of sufficient interest to the East
India Company that it established an
agency in Basra in 1763 and sent a British
‘Resident’ to Baghdad in 1765.
The Europeans who removed
ancient artefacts from the area in the
nineteenth century and dispatched them
to museums and collectors around the
world were motivated in part by a strong
interest in Biblical history, including the
narrative of the flood. The militants who
run “the press office of the province of
Nineveh” know all too well the kind of
headlines that their images and actions
will generate; they understand that
assaults on art with Biblical associations
are likely to generate a firestorm in
countries with large Christian populations,
and that is what they have achieved.
While the actions of ISIS in
demolishing Assyrian art are deplorable,
the truth is that we cannot yet say how
much has, in fact, been lost. The density
of the archaeological record in Iraq means
that there will be scores of sites that ISIS
will miss because the sites are in regions
beyond their control, or have histories that
are poorly understood, or lie invisible under
the very earth that the militants march over.
Archaeologists who work in Iraq
are bemused by the recent interest in Iraq’s
ruins and will mournfully tell you about the
dozens of sites that yet remain
undocumented or under-explored.
Few of us are without sin when it
comes to the destruction of art or the
vandalism of other people’s temples.
There is no need to rehearse here the
events leading up to the demolition of
the
Babri
Masjid
and
the
consequences of what happened in
Ayodhya in December 1992. That the
Taliban dynamited the statues at
Bamiyan is also well known. Perhaps
less familiar is the news that the Saudi
authorities have cleared historic sites
in Mecca and Medina in order to
provide space for the development of
hotels and shopping malls.
And, of course, the current
situation in Iraq is the direct and
indirect result of an invasion launched
by the USA and its allies in 2003. Given
the military involvement of Americans
in Iraq, it is disconcerting to see the
head of a famous collection in the
United States writing to the New York
Times and almost implying that Iraqi
antiquities would be safer in American
museums than in Iraq
INDIA-STATE-AFFAIRS
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
8
MCOCA redux: Gujarat BJP passes tough anti-terror bill
(Agencies) Despite being rejected in the past, the Gujarat
government has passed the stringent Gujarat Control of Terrorism
and Organised Crime (GUJTOC)
bill, which among things allows
law enforcement agencies to tap
telephones, make confessions
made before the police admissible in court and detain suspects
in cases for longer.
The Bill, which was earlier returned by the President thrice to
the state government for reconsideration, was passed by a majority vote amid stiff resistance
from Opposition Congress, which
walked out of the House over its
controversial provisions.
The GUJCOC bill, which is
said to be on the lines of the
Maharashtra
Control
of
Organised Crime Act (MCOCA),
was rejected in 2004 and 2008
by the then Presidents AJP
Abdul Kalam and Pratibha Patil,
respectively who had suggested
some amendments in provisions
related to telephone interception
and confessions made before
police officer being considered as
evidence in court.The state assembly had reportedly passed
the legislation for a third time but
it is still pending before the President, according to this Ibnlive report.
Among the features of the bill
that have had human rights campaigners up in arms include the
fact that authorities can intercept
and record telephone calls that
can later be presented as evidence and also puts the onus of
proving one's innocence on the
accused. Like the now repealed
Prevention of Terrorism Act
(POTA) and Terrorism and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act
(TADA) the law allows confessions made to law enforcement
agencies admissible in court as
evidence.
While the bill has been renamed , it still contains the provisions that had led to its rejection by Presidents in the past.
Justifying the provision on tap-
Dera followers and Sikh hardliners
clash over rival films 'The
Messenger' and 'The Blood Street'
(Agencies)
It seems that rivalry over controversial films is
ongoing in Punjab. Tension is now brewing in Mansa district
between the Dera Sacha Sauda followers and Sikhs.
Dera followers are reportedly unhappy about the film ‘The
Blood Street’ which is set for a May 2015 release. The film has
been directed by hardliner Sikh leader Baljit Singh Daduwal, who
had opposed Dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim’s film, ‘The
Messenger’. The Blood
Street’ has been
dubbed as an answer to
‘The
Messenger’.
According to sources,
‘The Blood Street’ has
been influenced by the
life of Daduwal, an
ardent supporter of
Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale who was killed in Operation Blue Star
in 1984.
Dera followers are unhappy that ‘The Blood Street’ has
been cleared with a U/A certificate. In this backdrop, Dera followers
are now threatening to “sacrifice” their lives to get ‘The Messenger’
released in Punjab. Ram Rahim’s film is banned in the state.
“’The Messenger’ has been released all over the country, but
why not in Punjab? We will get the film released at any cost,” a
Dera follower told Media.
However, the Dera has issued an appeal to its followers,
asking them to maintain peace. Daduwal had organised a
protest against ‘The Messenger’ in January this year. In
February, a clash between the two groups of followers
averted in Faridkot district. Meanwhile, Dera followers
are sensing trouble with the appearance of pro-Khalistan
posters in the Anaj Mandi area. The pro-Khalistan
organisations have been strongly opposed to Dera chief
Gurmeet Ram Rahim’s film ‘The Messenger’. They had
recently put up posters against the Dera in Ambala as
well. Sources said the security agencies are closely
monitoring the situation. “The matter is under
investigation. We will not permit anybody to take law in their
hands,” Mansa SP of Police Bhupinder Singh Khatra said.
ping of telephones, the 'Statement of Objects and Reasons' in
the bill states that it is necessary
in the contemporary day where
organised criminal syndicates
make extensive use of wire and
oral communication. It says that
the interception of such communication to obtain evidence is inevitable and an indispensable aid
for the law enforcement.
The statement provides a detailed justification on the issue by
adding that the existing laws are
inadequate to curb the menace
of organised crimes.
Former President APJ Abdul
Kalam had in 2004 objected over
the tapping of telephones and
returned the bill to the government led by the then chief minister Narendra Modi, asking it to
remove the clause.
Later in 2008, the bill was
passed after deleting the clause
related to interception of communication, as per the suggestion
of Kalam. However, President
Pratibha Patil rejected it and had
suggested some more amendments. One of them was to eliminate the provision which allows
confession made before a police
officer, be admitted in the court
as evidence.
However, ignoring the suggestion, the state government had
once again passed the bill in
2009 for the third time and sent it
for President's approval.
The state government re-introduced the Gujarat Control of
Organised Crime (GUJCOC) Bill
in the Assembly after renaming
it. The bill, however, has retained
the controversial provisions.
The Bill was on Tuesday introduced in the House by Minister of State for Home Rajnikant
Patel, after which a long debate
took place on it, in which Opposition Congress demanded removal of controversial sections
like telephonic interceptions, confessions made before some police officer as evidence and time
limit of 180 days for filing of
chargesheet.
At the end of the discussion,
Congress leader Shankarsinh
Vaghela and Shaktisinh Gohil insisted that the controversial provisions should be dropped as
per the suggestions of past
Presidents when they rejected
the Bill.
However, Patel said that the
provisions of this Bill are in
favour of the nation, the people
of this country and it allows us
to take action against traitors
and refused to drop those sections. Subsequently, Congress
walked out of the House.
Later, the Bill was passed by
majority vote in the State Assembly.
Section 14 of the Bill says,
"Notwithstanding anything contained in the code or in any other
law which is in force, the evidence
collected through the interception
of wire, electronic or oral communication under the provisions of
any other law shall be admissible
as evidence against the accused
in the court during the trial of the
case."
According to Section 16 of the
Bill, accused's statement before
a police officer, not below the rank
of Superintendent of police, will
be treated as an evidence.
While, Section 20 (2) (b) says
stipulated time to complete probe
and file the chargesheet can be
exceeded to 180 days (six
months) from the current stipulated time of 90 days.
Another controversial provision under the bill is section 20
(4), which reads "no accused
person in this act shall be released on bail or on his own bond
unless the public prosecutor has
been given an opportunity to oppose the application, the special
court is satisfied that there are
reasonable grounds for believing
that accused is not guilty of such
offence and that he is not likely
to commit any offence while on
bail."
The cases under the act can
be tried only in a special courts
set up for this purpose.
Congress leader Shaktisinh
Gohil objected to the provisions
of the Bill and said that some of
them are even unconstitutional.
Uttar Pradesh on bird flu alert as
thousands of poultry birds die
(Agencies) The death of
thousands of poultry birds in
some districts has put the
administration on high alert
in Uttar Pradesh, a state still
reeling under the deadly
H1N1 virus.
An advisory was issued
to the district heads last
week to take necessary
measures to prevent any
instance of bird flu. However,
no case has been reported
so far.
The deaths were reported
earlier this month from the
Saari Ka Purwa village of
Shukulbazar block in Amethi
district.
“No human cases have
been reported so far and the
district administration, led by
the chief veterinary officer, has
conducted tests. We are
taking
all
necessary
precautions,” Amethi’s chief
medical officer Ashok Kumar
told Media.Fresh poultry bird
deaths were also reported
from Agra, where over 4,000
hens have reportedly died in
the past few days.
Tests are yet to confirm any
instance of bird flu at the farms
in Basauri village of Agra,
where the dead birds are still
to be properly disposed of.
“The growers are not
burying the birds properly,
which enables stray dogs to
dig them out and leave the
rotten bodies around. We
demand the administration to
take
affective
steps,”
Siddharth Kumar, a student
living in the village, said. “We
have come to know about the
outbreak and a team of experts
will be sent to the village on
Monday,” Agra’s deputy
veterinary officer Dr Vikas Sathe
said.
INDIA-STATE-AFFAIRS
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
9
Over 1,000 wannabe policemen arrested in Bihar after new recruitment scam
(Agencies) Even before the
controversy about large-scale
malpractice
in
the
matriculation examination
could die down, another
cheating scandal has come to
light in Bihar in the recruitment
of police constables.
As many as 1,068 youths
who attended the recruitment
test for constables have been
arrested so far, on the charge
of adopting unscrupulous
means in the examination.
These range from hiring the
services of dummy candidates
to fudging their examinationrelated documents, including
thumb impressions and
photographs. This is said to be
the largest number of arrests
in connection with a
recruitment examination in the
state.
According to sources in the
Bihar police headquarters, the
candidates were arrested
during the screening of
documents over a fortnight-long
camp, which was organised at
the Patliputra Sports Complex in
Patna.
On Friday last, more than
200 job aspirants were taken
into custody. They have all
been forwarded to jail. All
these candidates had cleared
the written examination
conducted for the recruitment
for the 11,783 posts of the
police constables earlier.
As many as 52,000
candidates had been selected
for
the
screening
of
documents.
The police said the fraud was
detected when the signatures,
photographs and fingerprints of
the candidates were being
matched with those of the
candidates who had taken the
written test.
They suspected that a wellplanned racket was behind the candidates reportedly admitted enable them to clear the dummies had appeared in the
forgery.
that they had paid up to Rs examinations.
written test on their behalf by
M o s t o f t h e a r r e s t e d 1.50 lakh to middlemen to
They admitted that their using fake documents.
Sweepers Give Midas touch to UP’s drains
(Agencies) In Sarafa Bazaar,
Jhansi, over two dozen
extremely poor Muslims have
spent centuries searching the
dirty sewer lines for gold.
Their ‘excavation’ starts
at around 2pm and continues till
9am in the morning, when the
jewellers open their shops.
There is a nullah before the
majority of these jewellery
shops in which garbage and
faeces flow. These members
of the Muslim sweeper
community collect the dirty
water and mud from the nullahs.
They then extract elements of
gold and silver by heating it, and
then resell the valuable metal to
the jewellers. Occasionally, they
also stumble upon costly
stones besides grains of gold
and silver. They also sweep the
roads with small brushes and
often find coils and currency
notes that customers drop by
mistake.
Despite carrying shallow
pans, trowels and small
buckets, the sweepers collect
mud and dirty water with their
bare hands. When at work,
they hardly talk to each other.
However, their mechanical
coordination suggests that they
have been doing this activity for
decades. “We also search for
gold in the localities where
jewellers live. Their family
members wear heavy gold
ornaments. Negligible parts of
the gold polish get washed when
they take bath. That flows into
the nullahs. We collect this water
every day and keep extracting
gold from it. We collect gold
worth Rs 1,000-4,000 a month
and sell it back to the jewellers,”
said Mohammad Khaliq, who is
into this job.
He added: “Later, we wash
the dirt and filter it using white
clothes. Sometimes, we boil the
collected water or dirt to extract
valuables.”
Anwar Alam, another person
involved in this trade, said: “We
belong to the sweeper
community. It is our traditional
job, which has been passed onto
us by our parents. We started
accompanying our elders from
the age of 10 or 12 and learnt this
art over the years.”
He said: “We don’t do
anything that we shouldn’t do. All
we are trying is to survive by
putting in hard work. I am doing
this for the past 35 years and I
am comfortable in it.”
He said that one can earn
up to Rs 250 after a day’s toil
in the Sarafa Bazar.
Alam added: “If lucky, we
also find jewellery that a
customer has lost. People ask
us why we do such an
obnoxious job. I tell them that
our present and future lies in the
dirt.” Raghav Verma, a jeweller,
said: “Wastage of gold and
silver is inevitable while
manufacturing jewellery. We
melt it and then put it in a frame
to give it a particular shape.
Later, it’s cutting and carving is
done. The process is so
complicated that very small
particles, invisible when seen
with naked eyes, fall on the
floor. The loss is also inevitable
during polishing of gold.”
He said when jewellers sweep
their shops, waste gold and silver
particles are thrown into the
adjacent sewer. He added: “We
don’t object to their activities
because ultimately they daily
clean the nullahs.”
The womenfolk collect iron
from the nullah and road using
magnets.
But what they don’t want to
share with anyone is the darker
side of their occupation. “The
nullahs smell so bad that one
cannot collect dirt in a normal
state of mind. We consume drugs
like grass and heroine before
work that keeps us away from the
foul smell,” said Khaliq.
SOUTH ASIA
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
10
Nawaz assures Saudi King Salman of Pakistan Army support
(Insider
Bureau)
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif in a telephone conversation with Saudi Arabia’s
King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al
Saud discussed the recent developments on regional and international fronts. According to
a report issued by the state-run
Saudi Press Agency (SPA), during the telephone conversation
on Saturday, Nawaz expressed
full support for the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia in the ‘Determination Storm’ operation, asserting
that “all potentials of the Pakistani Army are offered to the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”.King
Salman thanked the prime minister for his feelings and stressed
on the depth of relations between the two countries, the report said.
According to diplomatic
ICC warns
SLC of
suspension
Just as a new
politically appointed interim
committee is to take control
of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC),
the sport’s world governing
body which has not yet been
officially informed of the
move, warned in no
uncertain terms that Sri
Lanka is perilously close to
being suspended from the
International Cricket Council
(ICC) membership.
ICC’s
Chief
Executive David Richardson
reacting swiftly to Tuesday’s
Sri Lankan media reports
about the impending
appointment of an interim
committee to run SLC
affairs, emailed a stern
warning that detailed the
repercussions Sri Lanka will
face if politicians start
interfering with the autonomy
of SLC.
In the mail headlined
“Apparent appointment of
interim committee to run Sri
Lan k a C r i c k e t ” t h a t h a s
been forwarded to all SLC
Exco
members,
Richardson makes it clear
that Sri Lanka would face
suspension from ICC in
c a s e the government
arbitrarily takes steps to
appoint
an
interim
committee without any
proven misdeeds by the
elected SLC office bearers
sources, Saudi Arabia has also
assured its cooperation for the
safe evacuation of Pakistanis
stranded in Yemen. Nawaz
Sharif on Friday had ordered the
Pakistani mission in Yemen to
take steps for the immediate
evacuation of stranded Pakistani
families in the troubled country.
Earlier, the prime
minister had asserted that any
threat to Saudi Arabia’s territorial
integrity would evoke a strong
response from Pakistan.
However, Federal Defence
Minister Khawaja Asif said in the
National Assembly that
Pakistan has only pledged to
safeguard the territorial integrity
of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
He stressed on Pakistan’s role
as ‘facilitator’ to end the
conflicts in the Muslim world.
“Instead of aggravating
the situation by participating in it,
Pakistan should do what it can to
prevent it % for the alliance and unity
of the Muslim world,” the defence
minister had said.
“Pakistan is ready to adopt
whatever role is needed in order to
facilitate the termination of conflicts
in the Islamic world.” Saudi Arabia
and its Gulf allies launched military
operations including air strikes in
Yemen on Thursday to counter Iranbacked forces besieging the
southern city of Aden, where the USsupported Yemeni president had
taken refuge.
Gulf broadcaster al-Arabiya
TV reported that the kingdom was
contributing as many as 150,000
troops and 100 warplanes to the
operations and that allies Egypt,
Jordan, Sudan and Pakistan were
ready to take part in a ground
offensive in Yemen.
Everest climbers to take new
route to reduce avalanche risk
(Insider Bureau) Nepal announces that
Everest climbers will take route up centre
of Khumbu icefall this year in attempt to
avoid tragedies such as last year’s avalanche that killed 19 Sherpas Nepali officials have changed the route up Everest for
this year’s climbing season in an attempt
to avoid a repeat of last April’s deadly avalanche.
The new official route, which was last
used in the early 1990s, avoids the left-hand
side of the treacherous Khumbu icefall,
known as the West Shoulder.
Mountaineers will this year climb up the
centre of the icefall after leaving Base Camp.
The new route is longer and tougher but
carries less risk of avalanche.
Last year, 19 Sherpas were killed in an
avalanche on the icefall, which was the
worst single loss of life in expedition history.
The tragedy, which was caused by
a huge block of ice breaking off from a
hanging glacier, led to an unprecedented
shutdown of the world’s highest peak as the
Sherpa community demanded better pay
and working conditions. There was only one
Everest expedition that reached the summit
last year via the South Col route. However,
the female Chinese climber was accused
of “cheating” after apparently taking a
helicopter ride to bypass the Khumbu icefall,
dropping her at 21,000 feet.
“We will set a route around the
centre to minimise risk of avalanche
disasters,” said Yangee Sherpa of the
agency authorised
to set the route.
“We have already
prepared
the
equipment
required to begin
the
season.”
Nepal’s icefall
doctors – the
highly
skilled
mountaineers who
prepare the 29,028
feet peak for
climbers – will go
to Everest next
month to fix ropes
along the central
route. Tashi Sherpa, who has scaled the
world’s highest peak eight times, said the
new route was less risky because there were
no ice cliffs or hanging glaciers above it.
These can break off suddenly, particularly
as the weather warms in the spring,
triggering rockfalls and avalanches.With
nicknames such as “the Ballroom of Death”
and “Popcorn Field”, the Khumbu icefall is
one of the most lethal sections of the most
common South Col route to Everest’s
summit. More than 300 people to have died
on Everest since the first summit by Sir
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953
– around 50 of them on the icefall. John
Krakauer wrote in the award-winning book
Into Thin Air that "each trip through the icefall
was a little like playing a round of Russian
roulette". As well as highlighting the plight
of the Sherpa community, last year's
avalanche also brought into focus increasing
fears that climate change is making climbing
Everest – and especially the Khumbu icefall
– even more dangerous.
SOUTH ASIA
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
11
Former Blackwater gets rich as
Afghan drug production hits record high
Opium poppy cultivation is up in Afghanistan despite
the infamous mercenary firm formerly known as Blackwater being paid $569m by the Pentagon to stop it
(Agencies) In a war full of failures, the US counternarcotics
mission in Afghanistan stands
out: opiate production has
climbed steadily over recent
years to reach record-high levels
last year.Yet there is a clear winner in the anti-drug effort – not
the Afghan people, but the infamous mercenary company formerly known as Blackwater.
Statistics released on Tuesday reveal that the rebranded private security firm, known since
2011 as Academi, reaped over half
a billion dollars from the futile
Defense Department push to
eradicate Afghan narcotics,
some 32% of the $1.8bn in contracting money the Pentagon has
devoted to the job since 2002.
The company is by far the biggest
beneficiary
of
counternarcotics largesse in Afghanistan. Its closest competition, the defense giant Northrop
Grumman,
claimed
$250m.According to the US inspector general for Afghanistan
“reconstruction”, the $569m
Academi got from US taxpayers
paid for “training, equipment, and
logistical support” to Afghan
forces
conducting
counternarcotics, such as “the
Afghan National Interdiction Unit,
the Ministry of Interior, and the
Afghan Border Police”.
Far from eradicating the deeprooted opiate trade, US
counternarcotics efforts have
proven useless, according to a
series of recent official inquiries.
Other aspects of the billions that
the US has poured into Afghanistan over the last 13 years of war
have even contributed to the
opium boom.
In December, the United Nations reported a 60% growth in
Afghan land used for opium
poppy cultivation since 2011, up
to 209,000 hectares. The estimated $3bn value of Afghan
heroin and morphine represents
some 15% of Afghan GDP.“Given
the growth in opium poppy cultivation, it must be assumed that
the Taliban’s income from the illegal trade in narcotics has remained an important factor in
generating assets for the group,”
the United Nations reported.
That same month, the US inspector general for Afghanistan
warned that the opium trade
would surely rise as international
aid money flees the country with
the winding down of the war. Yet
the inspector general also noted
that US reconstruction projects,
particularly those devoted to “improved irrigation, roads, and agricultural assistance” were probably leading to the explosion in
opium cultivation.
“[A]ffordable deep-well technology turned 200,000 hectares
of desert in southwestern Afghanistan into arable land over
the past decade,” the inspector
Outrage after woman's burning
shows a changing Afghanistan
(Agencies) The murder earlier this month
of 27-year-old Farkhunda at the hands of a
mob that beat her to death, burned her body
and tossed her into a river shocked
Afghanistan, a country in which
unspeakable things often hit the headlines.
The young woman from Kabul was
falsely accused of burning pages in the Holy
Quran. What followed was the horror of mob
rule, all captured on video while bystanders
looked on.Soon after the incident, the
images of her brutal slaying went viral on
social media, noted Afghanistan’s TOLO
News. And this time, the outrage ledAfghans
to the streets, with assistance from
Facebook and other social media. These
platforms have served both to disseminate
the images of her savage beating and murder
and as a means for convening those who
are mobilizing and organizing to protest her
killing.Last week, crowds chanted for days,
calling for justice for Farkhunda and “death
for her killers.” And,TOLO News reported,
protests were held in different parts of the
country, calling for the “ultimate penalty to
the perpetrators.”
Indeed, technology and
connectedness have played a role in
changing the old narratives in Afghanistan,
as Farkhunda’s killing shows. Not only was
her murder captured and shared online, but
some of those men arrested for her killing
were found to have confessed via social
media posts. And now a country’s anguish
is shared in those same online and virtual
neighborhoods.Some Afghan civil society
leaders see the protests that have resulted
as yet another sign of an evolving
Afghanistan — a nation whose recently
elected leaders, now sharing a unity
government, visited Washington, D.C., in an
effort to turn the page on the past. “When
we are talking about this case, what is it
showing us? First of all, when we are talking
about women’s rights, we see that we have
succeeded; people will not tolerate what
they tolerated a decade ago,” said Nargis
Nehan, founder and executive director of
Equality for Peace and Democracy, a nongovernmental organization created to
promote “a culture of peace, tolerance,
transparency and accountability.”
general found, concluding that
“much of this newly arable land
is dedicated to opium cultivation”.
Academi and its former
Blackwater incarnation have an
infamous history in Afghanistan.
It once set up shell companies
to disguise its business practices, according to a Senate report, so that its contracts would
be unimpeded by company employees’ killings of Iraqi and Afghan civilians.
Blackwater’s founder, Erik
Prince, sold the company – then
renamed “Xe” – in 2010. Under
new ownership, the firm occasionally gestures toward emphasizing its original business training
military and police personnel, but
it has never quite divested itself
of its security contracting business.
In 2010, Blackwater was one
of a group of firms selected by
the State Department for its $10bn
contract to protect its diplomats
worldwide, precisely the mission
Blackwater performed when its
agents opened fire on Iraqi civilians at Baghdad’s Nisour Square
in 2007 and turned the company
into the ugly face of private security. The following year, the firm’s
newly installed CEO pledged,
“We’re not backing away from
security services.”
A spokesman for Academi’s
parent company, the Constellis
Group, said that the current firm
had separated itself from its
Blackwater ancestry.
“When the ownership of
Constellis Group purchased our
Moyock, N.C. training facility in
2010, Blackwater as the world
knew it ceased to exist,” said
spokesman Tom McCuin.
“Since then, the new ownership, through a completely new
management team, have worked
diligently to establish a reputation for competence and accountability.
SOUTH ASIA
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
12
(Agencies) Women-only minibus services are
being launched in Kathmandu in an attempt to reduce
sexual assaults and harassment on the city’s
overcrowded public transport.
Four 17-seat vehicles, featuring prominent
‘women-only’ signs will operate in the Nepalese
capital, along major routes, during the morning and
evening rush hours.
The aim is to make women feel safe and more
comfortable.
“Groping and sexual assault is a problem for
women who use buses, especially during peak hours
when buses are overcrowded,” said Bharat Nepal,
president of the Bagmati Federation Transport Union,
which is behind the scheme.
“This is our small initiative to make commuting
safe and secure for female travellers.”The move
comes after a 2013 World Bank survey showed that
Women-only bus service launched to combat sexual assaults in Nepal
The new route will operate during rush hour in Kathmandu and aims to protect the
capital's young female population from sustained harassment. Claire Cohen reports
a quarter (26 per cent) of young
women – aged between 19 and
35 – living in Nepal had
experienced sexual harassment
on public transport. Currently, all
bus routes in Kathmandu must,
by law, designate certain seats
as ‘women-only’ – but critics
claim the rule is rarely enforced.
However, questions have been
raised about the new ‘womenonly’ peak services, with many
pointing out the lack of female
bus conductors. To start with, just
one bus will have a woman
conductor. Officials have said
that the aim is to employ an allfemale team to run the service.
Others have questioned the
practicality of men and women –
say a husband and wife, or
mother and son – having to travel
on separate bus services. “We
are currently confused about
Bangladesh
Killings Send
Chilling Message
to Secular
Bloggers
(Agencies)
D H A K A ,
Bangladesh — When the
steamy, clamorous evening
had settled over this city, and
Oyasiqur Rhaman had finished
his day’s work at a travel
agency, he would turn to one
of his favorite pastimes: Poking
fun at fundamentalist Islam.
Mr. Rhaman, 27,
blogged under the name
Kutshit Hasher Chhana, or The
Ugly Duckling, and he
specialized in sharp-edged
satire. In one post, he adopted
the persona of a self-important
believer fielding questions from
an atheist. (An example: “See,
the captive women, impressed
at the heroism of the Muslim
fighters, used to engage in sex
with them willingly. Don’t you see
that it gave pleasures to them as
well?”) He posted photos of
sausages wrapped in pastries,
labeled “pigs in a burqa.”On
Monday morning, after he left
home for the travel agency, Mr.
Rhaman was killed for what he
had posted. Three young men —
among them students of
madrasas here in the capital and
in Chittagong — surrounded him
and sliced at his head with
machetes, cutting deep gouges
into his forehead, face and throat.
His body was left on the
pavement in a pool of congealing
blood.Two men were captured by
local residents and handed over
to the police, according to
Mohammad Salahuddin, who
heads the district police station.
Those men said an acquaintance
known as Masum had instructed
them to kill Mr. Rhaman because
“he made some comments
against Islam” on social media,
that,” said Dharma Raj Rimal,
Bagmati, of the National
Federation of Nepal Transport
Entrepreneurs. “But for now, we
will be entirely discarding male
passengers.” Neighbouring India
launched women-only carriages
on its New Delhi metro system
in 2010, following complaints of
sustained sexual harassment. In
2012, a 23-year-old student was
fatally gang-raped on a bus in the
Indian capital city. The
Indonesian city of Jakarta also
offers women-only public
transport.
but that they had not read the
comments themselves.
The killing closely
followed the pattern of another five
weeks earlier, when young men
with machetes surrounded a
secular blogger and author, Avijit
Roy, as he left a book fair.
Mr. Rhaman took Mr.
Roy’s murder to heart, changing
his Facebook profile image to
read “I am Avijit.” Over the next
few days, he also mourned the
2013 killing of another blogger,
Ahmed Rajib Haider, known
online as Thaba Baba, and vowed
to keep fighting.
“The pen will remain
active, will continue till the death
of your belief,” he wrote. “Get
Islam destroyed, get Islam
destroyed, get Islam destroyed.”
A writer using the name
Biswaoy Balok, or Amazing Boy,
responded in the comments
section: “Son of a dog, you will
also be killed.”
The deaths of Mr. Roy
and Mr. Rhaman this month have
sent a chilling message to the
country’s secular bloggers, who
say they are competing for the
hearts and minds of young
people exposed to oceans of
material
promoting
conservative Islam.
Mr. Haider, Mr. Roy
and Mr. Rhaman were all
swept up in the 2013 Shahbag
movement, which called for
the death penalty for Islamist
political leaders who were
implicated in atrocities
committed during the 1971
war for independence from
Pakistan. The movement was
met with a passionate
response from young Islamist
activists, deepening a divide
among members of the same
generation over whether
Bangladesh is, or should be,
a Muslim state.Omi Rahman
Pial, another prominent
blogger from the same group,
said he heard from five
activists on Monday who said
they were considering
seeking asylum outside
Bangladesh. Arif Jebtik,
another activist, said that
more “have begun shutting
their blogs down” under
pressure from their families.
SOUTH ASIA
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
13
Sri Lanka confronts ex-leader's extravagant projects in 'middle of nowhere'
(Agencies) This remote
coastal scrubland, a haven for
wild elephants and migratory birds
that is several hours away from
the nearest city, seems like an
odd place to attempt to create a
major commercial hub.
Yet such was the whim of
former President Mahinda
Rajapaksa, a local son who,
thanks to Chinese loans, poured
immense sums into pet projects
during the decade he held this
island nation in his grip.
Since he was voted out of office in January, Rajapaksa’s extravagant spending in his home
district, much of it named for himself, looks ever more like monuments to folly.
A giant Indian Ocean harbor
being blasted out of the island’s
southern shoreline has seen
costs soar well past $1 billion,
and officials say it is unlikely to
break even for years. A $210-million international airport built two
years ago has hundreds of em-
ployees but receives just a handful of passengers a day.The
35,000-seat Mahinda Rajapaksa
International Cricket Stadium and
a new convention center are
rarely used, as are miles of expansive new highways that see
little traffic apart from the occasional herd of cattle.
“It’s a crying shame how
much money was spent,” said
Harsha de Silva, deputy minister
for policy planning and economic
affairs in Sri Lanka’s new government. “Why is an airport in the
middle of nowhere? Why are you
building a road to the middle of
nowhere?”
It’s not as if Sri Lankans didn’t
ask those questions before, but
under Rajapaksa’s increasingly
despotic administration, dissent
was ignored or punished. After his
narrow and surprising election
defeat, the country of 20 million
is waking up to the excesses of
his rule with what appears to be
a collective hangover.SriLankan
Maldives passes law 'to oust
ex-leader from politics'
(Agencies) The Maldives' parliament has
passed a law that strips people serving prison
sentences of their political party memberships,
a rule critics say is designed to oust jailed
former President Mohamed Nasheed from politics. The law was passed by a 42-to-2 vote in
the 85-seat parliament on Monday. Members
of Nasheed's Maldivian Democratic Party protested and did not take part in the vote.
President Yameen Abdul Gayoom's party
holds an overwhelming majority in Parliament
and critics say he uses it against his opponents. Parliament is also considering another
bill that would strip Nasheed of his allowance
and security protection as a former president.
Nasheed was sentenced to 13 years in
prison earlier this month for ordering the arrest
of a senior judge when he was in office three
years ago. Nasheed's supporters say the
charge was aimed at preventing him from contesting the 2018 presidential election. Maldivian
Democratic Party politician Evan Abdulla said
the party has decided that the new law will not
affect them and Nasheed will continue to be
its leader. Nasheed became the first democratically elected president of the Indian Ocean
archipelago in 2008, ending 30 years of rule
by Maumoon Abdul Gayoom. Nasheed resigned amid public anger over the arrest of the
judge in 2012 and the following year lost a presidential election to Yameen Abdul Gayoom, a
half-brother of the former leader.
Airlines, the deeply indebted national carrier, announced that it
would cease operating from
Mattala Rajapaksa International
Airport in the town of Mattala,
north of Hambantota. The twicedaily flights were losing the airline $8 million a year, company
officials said.
New President Maithripala
Sirisena has ordered a review of
all of Rajapaksa’s projects – and
it is a long list. To cement the
government’s victory in a 26-year
civil war against northern Tamil
rebels, Rajapaksa embarked on
a $6-billion spending binge on
infrastructure projects starting in
2009.
More than two-thirds of the
projects, including the port and
airport at Hambantota, were financed by Chinese banks at interest rates as high as 6.3% annually, several times what other
lenders offered, and did not go
through open bidding processes,
officials say. Authorities are inves-
tigating whether contracts were
padded to benefit members of
Rajapaksa’s government, which
included more than two dozen
members of his extended family.
No charges have been filed.In the
meantime, finance officials are
exploring ways to restructure the
Chinese loans. Government lawyers are poring over contracts,
trying to scale back some
projects that haven’t yet begun,
such as a 500-acre development
on reclaimed land in the capital,
Colombo, where the ex-president
envisioned luxury high-rises and
a Formula One racetrack.
To Rajapaksa, the projects
were powerful symbols of Sri
Lanka’s expansion from a small,
war-ravaged economy to one of
the fastest growing in South Asia.
He and members of his family did not respond to requests
for comment. In an interview this
month with the South China
Morning Post, he defended his
actions.“I wanted development for
Sri Lanka and China was the only
one which had the resources and
the inclination to help me,”
Rajapaksa said.
NH Senate Committee discusses Bhutanese refugee issues
(Agencies) New Hampshire
Senate Committee heard a resolution
on the Bhutanese refugee issue in an
attempt to recognize the contribution
of Bhutanese refugees in New
Hampshire, and requested the United
States government to work diligently
on resolving the prolonged crisis. The
resolution also asked requested for
an agreement to allow the option of
repatriation, and promoting human
rights and democracy in Bhutan.
Testimony in support was given by
Senator Dan Feltes of Concord and
five other persons. The five persons,
who testified included, DB Chuwan,
a torture victim and also a long-sering
former headteacher, former NH
senator Doug Hall, who testified on
the contribution of Bhutanese in New
Hampshire, Suraj Budathoki, who
presented to the committee his
personal story, general background
and cause of eviction, Travor Hart,
who testified his research on
Bhutanese issue, and Dilu Chhetri,
who spoke on the Bhutanese
women’s plight.
According to Suraj Budathoki,
New Hampshire State Senators and
House of Representatives also
registered a resolution in the NH
General Court.
Budathoki said, “This resolution
has two parts. One asks NH State to
recognize our contribution in the state
of NH. Another part asks the U.S
government to work diligently to
resolve the human rights and
democracy issue in Bhutan and
Bhutanese refugee in Nepal”. He
further added, “This resolution is very
critical at this time as there is no any
voice for our cause”.There are ten
senators and representatives
including two Republicans and eight
Democrats to sponsor resolution.
In the resolution, New Hampshire
general court has been asked to
recognize the industry and culture of
Bhutanese refugees, who made New
Hampshire stronger, and respectfully
requests that the United States
government work diligently with the
governments of Bhutan, Nepal, India,
and other interested parties, to
resolve the refugee crisis, reach an
agreement to allow the option of
repatriation, and promote human
rights and democracy in Bhutan.
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Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
Phone: 917 612 3158
sst@whitestonecorpusa.com
14
TRI STATE COMMUNITY
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
15
TLCA Celebrates “UGADI” New Year and Much More
Hanuman Chalisa Performance By TLCA Youth
under The Direction of Mrs. UMA Putane.
Tollywood Singers Hema Chaandra and Sravana Bhargavi being
honored. President Raji Kuncham Cultural Chair Mr. Babu
Kudaravalli and Grand Sponsors Drs. Subha and Purna Atluri
Comedian Ali Being Honored with the Title of “Haasya
Kala Kovidha” President Raji KUncham, Grand Sponsors
Dr. Malla Reddy & Mrs. Sadhana Reddy and EC members
TLCA Executive Commitee and TLCA Youth Leaders
(By Staff Reporter) New York
: The Telugu Literary & Cultural
Association celebrated Ugadi,
the Telugu New Year
“
Manmadha” on March 28th at the
Hindu Temple Auditorium in
Flushing, NY. An enthusiastic
crowd packed the auditorium
with over 650 excited guests.
The celebrations opened with
a prayer, followed by the
“Pachanga Shravana” by Pundit
Sri Gangadhar who gave the astrological significance of
“Manmadha” New Year. In addition to the celebration of Ugadi,
the actual day marked the commemoration of “Srirama Navami.”
In light of the observance of
the International Women’s Day,
at the request of President Raji
Kuncham, all men in the audience gave a standing ovation to
women for their contributions,
leadership, love and for making a
significant difference at home and
in society. A special memento
was released on the occasion that
acknowledged the event sponsors
and a record number of new year
greeting messages from many
dignitaries including Governor
Cuomo, U.S. Senators & Congressional representatives,
County and Town officials, Tamil
Nadu Governor Rosaiah and Music Legend A.R. Rahman.
All past presidents of TLCA
were recognized and honored on
this very special occasion. President Raji Kuncham thanked the
past presidents for their vision,
leadership and continued contributions to the TLCA and the community at large. Senator Michael
Venditto and Assemblyman Brian
Curran were present to celebrate
the new year and joined President
Raji Kuncham in honoring the
past presidents in a befitting
manner.
The cultural program was superbly organized and executed
lasting for seven hours.
Children’s performances were
amazing under the direction of
teachers/dance
schools.
Nassau County Legislator Laura
Curran was present for the
children’s program.
Tollywood artists enthralled
the crowd with hilarious comedy
skits and melodious songs. Comedy King Mohammed Ali, who has
acted in over 1000 feature films,
was honored with the title of
“Haasya Kala Kovidha.” Trendy
singers Hema Chandra and
Sravana Bhargavi captivated the
audience with popular tunes.
President. Raji Kuncham
thanked all the donors and
sponsors for their generosity
and support. Grand sponsors
of the event included Mrs.
Sadhana & Dr. Malla Reddy
TLCA Youth Performance
Paila, Drs. Subha & Purna
Atluri, Dr. Sailaja & Mr. Satish
Kalva. Corporate sponsors include Invagen Pharmaceuticals
Inc., Netrovert Inc., State Bank
of India, HAB Bank, Patel
Brothers, Apna Bazar and Air
India. Raffle prizes of two
Toshiba laptops were donated by Maddipatla Foundation. TLCA Women’s Forum will be celebrating
Mother’s Day and hosting a
Stress Management Seminar
on Saturday, May 3rd at the
Cotillion, Jericho, NY.
SPECIAL FEATURE
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
16
Women achievers celebrated
Seen in picture: Meena Malhotra of Akbar Restaurant in Garden city, one of the honorees with Peter Bhedah (From left),
Indu Jaiswal, Congresswoman Kathleen Rice, Surinder Rametra & Mohinder Taneja.
(By Max Singh)
Hicksville, Long Island- As US
Congresswoman Kathleen
Rice (Among many other
VIP’s) walked into Antun’s of
Hicksville on Friday March 27,
she very well immediately
would have felt the pride and
achievement in the air. Rice
was the Chief Guest for the
event and also an honoree too.
The grand hall was full of so
many accomplished and elite,
who’s who of the society
gathered for one singular
purpose, to be part of &
celebrate
4th Annual
Outstanding
Women’s
Achievements Gala , part of
Women’s History Month and
International Women’s Day
Celebrations.
IAF (Indian American Forum)
led by Indu Jaiswal, also called
“Jhaansi Ki Rani” for her strong
commitment & dedication to
the community’s cause, was
the organizing force behind the
gala. Evening started with
lighting of the lamp by
Councilman Santino and the
Honorees. Indu Jaiswal,
Chairperson of IAF in her
remarks welcomed all the
guests congratulated all the
honorees and praised their
efforts in achieving such
successes.
American and Indian national
Anthem sung by Parth Merai.
Master of Ceremonies Renee
Mehrra, a well known
journalist
and
TV
anchorwoman for ITV and Anuj
Rihal, made the evening
enjoyable. Mehra and Rihal
coordinated a brief Q&A session
with the honorees discussing
and
emphasizing
their
accomplishments
In
addition
to
Congresswoman Kathleen Rice
Chief Guest who was also
presented with an award; 5
other distinguished women who
had excelled in their profession
and community service, were
presented with “Outstanding
Womens
Achievements
Awards”.
Meena Malhotra, owns Akbar
Restaurant in Garden city, Long
Island. Meena has steered the
establishment to become
recognized as a brand that
equates with exceptional
service, Akbar is the 1st fine
dining Indian Restaurant. Meena
is an active member of the Tri
state community, through her
involvement as an Indian culture
liaison to local and state
government officials as well as
Girl Scout organizations.
Anita Kawatra is executive vice
president at Edelman, the
world’s largest public relations
firm, where she oversees the
pharmaceuticals and biotech
group. Anita wrote speeches for
New York City mayor David
Dinkins and New York State
Governor Mario Cuomo. Anita is
member of the President’s
council of Sanctuary for
Families, New York’s leading
domestic violence organization;
Anita also works with other non
for profit human services groups,
including Association to benefit
children, Mothers2Mothers, and
Generation Citizens.
Roopam Maini is currently the
Branch Manager, Indus
American Bank, Vice President
and founding member of Rotary
club of Hicksville South. An
active member of the club,she
promotes local and international
humanitarian projects. Roopam
participated in numerous local
events and fund raising
activities, like IALI, CRY, HCA
to help the needy in India and
USA and IAF clothing drive.
Dr Sudha Mukhi is the
Founder and President of the
South Bay Hematology and
Oncology. Dr Mukhi is also the
founder member if of Arya
Samaj of long Island. She is also
an executive member of Center
for India Studies at Stony Brook
University...
She
is
philanthropist and donated
generously for health and
education causes here and in
India She is very active member
of American Cancer Society and
has volunteered to raise funds
for cancer causes and gives
numerous lectures on Breast
Cancer.
Harvinder Bhatia has been a
long standing member of the
community, giving her time &
endless efforts in various
capacities. Harvinder is an
active philanthropist who has
been a volunteer for North Shore
Long Island Hospital. She has
coordinated
successful
fundraisers for Adopt a Family
Program. This program pairs
community supporters with real
family families that struggle due
to cancer diagnosis and are in
financial need... Harvinder also
sits on the Board of Directors
for Project Real, a Non for profit
residential program that services
the mental health community in
Nassau County, volunteers at
Glen Cove Gurudwara, and
active member of International
Punjabi Society.
Chief Guest Kathleen Rice
was all in praise for the efforts
of Indian American Forum &
Indian American Community.
She congratulated all honorees
and stressed the importance of
role Women are playing in this
world. Citations on behalf of
Nassau County Executive
Edward P Mangano were
presented by Zahid Syed,
Chairman of Human Rights
Commission to all honorees.
Syed praised their efforts and
congratulated them for all
their achievements. Citations
were presented from the
offices of Town of Hempstead
Supervisor Kate Murray. Also
proclamations were presented
to the honorees by Senior
Councilman from Town of
H e m ps t e a d M r. Anthony
Santino, from Town of Oyster
Bay, Town Clerk from Town of
Hempstead Nasrin Ahmed.
Among those notably present
during the event were , Bobby
Kalotee, Chairman of Sapient
Party, Nassau County Human
Rights Commissioner Sharanjit
Singh Thind, Satnam Prahar,
President India Association of
Long Island, and Peter
Bheddah, Board of Directors
of Nargis Dutt Foundation, , Dr
Anila Midha , President South
Asian Womens Alliance,,
Past President IALI, , Dr
Bhavani Srinivasan, ,
Sangeeta Sethi, President Of
Rotary Club, and several other
dignitaries were present
Dance
Performances
presented were Ganesh
Vandana by Students of Arti
Datta, Bollywood Medley
Choreographed by Swati
Vaishnav, Nartan Rang Dane
Academy and Dances by
Winners of Miss Teen India
New York, choreographed by
Shilpa Jhurani from Arya Dance
Academy. Sunita Sadhnani and
Dr Mohan Wanchoo enthralled
the audience with vocal
performance and Bollywood
songs. Mr. Animesh Goenka and
Mr. Mohinder Singh Taneja gave
Special thanks all sponsors &
media partners. Board of
Trustees Dr Bhupi Patel, Dr Azad
Anand, Surinder Rametra, Bobby
Kalotee, Dr Mahendra Kawatra,
volunteers Nirmal Rametra, Jaya
Bahadkar, Anu Gulati, Vijay
Goswamy,, Nutan Anand, Dr
Meena Jaiswal, Tejal Kamath &
Sunita Sadnani and many more
helped in making the eventagrand
success. It was indeed a very
successful evening, showcasing
and honoring outstanding women
achievers who are successful in
business, cultural, professional,
Education, Medical, community
and social services.
(For Insider Bureau)
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
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Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
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18
WORLD/US
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
19
Co-Pilot deliberately Crashed Airbus A 320
(Insider Bureau) THE co-pilot of
the doomed Germanwings Airbus
A320 locked his captain out of
the cockpit before “deliberately”
crashing into a mountain to “destroy the plane”, it was sensationally revealed on Thursday.
French prosecutor Brice Robin
gave further chilling details of the
final 10 minutes in the cockpit
before the Airbus A320 plunged
into the French Alps, killing all
150 people on board. Revealing
data extracted from the black box
voice recorder, he said the German co-pilot—28- year-old
Andreas Günter Lubitz —locked
his captain out after the senior
officer left the cockpit. At that
point, Lubitz used the flight managing system to put the plane
into a descent, something that
can only be done manually and
deliberately.
Robin said, “The
intention was to destroy the
plane. Death was instant. The
plane hit the mountain at 700
kmph. I don’t think the
passengers realised what was
happening until the last
moments because on the
recording you only hear the
screams in the final seconds.”
Earlier in the flight, Robin said
Lubitz’s responses, initially
courteous, became “curt” when
the captain began the mid-flight
briefing on the planned landing
of the plane. “We hear the pilot—
named by local media as German
father-oftwo
Patrick
Sonderheimer—asking the copilot to take over and we hear the
sound of a chair being pushed
back and a door closing. We
assume that the captain went to
the toilet or something. So the
co-pilot is on his own, and he
uses the flight monitoring system
to start the descent of the plane.
At this altitude (38,000 ft), this
can only be done voluntarily. We
hear several shouts from the
captain asking to get in,
speaking through the intercom
system, but there’s no answer
from the cockpit.” Robin said
Lubitz “voluntarily” refused to
open the door and his breathing
was normal throughout the final
minutes of the flight. “He never
said a single word. There was
total silence in the cockpit for the
last 10 minutes,” he added.
“When the Air Traffic Control at
Marseille asked for a distress
signal, there was still no
response. No answer was
received despite numerous calls
from the tower,” Robin said.
“There are alarm systems, which
indicate to all those on board the
proximity of the ground. Then we
hear noises of someone trying to
break into the door. The door is
reinforced (and cannot be broken
down). Just before final impact,
we hear the sound of a first
impact. It’s believed that the
plane may have hit something
before the final impact,” he said.
“He (Lubitz) did this for a reason,
which we don’t know but we can
only deduct that he destroyed
this plane. We have asked the
German investigators and
personal background,” the
prosecutor said, adding Lubitz
had no known terror links and
“there is no reason to suspect a
terrorist attack”. And asked
whether he believed the crash
was the result of suicide, he said,
“People who commit suicide
usually do so alone... I don’t call
it a suicide.” Lubitz was a highly
regarded the Federal Aviation
Administration in 2013 for his
outstanding flying skills. He had
a flat in Dusseldorf but also lived
in Montabaur where he was
raised. His family is understood
to have left Marseille, where the
press conference by Robin was
held. The investigation is now a
fullblown criminal inquiry following
revelations of the argument Four
specialists from Interpol have
joined senior French detectives
to work out why Lubitz locked
himself into the cockpit. Earlier
in the day, reports had come that
the jet that crashed in the French
Alps was so old it needed a major
refit. The ageing Airbus A320 plane
was less than a year from being
grounded for “life extending” upgrade.
Gun Buy Back Helps Take 74 Illegal Guns Off Streets
Edward Mangano
(By a Staff Reporter) Mineola,
NY – Nassau County Executive
Edward P. Mangano and Acting
District Attorney Madeline
Singas hosted a successful
Gun Buy Back event on
Saturday, March 28th at the
Bethlehem of Judea Church,
located at 83 Greenwich Street
in Hempstead. A total of 74
illegal guns were taken off
Nassau County streets,
including 36 hand guns, 32
rifles and 6 assault rifles. “This
weekend’s Gun Buyback
Program, using asset forfeiture
dollars and not taxpayer
dollars, helped take another 74
illegal guns off Nassau County
streets. Since the program’s
inception, we have removed
nearly 3,500 guns from our
community before they fell into
the wrong hands,” said County
Executive
Mangano.
“Community support is critical
to the success of this
program, and I commend the
Bethlehem of Judea Church
and other members of the
clergy who have participated in
this effort to take firearms off
our streets. By working
together, we can and will
continue to ensure that Nassau
remains the safest suburban
County in the nation.” Asset
forfeiture funds from the
Nassau
County
Police
Department and the District
Attorney’s Office are utilized
to fund the Gun Buy Back
Program, which is strictly
anonymous. Individuals are
paid $100 cash for every turned
in operable rifle, $200 cash for
each turned in operable handgun
and $400 cash for each turned in
operable assault rifle. Not
accepted are: licensed guns, BB
Guns, air pistols and replicas.
Guns must be transported in the
trunk of the car, unloaded and
placed in a shoe box, or plastic/
paper bag. “Gun buyback
events like these are an
important part of our
continuing efforts to eliminate
the threat of gun violence in our
communities,” Acting DA
Singas said. “I thank the
Madeline Singas
Bethlehem of Judea Church for
helping us get these illegal
firearms off our streets and for
partnering with Nassau County
law enforcement to keep our
neighborhoods safe.”
WORLD
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
(Insider Bureau) SICKENING footage of
a Sikh man being beaten up in a suspected race hate attack has been seized
by police after it was uploaded onto the
internet. The victim can be seen desperately trying to cover his face, as a man
punches and kicks him during the brutal
attack in Broad Street, Birmingham. In
the video a crowd is gathered around the
20
man, but no-one tries to help him. Meanwhile, the disturbing footage briefly shows
another figure slumped in a doorway. It
is believed he was also injured in the
incident. Facebook users have questioned why the watching crowd did not
try to help and voiced disgust some
captured the stomachchurning scenes
on camera.
India's trade deficit with China is
'higher than reported', say officials
(Insider Bureau) India's trade deficit with
China reached a record $45 billion in
2014, $7 billion more than what China
claimed the deficit to be in the official
figures it put out in January, according
to Indian officials.
The revelation
comes amid increasing attention on the
widening trade imbalance - an issue expected to figure prominently when Prime
Minister Narendra Modi visits China in
the coming weeks, most likely in May.
A review of two-way trade data in 2014
undertaken by India found that the trade
deficit was $7 billion more than stated
by China’s official figures. China’s General Administration of Customs (GAC)
data in January showed that the trade
imbalance in China’s favour, according
to Chinese figures, reached a record $38
billion in 2014, surpassing 2013’s $31.4billion figure. However, India’s estimation
is that the real deficit is even beyond this
amount. Officials peg the figure at $45
billion, while the overall trade data is more
or less similar to the $70-billion figure
stated by China’s customs. This means
that India’s exports to China in the whole
of last year were only around $12 billion.
The question of different interpretations
of trade data has become an increasingly
sensitive one in India-China relations. The
imbalance has come to strain trade relations, with New Delhi seeking to exert
more pressure on Beijing to take steps
to address the deficit.
CONTD
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
21
So You Got Rejected by Harvard. Guess What? It Doesn’t Matter.
(Contd from page 1) it
doesn’t really matter whether
she attends the most exclusive
university possible, at least
when it comes to her future
earnings potential. The classic
academic work on this subject
comes to us from economists
Stacy Dale and Alan Krueger,
who studied 1976 and 1989
freshmen from 27 different
selective schools, ranging from
state flagships like Penn State
up to Ivies like Yale and
Columbia.* On the whole, the
pair found that once you took
into account where students
applied to college, actually
attending a more selective
institution, measured by factors
like their average SAT scores
and guidebook rankings, didn’t
increase their earnings after
graduation. In other words, if a
young woman was smart, hardworking, or plain-old ambitious
enough to take a shot at
Princeton, but ended up going
to Wesleyan or Georgetown or
Northwestern or Xavier instead,
her income didn’t suffer. Going
to a fancy school was just as
good as going to an
exceptionally fancy school.1
There were two big
exceptions to that finding,
however. Minorities and
undergrads whose parents never
went to college did seem to
benefit
from
attending
increasingly
competitive
schools. How come? The
authors hypothesized that
networking might be the answer.
While affluent white kids could
US States Are Divided by the Lines They Draw on Immigration
(Contd from page 1) If I
have to rush her to the hospital,”
Ms. Rosas said, “having a
license, I don’t have to worry that
I will be stopped by police and
reported.” Life is very different for
Camila Trujillo, a Colombian
immigrant living in Katy, Tex.
Since Texas requires a Social
Security number for a license,
Ms. Trujillo, 21, drives to college
and work without one.
“You can get pulled over
for the smallest thing,” she said,
and a police stop could spiral
into deportation. “It’s frustrating
and sad. We are not criminals.
We want to live the American
dream.”This is immigration
geography: Some states are
reluctant
to
accept
undocumented immigrants,
while others are moving to
incorporate them. And the
polarization
is
sharply
crystallized in a lawsuit by
Texas and 25 other states
against the executive actions by
President Obama to give work
permits and deportation
protection to millions of
u n d o c u m e n t e d
immigrants.“This case has
brought the differences to the
surface so vividly because it
caused the states to pick
sides,” said Roberto Suro, a
University of Southern California
professor
who
studies
immigration.
Texas and its allies —
among them Florida, Georgia,
Indiana, Montana and Nevada —
say they would be irreparably
harmed if the initiatives took
effect. Texas, with 825,000
eligible residents, said in the
lawsuit that it would have to
issue new driver’s and law
licenses,
and
pay
unemployment benefits —
“injuries” that would be hard to
undo if the courts ultimately
found the president’s actions
unconstitutional.
But in its legal papers,
Washington
cited
“overwhelming evidence” that the
programs would bring a host of
benefits, raising wages for all
workers and swelling tax
revenues. It is leading a coalition
of 14 states and the District of
Columbia that is asking the
courts to allow the programs to
begin.Those conflicting views
could have a significant impact
at the United States Court of
Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in
New Orleans, where the
administration has filed a
request to cancel a federal
judge’s ruling in Texas that
stopped the president’s actions,
or to at least allow the initiatives
to go forward in the states that
agree with them.
The four million
immigrants who would be
eligible for Mr. Obama’s
programs are about evenly split
between
the
opposing
coalitions. The court set a
hearing for April 17.
Beyond the legal
papers, though, the case has
highlighted how the divisive
politics of immigration have
created vastly varying realities
for unauthorized immigrants
from one state to another.
In Washington, with its
many service industries and fruit
orchards, “there has long been
a recognition of how important
the immigrant community is to
our economy,” said Jorge L.
Barón, executive director of the
Northwest Immigrant Rights
Project in Seattle. “Everybody
knows that undocumented
individuals are crucial to
agriculture in our state.”
The driver’s license
policy, in effect since the early
1990s, has had durable support
among voters because licensed
drivers know safety rules and
have insurance, regardless of
their immigration status. Since
2003, Washington has also
allowed
undocumented
students who came to the
United States as children,
known as Dreamers, to attend
college at state resident tuition
rates.Iowa, where Gov. Terry E.
Branstad is a Republican but
Attorney General Tom Miller is
a Democrat, is also siding with
the president and asking for the
programs to start.
rely on their families and
friends for help in the job hunt,
black, Hispanic, and lowerincome alums may have
needed the connections
provided on the most elite of
elite campuses.
Of course, these
results are based on students
who started college more than
a quarter century ago. My
hunch is that, as the Common
Application has allowed everlarger numbers of loosely
qualified 18-year-olds to apply
to schools like Harvard, the act
of merely submitting your
name for consideration may
not be quite as good an
indicator of your future career
prospects as in the past. But
if you’re one the many, many
perfectly adequate white,
upper-middle-class students
rejected by the Ivy of your
fantasies (and maybe even all
of the Ivies) thanks solely to the
caprice of the admissions
gods, well, don’t sweat it.
Meanwhile, maybe the
country’s most exclusive
colleges could strive the tiniest
bit harder for some racial and
economic diversity. After all,
those minority and firstgeneration college student could
actually use their help. Sadly,
Harvard itself was not included
in the sample of schools. But I
think Yale and Princeton serve
as good enough proxies here to
justify my headline. Any who
disagree are encouraged to
express themselves in the
comments section. And, for your
curiosity, here’s the full list of
colleges covered in the study:
Bryn Mawr College, Duke
University,
Georgetown
University, Miami University of
Ohio, Morehouse College,
Oberlin College, Penn State
U n i v e r s i t y,
Princeton
University, Stanford University,
University of Michigan,
University of Pennsylvania,
Va n d e r b i l t
U n i v e r s i t y,
Wa s h i n g t o n
U n i v e r s i t y,
Wellesley College, Wesleyan
University, Williams College,
Xavier University, and Yale
University.
CONTD.
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
22
How Reliance is taking over Indian Media, now buying Sun TV Network
(Contd from page 1)
Sources within the company
have revealed to media that
senior officials of the RIL are
meeting at their Chennai office
to work the deal out. It has been
stated that the deal has been in
the works since the past three
months as RIL officials are doing
due diligence.
Reliance Industries,
India’s biggest listed company,
has already made a major foray
into media sector. One of India’s
richest billionaire businessmen
Mukesh Ambani already has a
controlling stake in Eenadu TV
media group better known as
ETV.
Backed by its US based
partner Viacom Inc, Reliance has
been on an aggressive
acquisition spree taking control
of a major chunk of the Indian
media sector. RIL’s takeovers
raise an impending threat in
regard to ownership of the media.
Reliance’s bid to take control of
Indian media has its implications
on free and impartial journalism.
This puts up a big question mark
on the editorial independence of
the media and the resignation of
some top journalists from
Network 18 was a sign of
simmering anxiety within the
newsroom taken over by a big
corporate, interfering in its
functioning. Reliance it seems is
leaving no stone unturned to
protect its interests. An example
of this was witnessed after the
AAP launched a direct attack on
RIL in the run-up to the elections,
which led to a complete blackout
of Arvind Kejriwal and his party
as the stakes were too high for
Ambani. Also, the recent
corporate espionage scandal in
which two Reliance senior
executives – Shailesh Saxena
from RIL and Rishi Anand from
ADAG Reliance – goes on to
show how Reliance will stop at
nothing to protect and promote
its interests.
With the acquisition of
Sun TV after ETV, Reliance will
be managing two big regional
media houses giving it a panIndia presence. RIL, it seems, is
working its way to influence
public opinion through media by
turning into the biggest player in
the Press. Moreover its interests
span petroleum, gas and retail –
these are policy-dependent
sectors – and hence control over
media affords RIL to manipulate
the system in its favor by putting
pressure on policymakers
through the power of Press. The
monopolization
and
corporatization of media by
Reliance is leading to the fourth
pillar of democracy – media –
developing cracks in it. Post the
acquisition of Sun TV Network,
Reliance will have complete
control over Indian media –
national and regional – as
Network 18, ETV and Sun TV
Network comprise the major
chuck of the pie in media sector.
Meanwhile Kalanithi
Maran’s – he was earlier known
to be the highest paid Indian
executive – fortunes took a
downturn in the recent past. Not
only has he been summoned as
accused in the 2G scam and
embroiled in the Aircel-Maxis
controversy, he faced another
setback in January 2015 when
the board of directors of SpiceJet
transferred control of the airline
to Ajay Singh, the founder of
SpiceJet, after a string of lossmaking quarters.Backed by its
US based partner Viacom Inc,
Reliance has been on an
aggressive acquisition spree
taking control of a major chunk
of the Indian media sector. RIL’s
takeovers raise an impending
threat in regard to ownership of
the media. Reliance’s bid to take
control of Indian media has its
implications on free and impartial
journalism. This puts up a big
question mark on the editorial
independence of the media and
the resignation of some top
journalists from Network 18 was
a sign of simmering anxiety
within the newsroom taken over
by a big corporate, interfering in
its functioning. Reliance it seems
is leaving no stone unturned to
protect its interests. An example
of this was witnessed after the
AAP launched a direct attack on
RIL in the run-up to the elections,
which led to a complete blackout
of Arvind Kejriwal and his party
as the stakes were too high for
Ambani. Also, the recent
corporate espionage scandal in
which two Reliance senior
executives – Shailesh Saxena
from RIL and Rishi Anand from
ADAG Reliance – goes on to
show how Reliance will stop at
nothing to protect and promote
its interests.
With the acquisition of
Sun TV after ETV, Reliance will
be managing two big regional
media houses giving it a panIndia presence. RIL, it seems, is
working its way to influence
public opinion through media by
turning into the biggest player in
the Press. Moreover its interests
span petroleum, gas and retail –
these are policy-dependent
sectors – and hence control over
media affords RIL to manipulate
the system in its favor by putting
pressure on policymakers
through the power of Press. The
monopolization
and
corporatization of media by
Reliance is leading to the fourth
pillar of democracy – media –
developing cracks in it. Post the
acquisition of Sun TV Network,
Reliance will have complete
control over Indian media –
national and regional – as
Network 18, ETV and Sun TV
Network comprise the major
chuck of the pie in media sector.
Meanwhile Kalanithi
Maran’s – he was earlier
known to be the highest paid
Indian executive – fortunes
took a downturn in the recent
past. Not only has he been
summoned as accused in the
2G scam and embroiled in the
Aircel-Maxis controversy, he
f a c e d another setback in
January 2015 when the board of
directors of SpiceJet transferred
control of the airline to Ajay
Singh, the founder of SpiceJet,
after a string of loss-making
quarters.
5 dead in Yemen after airstrikes hit factory vicinity
SANAA, Yemen: Saudi-led coalition
warplanes bombed Shia rebel positions on
Wednesday across Yemen as a missile strike
on a dairy factory killed 35 workers, authorities
said, as both sides disputed who fired on it.
Wednesday's strikes marked a week of
airstrikes by the Saudi-led campaign, which aims
to weaken the Shia rebels known as Houthis
and forces allied with them, largely fighters loyal
to Yemen's deposed leader Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Since their advance began last year, the
Houthis have overrun Yemen's capital, Sanaa,
and several provinces, forcing President Abed
Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee the country.
In a surprise attack, al-Qaida militants
stormed the center of the city of al-Mukalla, the
capital of the southeastern province of
Hadramawt, still controlled by pro-Hadi forces.
The militants assaulted the central
prison in the city, with rocket propelled grenades,
and freed an unknown number of prisoners, local
residents and a security official said. The official,
speaking on condition of anonymity because he
was not authorized to speak to reporters, said it
is not clear if Khalid Batarfi, an al-Qaida operative
arrested over a year ago, was among those freed.
The crumbling of Hadi's government has
been a concern for is a blow to Washington's
counterterrorism strategy against al-Qaida's
branch in Yemen, considered to be the most
powerful in the terrorist network. Before the
airstrikes, about 100 US military advisers
withdrew from the al-Annad air base where they
had been leading a drone campaign against alQaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP.
The official said the militants proceeded
to attack the branch of the Yemeni central bank
in al-Mukalla, and clashes were ongoing, the
official said. The presence of al-Qaida militants
in Yemen only adds to the explosive mix in
Yemen, particularly as they have emerged as a
powerful force against the rebels.
CONTD.
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
23
Marijuana is Changing the Workplace. Here’s How Employers Should Deal With It.
(Contd from page 5) is when an
employee with a serious disease
is under the influence at work
and gets called on the carpet:
“The employee will say, ‘I am
getting treated for cancer and I
am going through chemo. The
only thing that helps is medical
marijuana and I had to smoke a
bowl at lunch to keep from
throwing up. I am really sorry, I’ll
do something light until it wears
off.’ “ Wulffson says that although
you may have sympathy for the
employee’s situation, the only
way to protect yourself from
litigation is to institute a zerotolerance policy for the use of any
drugs, including medical
marijuana, while at work.
Keep in mind, however,
that if you are in a state that
mandates
employers
accommodate
medical
marijuana (i.e., Arizona,
Delaware, or Minnesota) you
cannot fire a medical marijuana
card-holding employee for a
positive marijuana test. While it
is indeed advisable to have a
drug policy prohibiting marijuana
use during work hours, you don’t
need to know about what
employees are doing on their own
time.
3. The future smoker
Wulffson says he’s
currently representing three
clients who are in this situation:
The employee comes to you and
says she’s suffering from anxiety
or glaucoma and needs to deal
with the symptoms. She tells
you she’s about to go outside,
walk 50 feet away from the
building, smoke, and come
back. “They’re telling you they’re
going to do it, but they are not
stoned right now, so you don’t
have the right to fire them right
now,” he says. “But, invariably,
the manager says, ‘No, no, no,
no. Go home, stay home, you’re
fired.’ “
Wulffson says you
should not allow the employee
to smoke while at work, but you
can make allowances. Say
something like this: “We will
reasonably accommodate your
condition, but we cannot allow
you to be under the influence
while on the clock—it’s too risky
for the company. You can go
home for the rest of the day and
come back tomorrow.”
4. Social media smokers
Here, an employee
goes on Facebook or Twitter and
sees pictures of an applicant
smoking a joint. The employee
then emails the hiring manager
to discourage him from hiring the
person. When the candidate
finds out you saw the photos,
Wulffson says, “that’s when
they claim you didn’t hire them
because of either a perceived
disability” and/or because you
don’t want to provide an
accommodation for them.
You might find this is
frivolous, but there are lawyers out
there looking to cash in. “There is
a cottage industry of lawyers that
do nothing but bring claims
related to medical marijuana
against employers,” Wulffson
says. “Google ‘medical marijuana
rights’ and you’ll find 50 lawyers
who write well-written letters about
how you didn’t accommodate the
employee and you’re getting sued
for hundreds of millions of dollars,
but today they’ll take $15,000 to
go away.”
Wulffson says these
lawsuits are catching a lot of
employers off guard because of
the confusion over medical
marijuana laws. “It may be legal
in many states, but it’s still a
federal crime,” he says. California
and oth e r s t a t e s w i l l n o t
prosecute someone with a
medical card who is carrying
less than a certain amount,
but that’s not a blanket
permission. “You can’t go on
federal property, you can’t
work for a federal employer,”
he says.
Modi govt convinces Prez on passing land ordinance
again, but needs to win over opposition parties
The Modi government will repromulgate ordinance on land acquisition,
which would otherwise expire on 5 April.
The government has already completed the
first two conditions required for making such
a move – the Rajya Sabha has been
prorogued and the Union Cabinet has given
its approval for it, incorporating all nine
amendments made during its passage in
Lok Sabha. But the third and most important
condition for re-promulgation is sending the
ordinance to President Pranab Mukherjee
for his assent. When it was first sent to
him in December, the President had sought
a clarification from the government on what
necessitated issuance of an ordinance on
such an important subject.A senior
minister told Firstpost that “the government
took its time and did due deliberation on
the subject.””We had to take adequate care
that the President gives his nod to the
ordinance for re-promulgation. The
President has been informed and
convinced about merits of our move. We
are aware that the current ordinance will
expire on 5 April and hope that there will
be a correct outcome at the right time,”
the minister said on condition of
anonymity.Like they had done with the
mining and coal bills, some senior BJP
leaders are approaching leaders of various
opposition parties to win them over for the
crucial vote in the Rajya Sabha on the land
bill when it is taken in the second half of
the budget session. The ruling BJP had
succeeded in breaking the “united
opposition” ranks and isolating Congress and
Left from rest of the opposition parties in the
case of the coal and mines bills. The
Congress meanwhile, has hardened its
position further on the bill and is planning to
hold a big farmers’ rally ostensibly to relaunch its vice president Rahul Gandhi on
his return from his extended sabbatical from
politics. In a sign that the BJP is not pursuing
the Congress for support any more,
Highways and shipping minister Nitin
Gadkari has written a strong rejoinder to
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s after she
replied to the first letter sent by him. But the
BJP is working on other fronts to get other
parties to see the merits in the amendments
brought in the legislation by the Modi
government.
USA
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
24
Mangano Honors Good Samaritan
Stop & Shop Employee Finds Diamond Ring and Returns It to Owner
that her diamond engagement
ring was missing. The frantic
couple returned to the store and
retraced their steps however the
ring was nowhere to be found.
Several hours later
Stop & Shop employee Janet
Stroom took her break from the
Starbucks counter and spotted something shiny on the
ground. Janet picked it up
and immediately turned the
ring into management,
never once considering
keeping the ring for herself.
The tears were flowing as
Rena hugged and thanked
Janet for returning her ring.
Arkansas man went into kidney failure
from drinking a GALLON of iced tea a day
Pictured above (left to right) are Stop & Shop Store
Manager Dean Ghosio, County Executive Ed Mangano,
Honoree Janet Stroom along with her son Alexander,
Rena Capri with her husband Michael Anthony, and
daughters Jessica and Natalie.
(Press
Release)
Mineola, NY – Nassau County
Executive Edward P. Mangano
(2nd left) presented a Citation to
Janet Stroom of Uniondale at a
Ceremony held in the Theodore
Roosevelt Executive and Legislative Building. County Executive
Mangano complimented Janet
stating, “Janet is truly a woman
of honesty and integrity.” Upon
returning home from grocery
shopping at the Stop & Shop in
West Hempstead with her husband Michael Anthony, Rena
Capri of Franklin Square realized
(Insider Bureau) Doctors solved the mystery behind an Arkansas man's kidney failure after discovering he loved downing a gallon of iced tea every day. Medical professionals at the University of
Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock ruled
out several causes for a 56-year-old man's kidney
problems before blaming the 16 cups of iced tea
he drank daily. Black tea has high levels of oxalate, a chemical known to produce kidney stones
and even lead to kidney failure if consumed in
excessive doses. It was the only reasonable explanation,' said Dr Umbar Ghaffar of the University
of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, who wrote about
the patient in an article for the New England Journal of Medicine. The man was admitted to the hospital in May complaining of nausea, weakness,
fatigue and body aches. The chemical oxalate
was found to have clogged the man's kidneys, to
the point that they had become inflamed.
INDIA STATE AFFIARES
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
(Agencies) RAJASTHAN’S paradise on wheels is
staring at a host of troubles as the latest trip of
the colourful and prestigious super luxury train,
Royal Rajasthan on Wheels (RRW) has been cancelled. The RRW, a joint venture of the railway ministry and Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation (RTDC), was to start its journey from Delhi
on Sunday. “The trip has been put off for want of
adequate passengers,” general manager of RRW
Surendra Sing Choudhary told Choudhary pointed
out that the minimum number of passengers required to generate profits was 35. The train’s total
passenger carrying capacity is 82 and each passenger is charged ‘35,000 per trip. “In the past,
authorities had operated the train even with 14-15
passengers,” general manager (central reservation)
Sanjeev Sharma said. However, president of the
RTDC employees union said senior officials purposely want to make the train run in losses so that
they could sell it to a private firm. “The Palace on
Wheels, which is an upgraded version of the RRW,
is managing to attract more passengers while the
latter is made to gradually go downhill. Authorities
have no explanation for this,” he added. Citing an
example, Singh said: “Three months back, cheques
worth ‘14 crore, issued by travel agents, bounced.
Neither the money has been recovered nor has a
complaint being lodged with the police.” According
to the RTDC official, an MoU was signed with the
railways without the approval of the RTDC and the
state government under which an excess of ‘14
crore was paid following which the corporation incurred huge losses. Singh pegged the losses at
‘100 crore. Interestingly, going by
the whims and fancies of politicians
and bureaucrats, the train has
changed colour thrice since its inception in 2008. The RRW was
born in gold as its bogies were
painted golden to help the train
match the desert. With the change
in the political regime, the train’s
colour too changed. The then RTDC
chairman Manjit Singh ordered the
train to be painted dark yellow as
he found the colour to be closer to
the sand’s colour. Golden was dismissed as ‘too light.’ However, the
RRW underwent another aesthetic
change on the insistence of then
tourism minister Bina Kak and an
additional sum of `4 lakh was used
in repainting the luxury train.
25
HEALTH & FITNESS
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
26
Forget weight loss surgery
you can get the same results
dieting and exercising for FOUR
hours a day, leading expert claims
(Agencies) Exercising for
four hours a day and following
a strict diet can yield the same
results as weight loss surgery,
a leading doctor has claimed.
Dr Robert Huizenga, of
UCLA, says his extreme diet
and exercise plan should
replace bariatric surgery as a
treatment for obesity.
He says bariatric surgery
is expensive and carries risks
of death, muscle loss, bone
thinning and mental health
issues.
His ‘Biggest Loser’ weight
loss plan, which was made
famous by the hit TV show of the
same name, helps people lose
the same amount of weight and
is cheaper than surgery, he
claims.
It also leads to better results
in terms of retaining calorieburning muscle mass and has
better diabetes and mental health
outcomes, he says.
The
Biggest
Loser
programme involved participants
being housed on a ranch near Los
Angeles, California, and their
weight loss efforts being filmed
and aired as part of a TV show.
On the ranch, they carried out
an hour and a half of vigorous
circuit training and aerobic
training six days a week and were
encouraged to exercise for an
additional three hours a day.
They followed a calorierestricted diet consisting of lowfat sources of protein and dairy,
fresh fruits and vegetables, and
were advised to avoid fats,
sugars, and processed grains.
As part of a study published
in the journal Obesity, 13 people
taking part in the Biggest Loser
programme were matched with
people of similar heights and
weights who were undergoing
bariatric surgery.
At the end of seven months,
the Biggest Loser group had lost
an average of 48.8kg (108 pounds
or 7st 10lbs) , compared to the
bariatric group, who lost 35.6 kg
(78 pounds or 5 st 8lbs ).
After 12 months, the bariatric
group had lost 40.2kg (89 pounds
or 6st 5lbs), which was not
statistically different to the weight
loss achieved by people following
the Biggest Loser programme,
which only lasted 7 months.
Dr Huizenga, Associate
Professor of Clinical Medicine at
UCLA, told MailOnline: ‘Bariatric
surgery results in massive loss,
but it has disadvantages.
‘For every 1,000 people who
have the operation there are
deaths.
‘You will be losing fat-free
mass, you will be losing water
weight and you will lose more
muscle mass.
‘It’s associated with thinning
of the bones, there are higher
levels of psychological problems
like suicide.
‘And most people don’t know
bariatric surgery is not
categorically successfully.
‘A fifth of patients who come
to us after the surgery come in
having not lost any weight and
having gained weight afterwards.
He explained: ‘Because they
have no muscle, they regain all
that weight as fat.
‘The they come on the show
with a higher body fat percentage
- and it makes it harder for them
to lose weight the second time
around.
‘So on a cost basis, a death
basis and a moral basis, the
Biggest Loser programme is a
better alternative.’
Critics of the plan say most
people simply don’t have time to
exercise for four hours every
single day. But Dr Huizenga
says people who are morbidly
obese should stop making
excuses. ‘People watch TV four
or six hours or day, so they do
have time to exercise,’ he said.
And the study found that not
only did the Biggest Loser group
lose as much weight, they also
lost a greater percentage of their
body fat. At 12 months, the
bariatric group lost 70 per cent
fat, whereas the Biggest Loser
group lost 84 per cent fat.
But while the study showed
that, in terms of weight loss and
fat loss the two programmes are
equally successful, critics say
the diet and excessive exercise
ruins a person’s metabolism.
They claim this because Dr
Huizenga’s study found that
people taking part in the
programme had slower
metabolisms and higher levels
of leptin - the hunger hormone than those who had bariatric
surgery. When people lose
weight, their metabolism slows
naturally because they have
lost a mass of tissue that
previously burnt calories. There
is also a phenomenon called
‘metabolic adaptation’ in which
the metabolism slows further
than would be expected simply
because of the loss of this
calorie-burning mass.
The metabolic adaptation
was greater for the Biggest
Loser group than for the bariatric
group.
Porn makes men prone to cheating ?
According to
a recent
study, watching pornography may
increase a
man's urge to
cheat. Does
this hold true
for you?
(Agencies) Have you ever come
across a guy who has never
watched porn? "No!" will be your
quick reply and "Is that even possible?", you will wonder. The saying, 'Men will always be men' aptly
sums it up. While some women
have made peace with the fact that
men do watch porn — well, simply because it's a 'guy thing' —
there are others who are not comfortable with their boyfriend/ husband doing so.
The main reason is,
women fear that their men will turn
unfaithful, tempted by carnal desires. Well, that fear is somewhat
justified because, according to a
recent study, watching porn does
increase men's likelihood to cheat.
This is in tandem with a previous
study which claimed unfaithful men
are more than three times likely
to watch porn regularly.
What's the connection?
According to study author A Marlea
Gwinn, of the University of Central
Florida, porn offers men access to
no-strings-attached sex, often with
multiple highly attractive partners.
Even though a man knows that it's
all make-believe, porn reinforces
the idea that there are many attractive options besides his partner. The erotic images also trigger
an instinct to reproduce, but with
multiple sex partners and not in a
loving, steady relationship, adds
Gwinn.
Expert speak
Says sexologist and consultant
psychiatrist Dr Dhananjay
Gambhire, "Watching porn may increase your courage to take one
more step and cheat. I have observed that watching porn is more
common in men who cheat or visit
prostitutes."
Consultant psychiatrist Dr
Milan Balakrishnan says, "Watching porn alone doesn't increase the
risk of cheating on your partner.
Those who are more impulsive and
take decisions without weighing
the consequences are more likely
to cheat. They are also the ones
who are more likely to try substance abuse and indulge in risky
behaviour. So, watching porn may
just be a coincidence; it does not
point to a direct connection.
Gender speak
Salman Shaikh, 32, media executive, says, "Watching porn may
increase the likelihood of a man
cheating on his partner in some
cases, since he might feel more
inclined to live out the fantasies
portrayed." However, he says that
in a majority of cases, it might not
be a direct consequence of watching porn. On the other hand, it
could be a general tendency
where the propensity to cheat
and an excessive urge to watch
porn may be interlinked. For
example, a man with pronounced promiscuous traits will
also be someone with a greater
attraction to porn. Salman's girlfriend Beverly Fernandes, a 25year-old freelance writer, believes watching porn entices
men to be unfaithful, especially
if the pornographic movies are
about cheating with a neighbour,
teacher, etc.
It makes them open to
such ideas. Cheating won't be a
taboo; rather, it would be exciting
and entertaining. "I'm okay with my
boyfriend watching porn.
ENTERTAINMENT
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
(Agencies) SUNNY Leone seems to be completely
aware of the importance of looking red hot at all times,
especially when it comes to interacting with the media.
The porn starturned- Bollywood starlet was true to form
on Monday evening, too, when she turned out to promote
her upcoming release Ek Paheli Leela with co-actor Jay
Bhanushali. Wearing red perhaps is Sunny’s way of
making a style statement — random recall on her average
public appearances would reveal she seems to have
preferred the colour over other hues all along. At Monday’s
event in a Mumbai suburb, her choice of the colour red
for her dress could have to do with the fact that her new
‘sexy’ film casts her in a sizzling dual avatar. Either way,
Sunny was dressed to suit the occasion and her image
of a screen siren. Jay and the film’s director Bobby Khan
seemed happy to let Sunny bask in media limelight,
with the gathered paparazzi clearly interested only in
chasing her for photo-ops and bytes. Also spotted at
the do was director Bobby’s choreographer brother
Ahmed Khan with wife Shaira, a
former model. T-Series honcho and
producer Bhushan Kumar was
also
seen posing for the shutterbugs.
THE film’s other male lead,
Rajneesh Duggal, however, was
absent from the film’s promotional
event. Sunny plays a double role in
the film as a glamorous UK-based
model and as a sensuous
Rajasthani princess. And
it goes without saying
that the roles are cut out
to let the oomph diva
exude sex appeal of
two different types —
ultra modern and
ethnic.
Among
g i m m i c k s
incorporated in the
film is Sunny
dancing to the
beats of Dholi
Taaro, a song
made popular by
Aishwarya Rai in
Sanjay Leela
Bhansali’s Hum Dil
De Chuke Sanam in
1999. Also, rumour
has it that Sunny’s
husband
Daniel
Weber has a cameo
in the film. Following
Ek Paheli Leela,
Sunny has a couple
of lowbudget sex
comedies lined up for
the year. She will be
seen opposite Vir
Das
and
Tusshar
Kapoor in
M i l a p
Zaveri’s
Mastizaade,
besides in
Devang
Dholakia’s
K u c h
K u c h
Locha
H a i ,
featuring
R a m
Kapoor.
27
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
ADVERSITMENT
28
ENTERTAINMENT
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
(Agencies) We were on the
edge of our seat throughout that
entire finale, and for once, we left
it almost totally satisfied and not
drowning in tears.
Morgan returned, finally, first
to show off some insane ninja
skills to fend off a new threat – a
group of dudes called the Wolves,
who are also responsible for all
of those walkers with W’s on their
heads. They’ve got some sort of
walker army, and they’re totally
evil but Morgan couldn’t even
leave them to die after knocking
them all out with his hiking stick,
so he put them in an abandoned
car.
Then, it was up to Morgan to
save Aaron and Daryl from nearly
being killed thanks to a trap set
by the Wolves, in which a few
hundred walkers were trapped a
bunch of trucks.
Meanwhile,
most
of
Alexandria was consumed with
a town meeting to discuss Rick
and Pete’s actions from last
week. Carol tried to get Rick to
lie, saying that he stole the gun
only in order to protect Jessie
from Pete, but that wasn’t really
working.
Deanna was still thrown by
Father Gabriel’s warning to her
that Rick and his group are
dangerous, but she probably
would have changed her mind
about listening to that doofus if
she could have seen what he was
up to this episode: taking a walk
in the woods, whistling an actual
death wish to a walker who was
just trying to enjoy his lunch,
chickening out at the last
second, crying on the ground,
and then failing to close the town
gates when he ran back home
like a scared little boy.Sasha was
handling her depression and
survivor’s guilt only a little better,
if you can call lying down in a
grave full of walkers for a while
“better.” She ended up waiting in
the church until Gabriel returned
and putting a gun to his head
29
The Walking Dead's Incredible Season 5 Finale
Nearly Killed Us – Find Out What Went Down!
when he told her that yes, she
probably should feel like dying.
Maggie showed up to stop her
just in time, though at this point
(and every point) we were rooting
for her to pull the trigger.
The guy we were most fearful
for, though, was Glenn, who
continued his showdown with
Nicholas – AKA the guy who got
Noah killed two weeks ago.
Nicholas tried to leave Glenn to
die a couple times, but Glenn is
far too awesome to be taken
down by a whole crowd of
walkers descending upon him,
apparently. He could have then
killed Nicholas in a fight to rival
last week’s Rick vs. Pete, but he
stopped himself before that
happened and they helped each
other back to town, even though
we would have been OK with
Glenn heading back alone.
Finally, it was time for the
meeting. Rick was supposed to
be there, but he got a little
sidetracked by the fact that
walkers had gotten in after
Gabriel left the gate open. He
battled zombies while Maggie,
Michonne, Abraham, Jessie and
more defended him to the group,
saying that “who he is is who
you’re gonna be, if you’re
lucky.”Deanna tried to bring up
Gabriel’s warning, but since
Gabriel was busy being
threatened by Sasha at the
moment, her words didn’t really
mean much. Luckily, Rick then
showed up with a dead walker
thrown over his shoulder to prove
to them that they’re not as safe
as they think they are. To
emphasize his point, he gives a
little speech.
“I was thinking how many of
you do I have to kill to save your
lives, but I’m not gonna do that,”
he said, before refusing to
apologize for anything he said or
did. “You’re not ready, but you
have to be. Luck runs out.”
Right then, Pete – who spent
the day receiving both a
casserole and death threats from
Carol – showed up to yell a lot
and wave Michonne’s sword
around and right through Reg
Monroe’s throat.
Deanna, who was now losing
both her son and her husband,
turned to Rick, her mind clearly
changed.
“Do it,” she said, and he shot
Pete in the head, right as Daryl
and Aaron showed up with
Morgan. The season ended with
Michonne almost putting her
sword back on the wall before
deciding to keep it with her once
again.
So, yes, a moment of silence
for Reg, who seemed to be a
lovely man, but at least his
sacrifice wasn’t wasted, and now
we don’t have to deal with Pete
anymore. As for next season, the
Wolves seem sort of Lost Boysian in the most terrifying of ways,
and we’re excited and also very
scared to see what sort of horrors
they bring. If season six is
anywhere near as good as
season five has been, we’re in
for quite a ride.
Films bind nations together, says Amitabh Bachchan
“I pride myself of the fact that I
am a very small element in this vast
fraternity that brings cultures
together.” Underlining the
importance of cultural exchange
through cinema, Bollywood
megastar Amitabh Bachchan says
films play a major role in bringing
nations together. On a three-day
visit to Cairo for the ‘India by the
Nile’ festival, Bachchan, the most
popular Indian star in Egypt, said
he is proud to be a part of the film
fraternity which is instrumental in
making people overlook their
differences. “Cinema is a great
integrator. When we sit inside
darkened halls, we never ask the
cast, creed, colour or religion of the
person sitting next to us. We enjoy
the same films, sing the same
songs, we cry at the same
emotions, we laugh at the same
jokes,” Big B told media at the India
House. “There are very few
institutions left in the world that can
boast of such integration as cinema.
I pride myself of the fact that I am a
very small element in this vast
fraternity that brings cultures
together,” he added The Paa star
said the popularity of Indian cinema
in Egypt and the love showered on
him by the locals, prove that cinema
can traverse across continents.
“When I first came to Egypt in 1975
to shoot a film, nobody knew about
Indian cinema. Then I came for the
Cairo Film Festival in 1991 and I
was astounded by the love and
admiration I received by the people.
So many people identified with not
just our films but our country and
culture. That has been a great
incentive for us,” the 72-year-old
actor said. Drawing similarities
between India and Egypt,
Bachchan said the two countries
have a unique connection as
they both have rich history,
identical struggles and thrive on
the banks of the two most important
rivers of the world- the Nile and
Ganges.
FASHION
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
(Agencies)
THERE was something
simple, something cute and something
downright sexy on the evening of Day 4 at
Amazon India Fashion Week 2015 in the
Capital. Veteran designer Poonam Bhagat’s
label Taika, on Saturday, took an artistic
interpretation of Cubist painter Pablo
Picasso’s fascination for lines and
dots, transferred the constellation fabrics, and presented a simple and
drawings from the canvas to the unique collection on the ramp. Long
skirts, dresses with outwardly
curved thighs, full-sleeve shirts with
wide peplums, boatneck tops and
cut-out jacketsformed the range in
ivory, cobalt blue, black and orange,
paying ode to the setting
sun.Special
‘constellation
headgears’were crafted by
Tokyobased milliner Satsuki
Nakagawa for the show. The
collection was minimal yet chic,and
brought to the fore the designer’s
skill for traversing through younger
styles with a sophisticated
sensibility.
Speaking
of
sensibilities, Pero by Aneeth Arora
brought explored identity through art
with her 1930’s militaryinspired
collection , juxtaposed with
adorable little dolls createdby a
Gurgaon-based contemporaryartist.
Miniature dolls lined either side of
the ramp and small green-coloured
first-aid military boxes lay on the
seats—with knick-knacks like
Swiss knives, patterned bandaids, badges and postcards
—while chants in a foreign
language filled the room. As
guests took guesses over
what the collection was going
to be about, they were called
to attention by a live marching
band belting out beats on a
drum and tunes from
synchronised bugles.
The show began with
models strutting down in
f e m i n i n e androgynousensembles—
check jackets with loose
jeans and boots,berets with
pompoms on top, dresses
with softly pleated skirts
boasting of dot and star
prints,
dungarees,
oversizedparkas andgallaces
over wide trousers—while
Princess Pea dollsplayed
as accessories.
30
FASHION
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
(Agencies)
DAY 4 of the ongoing AIFW
at Pragati Maidan in the Capital was a mixed
bag of styles, offering something for every style
sensibility. The afternoon began with designer
Nikhita Tandon showcasing dressy options
with pleats and folds on dresses, with thigh
high slits, net panels and lace applique work
for cocktail dressing. Strategic cut-out panels
added an interesting element to the collection,
which was simple in its own way (in a colour
palette of red and black, and sans glittery
embellishments) yet effective for the buyer.
Model-turnedactress Sonal Chauhan walked
the runway as the showstopper, dressed in a
red assymetrical dress that boasted a heavily
pleated skirt and foliage patter embroidery on
nude coloured mesh sleeves. A short, vintage
hair-do and catwing sweet at the show.
Designer Sahil Kocchar added heavy doses
of textures to his collection inspired from The
Green Gate, one of the four beautiful doorways
representing the four seasons in the courtyard of
the Jaipur City Palace. Better known as Leheriya,
meaning waves, it is characterised by cusped,
pointed arches with a rectangular vaulted dome
framing and floral columns. Accordingly, the
collection of kimono dresses, structured layered
skirts, textured tops with laser-cut geometric
patterns and flowers, and ombre toned gowns
presented an architectural style of form. Shades
of blue, green, cream, black and red were used
in gradients and made for an appealing show
of colour. Label ‘Bodice’ by Ruchika
Sachdeva took the other route of minimal
cuts and clean, Sticking to a wintery
palette of different tones of blue, brown
and magenta, the range comprised
wide skirts, trousers, long coats,
shirts and dresses, with a simple
white band running across the
sleeve or across the torso for good
measure.
31
ENTERTAINMENT
Wednesday, April 1-7 , 2015
(Agencies) T H E B o a r d o f
Control for Cricket in India
(BCCI) is generally known to
care little about the media and
its functioning. But, for once,
even the Board has played it
smart and roped in Anushka
Sharma to perform at the
opening ceremony of the
eighth edition of the Indian
Premier League at the Yuba
Bharati Krirangan in Kolkata
on April 7.
There has been
enormous hullabaloo over
Anushka travelling to Australia
to watch the Indian team face
Australia in the semi-finals of
the just-concluded World Cup.
In fact, the social media was
also abuzz with comments
aimed at the actress, blaming
her for not only India’s loss in
the semi-finals, but also for her
boyfriend Virat Kohli’s failure
to score runs in the match.
While the BCCI has remained
tight-lipped all along, even
permitting Anushka’s stay
with Kohli during India’s tour
of England, it quietly went
about its job and got the
actress to agree to perform at
the gala opening. “We wanted
to have her perform because
she is one star who doesn’t
perform too often even at
awards
functions
and
suchlike.
Also, we have had top
actresses and pop stars grace
the stage over the last seven
years, both national and
international, so we thought
she would be a good choice.
Unless there is some mishap,
she is going to perform,” a
senior BCCI official told
media. When asked if Kohli
would also be on the stage
during her performance, the
official said: “Well, as of now
nothing of that sort has been
planned, but then, you never
32
know if such a situation will
arise once the acts are
decided.” Hrithik Roshan will
perform on the occasion,
making it a first for the actor.
“He is a cricket lover and has
been seen at quite a few IPL
games over the years. But he
has never performed in the IPL.
It will be interesting to see him
perform as he knows how to
engage the crowd with his
dance moves.” When asked if
all the teams will be in
attendance for the opening,
the official said that having all
the teams available for the
opening was too much to ask
for as teams will be busy
preparing for their own opening
games. “Three teams will be in
full attendance — Kolkata
Knight Riders, Mumbai Indians
and Royal Challengers
Bangalore. The others will be
represented by their respective
captains,” he said.